We Are the Killers by Mark L. Dressler

It’s no secret that mystery writers live in a dark world, a society of killers.  We murder more people in a never ending variety of ways each year than anyone could imagine.  There should be a prison, maybe several jails full of us. We are living proof that crime does pay.

We are a cult of people who are cunning enough to come up with gory as well as subtle criminal acts, from torture to poisoning. We wield knives, swords, machetes, handguns, rifles, hammers, axes. You name it, one of us has used it. Our brilliance is having someone else carry out our missions. We get other people to commit our killings. We’re smart enough to keep our assassins on the run, until someone…a cop, a detective, a neighbor, or amateur sleuth nabs our dirty deed doer. We never get tired of killing, because as soon as we’ve managed to have one murderer jailed, we do it again, and again. We never get caught, we’re never even a suspect, but we are the guilty ones. Success, we’ve framed someone for our hits

Some of us are nastier than others, we’re serial killers. I may be on an FBI list of possible deranged serial killers. A future book of mine is titled Avenger. It is the story of an ex-inmate who had studied serial killing while in prison. He becomes one when he is released. The rub on me is that I have used the internet to create a massive file…profiles of every serial killer from Manson to Dahmer.   

I’m probably on an ASPCA list of people who practice animal cruelty.  Don’t get me wrong, I am a pet owner and would never harm an animal…spiders, yes, but not an animal. The truth is that in my first book (Dead and Gone) a really bad guy shoots and kills a dog. Worse yet is that he repeats the act and kills a second dog later in the story, and refers to that dead dog as a floor ornament. In my defense, both scenes play out in a way that shooting those dogs makes sense, fits within the story, and shouldn’t offend animal lovers.

The problem I have with myself is that I have no idea where this thirst to commit murders comes from. I am the opposite personality of anyone who might even think about killing someone. I started writing 4 years into retirement at age 69, so where did my inspiration for killing come from? It all happened by chance. One of my daughters had a house in a rural part of Connecticut that sat on 7 acres of land. The house was set far back from the long dirt, tree-lined driveway that led to the place. The backyard was an undevelopable mass of trees. I would stand on her deck, look out there and say “There could be a dead body out there and no one would ever find it.”

After one visit to her house, I came home and sat at my computer writing about a dead body that was found deep into the woods on her property. That thought became 300 pages of a first draft of Dead and Gone.

Now, I lead a life of writing and playing with my imaginary friends. And my wife sleeps with one eye open.

         

Bio - Author of Dead & Gone and Dead Right; two Hartford CT. mysteries featuring Dan Shields (The detective who breaks all the rules.) My books are available on Amazon in paperback and Kindle. Also available from any bookseller. They remain best-sellers at Barnes & Noble in Hartford. 

Media publicity includes TV appearances: Channel 8 WTNH - New Haven, Channel 61 FOX -Hartford, Nutmeg TV, and WIN TV. Newspaper articles: The Hartford Courant (Twice) - Dead Right was named a most notable book of 2019, Journal enquirer, Windsor Journal, Boston Children’s Hospital newsletter (Honored because I donate partial proceeds from my books to that Hospital).  

Member of Mystery Writers of America, and Connecticut Authors and Publishers.