Today’s personal revelation (slightly edited from a Facebook post earlier today).

It occurred to me this morning that I haven’t read a mystery book in many months. I started what at the time was Michael Connelly’s latest novel back in June or so, but didn’t finish it. Why? I don’t know. I just didn’t. Perhaps there’s something wrong that I just haven’t diagnosed yet.

But this morning I suddenly understood why.

The real-world story I am trying to understand started back several years as I began trying to keep up with news about the new federal prosecutor who had arrived in town to investigate public corruption, and was picking on the police chief. Not long afterwards, I was sucked into reporting another story about the controversy over lights put on a tree in a public park in Hawaii Kai by someone named Mike Miske.

I quickly learned he had a reputation. People were afraid to talk about him. Before long, I was drawn into trying to figure out how he had manipulated the Honolulu City Council into going along with his unusual request for permission to take over this tree, and then his unusually hostile and privileged attitude towards city authorities when they tried to get him to comply with rules and legal boundaries. And at about that time, I started finding places where the two stories–the Kealoha corruption case and the Miske corruption case–crossed over and got intertwined.

And this morning it hit me that tackling this mystery in real time by trying to connect the dots and report its different elements is more intriguing, and more challenging, that any fictional plot, even by my current favorite among mystery writers.

I’m said for years that I’m mostly retired, but the mainstream media’s lack of resources and focus has left me lots of room to run with a story like this, and I’ve taken advantage of it by moving the story forward, one piece at a time. Despite writing a lot about it already, my list of as-yet unfinished stories is growing even faster.

So I won’t worry any more about those unread books. True crime has delivered a series of more advanced puzzles to solve.