Archbishop's web site Denver Catholic Register Parishes Catholic Pastoral Center
March 14, 2001
Local author pens murder mystery
Veronica Dolan labors 16 years on `Heir Apparently'
By Alwen Bledsoe
Catholic, Irish, and a grandmother of two, Denver resident Veronica Dolan, slaved over her recently published mystery "Heir Apparently" — and she couldn't be happier that her labor is finally over.
"I have worked for sixteen years for this moment," the 72-year-old Dolan, said, adding that the book is "a fast-paced whodunit with snappy dialogue, humor, and a gentle romance."
Self-published through 1stBooks Library, the novel is available both in paperback and as an e-book.
"Heir Apparently" is set in Colorado and features the murder of an oil-tycoon known — and hated — for his penchant for practical jokes. The oil-tycoon carries the treacherous habit beyond the grave, leaving a will that turns his relatives into the hapless victims of his final joke, as it requires them to complete four humiliating tasks to claim their inheritances.
The heroine of the novel, Quinn Farley, who is a genealogist like Dolan, becomes embroiled in the mystery because of her mother's intriguing ties to the dead man.
Dolan first discovered the world of publishing and research when she traveled through places as diverse as Ireland and Wyoming while researching husband Robert Dolan's largely Irish ancestry. She wrote a 300-page history of the Dolan family and published it privately in 1990.
Dolan herself is Irish. Her father, Daniel McArdle, was a proud Irishman who was born and raised in Banbridge, County Down, in Northern Ireland. He came to the United States in 1907 and moved to New York City where Dolan was raised.
From genealogy Dolan moved onto writing mystery novels in 1984 when her oldest daughter, Maggie Dolan Scher, left for Kenya with the Peace Corps.
"I started to write my murder mystery to take my mind off her absence," Dolan said. "I think when you grow older and your children are gone from home, you can either do something positive, or you can sit and complain that your kids don't call everyday."
The road to publication has been full of obstacles for Dolan, not the least of which was learning to use a computer.
"It was very difficult for me," she said. She describes herself as "a mechanical klutz."
Even after the book was written, Dolan continued to encounter hindrances to success with it. She received numerous "rave rejections" from editors who loved her book but deemed it "hard to market," she said.
"Could I talk about struggles," Dolan said. "I had two agents, and they worked so hard for me. I had such good contacts with New York editors, but they want a book which they are sure will sell at least 25,000 copies. They want a blockbuster and they don't want to fool around with a new author."
Her book, she continued, was quite different from what editors were looking for.
"My books are genteel. They are not burdened with gratuitous sex and violence," Dolan said. "My books were not right at the time, but they're good, and I'm getting fan mail."
Famed American writer and Trappist monk Thomas Merton is one of the great influences on Dolan's faith and writing, as was her parochial education, Dolan said.
"The basis of my ability to write, and I've had a career of 50 years as a writer and a researcher, was the Catholic education I received," she said. "I had 15 years in Catholic schools and that's where I got my foundation in grammar, sentence structure, spelling, and writing technique."
What advice would Dolan give to budding writers? Take a course in fiction writing and get involved in a critique group, she said. She didn't, but now wishes she had.
Despite her determination to write the book on her own, Dolan admits to being influenced by many books and authors, even attributing much of her decision to write mysteries to her childhood love of Nancy Drew books, which she said could be bought for 50 cents when she was growing up.
"As all lady mystery writers will admit," she said, "Nancy Drew books changed [my] life," she said. "The mystery writer I would love to write like is Janet Evanovich. Some of the readers of my book say that I write like [her], which is a high compliment." "Oh, there are so many good [authors] out there," Dolan said, "and let us hope I become one of them."
