Debut Mystery Novel Weaves Fact With Fiction

Fingerprints. Finance. Foul play. These seemingly unrelated things all come together in a new work of fiction that focuses on how quickly and drastically life can change.

Life experiences anchor the imaginative creation of first-time author John Powell, whose accounting career and habit of enjoying a daily walk inspired his new mystery novel, “The Car Tag,” available on Amazon. Its main character is a family man enjoying a quiet, empty-nester routine with his wife and a satisfying job as an accountant at his small town’s utility company — until he is arrested for the murder of a longtime acquaintance.

The subtitle, “A Story About the Disguise of Truth,” describes the thread that runs through the novel: Circumstances beyond a person’s control can change a life. For Powell’s character John Manning, elements of that “disguise” include his fingerprints found on the window of the murder victim’s truck and its missing license plate, along with a misleading video provided to police by the true culprits. These combine to convince the authorities Manning is the killer. Fortunately for Manning, the victim’s daughter is not so sure.

The concept for the book came to Powell, chief financial officer at North Alabama Electric Cooperative, after a walk through his Scottsboro neighborhood. “Part of my walk is on a busy road, and when a car came by, I had to step over into the ditch,” Powell says. “I looked down, and there was a car tag. I picked it up and started wondering: Whose is it? What’s it doing here? You know, the who, what, when, where and why.

“I left it there, but I walked another lap, came back by, and just picked it up. I took the tag home and developed a story.”

Like Powell, in the novel, Manning is in the habit of taking daily walks. During 1 of those, he steps off the road to avoid a speeding car. He sees a car tag on the ground, picks it up out of curiosity, and eventually tosses it down — leaving the tag, and on it his fingerprints, behind. “So, that’s the inspiration of the story, the tag,” Powell says. “It’s all fiction, but I weaved a lot of personal concepts and beliefs into the characters. It’s set here in this area, but I changed all the names — Scottsboro to Scottsville, things like that.”

While the characters are from Powell’s imagination, many names are from his contacts list — mostly co-workers at Scottsboro Electric Power Board, from which he retired as finance and human resources manager in 2021, the year he started writing the book. “Some of them I use their first name, some I use their last name,” he says. “I just looked through my contact list for 1 and 2-syllable names I thought would go with a character and that somebody could remember.” But the last name of the accused, Manning, is an homage to Hall of Fame quarterback Archie Manning who played for Powell’s alma mater, the University of Mississippi.

The Write Stuff

Powell says being a book author has been “a bucket list thing for me. I didn’t care if I only sold 1 copy, I just wanted that book to be in my hand.”

And he continues to write, with 2 more books in the works. He spends his evenings after work writing. He records ideas on his cell phone. During drives with his wife, Connie, she helps him by jotting down notes he dictates to text to him.

“My mind is always racing,” Powell says, “and I’ve got a lot of ideas. I can’t draw. I can’t sing. But I can write. And I’m having fun. I don’t have to be excellent at all of it. I can just get the idea and the words and the story down and get somebody to help me clean it up.”

1 of his new books, a mystery, will be set in 1980s Laurel, Mississippi, where he grew up. “Fiction is supposed to be make-believe,“ he says, “but I’ve been finding out that some real stuff can be in there. I wanna go back to the 8-track days. I’m trying to figure out how to weave the story into the pieces. Now I’m fixing to start putting bones to it, some chapters and things like that.”

Not only a book author, Powell has written and performed in plays for his church. But these creative outlets come alongside a 40-year career putting to use his Ole Miss accounting degree, nearly half that time in the electric utility sector. After retiring from SEPB, he worked full-time at a local construction firm he had served since its creation. But when the finance job at NAEC became open, Powell says, “somebody got us connected, and I said, ‘You know what? I want to go back to the utility business.’ I say this is my second tour of duty. I need to do this.”