I chose a famous line from the movie Chinatown (starring Jack Nicholson as the PI Jake Gittes) for my title. Why? Because I just wrapped up two back-to-back deadlines in my writing career, and now I’m back to being a PI in my other career. I always surprise people when they find out I’m a PI because I guess I don’t look like one. I don’t talk tough, I’m seriously directionally challenged (mapquest is my best friend), I don’t carry a gun (well, a stun gun, but that’s different), I never walk out the door without wearing make-up, and my idea of a great night at home is to curl up with a bowl of popcorn and watch Casablanca for the zillionth time.

But I am a PI. In fact, I was supposed to be serving a subpoena right now except I forgot that it was my turn to write this blog, so my business partner is out serving the papers. After I finish this blog, I’m heading out to do a surveillance in a domestic relations case (I’m very glad our cold snap is over…it’s pleasant, spring-like weather so I won’t be freezing my you-know off out there). Then, after I get home, I’ll continue working on the outline for an upcoming online class I’m giving on “Writing PIs in Novels.”

Which I thought I’d talk about in this blog, and ask if people have questions–like, is there anything about a PI’s work that you’d like to learn in such a class? Any “PI folklore” you’d be interested to know if it’s true or not? Any characters in a book, movie, or TV show who’ve done something and you’re curious if PIs do that in real life, too? I thought it’d be fun to pick a name from those who post questions/comments and invite that person to take the class free. Or, if the person picked would prefer a book instead, I’ll send them one of their choice from my backlist.

For me, it’ll help to hear the areas of PI work that interest people, and I can use that as I finalize the course outline.

Maybe I’ll chat a bit here about a day in my PI life. Like today. Well, after waking up and being extremely happy again that I finished my recent deadlines, I walked to a local coffee shop with my business partner to review what was on our To Do list for today. I always carry my PDA so I can check our work tasks, and I always carry my cell phone (calls to the office phone roll over to my cell).

As we drank coffee, we reviewed the subpoena that was Fed-ex’d to our office yesterday from an attorney in Washington state. We read the information, discussed the best means of catching the individual at either his home or office. We discussed another meeting my business partner was having today with a local attorney who wants us to handle a domestic relations surveillance as well as some skip tracing. I pondered some topics I might cover in the online class on writing PIs. After talking about a few other less urgent cases we’re currently handling, we focused on our roles in this afternoon’s surveillance (many surveillances we handle as a team because our success rate increases when there’s two of us watching/following a subject).

One PI I know claims that all one-person mobile surveillances (mobile being when you’re following in a vehicle) have a 5% success rate, but a 50% success rate when two PIs are involved. I’ve done one-person mobile surveillances in the past, and I have to admit, my success rate hasn’t been outstanding because it’s tough driving through traffic and being a careful driver (yes, I obey all the traffic laws!) while also trying to follow someone who’s changing lanes, speeding up through intersections, gunning it down highways. One myth buster right here: in the movies or on TV when a sole PI toodles around town in his/her beat-up [funky car of choice], successfully tailing someone for hours on end…that’s a scenario in some writer’s imagination, not how it is in the real world.

After I returned to the office, I double-checked the person on whom we were serving the subpoena to verify his work and home address (and discovered they’re one in the same). Then, I (posing as a potential customer) called the person’s business and learned what time he was going to be in the office today.

About this time, I got the nicest email from Bekke at Access Romance reminding me I had a blog to write. So I quickly paged my business partner and asked him to finish the process service, what time to be at a particular address, directions, etc.

And then I started writing this blog…

I’ll switch gears now and plug my next book, which is only currently available in the UK and Germany. It’s The Perfect Girlfriend, which will be out in May ‘06. It’s part of a 2-book romantic comedy series with my good friend and talented author (and she’s also an Access Romance author, too): Barbara Dunlop (whose book is titled The Perfect Boyfriend). To read book blurbs, check out either or our websites (I’ll be posting a blurb as of April 1). Below is the cover of my book, The Perfect Girlfriend.

Have a great day, everyone! I’d love to year your PI questions/comments, Colleen