Jim Stein thinks he has the solution to make an intriguing collection of 14 short stories: Take romance plus crime fiction and use mathematics to solve mystery.

For example, in his new book “L.A. Math: Romance, Crime and Mathematics in the City of Angels,” the 74-year-old emeritus professor in mathematics at Cal State Long Beach, use percentages to solve an embezzlement case, statistics to show a basketball game was fixed, algebra to find out who stole $400,000 in jewelry and economics to resolve a tangled election.

Stein will discuss “L.A. Math” and teaching math in school during a colloquium at noon March 4 at Cal State Long Beach, in the Faculty Office Building 3, Room 200-A, 1250 Bellflower Blvd.

Patterns and phenomena

“Mathematics is about patterns and understanding phenomena,” said Stein, a Redondo Beach resident who is also an adjunct lecturer at El Camino College. “I like to know how things happen and why they happen.

“Some people might be historians or detectives, but I like numbers, “ he said. “The mathematics of reasoning are appealing and the results are amazing. There’s a beauty to it.”

“L.A. Math” has three main characters: Freddy Carmichael, Lisa Carmichael and Pete Lennox. Freddy is a private investigator who moves to Los Angeles after a recent separation from his wife Lisa.

Freddy moves into a guesthouse in Brentwood that is owned by Pete, who has an uncanny ability to apply mathematics to Freddy’s investigations. As a result, the two become partners in a private investigations firm.

“It’s a crime detective story, but the sidekick is not a detective. He just likes math,” said Vickie Kearn, executive editor of mathematics and computer science books at Princeton University Press, which published “LA Math.” “Math is not something you memorize. Math is a story you tell.

“Math is not boring,” she said. “Math is fun.”

Math also is a key plot point in all the stories.

Amazing math examples

• In chapter one, “A Change of Scene,” Freddy has to figure out who is selling corporate secrets to a competitor and Pete uses mathematical logic to uncover the culprit.

• For chapter six, “Message from a Corpse,” the murderer of a wealthy widow is revealed through the rules of compound interest.

• In chapter nine, “The Winning Streak,” Pete turns the tables on an unscrupulous bookie with conditional probability.

“Math is just a part of ordinary life,” Stein said. “Many people find math uncomfortable and difficult, so I wanted to create stories for people to enjoy about math. I also wrote the stories for people who like math and could appreciate it.”

“L.A. Math” is Stein’s first fiction book after writing several math trade books, including “Cosmic Numbers” and “How Math Explains the World.”

‘Like to explain things’

Writing complete fiction isn’t Stein’s forte, but math provides a bridge for him to write crime stories.

“I don’t think I could write a 100 percent fiction book. I don’t have the background, but I like to explain things,” he said. “With mathematics, it can be woven into many types of things.”