Posts made in October, 2011

My new book Accused, is the first in the Pacific Coast Justice Series. The fictional main character is Carly Edwards and as the book opens she is still reeling from a divorce. Nick Anderson, her ex, is also a police officer. When I worked as a police officer, I saw a lot of marriages crumble and that was part of the reason I wanted to start the story at this point. The job seemed to take a toll on relationships whether the partners were both cops or one was a cop and the other wasn’t. And with fiction, I can take Carly and Nick’s situation and go anywhere I want with it. While I saw a lot of divorce, I also saw a lot of successes. Today I’d like to share a brief interview with half of a successful police couple. I met Lisa and Tim when I was a rookie,...

I had the privilege of working for a sergeant who is a strong Christian during the beginning of my career and then again as my career came to an end. Mike Tilson was one of the sergeants during my academy experience and then years later when I went to the academy to write training and policy, he was the administrative sergeant and my boss. I caught up with his wife, Bev, and asked her what it was like being the civilian married to the officer. Here’s the interview. Question: As I recall, Mike wasn’t an officer when you got married, was his decision to enter law enforcement something you embrace 100% or did you have reservations?  I don’t recall ever having any reservations.  I wanted him to do what he wanted to do.  I did tell him that I...

How do you write your characters? Does the story write the character or is it the reverse? When I read, the books that stay with me are the books with characters that walk off the page. Michael Connelly’s Harry Bosch, Elizabeth George’s Inspector Lynley and Tess Gerritsen’s Jane Rizzoli. I can see these people in my mind’s eye working the crime scene studying the evidence, interviewing the suspects. Yes, the story is important, but more intriguing to me is watching these people work. The authors have brought me to a point where I can believe the characters are real. For me reading is an escape. I like to be taken away, I don’t like to be preached too, I don’t like it when an author tries to pound an agenda into my mind. And I’ve decided that reading...