As an author, people often ask me where I get the ideas for my stories. The initial impulse for a story can come from a variety of places: another story I’m reading, current events, observing a public interaction. But one of the most fruitful ways I’ve found to build a creative spark into a fully realized story setting is to imagine the consequences of extending whatever sparked my imagination into the world at large. In philosophy and mathematics, this approach is called a reductio ad absurdum—showing that the logical consequences of a statement lead to an absurd or contradictory conclusion. In a literary reductio, the extended world is not necessarily absurd, but it does shed a light on our current circumstances.
For example, while reading H.G. Wells’s novel The Time Machine, I was struck by his depiction of the blissfully ignorant Eloi and humanity’s constant quest to make life easier and more comfortable with less human labor and effort. I wondered, what if humans made their existence so easy that they didn’t need to think at all to sustain their lives? That idea became my debut dystopian novel Our Dried Voices.
My current sci-fi detective series also stems from a literary reductio. In August 2021, the United States Supreme Court upheld a Texas law banning abortions after the detection of a fetal heartbeat, a law that could only be enforced by private citizens suing anyone who performed or facilitated an abortion.
I had two immediate reactions to the Texas bill: 1) what a crappy way to enforce a law, and 2) what a great scenario for a private detective series.
1. The Law Itself
Let’s set aside the contentious issue of abortion and discuss the way this law was written. With most laws, the government or state acts as the (ideally) impartial arbiter of the law, protecting potential victims or giving them justice after a crime, and stopping potential criminals or penalizing them after they commit a crime. Of course, since lawmakers and law enforcers are flawed human beings instead of automatons programmed with lofty ideals, justice isn’t always blind.
But in theory, state enforcement stops people from taking the law into their own hands. It’s hard for a society to function if every citizen has his or her own idea of how to enforce a law and is equipped and eager to do so.
But the Texas law allowed—even encouraged—citizens to do just that. It said that certain people were criminals and that upstanding Texas citizens should punish them. Not exactly a recipe for a harmonious society.
2. A Private Detective’s Dream
If you imagine the worst of people, it’s easy to see how the Texas situation could devolve into citizens spying on each other, slinging unfounded accusations and generally turning up the heat on an already contentious issue.
In some cases, that’s exactly what happened. For example, the group Texas Right to Life set up a “Pro Life Whistle Blower” website where Texas citizens could report potential violations of the law. In response, an opposing activist created a bot and then an Apple iOS shortcut to make it easy to submit fake tips to the whistle blower site.
In this firestorm of solicited tips and fake leads, anyone hoping to file a lawsuit would need to sift through the information and distinguish rumor from reality. And since the police were legally barred from enforcing the Texas law, it sounded like work perfectly suited for private detectives.
A Literary Reductio Based in Reality
Even though legislators replaced the 2021 Texas law with one allowing the state to penalize abortions, its legacy continues today. A 2023 California law sought to retaliate against the Texas bill by allowing citizens to sue firearm manufacturers. And just last week, a Texas man filed a federal lawsuit against a California doctor for allegedly providing his girlfriend with abortion-inducing drugs.
With all the conflicting laws and lawsuits, I couldn’t let go of the idea of a private detective reluctantly working those kinds of civil cases in an increasingly divided America. And thus, my Marcus Carver Sci-Fi Crime Series was born.
In the first two books in the series, The Event Horizon Murder and Murder in Retrograde, you’ll see Detective Marcus Carver wrestling with the dilemma of conducting investigations for laws he doesn’t support because he enjoys investigating and because that work pays his bills.
Here’s an early scene from Murder in Retrograde that introduces a civilian-enforced law in California and highlights Carver’s dilemma:
Schuyler returned to his chair and slumped into it. The right side of his mouth parted to reveal bright, predatory, white teeth. I noticed he never smiled fully, but only in these half-grins somewhere between a chuckle and a leer. It didn’t do much to convince me we shared the same principles.
He said, “I believe an associate of mine is guilty of combustion, in violation of California state law.”
“Do you have a name?” I asked.
“Naomi Battle.” He said it like it was a name I should know.
“Who is she?”
“Like I said, an associate. A business associate. Some might call her a competitor, but I don’t see it that way. We’re both striving for the same objective. We’ll get there faster if we each know the other is working just as hard to get there first.” His gaze strayed to the window behind me. “My father always said it’s easy to see others as obstacles, as enemies. It’s much harder to admit the only obstacles are your own abilities, the only enemy, your own blindness.”
I thought that all sounded very nice. I thought Schuyler could print those words under a photo of a cloud-covered mountain peak and put it in an ornate gilt frame that hung in his entryway so that any dour old ladies who visited would get misty-eyed at the hope that there were still men of substance, of principle, in this decaying world of ours. I said, “Why do you suspect Ms. Battle?”
“I’ve seen the smoke,” Schuyler said. “As the old saying goes, where there’s smoke …”
“You’ve seen it?”
He pointed through the wall to his right. “Her house is less than two kilometers in that direction. You could see it from here if the mountains weren’t in the way.”
I went to the window and looked out across the barren, rippling rock to the slope leading to the next denuded peak, then down below to the fire-scalded landscape that provided a buffer between Schuyler and Battle and the artificial light and greenery of the regular rich, and beyond to the Pacific thundering against the sea wall guarding the long-submerged beaches. If anything were burning up here, you’d see it for kilometers around.
I turned to face him and shook my head. “I don’t do that. No neighbors, no relatives, no co-workers or business rivals or whatever you want to call them. Nothing personal.” I’d made that policy before I took my first private case. Most people are decent enough when left alone. But when you tell some of them that all the rest are criminals and it’s up to the rule-followers to enforce the law, that civility quickly goes the way of the manatee. Personal connections only made it worse.
Schuyler leaned back in his chair with his hands behind his head. It wasn’t quite the easy, confident motion he probably wanted it to be. It seemed to require some effort for him to shift his bulk into the right position. His mouth went on half-smiling, but his eyes were jade daggers. “Mr. Carver, I’m sure you know the law,” he said. “‘A person may not knowingly refine, ignite or cause the combustion of hydrocarbon-based or so-called “fossil fuels.”’ And ‘any person, other than an officer or employee of a state or local governmental entity in this state, may bring a civil action against any person who refines, ignites or causes the combustion of hydrocarbon-based fuels in violation of—’”
“I know the law,” I said. “It says you may sue Ms. Battle if you believe she’s guilty of combustion. It doesn’t say I have to help you.”
His hands slipped forward from behind his head, and he seemed about to pound his desktop before he got control of himself and laid his palms gently on the smooth gray surface. “It is the moral duty of every upstanding citizen to ensure those who violate the laws of the state are brought to justice.”
“That’s my policy,” I said. “Things get messy when personal feelings are involved.” I knew I was crazy to turn my back on a hundred billion dollars. But I was doing it. “Thank you for thinking of me.”
Schuyler said nothing, just stared at me with a raised eyebrow and his slowly spreading grin. I waited for a minute, then turned to go.
He let me get to the door. Then he said, “What do you charge for a case like this?”
At this point, you might be asking, “Why can’t Carver just work as a detective for a police department?” If you’ve read The Event Horizon Murder, you know the answer.
If you haven’t read it, download The Event Horizon Murder for a complete introduction to Detective Marcus Carver: