Bruns Turns Up 'Heat' in 2nd Mystery Novel By Mike Lackey, Lima News The writing doesn't get any easier. Neither does the research. Don Bruns originally went to Jamaica on vacation. It was only after his return that he realized the impressions he'd picked up there might be useful background for a book. The book turned out to be his successful mystery novel, "Jamaica Blue." After that, when he went to Barbados for five days, the trip was strictly business. He hired a driver and gave him a list of things he wanted to see. The driver soon caught onto what Bruns was doing and started making suggestions of his own. That driver, with his open-air office consisting of a table and a telephone line strung right off the pole, is now a character in "Barbados Heat." The only difference between the original and his fictional counterpart, Bruns said, is that his driver didn't get his van blown up. "Barbados Heat" (St. Martin's Press, $24.95) is Bruns' second mystery featuring Mick Sever, hard-digging music writer and veteran of the rock 'n' roll wars. The book should be available next week at BookEnds Used and Rare Books, 768 N. Main St. Having now published two novels in two years, Bruns said "Heat" required more "concentrated time," including a long weekend holed up in a hotel room doing nothing but writing. The expectations were higher the second time around. "I had learned so much by writing the first one that I had a lot more in my head to remember. I had a lot more rules that I had to think about, a lot more linear thinking," Bruns said. "After talking to the editors, my agent ..., it's not that it was a lot of extra work, but there are a lot of voices are in your head as you're writing." "Jamaica Blue" was a good book. "Barbados Heat" is better. The plot is more complex and the characters more sharply drawn. In his second go-round, Sever is embroiled in the murder of a self-righteous congressman who was engaged in a crusade against explicit lyrics in pop music. The case might or might not tie back to the unsolved murder of a young girl 20 years ago in Barbados. Suspects include an ex-con rapper and the congressman's icy, ambitious widow. Bruns also ratchets up the sexual tension between Sever and his ex-wife, Ginny. The book is full of characteristic Bruns touches, including references to musical acts from OutKast and Bustah Rhymes to Steely Dan and James Taylor. There's also a nod toward mystery writer Sue Grafton, one of Bruns' literary benefactors, and a cameo appearance by a shady lawyer named Don Witter. The real (not shady) Don Witter got a kick out of that, Bruns said. The two are old friends and Witter is an avid reader of modern crime fiction. This is a world where life, art and fantasy intersect. In the book, Mick is living comfortably off the royalties from a best-selling book called "Jamaica Blue." Here on the ground, "Jamaica Blue" has been a modest but legitimate success; having sold out its small hardback print run, the book is now available on tape and a new paperback edition is due out next month. Bruns has been seen around town driving a Porsche Boxster with JMCA BLU license plates. Bruns regularly rubs shoulders these days with writers who are on the receiving end of million-dollar book deals – guys like Michael Connelly ("Blood Work"), Dennis Lehane ("Mystic River") and Lee Child, author of the Jack Reacher mysteries. But Bruns still makes his living running a Lima advertising agency. He doesn't know when, if ever, he will start to think of himself as first and foremost a mystery writer, he said this week. Still, he has finished a third Mick Sever mystery and outlined a fourth. "I'm having a ball," Bruns said. "I wouldn't stop. If we didn't sell number three, I'd still write number four and number five. It gives you a real purpose. ... "I don't know what I did with the free time I had; it feels like I should be doing this." © 2003 Lima News. All rights reserved.