Jim Cunningham

During my six-year tenure as a funeral director after retiring from the El Cajon Police Department in 2005, I had occasion to attend a lot of funerals... a LOT of funerals. I was amazed at the number of times I heard people, referring to the dearly departed, say things like, "He wouldn't have changed a thing." If that were true, then the dearly departed was either a fool or the most insensitive person I'd never met - or maybe just full of themselves. Personally, I would change a lot of things. A lifetime of years on this Earth has taught me and provided experiences from which I have grown. In a variety of situations, the old saying applies, "If I would have only known then what I know now...." That being said, I did some things right, too. You decide - or guess - what I did right and wrong.

I was hired by the City of El Cajon effective 10/16/78. Over the next almost 28 years, I worked a lot of different assignments, but if I had to identify my career by one assignment, it would be child abuse and sex crimes. In this assignment, my fellow investigators and I were usually assigned to head up the crime scene processing in homicide cases. We investigated child deaths and, occasionally, for whatever reason, were assigned as the lead agent in a homicide investigation. I was both honored and humbled. There is a great responsibility in being called out when "the worst thing happens".

I retired from ECPD in 2005 as a lieutenant. That is about as far as you can get from real police work. I might as well have been an insurance salesman! Bored, I wandered around a little until I got a job at El Cajon Mortuary as a funeral director. That lasted 6 years, until the mortuary was bought up by a big corporation. I enjoyed serving families and helping them in their times of need. That was a lot more like police work than being a lieutenant!

Having written short stories, magazine articles and even a few news pieces, I made the jump to trying a novel on for size. I have a sack full of stories from both police work and the mortuary business, and so was born my first literary baby, CHASING SMOKE.

"How long did it take to write CHASING SMOKE?" many people ask. Eight months and 28 years.

"How lo g did it take to write MELTING ICE?" About the same.