A Mysterious Interview with Ron Fein

The Third Black Beacon Book of Mystery is out now and to celebrate this new volume of detective mysteries guaranteed to put your little grey cells to work, we’re interviewing the contributing authors. Do you dare peer into their devious minds, where criminal masterminds battle brilliant sleuths, private eyes, and police detectives? Settle down in your favourite armchair and get ready to pit your wits against the finest voices penning mystery puzzles today!

Hi Ron,

It’s always tricky interviewing a mystery writer about a particular story because we don’t want to give anything away, but can you tell us (carefully) where the idea for your story came from?

I wanted to write a murder mystery in a historical setting without modern “detectives”. I’m intrigued by early second-century Roman-occupied Judaea, a brief interwar period between two failed Jewish revolts. So I set out to write an Agatha Christie-style country house murder at a Roman villa outside the ruins of Jerusalem.

There are several sub-genres of mystery fiction, but the stories in this anthology are traditional fair-play mysteries in which the reader can try to solve the puzzle before all is revealed. What makes this kind of mystery so timeless?

Readers come to particular genres to work their mental muscles in particular ways. Just as the romance or horror reader wants to experience certain emotions, or the fantasy reader wants to experience another world unfolding in their mind, the fair-play mystery reader wants to solve a puzzle from clues. As long as people enjoy solving puzzles, this genre will endure.

Do you have a favourite fictional detective?

It’s hard to beat Poirot and his little grey cells.

Is this the first mystery your protagonist has solved?

“The Roman in the Fountain” is Joshua the Seer’s first appearance in print, his first time working for Romans, and my first published mystery. But the opening implies he’s plied his art before, so there could always be a prequel.

If you were a detective, private investigator, or amateur sleuth, what would be your trademark quirk?

An insatiable thirst for black coffee and seltzer.

Do you have a writing routine or particular requirements for a writing session?

I envy those who can make substantial progress in short increments of fifteen minutes here or there. Unfortunately, I need an uninterrupted block of at least two hours—preferably more.

What are you working on now?

An adventure story, set in an alternate-physics Age of Invention-era France, about an emergency balloon expedition to the Moon. It’s quite different from “The Roman in the Fountain,” but it also involves solving puzzles.

Where can we find you online?

At ronfein.com, on BlueSky @ronfein.bsky.social, and on Mastodon @ronfein@masto.ai

Thanks for playing along!