The first Max Fields will not be premiering in February, after all. There is much drafting I need to do, and with school starting back up again, that will be a little slow going.

I will also NOT, after much thinking, be premiering it on Tapas or Wattpad. Instead, I have decided that I will publish it as a whole in book/e-book form once it is done. I will still post a preview on here, though.

Anyway, here is a little more information on Book #1 and the series as a whole.

Why I picked 1962 as a start date for the series: In 1962, Illinois became the first U.S. state to decriminalize private homosexual acts. [Source]

Series Characters

Maxwell Knut Fields (“Max”): Born June 3rd, 1932, in Lake Water, South Dakota. A former Chicago Homicide Detective was fired in 1962 after his superiors found out about his homosexuality. He decides to leave his life in the Windy City, moving to Wyvern, where he becomes a private detective, much to the chagrin of his cousin, Lakeshire County Sheriff Alex Fields, whose cases Max will start to butt in on. He also decides to be open about his homosexuality, putting him at the center of Wyvern’s gossip web.

Sheriff Alexander Isaac Fields (“Alex”): Born October 30th, 1929, in Wyvern, Illinois. The Sheriff of Lakeshire County, Illinois. He and his wife, Rachel, are expecting their first child in the first book. He is very by-the-book but gets aggressive when his authority is challenged. He is one of the few members of the Fields Family that accepts/knows about Max’s sexuality.

Undersheriff Johnathan Nicholas MacPherson (“Johnny”): Born April 19th, 1940, in Almond Hill, Illinois. He entered the LCSO in 1960 after completing training but was promoted in January 1962 to Undersheriff after a corruption scandal. In the first book, Mr. Fields Comes to Town, he reveals to Max that he is also homosexual.

Isaiah Duke Adams (“Izzy”): Born February 17th, 1946, in Wyvern, Illinois. Although just shy of 16 when he meets Max, he asks to work under him because of his love of mystery books. Max decides to hire him part-time due to his rather enthusiastic work ethic and connection to Wyvern’s teenaged community. Isaiah is homosexual and African-American.

Beatrice Corrine Zampa (“Betty”): Born November 20th, 1931, in South Lakeshire, Illinois. Max meets her at an underground gay bar outside Wyvern, The Violet. Max brings her onto the team after seeing how tough she is when a homophobic man starts causing trouble at The Violet.

Rachel Nora Fields (nee Horwitz) (“Rach”): Born December 7th, 1929, in Eau Claire, Wisconsin. Alex’s wife and a nurse at Wyvern General Hospital. While Alex and Johnny aren’t usually enthusiastic about Max’s butting in on their cases, Rach encourages him and will sometimes even help with cases through her position at WGH, to a certain limit. She is due to give birth in the first book.

Samuel Terrence Lancer (“Sam”): Born January 31st, 1932, in Eugene, Oregon. Died July 4th, 1954, in Wyvern, Illinois. Max’s first boyfriend. Sam and Max were in a car crash in 1954, from which Sam died from his injuries, leaving Max with survivor’s guilt. He sometimes appears to Max as an apparition or dream, especially after Max moves to Wyvern.

Martin Humphrey Cornell: Born September 9th, 1925, in Chicago, Illinois. A recurring antagonist, he is a career criminal based in Wyvern.

Book 1 Synopsis: Mr. Fields Comes to Town

Thursday, February 22nd, 1962.

Having been fired from the Chicago Police Department, Max Fields decides to restart his life by moving to the medium-sized city of Wyvern, Illinois. He buys the house behind his cousin, Sheriff Alex Fields, and finds himself grabbing the attention of local businessman and heir Tobias Travis, with whom he enjoys a night of passion. The next day, Tobias calls Max in a panic when he finds his boss murdered. Max inserts himself into the investigation, with the help of locals Izzy Adams and Betty Zampa, and tries to get to the bottom of a series of murders surrounding the will of a late Wyvern executive.

Meanwhile, Alex’s Undersheriff, Johnny MacPherson, who has been struggling to understand his sexual identity, becomes infatuated with Max and admits these feelings to Rachel, his boss’s pregnant wife. As a result of this crush, Johnny becomes a semi-ally for Max, acting as a peacekeeper between the Fields cousins.

Max himself has some personal struggles, as well. Moving to Wyvern was tough, but he came back to Wyvern for closure, seven-and-a-half years after the death of his boyfriend, Sam.

Who’s behind the murders? Where’s the executive’s son-in-law? What does a local diner have to do with this case? Will Johnny work up the courage to tell Max his feelings? Will Max get the courage to face his past?

All these and more are answered in Max Fields #1: Mr. Fields Comes to Town.

Setting: I mentioned why I picked 1962 Illinois for my Historical Mystery series, but here’s a little more info on that:

-I came up with the idea for Max Fields while doing research for a school project in 2015. The project was to create a tri-fold presentation on a civil rights issue we cared about, and I, while still closeted at the time, picked LGBTQ+ Rights. While researching the history of LGBTQ+ rights in the United States, I learned that Illinois updated its criminal code in January 1962, Seven and a half years before Stonewall, to decriminalize private homosexual acts. They were the first state to do so. The second U.S. state to update their criminal code in this aspect, Connecticut, did so in 1971, nine years later.

-I thought in my 14-year-old brain: “Hmm… maybe I could get a story from that.” It was an exciting thing to think about: a gay Illinois man living in 1962: sort of a time between the Beat Generation and the 60s counterculture, a year in which social rights movements were shifting American culture and policy.

-I decided to go for a fictional setting in this series: Lakeshire county, which sits on the Lake Michigan shore of Northeast Illinois, on the border with Wisconsin. Wyvern, the county seat, has been sort of a “Midwestern Provincetown” (or a “gay haven”) since at least the 1920s. However, with the new criminal code, the LGBTQ+ communities in Wyvern and nearby Almond Hill are growing faster than before.

-If I had to describe the overall political stance of Lakeshire County, I would say center-leftist. In the early 60s, the county still had its fair share of homophobia but was more accepting than most of America was at the time.

-The predominant religion in the area is Lutheran.

-The county also seats Wyvern State University.

-The county public access station is WYVN, and the local newspapers include the Lakeshire Letters and the Almond Hill Gazette.

Timeline: Unlike Blue City Mysteries, I don’t know how many Max Fields books I want to write. However, I want the in-series chronology to go until the bicentennial, so the stories will all be set between 1962 and 1976.

Illustrations: I plan to have the Max Fields books illustrated, but not by me.

That’s all the information I’m posting right now, but keep an eye out for more about Max Fields soon!