Author R&R with Kate White

Kate White is the New York Times bestselling author of ten works of fiction—six Bailey Weggins mysteries and four suspense novels. For fourteen years she was the editor in chief of Cosmopolitan magazine, and though she loved the job (and the Cosmo beauty closet!), she decided to leave in late 2013 to concentrate full time on being an author.

Her books have received starred reviews from a variety of publications and she has been covered everyplace from The Today Show to The New York Times. Her first Bailey Weggins mystery, If Looks Could Kill, was named as the premier Reading with Rippa selection. Kate is also the editor of the recently-released Mystery Writers of America cookbook.

Her new novel The Wrong Man follows the mild-mannered owner of a Manhattan boutique interior design, Kit Finn. While on vacation in the Florida Keys, Kit resolves to do something risky for once, and when she literally bumps into a charming stranger at her hotel, makes good on her promise and acts on her attraction. But back in New York, when Kit arrives at his luxury apartment ready to pick up where they left off in the Keys, she doesn’t recognize the man standing on the other side of the door. She soon realizes she’s been thrown into a treacherous plot, deeper and deadlier than she could have ever imagined.

Kate stops by In Reference to Murder today to talk about writing her new book:

 

What I Learned at the Morgue One Morning

There are probably very few people who have sat in the viewing room of a morgue and realized that it was the perfect place for them to be at the moment, but I guess I’m one of them. It happened last October when I was doing research for my new book, The Wrong Man. I’d arranged to stop by the Miami morgue and not only check out the viewing room but also interview a couple of people who worked there, who, by the way, turned out to be incredibly helpful. The end result: I was able to write a scene for my book far more accurately than I would have otherwise.

I know there are some mystery and suspense writers who don’t believe in doing a lot of research and I can understand that. There’s a certain purity (and fun) to letting your imagination run wild and just making it up--based, of course, on a certain amount of knowledge from years spent living on the planet. Plus, writers are aware that readers generally (and generously) allow them some poetic license. When I interviewed Lee Child recently at the 92nd Y in New York City, he said that he doesn’t research but relies on all the data he’s collected in his brain over the years. And what a brain that is!

And of course research can sometimes get in your way. While talking to Harlan Coben for same series, he pointed out that research is often an excuse for not plopping your butt in the desk chair and just writing. So true.

But I have a confession: I absolutely love researching. There’s something about the process that I find both fascinating and also relaxing. Maybe because it’s methodical, and there never seems to be a lot of pressure when I’m doing it. My pulse rate goes down when I research and I find myself in almost a Zen state.  Plus, on more than a few occasions, it’s spared me from making a big mistake in my writing.

Take the morgue visit. When you view a body in some cities (like New York), you stand on the other side of a window. (You’ve probably seen that on old Law and Order episodes.) That’s how I originally planned to set the scene in The Wrong Man. But I wanted to be on the safe side so I scheduled a trip south and that’s where I learned that in Miami, family members of the deceased are shown photos instead. I was so glad I discovered that piece of info.

But to me what’s most exhilarating about research is that it sometimes provides details that can turn into fabulous plot points, stuff you might not have discovered if you hadn’t set off exploring. Lately I did some research on twins for a future book, and four or five Google pages down I discovered the most intriguing piece of information, something I’d never heard of. It has the potential to be an incredible plot twist.

Oh, I’d tell you what it is but then I’d have to shoot you—because I intend to use it in one of my next books!

 

To learn more about Kate White and her latest novel, visit her website where you'll also find purchase links and her tour schedule.

Author R&R with Patti Abbott

Blogger Patricia "Patti" Abbott is the creator and host of the regular Friday's Forgotten Books feature, but she's also a prolific author of crime short stories (with over 100 published!) and received a 2008 Derringer Award for her story “My Hero.” Her debut novel Concrete Angel from Polis Books has been a long time coming, but it's worth the wait for both Patti and crime fiction fans.

For the book, Patti drew upon her experiences of growing up in Philadelphia and was inspired by a news report of a mother and daughter charged with credit-card theft, where the daughter told the court her mother made her do it. Concrete Angel takes that concept and runs with it, delving into a family torn apart by a murderous mother straight out of "Mommy Dearest" and her children, especially her daughter Christine, who are victims until they learn that fighting back is the only way to survive.

Patti is currently on a blog tour and stops by In Reference to Murder to take some Author R&R and discuss researching and writing the book:

 

CONCRETE ANGEL takes place in Philadelphia and its suburbs in the sixties and seventies. I grew up in Philadelphia, a decade after the mother in the book, Eve Moran, and a decade and a half before her daughter, Christine. Not coinciding exactly in age with either character allowed me to take a step back from recreating myself too much. I wanted their reactions to come from my imagination rather than my experiences.

Getting Philadelphia and Bucks Country right was very important to me although I mostly used my memories of the city in that era to do that. Downtown Philly features prominently in several sections so I spent a lot of time reviewing maps of the downtown in that era. Online research is a god send. Of course, the town of Shelterville only exists in my mind as do various schools I mentioned. Very real though was the four department stores of my youth: John Wanamakers, Gimbels, Strawbridge and Clothier, and Lit Brothers.  It is hard to get across how much those stores defined Philadelphia in the fifties and sixties. So too the extravagantly gorgeous movie theaters and restaurants.

Mental illness plays a large part in this story. I relied on two books for help with the treatment of mental illness at the time. WOMAN AND MADNESS by Phyllis Chesler was the first to ask questions about women and mental health. It combined patient interviews with a history of women's roles in history, society, and myth. Chesler writes that there is a terrible double standard when it comes to women's psychology. Some of the treatment women received at the hands of their therapists was abusive if not felonious. The second book I read was MADWOMAN IN THE ATTIC. Now this book looks at the treatment of women in 19th Century literature and was not relevant to this era, but it helped me to form the character if not her treatment.

Although I read a news story about a mother and daughter arrested for various crimes they committed together, I deviated from their tale pretty quickly. I didn't relate much to the crimes themselves but more to the personalities of the women who would commit them, and what kind of relationship would lend itself to such crimes. And it was then that I remembered a childhood friend and her mother. Their relationship had the twisty, complicated nature of Eve and Christine's. Here was a mother who exerted exactly this type of control over her daughter even if it didn't lead to crimes.

Finding the humanity in Eve was important to me. She is a villain but why. I tried inject enough sympathy into her portrait to make her feel human. Is someone suffering from a undiagnosed disorder responsible for their crimes? If the era couldn't define her issues or treat them, should we hate her? I'll leave it to you to judge.

 

Pick up a digital or paperback copy of Concrete Angel today via all major online and brick-and-mortar stores - just follow the "buy" links on the Polis Books website.