Tourism, and a good dash of mystery

LOUDON — The notion of New Hampshire’s tourism industry inspiring a mystery novel might seem strange, but it is the way Mark Okrant begins his books.

As a writer living in Loudon, Okrant knows more about the tourism industry than the average person. He also knows how to tell a good, page-turning mystery, taking the reader from start to finish in settings most New Hampshire residents recognize.

Okrant has written many books, mostly in the mystery genre, popular with readers everywhere. His interest in writing books started when he taught a class at Plymouth State University in tourism planning. “I needed a community for the students to get to know,” explains Okrant.

At the time, it was not practical to put the students on a bus for an extensive field trip to a community to study how tourism impacted an area. Okrant decided to write a textbook in the form of a murder mystery. His students would solve the mystery, read about people in a community and learn how tourism is successfully planned, all within the book. Called “Judson’s Island,” the textbook was a success. Although Okrant planned the book as a teaching tool, it gave him a taste of writing a mystery and he was off and running.

With an academic background, Okrant was born and raised in Connecticut and attended Southern Connecticut State, Texas A&M, and Oklahoma State University. “I decided I wanted to be an academic and got my first assistant professorship at South Dakota State University. From there, I went to Plymouth State University, and stayed there as a professor until the end of 2015. I continued to work part-time at Plymouth until this past spring.”

Okrant started off as a geology professor and went on to develop a program in tourism and taught it for over 20 years. “The tourism program was, at the time, new and there were only a few others in the country,” he says.

When Okrant was developing the tourism degree program, he talked with people in the tourism industry. Four of those key people, legends in New Hampshire tourism, took him under their wing: Steve Barber of the Balsams in Dixville Notch; Millie Beach who helped develop the Lakes Region into the leader in tourism it is today; White Mountain tourism expert Dick Hamilton, and Office of Vacation Travel leader Norm VanderNoot. Specifically, they taught Okrant about Lakes Region and White Mountain tourism. In return, they asked Okrant to do a study of the tourism market, where visitors came from and how they spent their vacation dollars.

This experience in tourism and a love for writing blended to give Okrant the idea of writing mystery novels set in the Granite State. Some of those stories are set in grand hotels, such as The Balsams and the Mount Washington Hotel, while another book is set on the M/S Mount Washington.

“There is an old cliche about writing what you know,” Okrant says. “I know a lot about tourism, and I was never daunted with the idea of writing a book; writing comes very naturally to me. I don’t really have a writing formula, but I am very organized. Some writers outline a book in advance, but I just start writing. The settings of my books mean so much, so I research by keeping notes to utilize information when I need it. For example, if I wanted to know, during writing a book, how many people are likely to be killed while building a bridge, I can refer to my notes.”

The first book in Okrant’s Kary Turnell series is set at The Balsams. “The Last Resort” took Okrant nine years to write because he interviewed the heads of each department at the resort, and that meant many, many people to share information, from dining to housekeeping.

About 75% of the time, Okrant knows how the book will end when he starts to write. Turnell, a detective, is based somewhat on Okrant. Turnell is a college professor when the first book begins.

To write a successful mystery book, Okrant say the writer must have a good protagonist with certain skills and foibles. And early in the book, it is important to capture the audience with a crime. “You have to make the crime serious enough that the reader will stay with the story and want to find out who did it,” he adds. “The story builds from there.”

As well as the mystery series, Okrant has written two books on motels titled “Sleeping Alongside the Road” and “No Vacancy.”

“I wrote the motel books because as a child, when we went on family trips, we always stayed in motels. In preparation for writing the books, I traveled to interesting motels,” he recalls.

These days, Okrant has turned to writing historical fiction and his first book in that genre is “The Justice Seeker.” Unlike many of Okrant’s other books, “The Justice Seeker” is set in Flagstaff, Arizona, in the 1890s. “It is sort of a western,” he adds.

Okrant is always thinking ahead to his next book, and says, “I am currently wracking my brain to plan how I am going to continue to do historical fiction writing. The settings won’t be limited to New Hampshire, and I am thinking of places like Maine, the western United States and Puerto Rico.”

Okrant has many books to his credit, blending New Hampshire’s interesting locations, the state’s tourism, and something most people find fascinating: a good mystery story.

Okrant’s books are available in most independent book stores in New Hampshire, and at Amazon. For a list of books and to learn more, visit markokrant.com.