Homicide Detective Writes His Way to Relief

When Dean Fulcher’s 10th-grade teacher in Munising, Mich., asked him whether he had considered a writing career, he blew it off to pursue his dream of joining the Marines and becoming a police officer.

But Mr. Lamberg’s question lingered in the back of his mind for two decades, and now Fulcher has joined the dozens of officers who have turned to the keyboard to solve fictional crimes as novelists.

The Santa Ana homicide detective wrote “The Grand Island Adventure” for teenage readers as a way to escape the grimmer side of his profession.

“We deal with the ultimate pain families go through,” said Fulcher, a cop for 17 years and a Coto de Caza resident. “It gets depressing.”

Although Fulcher, 40, had thought for years about writing a story for his sons, the final push came when his older son started reading a racy novel.

Wanting to produce a book free of vulgarity and sex, the detective worked into the early-morning hours for four months to write the 238-page novel he describes as “the Hardy Boys meet Nancy Drew.”

The story is about three teenagers -- two brothers and a girl -- who are trapped on Grand Island in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula during a severe storm. Their adventure begins when they come across criminals who had aided the escape of their leader, who had been sentenced to life in prison for murdering a teenager.

“He committed the crime for no other reason than to bolster his despicable reputation amongst the criminal circles in which he ran,” Fulcher writes.

Because the story emphasizes the importance of family, friendship and religious faith, Fulcher took the book to Tate Publishing, an Oklahoma company specializing in Christian-themed books. He hopes the novel will bolster moral values in those who read it.

The book includes numerous religious references. Before jumping into a lake to escape, the three teenagers recite their favorite Bible verses. Another time, a U.S. Coast Guard lieutenant, originally from Santa Ana, thanks God for helping him and his crew survive a helicopter journey in a violent storm.

Fulcher paid Tate $3,900 to publish and market the book. He receives royalties on sales, and if the book sells 5,000 copies in a year -- an unlikely prospect for a beginning novelist -- Tate will reimburse him the $3,900.

Fulcher’s 14-year-old son has read half the book, and his 11-year-old son is almost finished.

“The young one thought it was good, but he still likes Lemony Snicket better,” he said with a laugh.

Fulcher has finished his second novel, “Terror Comes to Town,” and started the third, “The Case of the Holy Relic.”

Marilyn Olson, president of the Public Safety Writers Assn., which has more than 50 members across the country, said law enforcement was a field that lent itself to writing because of its many different elements: technology, crime and camaraderie.

“They have a wealth of material,” she said. “In many cases, it’s bottled up and they want to do something with the stories they have.”

Many retired police officers, Olson said, write as a way of staying connected with their old jobs.

Others, like Fulcher, do it for therapeutic reasons.

“It’s kind of hard to stop thinking about the job, even on the weekends,” he said, adding that he would constantly second-guess himself about whether he missed key evidence in an unsolved case. “When I get into this, I don’t even think about work. It’s a good way to escape reality for a while and get into the story.”

Joseph Wambaugh, the most famous police writer, said he started because he simply had stories he needed to get out.

Wambaugh, who joined the Los Angeles Police Department in 1960, worked as a cop for 10 years before his first novel, “The New Centurions,” was published.

It was on the New York Times bestseller list for 36 weeks. Since then, he has written 15 more books.

“I was kind of an anomaly, a freak,” the 68-year-old Wambaugh said of his success. “I love to see cops write. I wish there were more.”

Although Fulcher encounters a wealth of material in his job, he doesn’t think it would be right to use it.

“Dealing with murders, I get really close to the families,” he said. “It’s almost like I feel I’m being disloyal to them if I use something that happened to them in my story.”

Fulcher said his wife, Allegra, wanted him to take his experience and familiarity with Orange County and write a detective novel for adults.

“If I took a little bit from every case I’ve worked, I could have a pretty good story,” he said. “But that seems like work. This is just fun.”