Interview: RyNyx Discusses Her Love of Mysteries and Her Dark Academia Standalone, ENIGMA

RuNyx is the New York Times bestselling author of the Dark Verse series and multiple standalone novels. Her latest standalone, Enigma, features Salem, a student determined to find answers about her sister's death. 

Enigma features a dark romance within this intense mystery that builds the tension expertly throughout, making this a book I never wanted to put down.

I had the opportunity to ask RuNyx about Enigma, Salem, Caz, writing while dealing with grief, and the appeal of amateur sleuth stories. 

SR: You've entered amateur sleuth territory with Enigma, which features Salem's search for the truth about what happened to her sister. What do you find appealing about approaching a mystery from an amateur sleuth's perspective?

RuNyx: I’ve always had a love for mysteries. As far back as my memories go, mysteries have driven my curiosities and stayed with me. And that’s why I feel like an amateur sleuth perspective to approaching a story is more relatable to me, because it is driven more by curiosity and a thirst for answers than social constructs and law. 

SR: Can you share some of the true cases and experiences that inspired Enigma?

RuNyx: Emotionally, Enigma was inspired by many things—my own experience with the grief and loss, an existential question about trying to understand death and meaning of living, the whole thread of fate connecting one thing to another, so many things. 

As for the cases, there are many but the one right off the top of my head is the Flannan Isle case. There was a poem with the same name by Wilfrid W. Gibson that I read a long time ago in an old, musty library. It referred to a mysterious incident that occurred on the Flannan Isles in 1900, when three lighthouse-keepers disappeared without explanation. That poem stayed with me through the years, and when Mortimer came to me, with its beautiful cliffs and misty sea shores, the defunct lighthouse just popped there in the distance too.

SR: How are you and Salem similar? How does she differ from you?

RuNyx: That’s an interesting question. We do have a few similarities, I think. We’re both resilient. I share my love for criminology and that feeling of not quite fitting in with her. There’s a world within me entirely my own and it’s always been that way, and I feel like Salem has that too. 

She’s very different from me in how her brain works. She’s way more organized and methodical than I am. I wish I was half as organized LOL.

SR: How are you and Caz similar? How does he differ from you?

RuNyx: Oh, he and I are very similar in how private we are about our art. The way he doesn’t let anyone peek at his work until it’s ready? I’m the same. No one reads or gets access to my work until it’s finished and I’m ready to share it. We also share a similar rebellious attitude. 

Caz is very different from me in how his emotions work, and how unhinged and raw he can be at times.  

SR:  There's an interesting discussion in Salem's psychology class about nature vs. nurture. Salem seemed to be influenced by some experiences she had when she was young, but this discussion made me wonder if Salem thought she was born messed up because her parents didn’t seem to understand her before those incidents. Are her parents and sister the reason Salem seems to view herself as defective rather than blaming those formative experiences? Or do I have it wrong? Is this intended to show how important it is for children to have an adult who accepts them? Or did you have other goals in mind with Salem’s view of herself and reasons for it?

RuNyx: I love this question. This actually made me think about it because witnessing her in that scene was a great moment for me.

Nature vs nurture has been one of the long-standing, endless debates in psychology. The human mind, something that cannot be physically located in the human body but drives everything about us (which itself is fascinating to me), are both a sum of our experiences and some genetic markers we inherit from our ancestors. Which drives what is the biggest question and I feel like there’s no right answer. 

Was Salem born that way or was she shaped by her childhood experiences? I think she believes it was a bit of both. One variable could have changed the other by some degree (again, we cannot determine to what degree), but I do feel she believes that, hence the resentment she has felt for most of her life toward her family and her society in general. 

It’s so fascinating to think about, isn’t it? 

SR: On one hand, Salem is committed to who she is, which makes it seem like she accepts herself. She never seems to really try to become part of her parents’ world. Despite that, she doesn't seem to feel worthy of love. What do you hope readers take away from Salem's view of herself?

RuNyx: Each reader’s experience is so subjective, so I don’t really think about that when writing. But if I had to say, it’d probably be resilience and learning to love yourself from Salem. Accepting who we are is easier than loving who we are. I hope they take that.  

SR: When I think of Salem’s journey, I think about disconnection to connection, isolation to community, rejection to acceptance. How did you define her arc when you were writing Enigma?

RuNyx: I didn’t actively think about her arc when I was writing. The story just flowed and once I had the whole draft, I could see it vividly. Salem’s journey reminds me of a flower that never bloomed after budding because even though it was born on a good plant with strong roots, a plant that had many other great flowers, this bud was in the shade and didn’t get the right light. Once she did, she blossomed. 

SR: You wrote Enigma at a time when you were dealing with grief. How did writing this book help you deal with your grief? 

RuNyx: This book is so special to me in ways I don’t think I’ll ever be able to elucidate. Writing has always been my way of processing. In writing Enigma, a story no one knew anything about, I was able to immerse myself in this bubble and allow myself to understand death, which allowed me to grieve in a way I hadn’t been able to in reality. This book opens with death and ends with life. I came out of it feeling aware of my own mortality and yet feeling alive. And there was something really beautiful about that.

SR:  At times, Salem seems unaware or unconcerned about the risks she takes. How much of that stems from her guilt over being alive when her sister is dead?

RuNyx: A bit of it is guilt, but it’s also a sense of responsibility. She’s always been a risk-taker of sorts, even as a child running around and investigating stuff. But the escalation of her level of risk definitely has a lot to do with trying to make sense of her sister’s untimely death. Because for a while before she died, Olivia had tried to repair their relationship and entrusted Salem to find answers. Olivia knew that Salem would. 

Salem feels like she failed her sister when she was alive, so she doesn’t want to fail her in her death. 

SR:  In the past, Salem silenced herself by choice. Now, she's opening up. Why were the friendships she developed so important for her personal growth throughout Enigma?

RuNyx: Because healthy friendships, especially female friendships, are so important. I have a beautiful tribe of friends that have been with me for decades. I know the value it has added to my own life, so it was a no-brainer that Salem had to have good friends who would be there for her, her own found family.   

End paper art by Julie Dillon

SR: The main couple have an interesting element to some of their foreplay (the biting till they bleed). Why is that act significant for them?

RuNyx: I think it’s the raw, visceral nature of blood. Blood is the force of life. Symbolically, Salem deals with blood and Caz paints with it. They both work with death in their own way. Blood is a reminder of life, a life they begin to share with each other and their sexual encounters reflect that progress.

SR: Being silenced is a theme in the book. Salem is silent by choice for a time, and the victims have been silenced, with nobody to speak for them. Without giving away specifics, some characters are masking their identity and not what they seem. This made me wonder about your anonymous author pseudonym. 

How has using an anonymous pseudonym strengthened your voice? How has using an anonymous pseudonym stifled your voice?

RuNyx: That’s a thought-provoking question. 

I don’t really feel like my voice is stifled or strengthened per se. I get how it can be that way for some, but for me, it feels right and suited to who I am. There’s a certain freedom in being anonymous as an artist, but that goes hand in hand with having clear boundaries that neither you nor anyone else can cross. I like having my life and parts of myself that aren’t accessible to everyone. In a way, it’s both liberating and limiting, two sides of the same coin.

If you could choose one thing for readers to take away from Salem and Caz’s story, what would it be?

RuNyx: Memento viviere. Remember to live.

***

Sandra Ruttan is the author of several crime fiction novels and current host of The OTHERWORLDS, an Authors on the Air Global Radio Network podcast featuring authors of fantasy, paranormal, and supernatural works. You can find links to episodes here.

She's on Instagram @sandraruttan

The Problem of Faux-rensics in Crime Fiction

By Thomas Pluck

Do you believe that bite marks are unique and can identify a suspect with scientific accuracy? How about burn patterns in wood identifying use of an accelerant in a fire? And fingerprints are one hundred percent unique to a person, and all DNA processing is equal?

If you believe any of these non-truths, you may suffer from reading best-selling crime fiction, and your brain may be CSI-positive. (That series of shows has done more harm to justice than any other since Cops, and it is not "harmless" entertainment. Stories matter, and juries are affected by bad writing that parrots bad science.

There is no forensic "science." They call it a science, but it isn't one like physics, with reproducible results. And it is abused by the FBI and other law enforcement agencies widely. For example, the FBI now claims there is a "forensic science" of how denim jeans wear on a person, like a fingerprint, and tried to use it to identify a suspect caught on film. They also claim to be able to identify people from tiny pixels in a digital image, as if we had the technology Deckard uses in Blade Runner to zoom in infinitely with no loss detail. As the headline says,  "Scientists disagree." Which is my new favorite phrase for "you are selling a load of bullshit."

How did we get here? We worship "experts" without ever vetting their credentials. They are often highly paid, and their cash flow depends on putting people in prison. There are forensic sciences that are reproducible, such as ballistics, but humans are not firearms. We've been misled about the accuracy of DNA identification, as well. Now, DNA is science, but the collection of it is not.
There is often widespread contamination in DNA collection, and there's a "close enough" attitude, as with fingerprints. Then they pull statistics out of their Play-Doh DNA extruder to say "there's a one in a ten million chance that it's someone else" when that means it could be seven hundred people, or 33 in the United States alone.

We also take books written by FBI cheerleaders as gospel. Not all writers are investigative journalists, and parrot what they hear law enforcement say, without vetting it. You can't argue with your source if you want access! They don't like that. Or hearing that U.S. prosecutors fetishize 100% conviction rates, so if someone has to get railroaded, or five young men must be convicted of rape because they were "up to something," so be it. Eggs, omelets. What heroes.

It's been 18 years since 9/11, and I worked in Manhattan at the time. I have great respect for the first responders who run toward danger, but when we elevate all members to hero status and make them unquestionable, we become a police state and not a democracy interested in criminal justice, but "order." There are many heroes. But if you ask the responders who the heroes are, they are the ones who didn't come home that day. They don't want be above the law.

There are too many forensic lab scandals to count.

Some writers acknowledge this. It doesn't mean there are no criminals! Just that like any human construct, the criminal justice system is fallible at best, and rigged at worst. Which makes for more interesting stories, if you choose to write them. Prince of the City holds up better than TJ Hooker.

Forensics/technology is making my life miserable

Today, I am flying from Washington, DC to Austin, Texas for the next leg of the INDEPENDENT STUDY tour.  For the next couple weeks, while I'm bopping around the country, three fabulous authors are going to step into my blogging shoes.  First up, the amazingly talented author of suspense with the occassional hint of romance - Donnell Ann Bell.  I encourage you all to check out her work!  And, if you're in Texas (Austin or Houston) please come out and say hello.  

Take it away Donnell.....

Does anyone remember the day when you could Google, check out research material at the library, and have a pretty good idea how to write a believable plot?  I’m sure it happened once upon a time.  I can’t imagine Agatha Christie, Arthur Conan Doyle, Raymond Chandler and other greats had to worry too much about DNA evidence, bloodstain pattern analysis, 3D printer guns, CODIS, IAFIS, LEDS databases and a multitude of other technologies that have ballooned seemingly overnight.

You might argue that technology has made our lives simpler, so why am I whining?   After all, these people used type writers with carbon paper for crying out loud.  They mailed their novels to their publisher in manuscript boxes.   

I’m whining because technology refuses to stand still while I finish my book.  Someone opened the door to the Information Age, created an avalanche and laid me out flat.  Oh, sure, I enjoy my laptop, smart phone, tablet as much as the next impatient person, but for a contemporary crime fiction writer, it’s a disaster.  For instance, say you start your book in January and finish it the following September, you’d better go back and check your facts, AGAIN, because during that short amount of time, based on today’s technology, your research has probably changed. 

Think I’m exaggerating?  Are you ready for what I learned last night?  Last night at Rocky Mountain Mystery Writers of America, our guest speaker was Greggory LaBerge, Director-Forensics and Evidence Division, Denver Police Department.  Along with learning that if a person breaks into a home and leaves his DNA evidence (blood, saliva, or hair) in Colorado and his DNA is left at another crime scene across the country in Michigan, that bad guy, once he is located, is going to jail. 

I also learned that DNA technology has gotten so sophisticated that if your detectives are having a conversation over the body, (which we’re known to do when writing a book to advance the plot and cue the readers in on possible clues) they’re contaminating the crime scene.  I like to think I don’t spit when I speak, but evidently we human beings do.  That’s how accurate scientists have gotten at identifying our DNA.

I didn’t even fret about ballistic fingerprinting or the fact that every automobile out there can be identified by the make and color of its paint. (And you can’t even confuse the issue by taking it to one of those autobody paint stores because forensic analysts can break it down by layers.)  Quite frankly, it’s getting darn hard for criminals, and for that matter, us writers.

The truth is I love storytelling too much to give it up, so I’ll keep learning and doing my best to stay ahead of the ever-changing curve.  But for you technology/forensic people out there so proud of the progress you’re making, would it hurt you too much to slow down? 

And they say writing historical fiction is hard.  

     

I’m curious, if you’re writing a contemporary crime novel, have you had to go back and make changes because the technology has advanced?  Have fun on your tour, Joelle!

Donnell Ann Bell is the author of three books, The Past Came Hunting, Deadly Recall, and her newest release, Betrayed.  Her debut and sophomore releases have been e-book best sellers and Deadly Recall is a 2014 EPICON nominee for best thriller/suspense. She co-owns Crimescenewriters with retired Veteran Police Officer Wally Lind.  Check out her webpage at www.donnellannbell.com