Author Will North has a tough job. He has to murder people and then outwit his readers as to who done it. Good thing he loves his work as a mystery writer, his chosen setting of Cornwall, England and the friends he makes in his literary line of duty. North plans to launch the second book in his Davies and West mystery series, “Too Clever by Half,” at 6 p.m. Friday at Vashon Bookshop.

When a fisherman finds a body floating in the unusually calm waters off Cornwall in the English Channel, an investigation reveals suspicious activities. North’s pet detectives, Major Crimes Unit Detective Inspector Morgan Davies and her Scene of the Crime Manager Calum West, are called into action to solve the mystery. North makes their jobs look seamless as they piece together the oddities of the crime, but that’s because of the research he does behind the scene to ensnare readers.

“Killing people is really hard work,” North said with his tongue firmly planted in his cheek. “It is complicated; you go through twists and turns in your own head trying to twist and turn the reader without letting them know what’s going on. It takes longer than a love story to write.”

North speaks from experience, having published three previous novels that fall under the category of romance and suspense — “The Long Walk Home,” “Water, Stone, Heart” and “Season’s End.” They all take place in North’s beloved England, but the Davies and West series required seeking advice from professionals, a task that delighted him.

North has a cadre of advisors from Cornwall with whom he consults — three detective inspectors, a chief forensic pathologist, a crime scene manager, chief archeologist in the area and the head of the Royal Cornwall Museum.

“After ghostwriting books on Al Gore, Bill Clinton (and others),” North said, “I can’t finish a sentence if I don’t have the facts. I sling off an email to Cornwall and have the answer the next morning.”

The answer might be how to poison a well or details about the Bronze and Iron Age sites that litter Cornwall and play key roles in North’s mysteries. In “Too Clever by Half,” the story features an underground chamber containing gold and silver artifacts from the Iron Age.

North said “Too Clever by Half” is based on a true event — a dead man floating in the English Channel — but the rest is fiction. Well, mostly fiction. Like all novelists, North draws inspiration from life. His main character Morgan Davies, for instance, is based on a woman who recently spent a week at his home on Vashon.

“She wanted to go to the Burton Coffee stand,” North said. “We went, and (a friend) ran out to the parking lot saying, ‘You must be Morgan Davies.’”

According to North, Davies is an irascible detective, brilliant at solving crimes but a rule-breaker. Her partner West is just the opposite, sweet and much loved by his team. The two detectives become entangled in a love-hate relationship, a subplot that developed in the first mystery.

North is currently at work on his third mystery, “Trevega House,” which will bring back characters from his novel “Water, Stone, Heart.” While North said he begins each novel with three general aspects — setting, character and theme — he admitted he’s not one to make an outline.

“I want to be surprised everyday by my characters. If I’m not surprised, the reader won’t be either.”