Author R&R with Lisa Regan

Before turning her hand to writing crime fiction, Lisa Regan worked as a paralegal, martial arts instructor, certified nursing assistant, and bookstore manager. But she'd been writing novels since she was 11 years old when one of her parents brought home an old-fashioned typewriter. That love of writing morphed into her successful series, first with Claire Fletcher and Detective Connor Parks, and later with Detective Josie Quinn, all of which has led her to become a USA Today and Wall Street Journal bestselling author. 

In Vanishing Girls, which has just been released in paperback by Grand Central Publishing, Isabelle Coleman, a blonde, beautiful young girl goes missing, and everyone from the small town of Denton joins the search. They can find no trace of the town's darling, but Detective Josie Quinn finds another girl they didn't even know was missing. Mute and unresponsive, it's clear this mysterious girl has been damaged beyond repair. All Josie can get from her is the name of a third girl and a flash of a neon tongue piercing that matches Isabelle's.

The race is on to find Isabelle alive, and Josie fears there may be other girls in terrible danger. When the trail leads her to a cold case labelled a hoax by authorities, Josie begins to wonder is there anyone left she can trust? Someone in this close-knit town is committing unspeakable crimes. Can Josie catch the killer before another victim loses their life?

Lisa Regan stops by In Reference to Murder today to talk about "going undercover" — with dogs — to write and research the Josie Quinn series.

 

Shadowing Search and Rescue Dogs

Many of my books feature missing persons. In book 6 of my Detective Josie Quinn series, Her Silent Cry, a little girl goes missing from a park and in book 7, Cold Heart Creek, a camper goes missing in the woods. I knew that oftentimes; law enforcement can avail themselves of search and rescue dogs to aid in the rescue or recovery of missing persons. However, I didn’t know much at all about search and rescue dogs. I read many things online but still didn’t feel as though I had enough of a grasp on the subject to write about it in an authentic way. I started searching for organizations in my area, hoping that someone from one of them would be willing to answer my questions. I came across the website for Search and Rescue Dogs of Pennsylvania (sardogs.org) and sent them an email. In less than a day, I had an offer from Vicki Wooters to come and watch her and her husband, Chuck Wooters train their dogs.

 

I was thrilled and nervous. I brought my twelve-year-old daughter with me and we shadowed Vicki, Chuck, their intern, and their wonderful dogs for a few hours. The training that day took place on a large private property with lots of wooded areas and an obstacle course. Both Chuck and Vicki were wonderful, immediately giving us a detailed run-down of how searches are conducted and how the dogs carry out their work.

 

Quake searches the Obstacle Course looking for remains

 

We took an initial walk around the property with Chuck, Vicki, and their intern. The dogs stayed in their cages in the backs of Chuck’s and Vicki’s vehicles. Large, thick, silver tarps had been thrown over the vehicles. Vicki told me those were Aluminet tarps and they helped keep the inside of the vehicles cool during the summer. It was a very hot day, but peeking inside the backs of the trucks, the German Shepherds appeared perfectly comfortable. Chuck had human remains with him in a black box, which he went off to hide while the rest of us continued to explore. We found an area at the bottom of a very steep ravine where Vicki ordered her intern to stay. She explained that she would have her dog, Rini, do a “live find” using their intern.

 

We left the intern in the ravine and took the long walk back to the vehicles. Vicki got Rini out of the back of her vehicle. Rini is a beautiful, two-year-old red sable German Shepherd. At Vicki’s command, Rini immediately laid down in the grass to wait for further instruction. However, she was clearly anxious to get to work, as evidenced by her grousing. I had always thought that dogs needed a personal item, like an item of clothing the person had been wearing, to search and find that person. This is not true. Vicki said that Rini could scent a person from a door handle. Indeed, she was right. Vicki kept her on a long lead, guided her to the intern’s car, and let her sniff the door handle all while Vicki issued words of encouragement. Once Vicki put Rini’s harness on, Rini was ready to go. Vicki explained that the harness was Rini’s indicator that it was time to work. Rini took off immediately in the direction where we’d left the intern.

 

 

What was most fascinating to me was the laser focus with which Rini carried out her duties. Vicki explained that once she was “in-scent”, meaning she had picked up the person’s scent and was following it, she wouldn’t be distracted by anything. Watching Rini follow the intern’s scent with such concentration, I realized that you could probably dangle a juicy steak right in front of her face, and she’d bypass it without even a glance. Vicki was right. Once she was in-scent, there was no distracting her and no stopping her.

 

As Rini worked, Vicki gave us a crash course on search and rescue dogs. For example, there are different kinds of search dogs: cadaver dogs, water recovery dogs, trailing dogs and air scent dogs. Each dog has its own specialty. They can be dual-trained. However, not all search and rescue dogs are certified by national organizations which set standards for the training of search and rescue dogs such as the International Police Work Dog Association, North American Police Work Dog Association, International Rescue Dog Organization, and the United States Police Canine Association. If you ever need to hire a rescue dog, you should make sure they have certifications.

 

Vicki also showed us her “puff bottle” which was a small bottle of baby powder which she used to test which direction the wind traveled so she could guide Rini if necessary. Vicki also explained that people walk around with an invisible scent cloud around them, shedding their scent as they went. She told me to imagine Pig Pen from Charlie Brown. In the cartoon, he walks around in a cloud of dirt. A person’s scent, though invisible, is like this. We can’t see it or smell it but the dogs can hone in on a person’s unique scent immediately.

 

Also, search and rescue dogs have both active and passive indicators. This means when they find what they’re looking for, they’ll perform some action to indicate to their handler that they’ve achieved their mission. Rini had an active indicator, which was a bark. She found the intern within minutes and barked until we caught up with her. She was rewarded by getting to play with her pull toy.

 

Rini finds the intern, gives a bark for an active indicator

 

A passive indicator is when a dog sits or lays down upon finding their target. We got to witness this when we shadowed Chuck and his dog, Quake, an eight-year-old sable German Shepherd whose specialty is human remains detection. Chuck had hidden some human remains in the obstacle course. As soon as Chuck approached the back of the truck where Quake and one of his canine colleagues were crated, Quake got very excited, barking, and eager to go to work. Quake was every bit as well behaved, laser focused and enthusiastic about working as Rini. When Chuck put on a black vest over his white polo shirt, Quake knew it was time to work. “He’s always ready to work,” Chuck told me. Chuck put Quake on a lead until we got into the obstacle course. Once inside the area, he let Quake loose and we watched him lope gracefully through the area, searching for his quarry. After only a few minutes, Quake laid down beside one of the obstacles. This was called his “down”, meaning the passive indicator he gave when he found human remains.

 

Quake using his "down" indicator to show he's found the remains

 

Watching expert handlers, Vicki and Chuck Wooters train with their dogs was one of the most fun and fascinating experiences I’ve ever had. I am truly in awe of them. If I ever get lost or abducted, I’d really like the Wooters and their dogs on the case! I hope that one day I’ll be able to shadow them again during training. Before we left, I had one last question, which was: “Where does one get human remains for training purposes?”

Vicki answered, “Bone room dot com.”

Yes, it’s a real thing.

If you want to learn more about Search and Rescue Dogs of Pennsylvania, please visit their website: http://www.sardogs.org/home-.html

Also, SARDOGS is a non-profit organization and they offer their services completely free of charge. They rely on donations in order to continue to provide their invaluable services.

 

You can find out more about Lisa Regan and her books via her website and also follow her on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Goodreads. Vanishing Girls and the other books in the Josie Quinn series are available via Grand Central and all major booksellers.

Author R&R with Eugenia Lovett West

Today, my Author R&R features a very special guest, Eugenia Lovett West, who at age 96 is the author of the newly published Firewall: An Emma Streat Mystery. She was born in Boston, Massachusetts, the daughter of Reverend Sidney Lovett, the widely known and loved former chaplain at Yale. She attended Sarah Lawrence College and worked for Harper's Bazaar and the American Red Cross. Then came marriage, four children, volunteer work, and freelancing for local papers. Her first novel, The Ancestors Cry Out, was published by Doubleday; it was followed by two mysteries, Without Warning (2007) and Overkill (2009), published by St. Martin's Press. 

 

Firewall is the third installment in a series centering on former opera singer Emma Streat, who has survived the murder of her husband and the destruction of her beautiful old house. Now a full-time single mother, she struggles to move forward and make a home for her two sons. Because of her detection skills, she has become a go-to person for help―so, when her rich, feisty, socialite godmother is blackmailed, she turns immediately to Emma. Soon, Emma finds herself thrust into the dark world of cybercrime. Mounting challenges take her to exclusive European settings where she mixes with the elite of the financial and art collecting worlds. When she is targeted by a cybercrime network using cutting-edge technology, it takes all of Emma's resilience and wits to survive and bring the wily, ruthless criminal she's hunting to justice.

 

Author R&R by Eugenia Lovett West

It’s never too late to create and publish. At age 96, I wake up every morning and look forward to sitting down at the computer and producing. Writing could be a compulsion that’s hard-wired in the brain. It’s certainly a life-changing commitment as to how one wants to spend time and energy.

To create a book, my sense is that it’s 10% talent and 90% applying the seat of the pants to the seat of the chair. In a way, it’s like making a big stew. You put in the ingredients, stir, hope for a good result, but for most people it takes time and hard work to find one’s voice and one’s style. Through trial and error, I’ve learned to show rather than tell and to use dialogue that covers ground and moves the plot without an excess of description. I try to make the setting liven and illuminate the story,  while secondary characters add color, and the end is emotionally satisfying. I aim for drama and conflict in every chapter without stretching the reader’s credibility—and for me, suspense is key. I really want readers to be compelled to turn the page.

For historical novels, it can be a challenge to balance facts with imagination. For my thriller set in Jamaica, it was enough to read a few journals mostly written by English governor’s wives. On the other hand, American history demands extensive research. Any mistakes will quickly be found and noted. On the other hand, the mystery genre has different requirements. There should be sly red herrings, judiciously scattered clues, a surprise ending, and justice must always triumph. And—the reader should get a few hints as to who will emerge as the villain, not let him jump out on the last page. I actually got to the end of my first mystery with several candidates and had to do a lot of revising. No domestic violence. My mystery subplots must have a global theme like advanced weapons, lethal viruses, cybercrime. My detective character Emma Streat goes to many different countries, ones I visited on business trips with my husband, and it’s great fun to travel back in time.

As for process, I try never to sit at the computer staring into space. When problems arise, I take a sheet of paper and write “What If” at the top, then think up several possibilities. This usually works—and the time-honored long walk can clear the mind. I start with a general idea and let pictures run through my mind like watching a movie. Like painting a picture, there are layers and layers of process.  I don’t block out the plot chapter by chapter, it’s not set in concrete, but the overall structure should be there. It is said that there are only two master plots in existence: “A Stranger Comes to Town” and the “Hero’s Journey.” Readers and writers are setting out on a journey together, and the reader must care about the outcome.

One might say that being a writer is like living in two worlds—one is where you eat, sleep, and talk. The other is where you exist with a different set of people. I get to know them better than my own children, and my job is to guide them to their destinations. I believe, deeply, that a writer should try to provide the reader with something of value—entertainment, information, or just the chance to escape to a different world.

 

For more information about Eugenia Lovett West and her books, you can visit her website or follow her on Facebook. Firewall is now available via all major online and brick-and-mortar booksellers.

 

Author R&R with Michael Bowen

Michael Bowen recently retired from a 39-year career as a trial lawyer. The author of nineteen published novels, as well as scholarly and political commentary, Bowen is a graduate of Harvard Law School, where he served on the Harvard Law Review. Bowen and his wife Sara, a noted lecturer on Jane Austen and Harvard Law graduate, live in Fox Point, Wisconsin.

Bowen's new crime novel, False Flag in Autumn, a seemingly ripped-from-the-headlines political thriller featuring protagonist Josie Kendall, introduced in 2016’s Damage Control, which Kirkus called "Bowen’s ebullient antidote to election year blues."

In False Flag, a rogue White House aide tries to use lobbyist Kendall as an unwitting pawn in a plot for a spectacular October surprise before the 2018 mid-term elections. She calls on her D.C.-insider husband, her edgy uncle, and colorful denizens of the Louisiana demi-monde to help her out-hustle the hustlers. But then Josie finds herself facing an even more daunting question: is there a false-flag attack planned in order to influence the 2020 presidential election? Josie will be forced to decide whether to venture out of the Beltway cocoon—where the weapons are leaks, winks, nudges, and spin—into a darker world where the weapons are actual weapons.

Bowen stops by In Reference to Murder today to take some Author R&R:

 

THE JOYS AND PERILS OF RESEARCH IN WRITING MYSTERY FICTION

By Michael Bowen

I’ll never forget the picture: four-color two-page spread in Ladies’ Home Journal back in 1962, when that magazine had roughly the dimensions of a coffee table instead of the more standard size on newsstands today. It featured a standing rib roast fresh out of the oven, with a layer of perfectly browned fat at least two inches high. This was the centerpiece of an ad for something or other, but all I remember is the roast and the salivation it induced.

Cholesterol? Never heard of it. Ignorance was bliss.

I came across that ad serendipitously in the early 1990’s, doing research for a mystery set in New York City a generation earlier. My editor quite reasonably wanted to know whether household products that I had sprinkled into the story as background were actually on the market in 1962. Google didn’t exist yet – I just Googled it and verified that it wasn’t created until 1998 – so the best way to find out was to traipse to a public library and look at back issues of magazines aimed at housewives.

Bingo. You could indeed buy Johnson’s Wax and Pledge in the second year of the Kennedy administration. The New Yorker also accepted cigarette advertisements back then, including one for Parliaments with recessed filters – “NEAT AND CLEAN!” – apparently aimed at charming young women who enjoyed smoking but had a paradoxical aversion to actual tobacco. I stumbled over that one while trying to find out what Broadway shows my characters might have attended. An ad with that many layers of irony was too good to pass up. I actually plugged it into the story, along with The Fantastics and A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. Don’t tell anybody, but research is fun.

It’s also important. The first chapter of a courtroom drama I was reading a few years ago featured a fiercely whispered debate at counsel table between the two lawyers for the defendant in a murder case about whether to cross-examine the arresting officer, whose testimony on direct had just concluded. Boys and girls, this is something you think about before the first day of trial. I never got to chapter 2. Same with a scene in a fairly recent big-business-is-bad mystery in which a male senior executive who is a complete jerk capriciously and impulsively fires a female newbie who is a charming sweetheart. For at least a generation you’ve needed a sign-off from Human Resources and probably from a departmental committee and the company’s general counsel before you could even think about firing a member of a protected class in a firm with more than six employees

As far back as the 1930’s Dashiell Hammett was railing against lazy crime writers who didn’t know the difference between revolvers and automatic pistols. (The former don’t have safeties and don’t eject shell casings; the latter do). Midshipmen at the Naval Academy will not find themselves anywhere near the deck of an aircraft carrier during plebe summer, contrary to a late ’ninties movie about a female plebe who had allegedly murdered a romantic rival before reaching Annapolis. And so forth.

For quite awhile now, of course, we’ve been able to get information about basically anything with a few mouse clicks, without having to pore through stacks of periodicals in libraries. The catch is that you have to know what you don’t know. I knew that I didn’t know how fast males in good condition could be expected to move across uneven ground on foot in the dark, so when I was writing False Flag in Autumn this year I asked a graduate of West Point. On the other hand, it never occurred to me that the eponymous patron of a Boston art gallery victimized by a huge theft in the 1990’s, which I invoked in But Remember Their Names, might have spelled her last name differently than most people named Gardner spelled theirs. After correcting the spelling to Gardiner, my editor pointed out scoldingly that I could easily have looked this information up myself. Of course I could have – and I would have if I’d had the slightest doubt about the accuracy of my flatly erroneous assumption.

The larger problem with research is that it’s so much fun that the tail can end up wagging the dog. If you’ve invested three hours in confirming that colleges at Oxford University permitted women students to smoke on campus in 1912 (they did, to the delighted surprise of Dorothy L. Sayers), you’ll be strongly tempted to plug that datum into your story even if it doesn’t add enough to plot, characterization, or setting to justify the sentence or two – or three, or four – required to do so. If you’ve tracked down eight plays showing on Broadway in 1962, all you need for background color is to have a character casually mention going to one of them – but why not “show your work” by shoehorning the entire laundry list into your story? (Oops, I did that in Fielder’s Choice, didn’t I? Hey, I was young.)

Maybe the moral here is that writers should build their research on a foundation of humility. It helps to remember that, no matter how much we’ve learned from diligent inquiry among diverse sources about emergency room protocols, the muzzle velocities of civilian-model assault rifles, the Federal Rules of Evidence, or the names of streets in downtown Chicago, there will be readers who know more than we do – and some of them will let us know if our diligence leads us to incautious extrapolation from what we’ve learned. Much worse, others will simply stop reading.

The Whig historian Hilaire Belloc wrote that it isn’t bad history to say that the Battle of Waterloo was fought on a Tuesday even though it was fought on a Sunday, but it is bad history to say that it was won on the playing fields of Eton. Belloc was a better historian than I am, so I’ll defer to his judgment. What I can affirm with confidence is that it is bad mystery-writing to say either one – especially if you’re writing a plucky-couple puzzle mystery set in contemporary Seattle.    

For more information about the author or his books, visit Michael Bowen online.

Author R&R with Janet Roger

Janet Roger trained in archaeology, history, and English Lit, with a special interest in the early Cold War. Her debut crime novel, Shamus Dust: Hard Winter, Cold War, Cool Murder, is being compared to the Marlowe novels of Raymond Chandler in five-star reviews and centers on a private investigator seeking to solve a series of holiday murders:

Two candles flaring at a Christmas crib. A nurse who steps inside a church to light them. A gunshot emptied in a man's head in the creaking stillness before dawn, that the nurse says she didn't hear. It's 1947 in the snowbound, war-scarred city of London, where Pandora's Box just got opened in the ruins, City Police has a vice killing on its hands, and a spooked councilor hires a shamus to help spare his blushes. Like the Buddha says, everything is connected...so it all can be explained. But that's a little cryptic when you happen to be the shamus, and you're standing over a corpse.

Janet Roger stops by In Reference to Murder today to talk about writing and researching her book.

 

How did Shamus Dust come to be? Well, that’s going back a while. Let me explain. It’s a novel written and then set aside in a drawer - well in a computer file, it wasn’t quite that long ago - then looked at again years later when I had some time to reflect on it. That initial draft dates way back to when I first lived and worked in and around the City of London, the capital’s financial Square Mile - or for our American gumshoe, London’s Wall Street. Now that I think of it, I doubt the idea for Shamus Dust could possibly have sparked outside that time and place. For three reasons.

In the first place, just then I’d been re-reading two very different crime writers that I thought most impressive. Raymond Chandler and Georges Simenon had both left indelible portraits of the cities where they set their stories. Neither was a native son, any more than I was native to London, yet both seemed to have a direct line to the essence of the places their characters moved through. In fact, they did such a job on the moods and atmospheres of Los Angeles and Paris, that they still colour our images of those cities today. When it comes down to researching, they show you that nothing - but nothing - beats breathing the air of the streets you plan to write about. It so happened that, at the time, I was breathing the air of London’s Square Mile. 

The second reason needs some recent history explaining. The City really is, more or less, the single square mile contained inside the arc of its ancient Roman walls. Its southern edge runs along the Thames shore. If you knew where to look, even in my days there, it bore some last scars of the wartime blitz. But reel back to the early Cold War, and a third of that square mile was still flattened rubble. It was archaeologists’ dreamland. For a few short years, digging in those blitz sites gave them unimagined access to a two-thousand years old Roman city right beneath their feet, and they wasted no time. Before reconstruction got seriously under way they’d already made monumental discoveries: a Roman temple, a Roman fortress on the line of the wall, even the foundations of an arena - a Roman coliseum, no less.

And there’s the puzzle. The discovery of the temple and the fortress made instant splash headlines. Yet London’s very own Roman coliseum - yes, there really is one - got overlooked. Seriously. And then entirely forgotten about until a rainy day almost forty years later, when the drawings were noticed in the archaeological record. That chance rediscovery intrigued me when I heard about it. Not only that, I was right there where it had been found. And where better to be able to follow the story back? I had the marvellous Museum of London. The Guildhall Library close by (with Cecil Brown’s astonishing birds-eye drawing of bomb damage in the Square Mile, made from a wartime barrage balloon). And of course, I had the bookshops. Which brings me to my third reason.

The London Encyclopedia? It’s a compendium history of the capital, street by street and too heavy to lug around, but a bible that sent me walking everywhere. (And left me with a habit of walking any city I’m in). Muirhead’s Short Guide to London 1947? It was a sort of visitor’s Baedeker, post zone by post zone, invaluable for checking that streets had survived the bombing and buildings still stood. There were many, many others, but you get the picture. We’re talking pre-internet search. There was no substitute for trawling the bookstores, and the irreplaceable second-hand bazaars. Then, far more than now, London was a book hound’s Aladdin’s cave.

So how did that coliseum puzzle work out? Happily, in the end. After its rediscovery in 1988, the amphitheatre was excavated for more than a decade, then opened to the public in a spectacular new gallery below ground (don’t miss it if you haven’t seen it). As for how evidence of a Roman arena - it’s the size of a football field - simply went unnoticed for so long, it still gets explained as a regrettable oversight, one of those things.

Shamus Dust tells the story rather differently. It goes back to the early Cold War years, when rebuilding the City was up for grabs, fortunes were staked on a construction boom and those blitz sites were some of the most valuable real estate on the planet. In this telling, the interests include high-end racketeers as well as corrupt City grandees, who think delaying construction would be very bad karma. Cue a monumental discovery on a construction site that nobody will get to hear of. Cue the apparent vice killing that gets Shamus Dust under way. And cue the hardboiled gumshoe who gets hired for the cover-up.

And that’s pretty much how Shamus Dust came to be. Thank you for asking! And one last thing. In 1949, just after the film’s huge critical and box-office success, Graham Greene wrote that The Third Man had been meant to entertain, make an audience laugh, and frighten a little. Of the grim Viennese penicillin racket it revolves around, he says it was the reality - but that the reality was only background to a fairytale. I think that’s spot on. Wonderful storyteller as Greene is, he’s no slouch at research. But he also understands that it’s never more than a point of departure. What you need then is to conjure some magic. I’m really glad you didn’t ask me where that comes from.

 

Published by Troubador, Shamus Dust is available for purchase on Amazon UK and Amazon US. Learn more about the book and Janet Roger via the author's website, and follow her on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Goodreads.

Author R&R with Mark Bergin

Author Mark Bergin’s career as an award-winning crime reporter then police officer spanned nearly 30 years and resulted in him being named Police Officer of the year twice, for drug and robbery investigation. His career also put him in close contact with a difficult and often overlooked issue in American culture: police suicide. Currently, more police officers are lost to suicide than to conflicts in the line of duty. Bergin brings awareness to this weighted issue in his debut work, Apprehension, and plans to donate a portion of his sales directly to the National Police Suicide Foundation and similar programs.

Apprehension tells of the four best and worst days in Alexandria Police Detective John Kelly’s life. Preparing for a pedophile trial to save a young boy, Kelly discovers that a terrible, secret act he committed after his niece was murdered is about to surface. It could mean the end of his career or his freedom. And his girlfriend, the molester’s defense attorney, has a secret, too, one that will destroy Kelly on the witness stand. Crushing challenges and violent horrors rain on Kelly, pushing him to the brink and beyond.

Bergin stops by In Reference to Murder to take some Author R&R and researching and wriring Apprehension:

 

I researched all my life for my first novel, APPREHENSION. Right up to my death. 

I started writing it more than thirty years ago, during a bad personal and professional patch. I was a police officer on a busy plainclothes drug unit in Alexandria, Virginia, working fifty to sixty hours a week, and another ten or twenty in court (lots of police work equals lots of trials.) I was also going through a divorce, in part because my wife didn't like cops and I had just become one. 

I think personal angst is good for artistic impulse, and I found myself compelled to write several pages of notes for a mystery novel about a cop under stress. Write what you know. I promptly put the notes away and had a successful divorce, followed by a very successful marriage, children, a slower but satisfying career, promotion to a command level and, finally, two heart attacks. I actually died in each, but came back, leading to retirement. 

Suddenly off the force with nothing to do, I pulled out the old notes and began linking together what was essentially a beginning, some disjointed middle bits, and an ending. From the time I was a teenager I had seen writing a book as the peak of creative success. I had been a newspaper reporter for four years before joining the police, but that form of writing seemed far from artistry.

I began thinking of this story in 1988, so its narrative, crisis, and denouement stayed stuck in that time frame. When I picked it up again years later, I had to remind myself about the nuts and bolts of police life back then: what cruisers we drove, what radio identifiers and procedures were in place, how Headquarters was laid out.  But I also wanted to write a timeless novel that cops, especially my former partners, could read and say, "This is how it is, how it was, how it feels to be a police officer." I wanted it to be a novel they could give to family and friends as an example of what some cops go through physically and mentally. 

The truth is that I got most of the details wrong at first. A beta reader and retired Alexandria captain pointed out that we drove Plymouth K-cars in 1988, not Dodge Monacos. A former deputy chief helped me remember the patrol command structure on the street back then. A friend and Veterans Administration social worker gave me articles and advice on stress and PTSD. Very little of it was deliberate research, more like intelligent conversations with smart people who kept me on the right path to accomplish two of my goals: to write a compelling story for the general public and to satisfy my knowledgeable and demanding police audience.

My heart attacks led me to a third goal. Right before surgery I met a nurse who told me my one-hundred percent blockage of the left anterior descending artery was known in the medical field as "The Widowmaker."  She put her hand on my shoulder and said, "You're not supposed to be here anymore. God's got something more for you to do." When I finally began writing, I decided to give the book a greater purpose than just storytelling. I switched up the themes of the book to fully emphasize stress and PTSD and decided I would dedicate half my profits to programs that combat law enforcement suicide. Every year, more cops kill themselves than are killed on the street. In my time with the Alexandria Police Department, one fellow officer was murdered, while three shot themselves to death, and two city deputies also were victims of suicide. Five to one. A higher ratio than the national average, symbolic of a problem much unknown outside the law enforcement profession and mostly unconfronted inside. 

In APPREHENSION, Detective John Kelly prepares for a trial of a pedophile to protect the offender's son and victim but learns his own terrible but hidden act of violence committed last year is about to be discovered. Kelly will lose his job and maybe go to prison, but he can't stop it from surfacing. Meanwhile, the defense attorney in the case is his secret girlfriend, with her own secrets; one she can joyously share with Kelly, the other she must destroy him with in court. Kelly's stress pushes him to a desperate end. 

I hope the book raises awareness of police suicide and some funds to combat it. I hope it can act as a conversation starter among police agencies to help knock down the walls of weakness, shame, and privacy that stop us from seeking help. I also hope folks enjoy the mystery, but that's no longer up to me.

You find out more about Mark Bergin and Apprehension on his website and follow him on Facebook. Apprehension is now available through all major book retailers.

Author R&R with John DeDakis

John DeDakis is a former Senior Copy Editor on CNN's "The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer" and is also the author of five novels in the Lark Chadwick mystery-suspense series.  His fourth novel, Bullet in the Chamber, is the winner of the Reviewers Choice, Foreword INDIES, and Feathered Quill book awards. DeDakis regularly teaches novel writing at The Writer’s Center in Bethesda, Maryland, at the Politics & Prose Bookstore in D.C., and at various writing conferences and literary centers around the U.S. and abroad. In his spare time, what little he has of it, he’s a jazz drummer. 

His fifth novel, Fake, was published by Strategic Media Books in September 2019. In Fake, Lark is a White House correspondent in a #MeToo era when facts are suspect and reporters are targets. When popular First Lady Rose Gannon dies suddenly (and mysteriously) during an interview with White House correspondent Lark Chadwick, Lark is thrust into the midst of a media-bashing frenzy. Lark, still reeling from the death of her photographer boyfriend, finds herself covering a grieving president struggling with his pain while trying to defuse a looming nuclear war. In the era of “fake news,” when all “facts” are suspect (and reporters are targets), Lark tries to discover the truth while also under personal attack.

John DeDakis stops by In Reference to Murder today to talk about writing and researching his books:

 

Research: Writing What You DON’T Know

You’ve heard it a gazillion times: “Write what you know.” And, for someone who wants to be a writer, that’s excellent advice. The words flow easily when they come from a familiar place.

But what do you do when the story you’re writing requires knowledge about something that’s unfamiliar to you? Yes, the obvious answer is research. And this website is a fabulous resource. But let’s be honest: research can also be an endless detour down a rabbit hole of procrastination.

Here’s the dilemma: you’ll never know everything, but how can you tell when you know enough?

The answer will be different for everyone, but here’s how I’ve answered it over the course of writing five mystery-suspense novels:

Get Oriented: I begin a project focusing on what I DO know. Much of what I write is drawn from personal experience and places where I’ve lived, visited, or worked. Invariably, however, I’ll realize during the project’s planning phase that there are some things I need to know more about. When that happens, Google and Wikipedia become my best friends. I create a research folder and add links to articles and websites that flesh out the details of what I might need. This preliminary research gets me oriented, but it’s also a moment of grave danger. If I’m not careful, I’ll never leave this phase. It’s probably similar to what it must be like for a newly-recovering alcoholic to walk into a bar. For a writer, research is like catnip – you can never get enough.

Write the First Draft Straight Through: The best advice I ever got about writing comes from Robert Ray’s excellent book, The Weekend Novelist. Ray recommends that you turn off your internal editor and write your first draft all the way through. Resist the temptation to allow your forward momentum to be blunted while you track down a fact you don’t know. Simply make a note to yourself in the manuscript, using all caps, to “find out more about X.” Then, move on. Keep writing.

Use Your Imagination: As a writer, I’ve discovered something very spooky: the act of writing is like a straw that taps into my subconscious. Ideas, voices, and images show up as I type. It sounds counterintuitive, but, for me, the best way to break writer’s block is to write. So, when my writing enters unfamiliar territory, I allow my imagination (not research) to propel me forward. The goal here is momentum, not accuracy.

Target What You Need to Know:  Finishing the first draft is exhilarating: It’s done! But it’s also depressing: It sucks!! Yet I can’t say enough about the sense of accomplishment that’s a direct result of having worked through the initial problems inherent in writing a novel from beginning to end. The hard part is over; now comes the fun part. No longer will your research be endless. Now that you have the essentials of your story written down, you can identify those items you need to learn more about.

Beta Readers and Going There:  As I said earlier, “In Reference to Murder” is a wonderful website where you can get answers to many questions that might have surfaced as you were writing your manuscript. But, in addition, let me suggest two other research resources: Beta Readers and Going There. Portions of my second novel, Bluff, take place along the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu in the Andes Mountains of Peru. After I’d written several drafts, I was looking at pictures of the Inca Trail online and realized I needed to go there to experience it. I booked a trip and hiked the trail (four days, 15-thousand feet, 25 miles). I came back with several experiences that added depth and texture to the finished product. In my third novel, Troubled Water, 911 calls play an important part. One of my beta readers, Karen Hoel, used to train 911 operators in Wisconsin. I used my imagination to write the first draft, then sent the 911 chapters to Karen. She corrected some of my misconceptions, but when she read a scene I’d concocted out of thin air, I was stunned and relieved when she told me, “I’ve actually been in that situation.”  Who knew?! (My subconscious did – spooky, indeed.)

Final thought:

Keep in mind that a novel shouldn’t be a pedantic data dump. The story is the most important thing. Your research should serve the story by making the characters, the setting, and the situation come alive.

 

You can find out more about John DeDakis and his books via his website and follow him on Facebook, Twitter, and Goodreads. John's books, including Fake, are available via all major book retailers.

Author R&R with Louise Jensen

Louise Jensen has sold over a million English language copies of her International No. 1 psychological thrillers The Sister, The Gift, The Surrogate, and The Date. Her novels have also been translated into twenty-five languages, as well as featuring on the USA Today and Wall Street Journal bestseller’s List. Louise's fifth thriller, The Family, will be published in Autumn 2019 by Harper Collins.  Louise lives with her husband, children, madcap dog, and a rather naughty cat in Northamptonshire. 

In Jensen's novel, The Date, something bad has happened to Alison Taylor. Her Saturday night started normally. Recently separated from her husband, Ali has been persuaded by her friends to go on a date with a new man. She is ready, she is nervous, she is excited. She is about to take a step into her new future.

By Sunday morning, Ali’s life is unrecognizable. She wakes, and she knows that something is wrong. She is home, she is alone, she is hurt and she has no memory of what happened to her.  Worse still, when she looks in the mirror, Ali doesn’t recognize the face staring back at her. She can’t recognize her friends and family. And she can’t recognize the person who is trying to destroy her… 

Louise Jensen stops by In Reference to Murder to talk about writing and researching her novels:

 

Research is absolutely one of my favourite parts of being a writer. I love learning about new subjects and often find myself so fascinated with the information I uncover I end up over researching. The danger of finding out too many facts is the temptation to share them all in your manuscript but too much detail can slow down the pace of your story and bore readers. It’s a balancing act.

My latest novel, The Date, is about a girl, Ali, who, after a head injury, develops Prospagnosia – an incurable Face Blindness. I hadn’t heard about this condition until I watched a documentary featuring a 13 year old girl called Hannah Reid who developed the worst reported case of Face Blindness in the UK after having a virus which spread to her brain – she couldn’t recognise her parents or herself. My heart went out to her and interested in learning more, I found myself Googling her condition, reading everything I could.

Although I wanted to write a book about Face Blindness I wanted to approach it sensitively out of respect for Hannah and all the other sufferers. The emotional impact of this condition is huge and I wanted readers to really connect with Ali.

I felt Hannah was too young at the time to contact for research to I Googled ‘Prosopagnosia’ + ‘Support’ and I was directed to the website of a research centre. I asked them the medical questions I needed answering but for the emotional side of characters I wanted to speak to sufferers. As with all my books I Googled my keyword and added ‘Wordpress’ into my search. Often people are blogging about their experiences and they are the ones who are generally very happy to talk.

I found three people and chatted to them about how it really feels not being able to recognised anybody. One thing I’ve learned on my writing journey is no two people’s experience of the same event is ever the same so it’s impossible to create a character which will reflect everyone’s experience. However, I took the anxiety one person felt and mixed it with the desire to live a normal life another felt and I used bits of the third person’s recovery from a head injury. As the novel progress Ali took on her own very distinct personality. It’s important to let characters develop organically and not to try to replicate a real person and their experience.

Once the first draft was written and I was happy with the concept I was introduced to a neurosurgeon through a friend and I could fact check my hospital terminology and the tests Ali would have received before her diagnosis.

Once I’d finished editing the story I traced Hannah Read’s mum to tell her that her daughter had inspired a book and she and her family read it before publication and loved the fact I was raising awareness of such a terrible and life changing condition. I’ve since spoken to Hannah on the phone several times and I still keep up to date with the research into Prospagnosia.

It can be daunting approaching people for research, but I’ve found that most people are genuinely pleased to talk about their area of expertise or their passion.

 

You can learn more about Louise Jensen and her books via her official author website and also follow her on Facebook and Twitter. The Date and Jensen's other novels are widely available via all major book retailers.

Author R&R with Patricia Gibney

Irish author Patricia Gibney started out as an avid crime reader, so naturally she ended up writing in the crime genre. But it was a life-changing experience in 2009, the death of her forty-nine-year-old husband, which led to a change of careers and rekindled her love of art and writing. Initially Patricia wrote and illustrated a children's book, but her real ambition was to write a novel. In July 2016, Patricia signed with Bookouture for four DI Lottie Parker crime novels, the first of which, The Missing Ones, has been a USA Today bestseller and a 2018 Irish Book Award Nominee.

In The Missing Ones, Detective Lottie Parker is called in to lead the investigation when a woman’s body is discovered in a cathedral and hours later a young man is found hanging from a tree outside his home. Both bodies have the same distinctive tattoo clumsily inscribed on their legs, and it’s clear the pair are connected, but how?

The trail leads Lottie to St Angela’s, a former children’s home, with a dark connection to her own family history. As Lottie begins to link the current victims to unsolved murders decades old, two teenage boys go missing. She must close in on the killer before they strike again, but in doing so is she putting her own children in terrifying danger? Lottie is about to come face to face with a twisted soul who has a very warped idea of justice.

Patricia stops by In Reference to Murder to take some Author R&R and discuss her writing and researching process:

 

Writing crime novels is one of the most exciting things I could imagine doing. But  I’ve learned over the last few years, that it’s not easy to accomplish. Creating believable characters, threading in sub plots, adding suspense and tension, keeping it moving and maintaining pace, and above all holding the reader on tenterhooks as they wonder what’s going to happen next, are all part and parcel of the crime writer’s task. One would suspect I’d have to plot and plan meticulously to achieve all that. Not so. Unfortunately, I am of the writing family who avoids plotting and planning, whether chapter by chapter or scene by scene. I write organically. I like to surprise myself and therefore I hope I can surprise the reader.

That said, I usually have a general theme and main plot line worming around in my head. I write up character and location profiles. I have a notebook for each book where I scribble down ideas. It is a cliché at this stage but to a certain extent I allow my characters to dictate where they wish to go and that in turn dictates the twists and turns of the story. My characters are real to me, walking around in my shadow for the entire time I’m writing and I follow their lead. Each situation brings a what if or a what next question. I hope this feeds into readers’ minds so they in turn feel the reality of the situations in which the characters find themselves.

I love research but I have to be strict with myself because once I start, it swallows up writing time. It is so easy to get lost burrowing down the various rabbit holes of the internet and forget what I was initially looking for.

The Missing Ones refers to a time in recent Irish history and most of my research was based on online newspaper reports. The tragedy reflects on an awful time which unfortunately was repeated in many countries throughout the world. My novel is fiction, but fact is at times more horrifying. The Murphy Report was commissioned by the Irish Government into clerical abuse in Ireland. I read it after I wrote the Missing Ones, and for that I am glad. The truth is so much more horrific than anything my imagination conjured.

The town of Ragmullin is fictional but I have based it on a real town. I visited buildings and locations and then I fictionalised them. I’ve spent hours walking around old rambling hospitals, abandoned schools and ancient cemeteries, getting a feel for the places, letting the walls and headstones speak to me. If a writer has the opportunity to walk the cracked mosaic tiled corridors with high ceilings and rattling iron radiators, then it makes the job of bringing them alive on the page so much easier.

For the police procedural content, I try not to bamboozle the reader with facts and procedures. If issues need clarification, I have contact with a retired Irish detective who lets me know how far I can stretch the leash. I have his number on speed dial and am grateful to his replies to the most bizarre questions. It is fair to say that police procedures vary drastically from country to country. Therefore, I try not to get bogged down on detail. It also helps the pace of the story and allows it to flow.

One of my first jobs was in my local library and to this day I use library facilities. I believe libraries are special places. Places where, for the most obscure question, I can still find an answer. The act of the librarian looking up the catalogue, often finding the book in their archives, I know is a little old fashioned, but for me flicking through the pages of a book while sitting in a library, beats burrowing down a dark rabbit hole any day! And today’s libraries also have online facilities for research. Best of both worlds. 

 

Learn more about Patricia Gibney and her books via her website, or follow her on Facebook, Twitter, and Goodreads. The Missing Ones is available via all major book retailers.

Author R&R with Sheryl Browne

Author Sheryl Browne writes psychological thrillers and contemporary fiction, and her works include two short stories in Birmingham City University anthologies as well as nine novels. A member of the Crime Writers’ Association and the Romantic Novelists’ Association, and previously writing for award winning Choc Lit, Sheryl also obtained a Certificate of Achievement in Forensic Science and – according to readers – she makes an excellent psychopath.

In Browne's suspense thriller, The Babysitter, Mark and Melissa Cain are thrilled to have found Jade, a babysitter who is brilliant with their young children. Having seen her own house burn to the ground, Jade needs them as much as they need her. Moving Jade into the family home can only be a good thing, can’t it?

As Mark works long hours as a police officer and Melissa struggles with running a business, the family become ever more reliant on their babysitter, who is only too happy to help. And as Melissa begins to slip into depression, it’s Jade who is left picking up the pieces.

But Mark soon notices things aren’t quite as they seem. Things at home feel wrong, and as Mark begins to investigate their seemingly perfect sitter, what he discovers shocks him to his core. He’s met Jade before. And now he suspects he might know what she wants. Mark is in a race against time to protect his family. But what will he find as he goes back to his family home?

Sheryl Browne stops by In Reference to Murder take some Author R&R about her writing process and research:

 

I’m often asked what prompts me to write psychological thriller. I’ve always been fascinated by what shapes people and I like to strip away the layers and, hopefully, share with readers a little of what lies beneath the surface. A writer’s mind thrives on exploration. Every scenario, every face, every place tells a story. A walk through a cemetery or a glimpsed situation – an argument between a couple, for instance - and I have my stimulus for a book. Once I have an idea of the story I want to tell, I find the character tends to lead me. There are many facets to the human character; no one can be truly good or irretrievably bad. Or can they? The driving force linked to most murders, I’m reliably informed by a former DCI, is humiliation. How many of us haven’t felt humiliated at some point in our lives? Who hasn’t wished for revenge? In writing psych thriller, I’m exploring the darker side of human nature, looking at the nature vs nurture conundrum. Is badness in the genes? Is it brain function or childhood experience that creates a monster? A combination of all three?

In The Babysitter, we have Jade, whose childhood experiences definitely shaped her. Revenge plays a big part in the story, but is she fundamentally bad? I’m always interested to hear readers’ feedback on the subject. This wasn’t the easiest story to write as it does touch on subjects that some might find difficult to deal with, loss and mental issues. Having been a carer to someone struggling with mental illness and therefore very aware of the nightmare that finding the right balance of medication can be, I suppose you could say I’d already done my research. Even then, though, talking to people about their experience is important in order to write about such issues sensitively and honestly.

Similarly, The Affair deals with a particularly sensitive subject: that of the loss of a child. Without going into detail, again this is an area I am familiar with. In the writing, I felt Alicia’s every emotion. I struggled to live them alongside her. I’m not sure this is the right place for a dedication, but I’d like to leave one anyway: to any mother who has had to grieve the loss of a child at any stage from pregnancy and beyond. When the daily pace of life takes over, a short life lived and lost is often grieved silently. That life though, grown inside you, is never forgotten. The Affair obviously isn’t my story, but that was the nucleus that set the story in motion.

So, am I ‘writing what I know?’ To a degree, yes. In writing about people, you do draw on experience, but personally I find it terribly stifling. We have a world of information at our fingertips nowadays. We can travel anywhere. We don’t need to shy away from writing about a character’s job, era, or a situation that might challenge our experience of it. We can research it. The internet is a massive boon to writers nowadays, you can access some fascinating case studies and headline news stories which can spark an idea – I dread to think what my browsing history looks like. All that said, becoming a writer is a learning curve and I honestly think the best tool you have at your disposal is reading. The fact is, Stephen King is so right, “If you don't have time to read, you don't have the time (or the tools) to write”. Other authors can show you how to weave a story and they can be a massive inspiration for your own writing.

In regard to location, we have Google Earth, of course. You can’t quite get the real flavour of a place, though, I find. I may have to take a little holiday, therefore. All in the name of research, of course.

Just before I set off, for anyone needing info on story structure (and going cross-eyed on googling it), Into the Woods by John Yorke is a brilliant study of story construction. If you’ve ever had any issues with plotting and the development of your ideas then research no more. This was a subject covered on my MA course, but Into the Woods simplifies it beautifully.

Happy writing and reading all!

You can find out more about Sheryl Browne, The Babysitter, and her other writing via her website. You can also follow her on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. The Babysitter and the author's other books are available via all major book retailers.

Author R&R with Robert McCaw

Robert McCaw grew up in a military family traveling the world. After graduating from Georgetown University, he served as a lieutenant in the US Army before earning his law degree from the University of Virginia. Thereafter he practiced as a partner in a major international law firm in Washington, DC, and New York City, and maintained a home on the Big Island of Hawai’i. McCaw brings a unique authenticity to his Koa Kāne Hawaiian mystery novels in both his law enforcement expertise and his ability to portray the richness of Hawai’i’s history, culture, and people.

In Off the Grid, released this month, a scrap of cloth fluttering in the wind leads Hilo police Chief Detective Koa Kāne to the tortured remains of an unfortunate soul left to burn in the path of an advancing lava flow. For Koa, it’s the second gruesome homicide of the day, and he soon discovers the murders are linked. These grisly crimes on Hawaiʻi’s Big Island could rewrite history―or cost Chief Detective Koa Kāne his career as the CIA, the Chinese government, and the Defense Intelligence Agency, attempt to thwart Koa’s investigation and obscure the victims’ true identities.

Undeterred by mounting political pressure, Koa pursues the truth only to find himself drawn into a web of international intrigue. While Koa investigates, the Big Island scrambles to prepare for the biggest and most explosive political rally in its history. Despite police resources stretched to the breaking point, Koa uncovers a government conspiracy so shocking its exposure topples senior officials far beyond Hawaiʻi’s shores.

Robert McCaw stops by In Reference to Murder today to take some Author R&R and talk about writing and researching his novel:

For me research is a way of life. I’m always in research mode, whether walking the streets of New York or the beaches and villages of Hawaii, eating out in restaurants, online, in libraries, or even in the shower. Research for me is like street photography; it’s about seeing and capturing the moment. But we “see” with more than our eyes, and optimizing the value of our time spent researching, we must use our intellect to process information from multiple sources using all our senses to tease out the informative moment. That moment may be geographic as in the setting for a scene or personal as in transforming acquaintances or strangers into fictional characters. It can also be linguistic as in fashioning dialog or atmospheric as in describing sounds and smells. Often it is intellectual as in remembering a thought or emotion provoked by the immediate company or surroundings.

The seed that grew into the Koa Kāne mystery thriller series sprouted while I was on a star-gazing trip atop the Mauna Kea volcano in Hawaii. In addition to visiting the Keck telescope, the largest optical telescope in the northern hemisphere, I saw quarries where centuries ago ancient Hawaiians manufactured stone tools from particularly hard lava found on the upper slopes of the 14,000-foot mountain. Fascinated by the contrast between the ancient and the modern, I set out to learn everything I could about both.

With respect to the quarries, I hit the Bishop Museum and the UH Manoa libraries, bought archaeological texts, searched online, and, of course, made a trip to the quarries. I studied stone tool-making, examined adzes in museum collections, and traced some of the far-flung places where implements from Mauna Kea have been recovered. In my research, I discovered a mystery the archaeologists have yet to solve: Why after centuries of production did the ancients abandon the Mauna Kea quarries, probably in the sixteenth century, long before the first western contact with the islands? And therein lies one of the central themes just beneath the surface of my first Koa Kāne mystery thriller, Death of a Messenger.

Astronomy is the career I didn’t pursue, and fascinated by the cutting-edge technology of Mauna Kea’s huge Keck telescope, I immersed myself in text books, magazine articles, and observatory websites, delving into segmented mirror technology, adaptive optics, artificial guide stars, and exciting modern discoveries about the cosmos. I visited observatories and talked to astronomers. Standing on the platform at Keck’s prime focus is a form of research that inspires imagination.  From these research moments emerged a whole cast of fictional characters, animated by professional jealousies, populating action scenes atop Mauna Kea in Death of a Messenger.

Newspaper research also yields great fonts of information. Dozens of news stories about a significant international event underpin the plot of Off the Grid, the second in the Koa Kāne series of mystery thrillers. Google maps and satellite views provide useful details. Tourist books often spark ideas about locations, offering brief insights into the history or significance of places that provoke follow-up research. Advertisements can reveal details about vehicles, communications gear, spy equipment, guns, explosives, and other implements of the thriller trade. Sirchie holds itself out as the global leader in criminal investigative solutions, and its catalogs and websites are full of information on forensic equipment and practices. Google images are a great sources of pictures of potential characters, their clothing, and jewelry.

Police and legal procedures differ widely from one jurisdiction to another, and Lee Lofland’s Writers’ Police Academy is a fabulous resource. At these annual conferences, federal, state and local law enforcement officers teach the basics of police work, including fingerprinting, ballistics, undercover operations, hand-to-hand combat, canine unit activities, drug interdiction, warrant execution, traffic stops, bomb disposal, and numerous other police activities. These seminars account for many authentic details in my novels.

The Big Island of Hawaii is a writer’s gold-mine of decisive moments, a place where one researches with one’s eyes, ears, and heart. Hours walking around Hilo, Hawi, Honakaʻa, Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, and the Green Sand beach lend visual and atmospheric authenticity to scene after scene in my novels. Watch hot lava creep across a barren landscape and it’s not hard to imagine it covering a body as in Off the Grid. Go to dinner at a local favorite restaurant only to find it closed because the law caught up with the owner, a fugitive from justice, and imagine other fugitives hiding out in a remote rain forest as in Off the Grid. Seek out an artist to commission a painting, and get a primer on how real people do in fact live off the grid.

Life is research if you open all your senses to it.

You can read more about author Robert McCaw and his books via his website, and follow him on Facebook and Twitter. Off the Grid is now available via Oceanview Publishing and can be purchased via all major book retailers.

Author R&R with Shalini Boland

Shalini Boland is a USA Today bestselling author of psychological thrillers The Secret Mother, The Girl from the Sea, The Best Friend, The Millionaire's Wife, and The Child Next Door. Shalini lives in Dorset, England with her husband, two children, and their cheeky terrier mix. Before kids, she was signed to Universal Music Publishing as a singer/songwriter, but now she spends her days writing suspense thrillers in between school runs and endless baskets of laundry. She is also the author of two bestselling young adult series as well as a children's World War II novel with a time-travel twist.

Boland's domestic thriller novel, The Secret Mother, focuses on Tessa Markham who returns home one evening to find a child in her kitchen. He thinks she's his mother. But, here’s the thing: Tessa doesn't have any children. Not anymore. She doesn't know who the little boy is or how he got there. After contacting the police, Tessa is suspected of taking the mystery child. Her whole life is turned upside down. And then her husband reveals a secret of his own...Tessa isn't sure what to believe or who to trust. Because someone is lying. To find out who, she must first confront her painful past. But is the truth more dangerous than Tessa realizes?

Shalini stops by In Reference to Murder today to take some Author R&R and discuss researching and writing The Secret Mother:

Writing a book about killer from Barton-On-Sea? No problem! Let me tap a few words into my old friend Google and, hey presto, I can see the beach, the road layouts, the property styles. I can read about the town’s history, its economy, its schools and businesses. Absolutely everything about the place is laid bare for me to pick and choose exactly what elements I need for my story. Job done.

And yet… is searching online really a good enough substitute for actually visiting a place? I’m not sure. I mean, I’ve written books set in locations that I’ve never been to. And, yes, I used the internet to familiarise myself with that setting. I read memoirs and first-hand accounts of the locations I’d chosen. But I’ve also written settings where I’ve visited places in person; and the experience is so much richer. You get a sense of space, of light and smell. You soak up the ambience. You get to see if the locals are friendly or closed off. If the place is well-maintained or neglected. There are all these other elements that come into play when you’re actually in a place rather than reading about it or scrolling through images on a screen.

That’s why I try as far as possible to set my psychological thrillers in my local area, or in places I’ve visited or lived in. I grew up in London, spent a lot of years in Gloucestershire, but now I live in Dorset, a beautiful county on the south coast of England. We have glorious beaches, countryside and forests, pretty villages and bustling towns. I know, I sound like the tourist board now. But I love mixing this gentle, innocent beauty with the darkness of a twisted plot.

In The Secret Mother, my main character Tess lives in London. The area is a little run-down and shabby, but she works in a beautiful Italian garden centre that’s her haven within the busy city. The other part of the novel is set in Cranborne, a village in Dorset that dates to the Middle Ages, back when King John was a regular visitor during his hunting trips to Cranborne Chase.

I spent a few interesting research trips walking around the village and across the fields, soaking in the medieval atmosphere of the place, jotting down observations in my notebook. It made me even more excited to get back home and continue writing. Because visiting a place can also be inspiring, triggering off even more ideas to incorporate into the plot. Plus – bonus points – I get to take the husband and kids with me and combine work with a family day out.

So, I guess my take on internet research versus physically pounding the streets, would be that a Google search is perfectly fine, but if you have the opportunity to visit a place in person, then absolutely do that. It will enrich your writing, give depth to your plot and, even better, you’ll have a day or two away from your screen.

 

You can read more about Shalini Boland and her books via her publisher's website and also follow her on Facebook, Twitter, and Goodreads. The Secret Mother is available from all major book retailers.

Author R&R with Laura Elliot

Irish author Laura Elliot was born in Dublin and worked as a journalist and magazine editor before turning her hand to fiction. Under the name June Considine she penned twelve books for children and young adults, with short stories appearing in a number of teenage anthologies and broadcast on the radio. In 2009, she switched gears to adult psychological suspense with The Prodigal Sister, which was followed by seven more titles including 2018's bestselling The Wife Before Me.

 

Elliot's novel Guilty starts off on a warm summer morning, when, after a fight with her parents, thirteen-year old school Constance Lawson is reported missing. A few days later, Constance’s uncle, Karl Lawson, finds himself swept up in a media frenzy created by journalist Amanda Bowe, who is strongly implying that he is the prime suspect.

Six years later… Karl’s life is in ruins. His marriage is over, his family destroyed. But the woman who took everything away from him is thriving. With a successful career, husband, and a gorgeous baby boy, Amanda’s built quite a life for herself. Until the day she receives a phone call and in a heartbeat, she is plunged into every mother’s worst nightmare.

Laura Elliot takes some Author R&R today here on In Reference to Murder to talk about researching and writing her novels: 

The Brent geese had arrived on the Broadmeadow Estuary near my home and were combing the shoreline for sustenance when I drove past. My car radio was on and I was listening to an interview that had all the hallmarks of science fiction.  Soon, the interviewee promised, my rushed visits to my local library and to the archives of newspapers would be a thing of the past.  With the click of a mouse, I’d have access to a virtual global library. This was my introduction to the concept of the World Wide Web. I dismissed it, of course. Libraries, those hallowed, silent institutions were imbued with timeless knowledge and could never be replaced by such a new-fangled notion yet the Brent geese were barely on the wing again before it all came true.

Nowadays, I have ceased to be surprised by the diversity of information at my disposal and have almost forgotten what an index looks like. Undoubtably, research is easier these days but an overload of information can be as burdensome as too little. It stifles the spontaneity of the written word and I usually find it necessary to allow the research I’ve compiled over the internet to distil and almost vaporise before I can use it creatively.   

Interviewing face to face is my favourite form of research. People are only too happy to help when I need specific details. Whether it is a mechanic demonstrating how the chassis of a car can be damaged in a certain type of road accident, a police inspector detailing the process involved in searching for a missing person, a homeless boy telling me what it’s like to exist on the rough side of the street, they give their time willingly. Later, when I check my notes or recordings, their information will not need distilling and my writing will dance to the tune of their voices.

I’ve ghost written a number of books. Some stories related to tragic incidents that received massive publicity at the time of their unfolding. Like the rest of the population, I’d watched the news, unaware that one day I’d be called upon to ghost write these experiences from the point of view of one of the participants. In such instances, especially when the authors had been through the courts or involved in a tribunal, the research I needed was at my disposal through newspapers and reports.  The most difficult research I had to undertake was to probe into the minds of those who’d been traumatised, their lives turned upside down and changed forever by circumstances beyond their control.

Sometimes, they could not find the words to explain their trauma ―or their emotions were buried too deeply for me to disturb. In such cases, I had to dig deeply into my own psyche and try to imagine myself in their situations. To feel the fear, horror and bewilderment that can follow the brutal death of a loved one and all that must follow when such an event is played out in the glare of a public arena.

When writing fiction, which I now do full time, I use all the methods of research at my disposal. I was not familiar with the term ‘Fake News’ when I began to write my novel, Guilty, but I was interested in exploring the capacity of words to shape a narrative or reshape a truth. My office walls were covered with newspaper clippings that illustrated this power and I enjoyed the challenge of replicating reputable broadsheets and sensationally headlined tabloid reports throughout the narrative. 

The power of a note book can never be underestimated. I travelled in a camper van across the South Island of New Zealand some years ago. While my husband drove, I filled my notebook with details I knew would be forgotten as one experience overtook another then another. Later, this notebook formed the background research for my novel, The Prodigal Sister, and I’ve had the pleasure of being congratulated by New Zealanders on my depiction of their country. That would never have happened without my trusty notebook.

With such a surfeit of information at our disposal, it’s easy to forget that, sometimes, the mystical tapping of one’s imagination can be as reliable as the most detailed data. I’ve created imaginary landscapes and, later, when the final words had been written, I’d been startled to discover places that were uncannily familiar to their fictitious settings. In one of my stories, I created a deserted cottage situated on a lake shore and shadowed by an enormous boulder. Months later, when I visited the mountainous region where I’d set my location, I drove over the crest of a hill and discovered an isolated cottage in the valley below me, its image mirrored in the stillness of a lake, its size dwarfed by a boulder that had been in the same position since the ice age.

The introduction of the World Wide Web changed forever our tried and trusted methods of gathering information yet I still love to use my local library. I enjoy soaking up the meditative atmosphere, the feeling that I am sitting in a space where generations before me have concentrated on acquiring knowledge and pursuing their love of books.

You can learn more about Laura and her books via her website and also follow her on Facebook and Twitter. Guilty, published by Grand Central, is available via all major booksellers in digital, print, and audio formats.