When Charles van Heck reflects on more than 50 years of writing, a subtle smile of pride steals across his face.

Van Heck, a resident of Dexter, published his first murder mystery Jan. 1, which he said has been three years in the making.

Her Future Past, which is available for download for $5.95 at Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble, follows lead character Ward Austin, a former FBI agent, who is charged with investigating the murder of a news reporter and subsequently discovers a connection to the death of a popular nightclub singer.

"I was reading about all these celebrity car accidents, and it gave me an interesting idea: What if someone staged an accident deliberately so they could walk away from their life," van Heck said about his inspiration to pen the book. "At its heart, this mystery is really a story of identity; how we identifty ourselves, and what we do to protect our personal identity."

The plot unfolds in a small town in the 1950s, which, van Heck said, was the ideal setting for his story.

"I wanted to tip my hat to the authors of the '50s like Erle Stanley Gardner, who is best known for the Perry Mason detective series," he said.

In order to do that, van Heck had to create a world that doesn't exist anymore.

"To write this story and write it well, I had to remove the fast-paced nature that we've come accustomed to," he said. "Instead of people reaching for cellphones, my characters are fumbling for a dime in their pocket to make a call on a pay phone."

Constructing a murder

Van Heck, a writer and published poet since the age of 12, has devoted much of his life to academic writing. He admits his interest in writing fiction didn't come until the 1990s, however, while he was a faculty member at the University of the South in Sewanee, TN.

While at the college, van Heck stumbled upon the story of Emma Edmonds, a Canadian woman who served in the Flint Union Grays military unit during the U.S. Civil War. She protected her identity as a woman by using the pseudonym Frank Thompson. 

The story inspired van Heck to pen his novel Mr. Lincoln's Elephant Boy, which was picked up by the University of Michigan Press. Due to issues with funding, the book was never published.

"It was during this time that the idea for Her Future Past was constructed, and I decided to self-publish it," he explained.

Utilizing several resources, including a friend who is an expert in ballistic analysis, van Heck went to work, closing himself off to the world for the next three years.

"No matter what you write, you have to do your research," he said. "People think writers sit down and write stuff off the top of their head. That simply is not true. As you start developing characters, they take form on their own."

The characters in the story are multidimensional, which van Heck said came after he spent hours studying movement, dialogue and mannerisms of people in public places.

"The characters reflect society," he said. "As the story evolves, you start peeling back the layers, and the reader gets more and more information."

Van Heck's character Ward Austin is a testament to the current public support for ending the U.S. government's "don't ask, don't tell" policy.

Austin is a former lieutenant in World War II. After the war, he joins the FBI but is dismissed on security grounds for being a homosexual — an idea van Heck said he was afraid would upset potential readers.

"I wanted to write a story that portrays homosexuals as human beings who have contributed and continue to contribute to society," he said.

When writing, the character development is one area he acknowledges often takes the longest.

"When you write fiction, you have to separate yourself from what others are writing because you don't want to get their data and voices confused with what you are doing," he said.

For van Heck, that means retreating to his personal home library, equipped with more than 3,000 books written by some of his favorite authors, including Wallace Stegner, Eudora Welty, Peter Taylor and Robert Frost, among others.

"I also like to take walks near the Huron River to organize my thoughts," he said. "As a writer, it's important that you take time for yourself, which includes minding your health."

Looking to the future

With the release of the book, van Heck is now focusing his efforts on a five-part investigative series of articles detailing crimes allegedly committed by U.S. Army 1st Lt. Michael Behenna of Oklahoma. Behenna is currently serving a 15-year sentence for the murder of an al-Qaida member.

"It's a truly sad story," van Heck said. "If you look at the evidence, it doesn't match up."

That story will be published on van Heck's website beginning in February, he said. In addition, he is already working on a sequel to Her Future Past and plans to reach out to the community by offering workshops on fiction writing for aspiring authors if there is an interest.

"The Stephen Kings of the publishing world are great at what they do; the problem is there are other authors who want to publish material that is just as good but can't because there's a monopoly on the market," van Heck said.

"Some people write because they are sold on money. You set a bar of excellence for yourself, and you go for it. I don't write for the money. I write because I have stories to tell," he continued. "For me, writing is telling what it is to be a human being."

Her Future Past is available online. Ten percent of the proceeds from each sale will be donated to Arbor Hospice in Ann Arbor. 

For more information on van Heck, visit whitmanpondcharlesvanheck.net.