Sitting down with Gail Zugerman is Bonnie Moore, who talks about her debut book, Buried Bones. She shares how she used her background as an attorney and CPA to write a mystery novel about a crime committed in a small town. Bonnie also talks about using fictional detective Jessica Fletcher from “Murder, She Wrote” to create her protagonist, as well as how her novel is geared towards people aging well and super sleuths.

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Debuting With A Mystery Novel With Bonnie Moore

Reinvented CPA & Lawyer Gets Into Mysteries

We have Bonnie Moore as our guest. Bonnie is a semi-retired attorney, accountant, management consultant, and the founder of Golden Girls Network. Her senior consultant at a CPA firm in Washington, DC. She developed financial properties and investigated in-house properties. Her self-help book called How to Start a Golden Girls Home earned her widespread media coverage. She’s an avid traveler and has explored many countries before retiring to Utah to meet her family, pursue her dream of writing a novel. She has her daily novel called Buried Bones, which we’re to talk to her about. Welcome to the show, Bonnie.

Thank you. It’s nice to be here.

From Corporate To Becoming An Author

You are such a good example, Bonnie. Somebody growing older with us, though, and we’ve had an incredibly diverse professional journey. Could you tell our readers a bit about your journey from the corporate world to being a successful author?

The short version is I’ve always been interested in writing, so it’s not like I was transitioning. I started pursuing writing as a serious hobby around 1999. I started taking classes when I moved to Washington, DC. I started taking these classes at the Writer’s Center, and I ended up actually having a story that was published. It was published in 2000, and then it was published again in 2001. At the same time, I worked on a manuscript, which I still want to publish one of these days. It’s always been something I was interested in. At the same time, of course, I was working. I graduated with a degree in accounting.

Excuse me for interrupting you. It just seems like it’s interesting that you can make the segue from being a numbers type person to writing. I know as an attorney you probably had to wear it also, but that was going to be my next question. What tools did you take from your professional careers to turn them into writing a self-help book and a novel?

   

   

I was always in this fit as an accountant. I think I’ve always had this interest in writing. The segue was not, “I’m giving up numbers.” I think I probably found what I really wanted to do. Yes, becoming an attorney does require lots of writing. I had to change my way of thinking when I went from being an accountant to an attorney. The law is also storytelling. Every time you write a book, you have to tell the story of what happened.

What type of law did you practice?

I got out of law school when I was fifteen. I went to law school later in life, and I took this job with a CPA. My projects were always a combination of legal issues and accounting issues. A lot of them revolved around contracts. Contract interpretation, contract evaluation, things like that. It was boring stuff. The interesting stuff is litigation, but I did not like the atmosphere. I was the project manager on these very large projects, dealing with contract interpretation many times.

What was the inspiration that really created that egotism within you to pivot to wanting to write more and the other stuff behind?

I retired. I had time to pursue writing as something that I’ve always wanted to do, and suddenly I had time to do it. The book, Buried Bones, actually started as a classroom project because when I moved to Utah, I started taking writing classes because it was something I was interested in doing, and it’s a hobby. I was taking this class called How to Write a Mystery and we all had a classroom project. This became my COVID project. I just kept working on it. It took me five years to write it, but sure that should be done.

That’s great. It’s a lot of work, I know. I haven’t gotten the chance to be honest with you to start getting through it, but I will. It sounds really interesting. We’ll talk about that in a bit. What inspired you to actually take that course, when you got back to Utah on writing the mystery novel? Is there something in your background or something you wanted to seek out that just drew you to mystery writing?

I think I’ve always read mysteries. I probably started with Nancy Drew.

Me too. Bonnie, have you heard of the author Elizabeth George?

Writers have an in-depth understanding of personalities. You almost have to be a psychologist to bring out the different ways people behave.

I’ve read dozens of her books.

Me too. I love her books.

She was an inspiration, but I’ve always been curious and interested in mysteries. I think mysteries have a great appeal. I was looking for a university that has its extension program and they have these writing classes. I was looking for the next class that I could take, and that class was available. That’s what I signed up for, and it was very intriguing.

How Travel Translates Into Writing

You also mentioned that you like to travel, and I was just wondering, how does your passion and love of travel, how does translate into your writing?

I like to travel because I like discovering other places and other people who are different from the way I’ve done some unusual things. Just discovering the world. In terms of writing, it probably allows me to have a better understanding of creating characters that are not typical Americans if that’s what I need to do. I’ve met some of these people who have been to where they live. When I go somewhere, I always try to buy a book about the history of where I’ve been or sports, the culture, or something like that. I find it fascinating to learn about other cultures. Having this interest in other cultures, can hopefully pick and choose attributes or characters.

Do they somehow play in your writing in the mystery novel?

Not yet. I’m working on the second book right now. I’m about halfway through the first draft.

Writing The Mystery Novel “Buried Bones”

We’ll talk about that in a second. Let’s get down to talking about Buried Bones. Tell our readers what it’s about and what inspired you to write it, and why they should read it.

It’s because it’s a great story. What inspired me was that, again, I had to have a class project for this class. A few months before that, I was at a party and I was chatting with somebody, and he told me about a pioneer cabin that his family had inherited. I thought at the time I said that would be a great setting or story. When it came time where I had to come up with a murder mystery idea. I said, “Let me use this cabin up in the mountains and create a story around that.” That’s got to start. I said, “Let me see. I have to have dead bodies out of place, and I have to have a suspect.” I wanted my antagonist to be an older woman. My inspiration, of course, was Jessica Fletcher. That was the start of Maggie Anderson. I wanted to popularize Jessica Fletcher.

She was great. She was one of those people who transcends, I think, all generations, like she was so interesting. Those are interesting. Any destinations on your travels that got into your Buried Bones novel, other than we cannot have an idea?

No, the whole story takes place here in Utah.

Where in Utah? Is it a made-up town? Is it something you know?

The area where the cabin is is a real area. Anybody in Utah who reads the story knows where I’m referring to, but it’s a made-up small town because I wanted the small town politics, and I made it about politics. It’s not a real situation that I knew about. I made it up. What is the story about?

That was my next question.

I read your mind. The story was about Maggie and her friends going up to the cabin for a weekend, and they were in a diner having dinner. This guy walks in, and everybody gets weird about it. It turns out his ex-wife’s body has just been dug up at the cabin where they used to live. Everybody suspects him of killing her.

Why do you think they did, on the day of a bad marriage or when they are divorced?

He divorced her because he realized he was gay. The underlying prejudice in this town is against him because he’s gay. They want to convict him because of that. They don’t have any real evidence. They’re trying to make up evidence. Maggie’s in this restaurant, but she sees these cowboys threatening him. She ends up going over to him. The situation’s calmed down, but she goes over to him and talks to him and gives him her card. She says she doesn’t practice in Utah, but she could refer him to somebody.

She could help him find a defense attorney, and he takes her up on that. She finds an attorney, helps him, and then the attorney hires her as the investigator. That’s how she gets involved. She hangs out in this small town and works with the district attorney. She’s persistent enough that she uncovers a scandal. The major family in the community is at the center of the scandal. Through that, she identifies who the real murderer was. She proves that the ex-husband was innocent, but everybody in the town is against her. She insists anyway.

   

   

That’s great.

She’s a very persistent character.

What To Expect From “Buried Bones”

What do you think the novel that you wrote, Buried Bones, what do you hope that it will stir up in your readers who are reading it?

A sense of justice. Maggie has a very strong sense of justice that everybody’s entitled to justice, that she’s battling a situation where the majority of the people in the town simply want this guy arrested and convicted, and thrown into jail. She says, “No, he’s innocent.” She fights for him. I’m writing a story, and what she’s going to be doing is she’s going to end up finding or falling into cases, so much like the way Jessica Fletcher used to run into them, where people are up against a legal situation that’s being unfair to them. She’s going to get in there and fight for her. She’s going to fight for the underdogs.

Now you said you started another novel. Is it going to be in Maggie Anderson’s history?

Yeah.

Can you talk a little bit about that one that’s coming up, or don’t you want to talk about it?

What I will say is that the central legal issue is that someone steps in and kills someone who is about to rape someone. In the law, it’s essentially the same as self-defense, but they want to punish him as if he just simply killed somebody. He’s got a legal defense, but this is all against that she stands up for him. I don’t want to say any more about it.

Sounds good. Sounds very interesting.

Authors usually do not have an in-depth understanding of how the legal process works. Sometimes, that detracts from the credibility of their storylines.

It’s dealing with the legal concept of self-defense.

Got it. It’s very interesting. You mentioned to me to hear how you take your background in law, and you did meld it into more of an in-writing. I think that’s interesting. It’s a good way for people who are reading to know that we invite you in so many ways. You can have so many different backgrounds and career paths, and then suddenly retire and decide to do something else, which I think is important.

I’m enjoying it tremendously. It’s like I’m reading a lot. I’m spending the creative process. One of the things I’m discovering is that writers have to have this in-depth understanding of personality. You almost have to be a psychologist to be a writer to bring out the way people behave.

You’re amazing. Anything else you want to tell our readers? First, I want to ask you, where can our readers find your book? It’s on Amazon?

Yeah. It’s listed on every one of the popular sites where you can buy books. I have a website, which is BonnieMooreBooks.com, but it’s definitely on Amazon now. The interesting thing is that there is another book called Buried Bones. When I tell people to look it up on Amazon, I tell them to type in Buried Bones on Moore, and you’ll get my book. Just put in Buried Bones and you’ll get a whole string of things that have the other book called Buried Bones and other titles which are similar.

Do you think that this book would be appropriate for a book club discussion?

I think so. Some of the comments that I’ve gotten in the reviews, and I’ve gotten some really good reviews, that the depth of the characters is commented on. It’s been impressive to the reviewers that I really go deep into who these characters are. They’ve also liked the fact that she’s on the other side of the wall, where most murder mysteries are the cops or somebody chasing after somebody who is a murderer. I’m doing something different. I’ve got the protagonist on the defense team.

Got it.

   

   

It’s a different twist. I see another thing in the mysteries that I’ve been reading recently. The author usually doesn’t have an in-depth understanding of how the legal process works sometimes. That detracts from the credibility sometimes. One of the things that comes out in Buried Bones, it is also going to come out in the second book also is that I know the procedures. I know how cases work. There’s authenticity that I see lacking in some of the mysteries that I read.

Episode Wrap-Up And Closing Words

Very good. I’d like to wrap it up. I’d like to thank you for being on the show. I think that your book, Buried Bones, is fascinating to me, and your background is fascinating. I’m sure our readers would like to go out and check it out on Amazon and look forward to seeing your upcoming book. Best of luck with that.

Thank you.

Do you want our readers to know?

No, but if they like it, I’d like for them to put a good review for me on Amazon.

Sounds great. Thank you, Bonnie.

Thank you.

Bye.

   

Important Links

• Bonnie Moore on LinkedIn
• Bonnie Moore on Instagram
• Bonnie Moore on Facebook
• How to Start a Golden Girls Home
• Buried Bones
• Bonnie Moore Books

   

About Bonnie Moore

Bonnie Moore is an accomplished lawyer and CPA who in her retirement decided to move home to Utah and pursue her love of writing, and has presented her debut novel; Buried Bones