Knowing that I wanted to write a mystery novel was a good first step, but I still had to figure out who would people my deliciously intricate plot. I had to start thinking about who I was so I could develop a flesh-and-blood protagonist.

First, I considered the fact that I was female. That was more relevant than you might think, because in the early ’80s, women PIs were coming into their own. I thought about writing from the perspective of a woman PI-I certainly admired Sue Grafton and Sara Paretsky-but I had been married for a very long time. As a wife and mother, I didn’t see myself as chasing down bad guys and wielding a gun, so the idea of writing a character like that really didn’t strike a chord.

Second, I was a dentist. Now, there had been lots of dentists in film and literature, but I struggled to remember the name of any dentist portrayed as a hero. My recollection was that the characterization of fictional dentists usually revolved around their being sadists, louts, or geeks. Although I was sure I could imbue my dentist with sterling qualities, I thought the profession lacked the sexy image that might be needed to interest an editor.

I vetoed a dental protagonist.

Last, I was a Jew.

My Judaism has always been important to me, and I have always loved the rites and traditions of my religion. I was raised in a Conservative home, but we bordered on traditional Orthodoxy. The term used today for my kind of observance is Conservadox. We always kept a kosher home, and we were somewhat Sabbath observant. We didn’t cook, sew, or clean on Saturday, nor did we wash clothing or turn on a vacuum. But we did turn on lights and watch TV. My father had come from an Orthodox home and was a native Yiddish speaker. He added a little of the Old Country to our lives. I loved watching my mother light Shabbos candles. I loved going to synagogue on Friday nights and eating stale sponge cake and drinking flat soda in the social hall. I loved cleaning the house for Passover with my mother and buying boxes of matzo-bread dough that has been baked for no longer than eighteen minutes to prevent it from rising. (My mother used to call it hemstitched cardboard.) I didn’t even mind fasting for Yom Kippur. I fasted earlier than was religiously required because I wanted to prove to myself that I could do it.

Judaism was such an integral part of my being that I had no real sense of self without it. This affiliation was only fortified when I met Jonathan, who was an observant Jew. For me, the change from Conservadox to Orthodoxy was more like a small step than a giant leap. I liked praying in an Orthodox synagogue-it was what I was used to-and it didn’t bother me not to watch TV on Saturday. As I got older, the prohibition against using electricity became a boon rather than a burden.

As I thought about my Judaism and how much it had made me who I was, I began to wonder if I shouldn’t make my characters Jewish. If I wanted to write about what I knew, it was a good start for my books to have Jewish content, and what better way than to have my protagonist be an Orthodox Jewish woman? But how would that play in Peoria? Would it be too limiting for the average reader?

I thought about that for a while. Since I enjoyed reading novels that took me into other worlds, I figured that there had to be readers out there who would enjoy learning about religious Jews. There had been some precedent for Jews starring in novels. For me, Chaim Potok was a tremendous source of inspiration. The Chosen had been one of the most successful novels of its day because it provided a peek into an ultra-religious life.

But Potok wasn’t a crime fiction writer.

Harry Kemelman had penned a very successful mystery series centered on a crime-solving rabbi. The books were informative, but they were also as much about temple politics as they were about murder. The series was far from the crime novels that I had found so compelling.

I narrowed down my definitions. I wanted to write about a Jewish woman in a religious enclave but somehow integrate this into the style of an LA crime novel. That meant darker, deeper suspense fiction. Would it make sense for my religious Jewish woman to run around exposing herself to danger and mayhem to solve a crime? Would it be too artificial to have her chasing clues and outsmarting the police? Might it be better if she was involved in the crime in some way but left the actual nuts and bolts of solving the crime to someone else?

Enter the professional.

To do the grunt work, I needed a police detective or a private eye. I chose the former because it was easier and faster to get a police detective involved in a capital crime. Private eyes have to be solicited, whereas the police are the first line of attack when trying to solve a homicide. I could have included a female detective, but I chose a male for contrast. And as long as I had a man and woman, well, what can I say? I’m a sucker for romance. (Which is why Peter was divorced and Rina was a widow.) You have to remember that I had no idea that this was going to be the first novel in a series. I was trying to throw in as much as I could to maybe attract an editor.

This is how Peter Decker and Rina Lazarus first made their public appearance. But to truly understand them, let’s look into their backgrounds.

My characters talk, and I transcribe what they say. I actually hear dialogue as conversation in my head. When I don’t get the words down correctly, my characters correct me. They repeat their conversation to make sure I heard it right. It’s as if I have a tape recording of what they say, and when I make a mistake, I put the tape recorder on rewind and listen again.

“I would never say that,” Decker tells me more often than not. “You’re translating my words like a woman. Understand that I am a six-foot-four, 220-pound man. Write it over.”

“You’re swearing,” Rina tells me all the time. “I don’t swear, and even on the rare occasions that I might use foul language, I wouldn’t use those words in that situation.”

I met Rina before Peter because we had the most in common, specifically our Judaism. By way of introduction, she said to me, “I am Rina Lazarus and I know you very well. Probably a lot better than you know me.”

I told her to go on.

She said, “I know you like reading novels that introduce you to all sorts of people and places. For those two or three hours, you like to be whisked away into an alternate universe involving people of different religions and ethnicities-Catholic priests, American Indians-on the racetracks, in the heart of the Deep South. I bet there are people out there who might enjoy reading and learning about our customs and religion as much as you like reading and learning about other customs and religions. Although we’re not exactly alike, we have much in common. Why don’t you write a story that includes me?”

“Who are you?” I asked her.

“Write me into a story and I’ll let you know.”

I agreed. When Rina first started talking to me, I felt that although she was smart and pretty, she was overly analytical and a little bossy. But that was before I got to know her well. So I decided that it wasn’t enough for Rina to tell me who she was going to be in my story, she also had to let me know who she was before I met her.

Rina Miriam Elias, born Regina Elias, is a child of Holocaust survivors. Her parents, Magda Laslow and Stefan Elias, were born in Budapest, Hungary, and were transported to Birkenau-Auschwitz in 1943, roughly a year and a half before the end of the war in Europe. They knew each other very briefly before the war, and they met again in the camps. Magda worked in the kitchen and helped her husband-to-be survive by stealing food and sneaking it to him. It was a very big risk. Had she had been caught, she would have been put to death immediately.