Character Profile – Detective Janet Mason

Readers of the entire Morelville Mysteries series are aware that, since the end of Book 3, Dana’s Dilemma, Sheriff Mel Crane has been down to one detective in her department. The young go-getter Shane Harding has been a good sport but he just can’t do everything and take on every case. Mel’s been having to jump in to assist on a lot in investigations which has resulted in the neglect of some of her ‘Sheriffly duties’, as Shane calls them, and in less attention paid to her wife Dana and to her extended family.

Well, no more! In Book 6, ‘A Crane Christmas’, due out late next week, Sheriff Mel and Shane get a little help when Mel hires a seasoned deputy detective from an Indiana department, Janet Mason. So, in the spirit of giving you a little information to whet your appetite for the story to come, here are a few details about Mason to help you get to know her:

1. She’s 30 years old (five, nearly 6 years younger than Mel), lesbian also, blondish and femme appearing but a tomboy through and through.
2. She grew up in Zanesville, Ohio and her mother still lives there.
3. After high school, she got an Associate’s Degree in Criminal Justice.
4. The Ohio Peace Officer’s Training Academy (OPOTA) wouldn’t take her right after she completed her degree because she wasn’t 21 yet so she joined the Army and became a military police officer.
5. A fellow soldier when was getting ready to get out of the Army convinced her to try for a slot in an Indiana sheriff’s department that was close to Indianapolis. The relationship between the two women later ended but Janet stayed on the force and loved her job, making ‘detective’ fairly young.
6. Her mother’s illness brings her home to Ohio.

There’s more of course, but you’ll have to read the book to ferret the rest out. To be fair, I’ll share this; I created a character profile board on Pinterest, in case anyone wants to see what inspired ‘Janet’, in my minds eye. I don’t own any of those seven pictures so I can’t post them here without giving proper credit for each one. Enjoy! And, incidentally, if you’d like to follow me on Pinterest, I pin all sorts of book related stuff and other stuff too. Here’s my Pinterest profile link or you can click the graphic in the column on the right.

So, what do you think of Janet Mason, so far?