A number of years ago – never mind what number – when the Haunted Guesthouse series was in mid-swing, my editor asked me if I’d like to start another series, something else that would have a paranormal bent to it. It should be funny, because that’s my “brand,” (I’m told) but it shouldn’t just involve regular walking-around people.

She has one unbreakable caveat, however: “NO ZOMBIES!”

That wasn’t a problem for me because I have no interest in zombies. They have no interest in me, either, and I’d like to keep it that way. So having conquered the realm of ghosts, I thought, what was left to have some fun with?

Vampires? Been done. Werewolves? Done to pieces. Creature From the Black Lagoon? Does anyone care about that one anymore? (Even if a recent best picture winner did have him getting it on with a human woman.) There was, in my estimation, only one classic “monster” left to be a private investigator.

Frankenstein, P.I.. Now, that’s funny.

It was clear from the beginning that I’d have to dispense with much of the mythology from the original, started by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley and ended hilariously by Mel Brooks. There would be no digging up of bodies. There would be no unfortunate brain mishap. And the whole 1818 horse-and-buggy thing? That had to go.

It has to do with research. In order to get all that right I would have had to do tons of research, never having lived in 1818 and only having read the novel once, in high school (I rather liked it as I recall). Research would have been the backbone of that version.

I hate research. To me, if Google doesn’t cough it up, it’s too much work.

So my Frankenstein (who I originally envisioned as a descendent of the original, although who the long-ago mom would have been was a question, since Elsa Lanchester and her interesting hairdo didn’t seem the least bit interested. He – or she – would be a modern-day type of manufactured person, ashamed of their heritage and all in all not about to hang out in Transylvania or Germany or wherever the hell they were.

And it was sounding like a lot of research again. That was a turn-off.

So, having never read Henry David Thoreau, I decided to heed his advice: “Simplify, simplify.” Thanks, Hank. One of these days I’ll catch up with Walden and see what I’ve been missing. Although Civil Disobedience sounds more my style.

Then I realized the simplified answer was staring me in the face. Frankenstein. Fran and Ken Stein (Stein was my late mother-in-law’s birth name). Of course.

So the “monster” because Fran and Ken, brother and sister (sort of) who were less born and more created, by two brilliant scientists who mysteriously fled their New York City home and left the children with their “Aunt Margie,” a radio crime reporter who had befriended them instead of breaking their story.

Naturally, having been without parents for most of their lives, the now-adult Fran and Ken opened a private detective agency that specialized in helping adopted people find their birth parents (it’s not all they do, but it’s their main line of work). And some of the classic Universal Frankenstein tropes would have to be updated.

Bolts on either side of the neck to receive lightning for power? That’s so 1818. No, Fran and Ken have USB ports under their left arms and plug themselves into the wall every few days to keep their power at its peak. Laboratory assistant called Igor? They’re detectives; they don’t need a lab assistant. But they do hire Igavda, a Bulgarian émigré who acts as their receptionist despite not speaking much English.

Mobs of villagers carrying pitchforks and torches? You’ll have to read the book (UKULELE OF DEATH) to see if/how that one comes up.

Editor’s Note: You really should read this book. It’s excellent!

There are serious issues to confront, as there were in previous incarnations of the myth. What does it mean to be human? How does someone who’s “different” connect with others? Should a very tall science experiment date a fairly short police detective?

UKULELE OF DEATH is the first in a series. Luckily there are endless Frankenstein stories to tell, and the series will explore all the possible ways in which two “manufactured” people might have trouble coping in New York City in the 2020s.

But don’t expect any research. I hate research.

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E.J. Copperman is rumored to be someone else in a very unconvincing disguise. Besides the Fran and Ken Stein Mysteries, E.J. writes the Jersey Girl Legal Mysteries and has written the Haunted Guesthouse, Agent to the Paws, Mysterious Detective and Asperger’s Mystery series. All that without having done almost any research.