For most of his life, R. J. Figura wrote ordinances, legal opinions, briefs and statutes. Now, after more than 50 years practicing law, the retired attorney finally got around to publishing his debut novel, “A Murder in God’s Country.” Released on June 9, the northern Michigan mystery is the culmination of decades of work.
“It all started back in 1980, when our family was on a one week vacation and staying in a little cabin on Glen Lake…it was loaded with paperbacks and at the time I had never read anything by Agatha Christie,” Figura explained. “I became hooked on Agatha Christie and so called cozy murder mysteries, and so I decided 15 years later that I would try to write one.”
Figura began writing in 1995 but the demands of a legal career and raising a family repeatedly pulled him away from the project. “That’s why the events in the book take place in the mid 90s,” he said.
However, he kept writing and by the time he retired in 2023 most of the book was already finished.
Set in Leelanau County, “A Murder in God’s Country” follows retired attorney Will Patterson who is settling into a new life in northern Michigan as a township supervisor only to find himself helping to investigate the suspicious death of a local hunter.
Like Patterson, Figura has a background working with local government as he spent his career representing townships, some even in Leelanau. Figura intentionally pulled from his experiences working with those townships, drawing on the rhythms of the meetings and interesting personalities that showed up.
“You get to know what they’re like,” he said. “You get to know all the different people and all the funny little things that happen.”
Those real life details shape much of the world surrounding the mystery. While the characters are fictional, many real places like Art’s Tavern, the Homestead, Glen Arbor and Leland are all heavily featured in the book.
The shift from legal writing to fiction, however, was not always easy since he spent his career working in strict fact based language.
“That was frankly the difficult part because I kept finding myself writing things that I thought were interesting or would be appealing to the reader. But then I kept having this thought in the back of my mind, ‘No you can’t say that, that’s not true, that’s not how things happen’,” he said. “Finally I decided, ‘If you’re going to be creative, be creative’.”
Once Figura gave himself that permission to think like a novelist instead of an attorney, writing became a regular part of his retirement.
At Cordia in Traverse City, where he lives with his wife Ellen, he participates in a writers group in which members share personal essays and short stories, along with a weekly newsletter called “The Chimes” that features articles by the residents.
Additionally, solving mysteries has become a community pastime in the community. Inspired by Richard Osman’s popular “Thursday Murder Club” series, Figura created a collection of short mystery stories he called “Heroes of Cordia.”
“Each (mystery) features a Cordia member who helps the police or others solve a crime or expose fraud or whatever,” Figura explained. “Each of their real backgrounds were used for their characters and provided them with the help they needed to help solve the particular mystery.”
While he will still be writing with and for his friends at the Corida, Figura is also already working on a second Will Patterson Mystery. The sequel is still in its early stages but Figura says readers will not have to wait nearly as long for the second installment as they did for the first.
Copies of “A Murder in God’s Country” are now available at book stores around the region. Figura will be signing copies at Horizon Books in Traverse City June 20 from 1 to 3 p.m.
