You met Kate Flora back in June for Thursday Thoughts and July for Tuesday Treasures, well today we welcome her back as she talks about going where the story leads and how two of her books came about. So without further ado, here's Kate....
Going Where the Story Leads Me
I didn’t set out to write true crime. Being a lawyer dealing
with battered kids and deadbeat dads and representing the Maine Human Rights
Commission, I was deeply curious about what led people to be liars and criminals. When
I published my first Thea Kozak mystery, Chosen for Death, back in
1994, I was following the footsteps of wonderful role models like Sara Paretsky
and Sue Grafton and Margaret Maron. In true Nancy Drew tradition, I was writing
about strong women who solve mysteries and saved themselves.
Fate intervened. The series was dropped. As I floundered
about, trying to decide what to do, I realized that even writing an amateur PI
meant a lot of contact with the police to get the details of my books right. The
life they led fascinated me. I decided my new venture would be into police
procedurals. With male protagonists. And what an adventure that became!
I started writing my Joe Burgess series, set in Portland,
Maine, and not long after I’d started the series, my “go to” guy in the
Portland Police Department worked on a real murder that he wanted to write
about. That project went from my being his writing coach to becoming his
co-writer, and the result was Finding Amy: A True Story of Murder in Maine,
a fascinating story that involved three public safety organizations: The
Portland police, the Maine state police, and the Maine Warden Service, who came
in with their search and rescue expertise and trained cadaver dogs to help find
the victim’s hidden body.
I thought I was going back to writing fiction, but then one
of the wardens said, “Well, Kate, when you’re ready, I’ve got another one for
you.”
I thought, no, never
again, writing true crime is too hard and takes too long. Eventually,
though, I recognized that I was fascinated by getting to be an insider, looking
over the investigators’ shoulders as they told how they worked a real crime. I
called up Maine warden Lt. Pat Dorian and said, “Okay, so tell me about the
case.” That led me up to northeastern New Brunswick, in Canada, and another
murder and another hidden body. Another body that, even though the crime was in
another country, had been found by a group of Maine wardens with trained
cadaver dogs who had gone up to Miramichi to help out a bunch of frustrated
investigators who had been search for Maria Tanasichuk for months.
What had I said before? Writing true crime is too hard and
it takes too long. Finding Amy was a 2 ½ year project. Death Dealer: How Cops and
Cadaver Dogs Brought a Killer to Justice, took five, because there were
lengthy appeals and two long first degree murder trials. And I couldn’t finish
the book until the bad guy’s conviction was final.
There’s tremendous pressure that comes from telling the real
story. So many of the victim’s friends trusted me with their confidence, and a
quartet of stellar investigators shared the story, their files, and even their
family dinners as I learned about the case. From the beginning, when a New York
agent coldly told me that “no one is going to be interested in reading about a
small Canadian crime,” I believed in the story and feared that it might never
get published.
Last September, it did.
I’m learning to trust my instincts about going where the
story sends me. Death Dealer has been an Agatha and Anthony finalist, and just
won the Public Safety Writers Association 2015 award for best non-fiction.
Kate Flora is the author of 14 mystery and true crime books. Death Dealer, her latest true crime, is an Agatha and Anthony finalist and won the Public Safety Writers’ Association Award for Best Non-fiction 2015. And Grant You Peace, her latest Joe Burgess police procedural, won the 2015 Maine Literary Award for Crime Fiction. Her other titles include the Thea Kozak mysteries and the starred-review Joe Burgess police series. Coming in 2016 will be a new Thea Kozak mystery, Death Warmed Over, a 5th Joe Burgess police procedural, And Led Them Thus Astray, and her collaboration with Maine game warden Roger Guay on his memoir, A Good Man with a Dog. Coming this October is Beat, Slay, Love, a serial novel about the killing of famous TV chefs, by the imaginary Thalia Filbert, which she wrote with four other crime writers.
A former assistant attorney general for the State of Maine in the areas of child abuse and child support enforcement, Kate is a founding member of the New England Crime Bake and Maine Crime Wave conferences. She has served as editor and publisher of Level Best Books and as international president of Sisters in Crime. She teaches writing at Grub Street in Boston.
Find out more about Kate and her books by visiting her Website and connecting with her on Facebook and Twitter.
Wow...if you like mystery and true crime books, check Kate's out!
Hope you enjoyed this week's spotlight! Check back every week for new Tuesday Treasures, Thursday Thoughts and Saturday Spotlights!
Until next time...take care & God Bless.
PamT
