For Robin Desman Spindt, who writes under the name Robin DS, becoming an author was not a sudden career decision. It was an idea that stayed with her for years while work and everyday life left little room to pursue it. A lifelong reader, Robin regularly turned to the New York Times Arts section, interested not only in bestsellers and new releases but also in the writers behind them. In 2007, while staying in a hotel room in Bogotá, Colombia, she finished a Janet Evanovich novel and found herself wondering how difficult writing a novel could really be. What seemed like a simple question at the time eventually became the beginning of a much longer journey.
The result is We’re Screwed, a 75,000-word amateur sleuth mystery set in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. The novel follows Roni Hirsch, a university professor with Tourette syndrome who suddenly finds herself at the center of a murder investigation when a dead body turns up in her warehouse. Almost immediately, Roni becomes the prime suspect. She is not a detective and has no particular desire to become one, but clearing her name means she can no longer afford to wait for someone else to find the truth.
A Mystery Shaped by Post-Katrina New Orleans
One of the defining elements of We’re Screwed is its setting. Hurricane Katrina is not simply a historical reference in the background. The storm’s aftermath shapes the atmosphere of the entire story. New Orleans is still dealing with damaged neighborhoods, flooded areas, unreliable systems, uncertainty, and the emotional consequences of devastation. Robin wanted the city to feel wounded, unpredictable, dangerous, and, at times, strangely funny. That instability creates the perfect environment for a mystery in which the characters themselves are never entirely sure what will happen next.
Roni’s best friend, Elisabeth Hebert, a homegrown New Orleans lawyer, joins her in trying to understand what really happened. Their investigation draws them into fraternity secrets, drugs, questionable loyalties, sexual misconduct, privilege, corruption, and the city’s entrenched Good Ole Boy network. The book’s blurb even places the women against dead bodies, alligators and snakes in muddy floodwaters, adding another layer of chaos to an already unstable situation. Unlike a traditional cozy mystery, Roni is not investigating because solving crimes is an entertaining hobby. She is doing it because her freedom may depend on finding the person responsible.
Robin also balances the darker material with comedy. We’re Screwed combines crime, social satire, academic humor, and real trauma without pretending that subjects such as Katrina, corruption, entitlement, or sexual misconduct are insignificant. The humor comes from the personalities, situations, and absurdities surrounding the characters. It gives readers space to laugh without removing the seriousness underneath the story.
An Outsider in an Insider’s City
Another important theme is the difference between living in New Orleans and truly being considered a New Orleanian. Roni is a transplanted New Yorker, while Elisabeth grew up in New Orleans. For Robin, that contrast is central to the story because the city operates through relationships, history, family connections, reputation, and unwritten cultural rules that an outsider may never completely understand.
Once Roni is accused of murder, that distinction becomes much more serious. She must determine whom she can trust while dealing with people who have shared histories and loyalties that she does not always understand. Her outsider status sometimes places her at a disadvantage, particularly when insiders appear willing to protect one another, but it also allows her to question assumptions that others might accept without hesitation.
Roni herself is also far from a conventional mystery heroine. She is intelligent, imperfect, sharp-witted, vulnerable, and often placed in situations for which she has no preparation. Her Tourette syndrome is an important part of her characterization, and Robin gives it a humorous dimension through Roni’s verbal tics, which are connected to George Carlin’s famous routine about the seven words that could not be said on television. The detail contributes to the irreverent humor of the novel while making Roni an unconventional protagonist who does not resemble the polished detectives often found in crime fiction.
The Long Road to We’re Screwed
Robin’s own journey toward completing the novel reflects many of the themes she explores in the story, particularly persistence and reinvention. Although she began thinking seriously about writing in 2007, full-time work prevented her from giving a novel the time and research it required. During the COVID years in 2020, she discovered an online writing community, and the goal began to feel possible again. She eventually told herself that if she was not published within five years, she would let the dream go. Instead, she continued moving closer to it.
The manuscript went through approximately ten revisions. Rejection letters arrived, but some also contained helpful suggestions. Robin’s writing friends encouraged her to recognize that agents were responding to something in the manuscript even when they were not yet prepared to represent it. Her process became familiar: allow herself to feel disappointed, step away when necessary, and then return to the work. Writing conferences and workshops, including the Pacific Northwest Writers Association conference and the Erma Bombeck Writers’ Workshop in Dayton, Ohio, became important parts of that development. Each conversation, pitch, workshop, and small sign of interest gave her another reason to continue.
Then, in 2023, the obstacles became physical. After receiving revisions from an editor, Robin brought the manuscript with her in the car because she was eager to read them. On the way home from dinner, another vehicle struck the car, leaving her with a broken hand. While recovering, she was later attacked by a neighbor’s dog during a monsoon storm and suffered a broken left ulna that required emergency surgery and further procedures. For weeks, she could not write, sew, knit, or take part in many of the creative activities that normally brought her comfort.
Once she recovered enough to return to the manuscript, Robin found herself even more determined to finish it. Rejection had not stopped her. Neither had injury, surgery, or time away from the page. Tenacity, she says, has always been a guiding force in her life, and it became equally important in her development as an author.
A Creative Life Beyond Writing
Robin’s creative background extends well beyond fiction. She has dyslexia and remembers wanting to become an author even when others suggested it might not be possible. She studied painting, sculpture, and jewelry design at Temple University, taught design and art history at several colleges, and operated a jewelry design business. She also worked in the Bridal and Social Occasion industry, serving more than 300 clients worldwide. Her MBA from Tulane later helped her combine creativity with business strategy while working with startups that grew into million-dollar operations.
Today, Robin lives in Tucson, Arizona, with her husband of twenty-one years, their two Shih Tzus, Goldie and Pumpkin, and their cat, Macy. Her studio overlooks the Catalina Mountains, and creativity remains part of her everyday routine. She spends her mornings writing and her afternoons working on art and sewing projects, continuing a sewing practice that has been part of her life for more than fifty years. Whether she completes a manuscript, a dress, or a piece of artwork, finishing something creative gives her a sense of purpose.
More Than a Murder Mystery
With We’re Screwed, Robin DS brings together a murder investigation, post-Hurricane Katrina New Orleans, university life, female friendship, fraternity culture, insider politics, social satire, and dark comedy. Readers who enjoy amateur sleuth mysteries, academic satire, Southern regional fiction, unconventional female protagonists, or wrong-place-wrong-time stories will find several familiar elements, but Robin combines them in a way that gives the book its own personality. She identifies Richard Russo’s Straight Man, D. G. Coutinho’s The Light and the Shade of Ellen Swithin, and Tony Dunbar’s Tubby Meets Katrina among comparative titles. Beneath the crime and comedy, however, We’re Screwed is largely a story about resilience. Roni must clear her name while navigating a city whose relationships and rules she does not completely understand. Elisabeth must stand beside her while their amateur investigation becomes increasingly complicated. New Orleans itself is still trying to recover from devastation. Behind all of them is an author who continued returning to her manuscript through years of revisions, rejection, injury, and uncertainty. That connection between Robin’s journey and Roni’s story gives the novel an additional layer: when circumstances become chaotic and the easiest option is to walk away, sometimes persistence simply means finding a reason to keep going.