By DAVID DUPONT
BG Independent News
Craig Mertler has plenty of words under his belt.
The long-time academic, who taught at Bowling Green State University, has written more than two dozen books on education. Toss in some book chapters and another two dozen scholarly articles.
And then there’s the crime suspense novels.
In November Mertler published through Kindle Direct Publishing“Jetport TNT,” his third novel featuring retired detective Luis Tanner. Set in South Florida, where Mertler lived between Ohio and his current home in Arizona, the novel is a deep dive into the dark world of tangled multiple crime networks. It all starts with investigating a dog fighting ring, and from there the web expands.
A native of Mansfield, Mertler attended BGSU in the 1980s, and then was a professor of education from 1996-2009. Now 58 and teaching at Arizona State University, Mertler turned to writing fiction about three years ago.
“I love reading fiction, and I love the kind of fiction I’m now writing,” he said. “I had this idea that I wanted to try fiction, but I didn’t know how it would go.”
Then his wife, Kate, who taught at South Main and Kenwood when they lived in BG, told him: “You’ll never know if you can do it until you sit down and try.”
So Mertler sat down and tried. The result was a short novel. “It was self-confirming that I had ability to create characters and create a plot scenery and all that stuff. Then as I went into my second and third one, I was really more successful, with more deeply developed plots and more deeply characters. … Once I tried it, I fell in love with the novel.”
He loved the creativity it allowed – so different from the academic writing he’d done. He loved creating characters, who are so alive they sometimes surprise him in what they decide to do.
He sketches out the plot before he starts. But “all of a sudden it makes sense that a character would do something different, or say something. It veers off into a different direction, and it’s a good change in direction.”
Not that his academic writing hasn’t influenced the fiction. He brings the same rigor in terms of process laying out a map
Instead of a 15-chapter textbook Mertler the academic would be working on, Mertler the crime novelist is spelling out the machinations of an international criminal gang, and his heroes’ work uncovering its devious dealings.
In “Jetport TNT” that starts with Brenda Walker, chief of the two-person Everglades City Police Department, fuming that there’s dogfighting going on in one of remote islands in the Ten Thousand Islands area.
She decides to bring in a former colleague and old flame Luis Tanner to help, and he proceeds to uncover more than she had expected.
The novel is rich in local detail. In his author’s disclaimer at the beginning of the book, he makes a point of stating that while the book is a work of fiction, the locale and many places and businesses mentioned exist. “The people are not real but the settings are real,” he said. “It was easier for me to put those characters in those settings and weave things in out.”
He wants people who know the area to spot places they’re familiar with. It makes it easier for readers to relate to the action.
That grows from his fascination with the place – his earlier two novels were set South Florida locales as well.
“As a reader I find police work intriguing,” he said. As policing has become “more high tech and much more scientific, it intrigues me all the more.”
He’s also fascinated by the other side. “I never write about crime as a good thing, but there’s aspects that intrigue me so much.”
Mertler feels his work is getting stronger. “One of things I learned just from feedback is I’m doing a much better job with dialogue and leaving a lot of the storytelling to dialogue instead of having big long narrative paragraphs.”
Letting his characters tell the story makes them more interesting. Also, “As a reader you’re finding out finding out what’s happening at the same time the characters are.”
His toughest critic, he said, is his wife. She participated in the editing at various stages on the three projects, which also include “The Last Page” and “Tequesta University.” All are available on Amazon as are some of his academic works.
Kate Mertler is an avid consumer of fiction. She read “Jetport TNT” as her husband was writing it and had some important suggestions on different directions the plot could take.
“She’s the first one to tell you my work has become so much better.”
Mertler said that an audio version of the book with a professional voice-over actor will be out mid-winter. “To hear someone else reading my words that’s very exciting for me.”
He knows he’ll continue to create new adventures for Luis Tanner.
“I’ve really grown to like him help, especially in this novel.”
For now, he’s taking his usual hiatus between projects. He plans to take a few months off until “I get the itch come up with ideas about where to go next.”
