BookView Review

Welcome to BookView Interview, a conversation series where BookView talks to authors.

Recently, we interviewed Dwain Lee about his writing and his recently released book, Plausible Deception, a gripping tale of ambition, artistry, and the fragile bonds of love and trust. (Read the review here.)

Tell us some more about your book.

Sure, I’d be glad to. Plausible Deception is my debut novel, but I hope that it will be just the first of an ongoing series featuring the two main characters. The Rev. Dan Randolph and Asian-Canadian violin maker Greg Zhu are a married gay couple in their sixties who live in Louisville, Kentucky. I’d like to create a series revolving around the two of them.

This story opens with Greg preparing to participate in a very prestigious week-long convention and competition for the top violin makers in the world. Greg’s violins have received awards in past competitions, but he hasn’t received any since he and Dan have been married. Dan worries that now that they’re together, his presence might be a distraction hampering Greg’s best efforts – so he has hopes, at least as much as Greg’s own, that this year’s competition will end the awards drought.

At the competition, which is being held in Los Angeles, the two men meet up with old friends whom they hadn’t seen in person since before the Covid pandemic. One of those friends is Dr. Bill Sloan, who owns the famous Leonora Jackson Stradivarius – one of the very finest and most valuable of Stradivarius violins in existence. Dr. Sloan has confided to only six people at the convention that the Jackson is onsite with him, and Greg is one of the six. Tragically, during the convention the Jackson is stolen, and Greg is actually the last person to have been with it before it went missing.

As the week unfolds, Dan and Greg and the other characters in the story deal not only with the theft, but also instances of racism, xenophobia, homophobia, and misogyny. The two men work to clear Greg of involvement, and then help the authorities try to discover who stole the Jackson and recover it before it disappears on the black market.

What was the inspiration for the mystery that is central to the plot?

Actually, the two main characters in the novel are based very heavily on me and my own husband – I really am a Presbyterian minister, and my husband, George Yu, really is an internationally-recognized violin maker, and we do live in Louisville. We did attend the Violin Society of America’s convention and competition in Los Angeles in 2022, and when George arrived in Los Angeles, he had a harrowing, almost heart-stopping experience in the main terminal of LAX – an incident detailed in the book almost exactly as it really happened (sorry, no spoilers here). Afterward, I had commented to George that the incident sounded like something from a book, not real life. That comment stuck with me, and I ultimately decided to write a story that sprung from that incident. The theft of the Jackson Strad – the primary plot of the story – is entirely fictional, of course, but that fiction was built on a number of real-life events.

How do you create your characters? Do you have favorite ones? If so, why are you partial to them?

Well, as I mentioned earlier, the two main characters in this book are only thinly fictionalized versions of me and my husband. In terms of writing, this has proved both challenging and fun. While it won’t always be the case in subsequent books in the series, almost all of the positive characters in this book are more or less loosely based on actual people, or amalgamations of multiple people, whom I’ve met while traveling with George and serving as the good “luthier’s spouse” at various violin events around the country. One of the main characters – Dr. Bill Sloan, the owner of the Jackson Stradivarius, isn’t fictional at all. He’s actually a dear friend of ours who very graciously allowed me to portray him as himself in the book.

The negative characters were much trickier. I will say up front that none of the negative characters are actually based even loosely on anyone I’ve ever met in the violin world. One character – Malcolm Stewart – says and does some loathsome things in the story that came out of personal workplace experiences that I had many years ago, but other than that, every single negative character is purely and completely a work of fiction.

As far as favorites, I’m obviously biased toward Dan and Greg. After that, as odd as it might seem, I’m kind of intrigued by two negative characters, Police Detective Jim Kavanaugh, and the ever-loathsome violin dealer Malcolm Stewart – not because I like them, but precisely because I don’t. Even while difficult to create, it was fun letting my dark side go with them, trying to explore how bad I could make them without going too far and making them cartoonish and unbelievable. I hope I didn’t cross that line. Plus, in one scene, Kavanaugh’s character reveals a surprising, uncharacteristic sensitivity and humanity that’s just enough to make a reader wonder about the full depth of his character – a question left open-ended, maybe to be explored in subsequent books. I also have a soft spot in my heart for two secondary characters – Chloé Lavigne, the fun and completely unfiltered wife of German violin maker Hanna Sullenberger; and Chet Hogarth, Dan and Greg’s foodie friend, who will definitely make appearances in future books in the series.

What do you think is more important to a successful book – characters or plot?

I’m not sure I can answer that definitively. Obviously, it’s important to have well-developed characters that hold a reader’s attention, either positively or negatively. And for a mystery, you need a plot that’s both intriguing and something that’s neither too easy nor too impenetrable to solve. But I’ll add another element that I think is just as important as those two – the need for proper pacing. I think that in order to have a reasonably successful mystery novel, you need at least two of those three elements. In this case, unlike in baseball, it’s two strikes and you’re out.

So both you and your fictional alter ego are Presbyterian ministers. How does your own faith life/ethical outlook inform your writing?

I’m glad you asked that. American society is filled with examples of radical right-wing Christian fundamentalism and heretical Christian Nationalism. They are certainly the loudest and most visible examples of Christians that people regularly encounter, but they’re actually far from the majority within the faith. In fact, recent polling shows that about 75% of American Christians hold social and moral beliefs that would be considered liberal or progressive. In real life, my own faith journey began in those ultraconservative circles, but my beliefs have changed dramatically over time. Now, I’m about as progressive a person of faith as is possible – as is Dan Randolph in the book – and it’s my intention to gradually nest little bits of progressive Christian theology into the overarching plot of this and subsequent novels, but in a way that’s engaging and not, well, preachy.

What do you hope readers will take away from this story?

As I’d mentioned earlier, it’s my hope that this will ultimately be a series, and while each book will unfold a particular mystery, I hope that there will be two common threads that connect them all. I want them to be a gradual teasing out of Dan’s own story, reflecting on the successes, failures, and ultimate meaning of his life. I also want the series to offer a realistic, positive, and hopefully touching portrayal of the loving marriage between him and his husband – when inaccurate and hateful stereotypes about LGBTQ+ people and couples are so commonplace. It’s my hope, though, that these two threads will weave through the books in a way that doesn’t draw attention to themselves for their own sake, but rather, are simply an organic and enhancing element of whatever the particular mystery may be.

So what’s next for you?

While this first book is primarily centered in Greg’s world, the next book in the series – which, unlike the first book, will be a murder mystery – will focus more on Dan’s. Dan is a theologically progressive pastor in a geographical area where the church is often far more conservative – theologically and politically – which can and does make for some interesting scenarios. Also, Dan is dealing with a lot of baggage related to his own life. He was married for years to a woman and has two adult children. Once rabidly conservative, he’s now about as progressive as is possible. He had been an architect for many years, and now he’s been a minister for almost as long. Retirement isn’t right around the corner, but he can see it on the horizon, and as he looks over his life, he wonders – has he actually made any difference? Has he been a positive force in the lives of his daughters, his husband, the community, the world? Dan will consider some of those weighty questions while trying to solve the mystery of who killed a much-beloved parishioner who had vanished years ago, and whose body was just discovered under a basement floor slab during some construction work at the church.

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