Author R&R with Kim Hays

 

Kim Hays is a dual citizen (Swiss/American) who has made her home in Bern since she married a Swiss. Before that she lived in San Juan, Vancouver, and Stockholm, as well as the US, her birthplace. Since the age of seventeen she has worked at a wide variety of jobs, from factory forewoman to director of a small nonprofit and, in Switzerland, from sociology lecturer to cross-cultural trainer. She began writing mysteries when her son left for college. Pesticide, the first book in the Polizei Bern series, was shortlisted for the 2020 Debut Dagger award by the Crime Writers’ Association. Hays has a BA in English history and literature from Harvard and a PhD in cultural sociology from UC-Berkeley.

Pesticide is set in Bern, Switzerland, known for its narrow cobblestone streets, decorative fountains, and striking towers—until a rave on a hot summer night erupts into violent riots, and a young man is found the next morning bludgeoned to death with a policeman’s club. If that wasn't problem enough, the same day, an elderly organic farmer turns up dead and drenched with pesticide. When an unexpected discovery ties the two victims into a single case, seasoned detective, Giuliana Linder, has to work with her distractingly attractive colleague, Renzo Donatelli. But if Giuliana wants to prevent another murder, she’ll have to put her life on the line—and her principles.

Kim stops by In Reference to Murder to talk about researching and writing the book:

It goes without saying that some of my research for Pesticide had to do with crime: I wanted to find out how the Canton of Bern police respond to riots and investigate murders and to make sure I knew which wholesale dealers in the city handle marijuana and which, heroin. I also needed to check locations, which meant visiting Bern’s alternative culture center, an enormous, graffiti-covered former riding school next to the main train station, and driving around the Three-Lakes region northeast of the city, scouting out a model for Haldiz, the book’s imaginary farming village. The most fun I had, though, was exploring the topic of organic farming.

I already had a romantic view of farming, passed on by my father, who spent the happiest summers of his childhood on his great-aunt and -uncle’s small farm in rural Louisiana. But I’m not the only one who glorifies the agricultural life—most Swiss have an idyllic picture of farming as well, delighting in Alpine meadows dotted with cows, sunny hillsides lined with grapevines, and spring fields full of yellow rapeseed. The reality is grimmer, since the number of farms in Switzerland has been shrinking for decades. Today there are fewer than 50,000 of them, with an average size of 50 acres. Swiss farmers receive the equivalent of three billion dollars per year in subsidies; in return for its generosity, the government regulates their farming methods. There are rules about what farmers must do to increase biodiversity; improve the welfare of livestock; reduce the use of poisons on crops, antibiotics in animals, and fertilizer on fields; and, in general, look after the land and water under their care. The rules for organic farms—which make up about 16% of the acreage used for agriculture—are the strictest. All Swiss farms are checked regularly, and, if they are organic, they have to pass very thorough annual inspections in order to be recertified year after year.

For Pesticide’s plot to make sense, I needed to understand what makes a farm “organic” (or bio in Swiss-German) and how an annual farm inspection works. So, before I started writing, I visited small organic farms in Bern and talked to farmers. I spent time at the offices of Bio Suisse, which manages the guidelines of the organic label, and I interviewed several farm inspectors, one of whom was an organic farmer herself.  She told me something that went straight into my book:

Don’t think of us as a kind of police force; it’s not like that at all. Most farmers like our visits. All year long they protect the soil and the water and keep their crops and animals healthy, and no one really knows how difficult that is or how many setbacks they suffer. But we inspectors know, and we make that clear to them—at least, I do.

Another issue I thought a lot about during the writing of Pesticide was how much standard German and Bernese dialect to use. While a little bit of unintelligible language provides local color, I had to keep reminding myself that too much of it becomes confusing and distracting. Still, a few words turned out to be hard to translate into English. One of these was the police role called “Fahnder.” Literally, the word means “searcher”—we’d translate it as “investigator.” Within the Canton of Bern police department, it’s a plain-clothes job involving a lot of research—both on the computer and in the field, and the different tasks are usually assigned by detectives looking into serious crimes. One of the two main characters in Pesticide, Giuliana Linder, is a homicide detective, and the other, Renzo Donatelli, is an investigator of this kind—he’s junior to Giuliana in rank and age and often works with her on her cases. In the end, I decided to call him a Fahnder, even in an English-language book. I’m not sure the same job exists in the American police force.

I consider research not only an important part of writing but a quintessential one.  Sometimes I gather more information than I end up needing for a particular book, but I find that the process of researching helps me figure out what I want to say in my novel. I’m sure this is true for most writers, not just me. I suppose I’m also influenced by my mother having been a reference librarian whose job was to find things out for people. It was work that she loved.

Google has changed the nature of that pursuit—but not its importance.

 

You can learn more about Kim Hays and her books on her website, and follow her on Facebook and Twitter. Pesticide is now available in ebook and paperback via Seventh Street Books at all major book retailers.

Author R&R with B. G. Arnold

 

B.G. Arnold is the pen name of an octagenarian mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother who starting writing her debut novel, Bone Deep Bonds, in 2002 but picked it back up again during the COVID-19 pandemic. The reason for her pseudonymous name follows on from her life's work; although the characters in Bone Deep Bonds are fictitious, they are based on the author's thirty-five years as a licensed professional clinical counselor, where she worked with families of incest and other sexual abusers and victims. There is also a more personal connection, too—the author's own adopted father, a church elder, abused her until she left home at age eighteen.

In Bone Deep Bonds, upon coming home from work, a father learns that his twelve-year-old son hasn't returned from his routine jog on a country road nearby. The only clue is an unknown BMW that a neighbor noticed passing by, hours earlier. With family and the local police discouraging him, the father believes in his own intuition and the Spirit who guides him. As he sets out on a journey to combat the forces of evil, he's startled to discover some buried secrets from his own youth. 

 

Arnold stopped by In Reference to Murder to talk a little bit more about the book:

 

Although the plot and characters of Bone Deep Bonds are all fictional, they are drawn from an in-depth interview from an expert on the symptomatology, diagnosis and treatment of subjects on 'The Wheel of Sexual Abuse.'  That's me.

Emerging from a history of childhood incest, I instinctively followed an educational path in Clinical Psychology. That path allowed me to ‘step away’ from the emotional swamp that often floods survivors, drowning them in their own psychic pain and anxiety, that far too often results in their continuing on a path of self-destruction, expressed in their own deviant behavior, and/or suicidal chemical addictions.

It was not difficult for me to portray the five major characters as males, as I've had extensive experience in their actual clinical treatment, both as victims and perpetrators. Childhood victims frequently emerged as adult abusers, be they male or female. Female offenders (misandrists) are far less likely to be identified as a sexual abuser, since most often their victims are males, and those victims go with the predominant characterization that allows them to believe that their own male sexuality is the lure that attracts their abusers.

When I began writing my novel, it began in the mind of a wealthy male pedophile who kidnaps a twelve-year-old male, drugging him into an oblivious state, and drives the victim back to his hidden underground apartment, where he 'grooms' him. From that point forward, the characters led me, and the story somehow developed in an organic fashion, much like the human body follows structural patterns.

An example of this character-determined 'organicity' is that the villain drives his chosen boy from his search ending in southern Ohio back to his home in Baltimore, Maryland. I had never been to Baltimore, and tried to 'get out of there,' but my characters wouldn't allow me to leave, so Maryland it was. This called for some research as to city landmarks, but on the advice of my overseeing editor from Atmosphere Press, I soon saw that too much research for actual places deadened the tone of the writing. So I made up the names of many of the streets, suburbs, restaurants, bars. I imagine that Baltimore residents, if they read it, will be offended by my inaccuracies. Or perhaps they'll delight in exposing all my 'mistakes.'

The murders that enter into the plot happen because their perpetrators feel completely justified in their actions, seeing the consequences that would otherwise arise as keeping them from reaching their goals. They’re the ultimate illustrations of self-absolving characters. So...I didn't start out with murder in my mind, but it evolved from the characters that grew out of my clinical background and knowledge of characters on 'The Wheel of Sexual Abuse' that keeps spinning round and round until its momentum is stopped. And that can be stopped only through teaching others how to identify, report, and stop sexual victimization, along with social rehabilitation programs for the victims, abusers and conjoined family members.

This is of prime importance in our modern world where the breakdown of social order begins with the failure to build strong, healthy family units, leading to healthier communities and, eventually, nations. Stopping human abuse of the weak and vulnerable, the cornerstone of a firm foundation, will go a long way toward leading us out of the worldwide chaos, which now prevails.

 

You can find Bone Deep Bonds in both digital and paperback formats from most booksellers, including Amazon and Barnes and Noble.