D.P. Lyle

Author Interview: D. P. Lyle

Alfred Hitchcock’s 1954 movie Dial M for Murder spins a tale of someone trying to plan the perfect murder. The killer miscalculates and his plan goes awry. If anyone could get away with murder—forensically—my money would be on author Doug P. Lyle. He’s a practicing cardiologist in Southern California, written several non-fiction books on murder and forensics for writers, and authored several mystery novels. He knows how to write about murder.

Author D. P. Lyle, MD is the Macavity Award winning and Edgar® Award nominated author of the non-fiction books, Murder and Mayhem, Forensics For Dummies, Forensics and Fiction, and Howdunnit Forensics: A Guide For Writers as well as the fiction thrillers, Devil’s Playground and Double Blind. His next medical thriller, Stress Fracture, will be released in April, 2010. He has worked with many novelists and with the writers of popular television shows such as Law and Order, CSI: Miami, Diagnosis Murder, Monk, Judging Amy, Peacemakers, Cold Case, House, Medium, Women’s Murder Club, and 1-800-Missing.

MARK: Your next novel, Stress Fracture, is scheduled for release in April. New York Times bestselling author James Rollins writes about your novel: “If Michael Crichton had written an episode of Law and Order, here might be the result.” Is this a fair assessment? Give our mystery readers a taste of what to expect in this Dub Walker series.

DOUG: Those were very kind words from Jim and I greatly appreciate them. The story is a fast-paced thriller with little downtime for the reader. It has a brutal and confusing killer, a lot of forensic science, and hopefully it will give the reader some entertaining hours of reading and maybe a sleepless night or two. The story deals with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder or PTSD and its effect on an unstable individual. The reader knows the killer early on but he does not know why he is doing what he is doing. And of course Dub Walker must not only interpret the forensic information but also get into the mind of the killer in order to track him down.

MARK:  Tell us about your main character, Dub Walker? What is his background? What are the demons he’s battling?

DOUG: Dub is a character with a history. He was a good high school athlete and a very bright student who did well in college and attended medical school. Before completing medical school, in fact only months away from graduating, he failed to meet his younger sister in a parking lot near the medical center as he had promised. He was an hour late and when he arrived he found only her purse and a single shoe. She was never seen again. This happened some 12 years before this story begins, but this is the life event that will haunt him forever as he feels responsible for not being there for her. This is what drives him to solve cases. This is what drives him to figure out the criminal mind.

After his sister's disappearance, Dub became despondent and ultimately, to shake himself from his depression, joined the Marines and served as an MP for two years. After his discharge, he returned to Huntsville and worked for several years in the forensic science lab, where he gained his expertise in forensic science. He spent time with the Behavioral Assessment Unit of the FBI as an observer and student and learned more about criminal behavior. He then became an author and wrote many books about forensic science and criminal psychology. He also possesses an innate ability to read crime scenes and evidence and to dig inside the mind of the bad guys. His current role is that of consultant on difficult cases around the country. It is the murder of an old friend that drags him into the case in Stress Fracture.

MARK: Is Dub Walker a reflection of D.P. Lyle?

DOUG: I would have to say that he has many of my characteristics and some of his own. I think most authors are that way when they create a protagonist. He has a love for science and is fascinated by abnormal behavior. He likes problem-solving. He has a strong sense of justice and personal responsibility and doesn't believe that anyone should get away with a crime. Those are the things that he and I agree on.

MARK:  Tell us about the killer. Is there anything about this guy that might generate some empathy with the reader or is this villain pure evil?

DOUG: I don’t want to give too much away because this story is not so much a whodunit as it is a whydunnit. That said, even though the killer is totally out of control, there are parts of him that I believe the reader will empathize with. I'll just leave it at that and let readers decide for themselves if the bad guy has any redeeming qualities.

MARK:  In terms of genre, where would you classify Stress Fracture? Police procedural? Medical/forensic thriller? Combination of these and others?

DOUG: Genres are always hard to peg and that seems to be getting more difficult every day as one bleeds into the other. But if I had to classify Stress Fracture I would say that it was a medical and psychological thriller.

MARK:  You’ve authored an array of non-fiction books on forensics—Forensics and Fiction, Forensic Science for Writers, Forensics for Dummies, and the ever-popular Murder and Mayhem: A Doctor Answers Medical and Forensic Questions for Mystery Writers. Tells us a little about your background and how you’ve become a medical forensic expert to writers.

DOUG: If you are a physician and go to a cocktail party people ask questions about their cholesterol or their gallbladder, but if you are a physician and go to a writers conference you're immediately asked questions about how poisons work and how to kill someone with a gun. So I simply began answering questions for writers on medical issues and that immediately bled into forensic issues, which in turn led me to educate myself in that arena. I was a chemistry major in college with a minor in biology and have a medical degree and specialty training in cardiology, which is what I practice here in Orange County. So my love of science has been since childhood. I never considered doing anything else but medicine and in fact knew that cardiology was the field that I would practice even before I started medical school. Forensic science is also fascinating to me. My self-education in forensic science was actually quite simple. You can't get through medical school and specialty training without being well-versed in all the “ologies.” Pathology, physiology, pharmacology, 

Homicide

Homicide Investigations

Detective Mark Mynheir

Palm Bay (Fla.) Police Department

Killers have murdered and tried to cover their sins every since Cain struck Abel and tried to hide it from God. In mystery novels, murder looms as that shadowy threshold heroes and villains must confront. Hunting down these Cains has captured the imagination of readers since man first put ink to paper. And homicide investigations have become to crime fiction what guitars have become to country music—indispensable.

What goes through the minds of those called to investigate these horrendous crimes? And how does one approach a crime scene to investigate the murder of another?


Detective Mark Mynheir visits us today from Palm Bay Police Department (PBPD), an agency located midway on Florida’s east coast. Mark is a man of many talents currently assigned as a homicide investigator with PBPD’s Criminal Investigations Unit. He also served as a member of the department’s SWAT team, with prior experience as a narcotics agent and a patrol officer.

Mark also has another talent. He is a gifted writer with four published novels under his belt and all with a common thread—cops as protagonists. (Check his web site at http://markmynheir.com/ for more information about him and his novels, Rolling Thunder, From the Belly of the Dragon, The Void, and his latest, The Night Watchmen).

Today, we’ll focus on Mark’s experiences as a homicide investigator.

MARK YOUNG:  Mark, thanks for joining us once again. Could you fill us in on some of the blanks in your resume we’ve missed? How long with PBPD?  What led you to a law enforcement career?  How long have you worked in CIU?

MARK MYNHEIR: Thanks for having me, Mark.  I’ve been with PBPD for almost twenty-one years.  I was with the Cocoa Beach Police Department for two years before that.  I’ve been a detective for about twelve years now, mostly working homicides and violent crimes.  I also did a three-and-a-half year stint as a narcotics agent and was on our S.W.A.T. Team for a while. 

I got into law enforcement because I was getting out of the Marine Corps and didn’t have a job.  All my Marine buddies were becoming cops, so I thought I’d give it a try.  I wasn’t that enthusiastic about it until I applied for the academy.  After that, I knew it was going to be my career.

MARK YOUNG:   Let’s focus on your latest assignment as a homicide investigator. Many of our blog readers are readers and writers of crime fiction, so we’d like to get a little insight into the mind of an investigator. Let’s start with getting the call. How are callouts assigned in your department? How are investigative teams comprised? 

MARK MYNHEIR: Unfortunately, there are only four of us in the Major Crimes Unit, so when a homicide happens, we’re all called out.  We try to rotate the responsibility of being the Lead Investigator, but it doesn’t always work that way.   People go on vacations or are at schools.  I once caught three in a row in a two week time period.  I was exhausted, to say the least. 

MARK YOUNG:   What starts to click in your mind when you start to respond to one of these calls?

MARK MYNHEIR: After the coffee (which is the important first step), I make a mental check list of what I need to do—witness statements, potential search warrants, or phone subpoenas.  I will generally have a vague idea what has happened from dispatch or the sergeant at the scene who has called.  I then whip out some phone calls to the rest of the team to get them to the scene. 

MARK YOUNG: In many departments, a dead body call is forwarded to homicide investigators from patrol based upon certain criteria—unattended death (physician was not involved in providing medical care), questionable circumstances surrounding the death, or an investigation larger than patrol might be able to handle. What are be some of the determining factors in your department that might jump a dead body call from patrol investigating and closing the case to CIU investigators stepping in?

MARK MYNHEIR: With our department, it has to be a case where the deceased has no significant medical history in which a doctor would sign the death certificate, and/or there’s obvious trauma or suspicious circumstances—like apparent suicides.  We wouldn’t investigate a Hospice situation.  

MARK YOUNG:  As you arrive at the scene, how do you prioritize what needs to be done? For example, who do you need to contact right away and who do you wait to call? How do you determine the size and scope of the crime scene? Do you have field technicians available to process the scene? How do you handle witnesses? What kind of things do you start taking a closer look at?

MARK MYNHEIR: When I arrive, I meet with the first responding officers and get briefed from there.  I like to wait until I have another detective or two on scene before I interview witnesses, so we can make a plan.  But, like many things in law enforcement, it doesn’t always work out that way.  Sometimes I have to jump in and start talking with people right away. 

We start with the initial witnesses (like the person who discovered the body and such) and work our way out.  I like to have neighborhood contacts done as soon as possible.  Sometimes we’ll call in burglary detectives or our tack team to help us if we need it.  Our Crime Scene Unit will respond, and we’ll have a sit down with them and make a plan how to approach the scene—because each one is different.  I will then try to stay out of their way after that.  They need the time to conduct a methodical search and documentation of the scene. 

The newer technology is helpful here because we all carry digital recorders, and I record every statement with witnesses at the scene, so I don’t forget or miss something, and I don’t have to take the witnesses back to the station.