The Connie Murphy Mysteries, books 10-12

      Connie Murphy is a senior FDA investigator dedicated to protecting public health and safety. While conducting routine inspections, intrigue and danger intervene, and she gets involved in drug smuggling, food poisoning, economic fraud, industrial espionage, human trafficking, and identity theft. She uses her interviewing and interrogation skills to uncover problems when people are less forthcoming, hide documents or fail to tell the truth.

     Each story is based on real FDA cases with the names changed to protect the guilty.

 About the Connie Murphy Mysteries (eBooks 10-12):

KILL A THIRST - Local hospitals are overwhelmed with food poisoning cases. Is someone trying to eradicate the elderly and homeless populations on Long Island? Connie must navigate the competitive government organizations to determine if the cases are connected and use her investigative expertise and tenacity to reveal the cause for the illnesses before more people die.

 COMPOUND A PROBLEM - When Connie follows up a routine consumer complaint, she learns the company is making a nutritional supplement without FDA approval. The more questions she asks, the more pushback she gets. Her instincts tell her they are not disclosing everything. She suspects they may be doing something illegal and it is up to her to uncover what it is.

 A BITTER PILL - While inspecting a company manufacturing a nasal spray to reverse the effects of addictive opioids, Connie discovers an unapproved drug in an unauthorized human clinical trial. When management dodges her questions, she suspects they are hiding something and must find another way to gather the incriminating evidence.

 This set can be purchased at Amazon.com

Today we’re talking with BarbaraHelene Smith, author of the “Connie Murphy Mysteries”. Nice to see you again. Our listeners want to know where you get the ideas for your stories. That’s easy. The plots for the mysteries are based on real FDA cases – some I’ve worked on when I was an investigator, others are ripped from the headlines, and occasionally I dig into the FDA compliance archives. An alert may result from a consumer or trade complaint, manufacturer’s recall, or a problem found during routine inspections.

Once you have the idea, how do you go about writing the story? What is your process? When a problem is identified, Connie must follow a trail until the root cause is determined and the corrective action is initiated to prevent the problem from recurring.

I usually outline the major points in the case, which is the roadmap I follow. I may have to do additional research about a specific drug or the manufacturing procedure to better understand the details.

Once that is done, I add material about the location, people Connie interacts with – her colleagues, family, friends and other government agencies. The FDA does not work in a vacuum. Over the course of my career, I’ve worked with the FBI, DEA, U.S. Customs, and state and local government agencies, and weave some of my experiences into the stories.

Each story goes through multiple drafts before I send the manuscript to other writers who have not read the earlier drafts, and then to the Editor, who catches spelling, grammar and punctuation errors I may have missed.

Do you have a specific place and time to write? I do most of my writing on the computer in my study. I’m a morning person and tend to write from seven until … I get tired or lose my focus – about 3-4 hours, unless I’m on a roll.

Writing can be a lonely occupation and you can’t do it alone. I attend writing classes and seminars, and belong to critique groups where we read and discuss our stories with other writers who belong to different genres. Their critiques provide valuable feedback for improvement.

How long does it take to write a book? It depends on the length of the story, but I usually write an e-book in eight to ten months. I’ve now been working on a novella. “Uprooting the Family Tree”, for two years,  which I plan to publish this summer.

That’s a long time to be focused on one project. We’re looking forward to reading it. Thank you, BarbaraHelene, for sharing your writing experience with us.