Murder, Mystery — and the (Fictional) World of Pest Control

Editor’s note:  University of Wyoming professor Jeffrey A. Lockwood, an entomologist-turned-writer, has penned “Poisoned Justice,” a murder mystery featuring a pest management professional as the main character. The following article from Lockwood is an insider’s look at how the author weaved the world of entomology into his novel. 

The lawyers have John Grisham and the diplomats have Robert Ludlum, so who’s writing stories about pest control operators? Let’s face it, pest management is not a profession that the public associates with intrigue or adventure. An assassin of earwigs does not make for a dashing hero. Most people want to know as little as possible about what’s happening in their crawlspaces. So my challenge was to craft a fictional character who was true to the field of pest management — and who would connect readers to a darkly enchanting profession.

I worked for nearly 20 years as an entomologist, starting with graduate studies at Louisiana State University where my mobile home provided first-hand encounters with cockroaches, fleas, flour beetles and a home-invader opossum. As a professor at the University of Wyoming I developed better ways to kill legions of grasshoppers across expanses of rangeland. And I discovered that the field of pest management is tailor-made for crime noir.

Most people are familiar with noir through the classics of mystery writing and films (Sam Spade in The Maltese Falcon or Philip Marlow in The Big Sleep). Think of those black-and-white movies from the 1940s with Humphrey Bogart playing a gumshoe holding a glass of bourbon, being conned by a dame and trounced by fate. So how does this genre reflect the pest control industry?  

First, the noir hero is both principled and flawed. He takes responsibility for the violence he brings into the world and makes no excuses. Cold calculation can add up to the need for extermination. And while decisions by a professional are supposed to be dispassionate, sometimes there’s a fine line between justice and vengeance.
Next, the private investigator lives with moral ambiguity in a world that is not filled with light and goodness. While the public desperately wants to deny what crawls in the darkness of basements and alleys, somebody has to decide when doing bad things to bad actors — whether they have eight, six or two legs — is a good thing.

Finally, death is part of the game. Most people prefer that somebody else does the dirty work of cleaning up the world. Gutters and drains are the realm of noir, where the labors of the PI (or PCO) are invisible and unappreciated, except when things go wrong.

So I created Riley, a hardboiled cop-turned-exterminator (as he prefers to be called) with a soft spot for his hard-working employees who keep his business running so he can provide for his mother and brain-damaged brother. Riley is pragmatic to the core, not caring that his office manager is lesbian or his technicians are a Vietnam vet, an African-American from the projects, or a Jewish kid, as long as they care for their work and look out for one another. The son of Irish immigrants, Riley clings to old-school views in the fast-changing world of 1970s San Francisco, preferring the antiquated term “exterminator.” For Riley, the world is infested with vermin of various sorts, so a rodent control project echoes his days on the force. As he says in the novel, “I wasn’t shedding any tears for rodents, and I didn’t shed any for the criminals I put away as a cop. It’s nothing personal. Rats are just being rats and sociopaths are just being humans. But somebody has to make sure that innocent people aren’t hurt by these creatures, and sometimes that means using force. Even deadly force. “  

That is how “Poisoned Justice” came to be the first in a series of mysteries featuring a PCO who makes no apologies for “killing what needs killing.”  His oft-misunderstood profession is honest work that makes peoples’ lives better in public housing projects and Knob Hill mansions — and in the dark cracks and gritty crevices of The City.

About ‘Poisoned Justice’ When an activist ecology professor is found dead in his hotel room, the police chalk it up to natural causes, but his widow suspects murder. She needs someone to operate in the grime of San Francisco. Riley’s career as a police detective was cut short when do-gooders saw him beat information out of a child kidnapper. Now running his father’s pest control business, Riley pursues two-legged vermin on the side. The death scene suggests something’s amiss to a man who knows insects. Riley learns that the victim had a costly plan to take down the pesticide industry. And the professor’s need for cash put him on a collision course with a brutal drug lord. When Riley discovers a twisted connection between his brother’s poisoning and the professor’s death, extermination is in order. But he’ll need the help of an intoxicating South African beauty. Learn more about this book at http://Pen-L.com/PoisonedJustice.html (pre-orders open September 11th and both ebook and print versions begin shipping October 11th; copies also available through Amazon and Barnes & Noble) and this author at http://www.jeffreylockwoodauthor.com.