Lorna Soroko Mystery Writer | Private Investigator

When I was eighteen and looked like the girl next door, I used to sit next to murderers at their trials. My job was to engage with them. The lawyers wanted their killer clients to seem more innocent and likeable to the juries, not like the perpetrators of violent crimes. It was an early stab at branding, and it often worked.

At the same time, during my college years, I began my Nancy Drew dream job of investigating for criminal lawyers. In the course of my investigations, I got to know some of the murderers pretty well. I was still in my late teens when I began hearing first-hand the fervent beliefs, desires and resentments that our clients believed justified their fatal crimes.

One of my most intense experiences was with a seventeen-year-old killer, just one year my junior back then. I spent a lot of time with him during his case, and he was someone I would have been friends with if I hadn’t known about the brutal murder he committed. His deeply held conviction that survival of the fittest excused his crime remained unshaken.

Working with criminals inspired me to switch from my first love —creative writing—to law, and after almost five years of investigating, I headed off to law school, convinced that I wanted to be a criminal defense lawyer. Of course, it was the idea of it and not the reality that sent me in that direction. By the end of law school, the reality of spending my life defending murderers, rapists and drug dealers really sank in, and I jettisoned that goal. Don’t get me wrong. I’m super glad that other people are doing it. It just wasn’t the world I wanted.

I took a break from true crime to practice entertainment law in L.A., then crossed over to the creative side and developed TV series for a production company at a major studio in L.A. Many of the shows I developed had a criminal theme, and most of what I wrote for TV dealt with murder or related crimes. It was exciting, but after a number of years working in the Hollywood entertainment industry, I moved to Tucson, Arizona and returned to investigating. To the real thing. I took the leap and opened my own agency as a private investigator.

I’ve been busy!

I like facts and feelings more than the law, and that’s what I focus on in my p.i. cases. My two new cases today involve a crazed pit bull with fatal consequences and a bar shooting where the police mistook the victim for the aggressor.

I investigate a spectrum of cases but I specialize in wrongful deaths and catastrophic injuries. I work for the person/family that’s been hurt (for real, no fakes) or killed, so I have a sense of being on the high road. But that means I encounter a lot of emotions, much of it the deep grief of loss. Sometimes the loss of life, sometimes of a limb, of mobility, of companionship. There are too many types of losses to list. When I think I’ve heard all the tragic endings, there’s a new one, and it hurts to hear it.

I’m my clients’ investigator but I’m also the person they can talk to from their hearts, often for the first time since the loss happened. Those conversations can be lengthy and very moving. So, my investigating is partly for facts and often for feelings. It depends on what my particular investigatory goal is in that case.

My fictional sleuth, Marlo Logan, is braver than I am, and more outspoken. But as far as her stubborn streak and determination go, we’re on the same page. Marlo is a bulldog, not letting go until she solves her case, gets her answers, and vindicates an innocent client. She inspires me to be the same way, not to let go until I’ve saved the day. When I can’t do that in real life, there’s always a way in my mysteries.