Lea O’Harra has published three crime fiction novels set in rural modern-day Japan:(2015); Progeny (2016);and Lady First (2017). These comprise the so-called ‘Inspector Inoue Thrillers’ series originally published by Endeavour Press (UK). She has also had a story included in Best Asian Crime Fiction published by Kitaab Press (Singapore) in 2020. In the spring of 2022 Sharpe Books (UK) reissued the Inoue mystery series and, in September 2022, published Lea O’Harra’s fourth novel, Dead Reckoning, a stand-alone set in her tiny hometown in the American Midwest. You can find out more about Lea and her books on her WEBSITE

Bee: What is your favorite scene in the book? Why?

Lea: I suppose my favorite scene in Dead Reckoning is Gilly’s and Sally’s discovery of the shoebox containing the dead baby in the cemetery of their tiny town of Byron. It reminds me of my own childhood in the early sixties in Rolling Prairie, Indiana. Not, I hasten to add, that my best friend at the time, Brenda (who was also sporty with long flaming red hair) and I ever made such a discovery ourselves! But during the long hot days of the summer holidays, like Gilly and Sally, we occasionally played in the cemetery near my house, just as we also rode bikes down deserted streets, climbed trees, and went to the local store, Bozek’s, to sit in a booth and have Cokes and fries and listen to selections on the jukebox.

Bee: Where do you get the names for your characters?

Lea: I tried to use names popular in the States in the second half of the twentieth century. The exception is the name of the protagonist. Gillian – or Gilly, as she is usually called – was not a common name then. Given the popularity of a television show called Gilligan’s Island, in which the ‘g’ is given a ‘hard’ sound, my heroine would have been used to hearing her own name often mispronounced.

Bee: How completely do you develop your characters before beginning to write?

Lea: Sometimes, quite miraculously, mysteriously, and gratifyingly, I find my characters develop their own personalities as I write. They take on a life of their own and guide me as I plot out the story.

Bee: How does being a mother influence your writing?

Lea: My own circumstances and experiences inevitably influence my writing. The second book in my Inspector Inoue mystery series, entitled Progeny, examines relations between mothers and children. It is set in Japan, but much of what it describes is universal. Although I hadn’t consciously intended it, on reflection, I see that Dead Reckoning also focuses on the mother-child relationship. I have three sons. As they were raised in Japan – a homogenous culture where nearly 98% of the population is Japanese and habits of thought and behavior are deeply ingrained as societal norms – there are elements of their childhood and their adult selves that will always remain incomprehensible to me because of my own American upbringing. Perhaps writing is a form of catharsis. Perhaps it is a type of therapy. In my case, perhaps it is a way for me to understand myself and others.

Bee: How has your extensive travel and living in several countries influenced your writing?

Lea: The book I am working on now – my fifth crime fiction novel – explores differences in perspective and customs between the UK and Japan. And perhaps I will also throw in some examination of American attitudes and behavior. I feel very fortunate to have spent so much of my life in different countries: twenty in the US, eleven in the UK, thirty-six in Japan, one in France and half a year in Holland. I pray I will be blessed with a long, healthy life, mindful of the deathbed words of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu (1689-1762, English aristocrat, writer, and poet): ‘It has all been very interesting’. Life is fascinating!

Bee: What writers have you drawn inspiration from?

Lea: I’ve always been particularly fond of Jane Austen, enchanted by her subtlety and wit, her refusal to state the obvious, her demand that we readers exercise intelligence in appreciating and understanding her work, or as she once wrote (I’m paraphrasing), ‘I write not for such dull elves, as have not wit to think for themselves’. I also like Virginia Woolf, but I prefer her diaries, journals, and letters to her published novels. Of course, my chosen genre of crime fiction is completely different to the type of writing engaged in by these two authors, but they have inspired me as women who ventured to put pen to paper to express their apprehension of life in all its complexity.

Bee: What was your first job?

Lea: Growing up in tiny Rolling Prairie, there were few opportunities for local employment. My first part-time job was working as a waitress at a truck stop on an interstate highway about three miles outside town. I was fifteen – shy, easily embarrassed – and I found being teased by the rough truck drivers a nightmarish experience. My first full-time job was in Evanston, a suburb of Chicago. I had completed my MA in 18^th-century English literature at Lancaster University in England and needed to repay the loan I had taken out for my studies. I was one of several secretaries attached to the Board of Directors of the international headquarters of Rotary International. It was a matter of typing all day and every day, with occasional jobs of filing and photocopying thrown in. I found it very boring and demoralizing! Still, there was one perk. I was asked to accompany a team from the Evanston Rotary group to the annual national conference, held that year at an expensive resort in Boca Raton, Florida. We stayed in a five-star hotel. I could swim in the pool early every morning before work. I enjoyed eating delicious food. I reveled in the tropical splendor of the hotel and its grounds. But the work itself was the same: monotonous tasks of typing and filing and making photocopies.

Bee: What do you do when you are not writing?

Lea: Since I retired three years ago from full-time employment as an English professor at a Japanese university, I have alternated between spending time my time in Lancaster, in England, and at my home in Takamatsu, on Shikoku island in Japan. In Britain I find life as a retiree enjoyable and fulfilling. I am a volunteer on a local nature reserve and at a theatre/cinema in the city. I belong to a speaker’s club and to a crown green bowling club/ I take life drawing classes and participate each Sunday evening in a pub quiz group. I swim twice a week at the local gym and attend twice-weekly yoga and Pilates classes there. Lancaster is surrounded by stunning scenery, so I can also enjoy cycling and taking long walks. Alas, I can’t enjoy such opportunities in Japan, although it is wonderful to be reunited with family and friends here whenever I return.

Bee: What books are you reading at present?

Lea: I am rereading Thomas Mann’s ‘bildungsroman’: Buddenbrooks. I like always to have at least two books on the go that I’m reading concurrently. I’m also reading Tom Hopkinson’s How to be Idle, having recently finished its sequel, How to be Free, and Tolstoy’s The Kreutzer Sonata.

Bee: What are you currently working on?

Lea: As I mentioned above, I have begun work on a fifth crime fiction novel, another stand-alone book, this one set in both Japan and the UK.

©Lea O’Harra

Bee: Thanks once again and good luck with all your future endeavors.

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