The question isn’t whether Matt Abraham’s murder mysteries are at least influenced, if not inspired, by real events. The question is why the inspiration seems to hit before the real events happen.

Abraham says he finished the first draft of “PG&E” just three months before disgruntled medical patient Luigi Mangione gunned down UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson on Dec. 4, 2024.

The same thing happened in 2022 when he finished the first draft of “Old Debts,” the series opener which brings private investigator Jake Carter to Stockton to sleuth the serial killings of homeless people. Three weeks later, on Oct. 15, 2022, Stockton police arrested Wesley Brownlee in connection with a series of killings, most of them of homeless people in Stockton.

“Just a weird, weird coincidence,” Abraham said when asked about his eerie ability to style murder mysteries that anticipate public interest in exactly those kinds of killings.

Abraham, 50, does not claim to be a psychic. He lives in an upscale neighborhood on the west side of Stockton and was until recently a stay-at-home dad to two children ages 8 and 11. He now works as an elementary school teacher. He writes at night. Although he grew up in Philadelphia, he lived for years in Singapore, China and Hawaii before the family settled in Stockton eight years ago so his wife could take a job at the University of the Pacific.

And to be fair, reality has only a limited grip on this book. “PG&E” is clearly an escapist fantasy. The style is a contemporary update of the classic hard-boiled detective novels written in the past century.

Abraham says his influences are the likes of Mickey Spillane, Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler. His goal is to give his readers something they will want to read on vacation. Lots of action. Not too much gore.

Consider, for example, the amazingly robust private investigator Jake Carter. During the course of “PG&E,” Carter gets banged on the head with a baseball bat, knocked out by a jiu-jitsu expert, has his foot chewed by a puma, has multiple guns fired at him and suffers burns in a house fire, all without once going to an emergency room. A medic does try half-heartedly to shoo Carter to an ER after the house fire. Carter declines.

Abraham said reality did offer some very distant inspiration for Lindsay Pinault’s backstory. “PG&E,” of course, is an acronym both for the novel and for Pacific Gas & Electric Co. The real CEO of Pacific Gas & Electric Co. is Patricia Poppe.

Fictional Pinault has a $50 million-a-year salary. The real Poppe has a much lower base salary of $1.4 million, according to SEC filings. Yet it is also true that Poppe’s total compensation did exceed $50 million in 2021, although that was thanks largely to a $6.6 million performance bonus and $41 million in stock awards. She has not earned nearly that much any year since then.

Another difference: The fictional Pinault drove her own car to a secret meeting at a Stockton hotel. Then the fictional Pinault was shot. The real Poppe would not drive her own car for such a meeting. At least not now.

Footnotes in the Pacific Gas & Electric Co. proxy filing for 2026 show that starting in 2025 — in the wake of the UnitedHealthcare CEO assassination — PG&E conducted a security assessment and began requiring Poppe to use a company-provided car when she drives anywhere, whether for business or personal purposes. Poppe is also required to use private, leased jets when she flies for any purpose “when there is an identified security need.” In 2025, the company spent more than $4 million on ground transport, air transport and security details for Poppe, according to the SEC filing.

Abraham says he was aware of news accounts of Poppe’s $50-million-plus compensation back in 2021, and that’s why he used that amount as a salary for Pinault. Abraham said he did not read the SEC filings, was unaware of her security detail requirement and did not research Poppe before writing the novel or even know that she was still CEO.

“I want something to feel real, not necessarily be real,” Abraham says. “CEO pay is kind of out of control.”

The yawning gulf of mistrust between America’s residents and its corporate leaders is key context for the mystery of Lindsay Pinault’s death and multiplies the number of possible suspects.

Stockton police Detective Jeffrey Messer says as much when Carter goes to him for a backroom chat about the case. Messer cites Pinault’s large salary and West Coast Electric’s power outages, wildfires and rate hikes.

“You know, I can’t think of anyone who’d want to kill her … except every single homeowner north of Ventura.” Then he burst out laughing.

Police, however, don’t suspect “every single homeowner north of Ventura.” The book opens with police convinced they have already identified and arrested the killer. But Stockton’s fictional medical examiner, Dr. Nafissa Rayan, a Sudanese immigrant, is friends with the accused and believes he’s innocent.

Rayan, who teamed up with Carter in “Old Debts” to crack the homeless serial killings case, recruits him again to find the “real killer.”

Both Carter and Rayan are damaged people with horrific trauma in their pasts. And each only gradually learns why the other is capable of great sacrifice and moral courage, while also incapable of intimacy.

As the two confront suspect after suspect, readers will see that the relationship is deeply caring, despite the brittle banter. Several, but not all, of their deep dark secrets are revealed in “PG&E.”

Eventually, Carter does solve the case, and justice is done. But the final conclusion of the case also represents a new rupture of sorts between him and his partner, which I won’t spoil by describing..

So will the two ever admit their deep bond or reveal their pasts? Will they ever get their wish for a case to work together where they won’t be shot at?

Readers eager to find out have reason for hope, according to the author.

“There’s going to be three more books,” Abraham says.

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