The world is full of kids who have slipped through the cracks, fallen to the wayside, abandoned by the world in general. The detectives of Riverside have chosen to do something about it. They are a group of people, each with varying skills, intent on finding and rescuing the children who have suffered in silence for far too long. From runaways to abused orphans, Raisa and her team will stop at nothing to bring a kid home. Sometimes, however, they fail, and in order to keep their business afloat, they have to take on tasks that don’t line up with their usual passion. Jealous co-workers, office drama, and a missing employee of the month are not what they signed up for. They will take the case anyway, and hope that they can back to their real job before time runs out.

The Riverside Private Investigators started out as a project to take all of my friends and turn us into a detective agency. It was a lot of fun to share with them and show them a version of themselves on paper and they had a great time with it. As always, even though they started off based on people I knew, all the characters quickly became their own creation, and I was attached to them.

Raisa was originally based off of myself, specifically using that strand of my personality that loves pulling a team of people together and putting all their best skills out there to make something happen. However, Raisa became something of her own, a serious and determined lead investigator who for the most part stayed at the office and watched all the different pieces come together. While I absolutely love her, it was the man on the field who became my favorite character. Donovan is based off of my brother-in-law, who was my friend long before we were related by marriage. Both of us love working with kids, so I knew that he was going to be a perfect character on a team who specialized in missing children. Creating his tough and charismatic persona was a lot of fun, and he makes all the hilarious wisecracks you’d expect of a cocky field investigator.

A second story is in the works, and this one will focus more on Donovan and the work he puts into the kids in his community, which is a reflection of what the man he’s based off of has done for the kids he’s looked after throughout his life. You’re awesome, Jordan, and I hope you appreciate Donovan’s character.