Presumed Dead

Presumed Dead was not an easy novel to write--in fact, of my twenty-eight novels, this one was the most difficult. The plot went through many significant changes, and it was months before I felt really comfortable with this book. There were many times when I put Presumed Dead aside, and I often wondered whether I would ever be able to finish it. No matter how many books I've written or will write, I absolutely do not want to have a clunker among them—not so much in terms of sales, but in terms of integrity and value. And so I had to ask myself this: Did I really want to write a novel with a protagonist that almost no one, including myself, would find at all likable? Was there any way to salvage Smoky Jacobs? Essentially, this novel is a murder mystery, but the mystery is not so much who committed the murder. Maybe, in fact, there was no murder at all, but what always remains mysterious until the very end is the underlying psychological motivation of Smoky Jacobs. What did he actually do, and why did he act the way he did? For instance, it never makes a good impression when, in front of the jury, you attempt to strangle your own lawyer--especially when you're on trial for smothering your wife to death! I suppose there's a tendency for authors to create protagonists who are either cute and lovable, or at the other end of the spectrum, those who are devious and evil. But what about the in-between guy who is caught in a situation where no one is going to believe all his bizarre excuses and stories? And when all the excuses and stories are proven to be lies, beyond any reasonable doubt, then the reader might legitimately wonder if there is anything to be gained from reading this novel.Well, first of all, Presumed Dead is, at times, a very humorous book, and secondly, the whole panorama of this novel covers an aspect of the legal system that people only pay lip-service to. Yes, we know that rich defendants have significant advantages when they are accused of a crime, but are we really aware of how big this advantage is? Here's your clue to this unusual mystery: In an interview, Trevor Noah, a black man, said that when he came to America, he was frequently stopped by the police while he was driving his car. But when he had a friend of his, who was white, drive the car, they were never stopped by the police. Smoky Jacobs is a white man, but psychologically, he sees through the eyes of a black man. That's your clue, and it's a good one.