Kate Flora writes... because we NEED heroes

HALLIE EPHRON: Kate Flora is one of those multi-talented writers who can write a police procedural one minute, switch to true crime, and then move on to one that's more traditional. She's probably the first mystery writer I met when I started to write, and she welcomed me into the amazing community of crime fiction writers. She's smart, generous, and multi-talented.

I caught up with Kate and asked her about her new books - she's got SEVERAL of them!
 

Kate Flora: Since the terrible events at the Squirrel Hill synagogue, I’ve been regularly checking the news, looking for a thoughtful and compassionate grownup to come forward and speak to us. Speak to the country. Say the words that we need to hear about who we are and why we are, and try to bring us together.

No such person has appeared. But looking for leadership, and courage, and decency and bravery has brought my thoughts around to crime writing. Why we do it, and why crime novels can play such an important part in the lives of our readers.

Some years ago, when Hallie was doing a book launch right after 9/11, she arrived shaken by an interviewer who had challenged her about whether it was right to write crime for entertainment when the world had just seen such criminal violence. Hallie’s response was perfect. She said we should all wish the world were more like the world of the crime novel, because in the world that we writers are creating, morality prevails and bad guys don’t. (My words, not hers. She likely said it better.)

In my books, I like to write heroes. Joe Burgess, in my police procedural series, is someone who gets justice for victims. Thea Kozak, in her series, describes herself as “Thea the Human Tow Truck.” She’s someone who has to stop and help the helpless, those who are broken down on the roadsides of life. I worry sometimes about whether my endings are too happy, but I like to end the books with a sense of crimes solved, order restored, and send my characters onward to fight another day.

The heroes and heroines in my new crime story collection, Careful What You Wish For: Stories of revenge, retribution, and the world made right, are a mixed bag. There are the victims’ teenaged children grappling with the mystery of their parents’ deaths. One is a teenaged soccer player forced to become the adult when her father’s death sends her mother to the bottle, who is determined to locate the car that struck her father down. There’s a confused son shocked to discover how much people disliked his lawyer dad. There’s the grieving wife, coached by her husband’s ghost, who searches for the sleazy gun dealer who sold the defective gun that killed him.

These heroines—and they are mostly women who star in these stories—are often dealing with difficult domestic situations. The man trying to poison his wife becomes his own victim. The sad new widow continues to set the traps her husband devised to keep her safe when he was on the road, and catches herself a pair of thieves. An abused wife who can’t take it any more finds a gun in an unlocked car.

Worms Crawl In, told from the viewpoint of a mother sitting in the trial of her daughter’s killer, was inspired by the real world courage shown by a murder victim’s mother I observed while writing the true crime, Finding Amy.

They may often be everyday people, dealing with the troubles in ordinary lives, but as is the case in my series mysteries, the characters in these stories become brave, become problem solvers, become inspired by the desire to do the right thing. I hope readers may find some comfort in the stories, may raise a fist and say, “Yes,” in these times when we are seeking courage and strength. All while being entertained.

HALLIE: Applauding Kate's sentiments... And wondering, despite the fact that crime fiction is about crime, are the books you read a source of comfort, courage, and strength... or is entertainment enough?

About Kate Flora:

Kate Flora’s fascination with people’s criminal tendencies began in the Maine attorney general’s office. Deadbeat dads, people who hurt their kids, and employers’ discrimination aroused her curiosity about human behavior. The author of twenty books and many short stories, Flora’s been a finalist for the Edgar, Agatha, Anthony, and Derringer awards. She won the Public Safety Writers Association award for nonfiction and twice won the Maine Literary Award for crime fiction. Death Warmed Over, her 8^th Thea Kozak mystery, was a finalist for the Maine Literary Award. Her 9th Thea Kozak mystery, Schooled in Death, was published in November. Her new crime story collection is Careful What You Wish For: Stories of revenge, retribution, and the world made right.

Flora’s nonfiction focuses on aspects of the public safety officers’ experience. Her two true crimes, Finding Amy: A true story of murder in Maine (with Joseph K. Loughlin) and Death Dealer: How cops and cadaver dogs brought a killer to justice, follow homicide investigations as the police conducted them. Her co-written memoir of retired Maine warden Roger Guay, A Good Man with a Dog: A Game Warden’s 25 Years in the Maine Woods, explores policing in a world of guns, misadventure, and the great outdoors. Her latest nonfiction is Shots Fired: The Misconceptions, Misunderstandings, and Myths about police shootings with retired Portland Assistant Chief Joseph K. Loughlin. Flora divides her time between Massachusetts and Maine.

Dreaming, a guest post by Kate Flora

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: Kate Flora is a tiny woman with a giant presence in the world of crime fiction. Kate turned to writing after a career in the Maine Attorney General's office. Her books include seven “strong woman” Thea Kozak mysteries and three gritty police procedurals in her star-reviewed Joe Burgess series. Her true crime, Finding Amy, has been optioned for a movie. She's a Goddess - a retired president of Sisters in Crime. She's one of the moving forces of the New England chapter of the Sisters in Crime. And she's a writer who continues to... dream.

 

When I was growing up on a chicken farm in a small Maine town, money was often tight. Bill collectors really did knock on the door, sometimes the phone got turned off, and there was a large hole in the bathroom floor waiting for the money to get it fixed. We stapled plastic over the windows to keep out the drafts. We grew our own food and budgeted things down to the last cent. Our refuge was books. Books and the Sears and Roebuck catalogue.

When that enormous, thick book would arrive in the spring and the fall, I could let my child’s imagination run. What would my summer wardrobe be like? With my 4-H training, I knew about mixing and matching, and I would design the perfect combination of pants and shorts and tops. My wardrobe squared away, I could turn to furnishing my someday house. What thick, fluffy towels I would want. What color sheets. What my rugs and furniture would be like. Not having too much was likely a blessing. I didn’t get to waste my time shopping, except in my imagination. It is that imagination, tuned up as a mechanism for entertainment and escape, for imagining other worlds and other lives, that has led me, as an adult, to create the worlds of my fiction

I decided to set practicing law aside and try my hand at writing mysteries when my younger son, Max, was born and I decided to be a stay-at-home mom. I bought a computer and began writing a law school mystery, A Matter of the Will. This week, Max got engaged. Next week, he turns thirty. I spent the first ten years of his life, and the first ten of my dedicated writing career, in the unpublished writer’s corner. My early years of delayed gratification, spent imagining and enjoying the possibilities, and to keep forging ahead without reward, served me well during those years.

It’s nearly twenty years since my first Thea Kozak mystery, Chosen for Death, was published, and I am still finding that those early years of learning to enjoy the possibilities serve me well. In 2007, Finding Amy, the true crime book I co-wrote with Portland’s Deputy Chief Joseph K. Loughlin, was nominated for an Edgar. I woke to find my e-mail queue jammed with congratulations. It was a wonderful moment, and I got to have the months between learning of the nomination and the night of the Edgars to bask in the honor and enjoy the recognition of my peers. I never cared whether I won or lost, just like I really never cared whether I would get those clothes or that furniture from Sears. I got to enjoy the moments and feel the pleasure.

A week ago, I got an e-mail from my friend Lea Wait, congratulating me on being a finalist for the Maine Literary Awards. A few minutes later, I got the official notice. Redemption, the third book in my Portland, Maine police procedural series, was one of three finalists. Once again, I am enjoying the moment and appreciating the fact that my book has been recognized. I’m in very good company with fellow nominees Paul Doiron and Katherine Hall Page. Both of them my friends. Both excellent writers. But right now, I’m kind of wishing I could just skip the awards ceremony in Portland on May 30^th, because I am enjoying the here and now. I’m enjoying the possibilities. The maybe a new line in my bio. Maybe a sticker to slap on the book jacket.

I’m also enjoying the certainty—that a shy, bookish chicken farmer’s daughter from a small Maine town, who devoured books from the Vose Library and dreamed of being a writer, has become one.

 You can find out more about Kate and her books at her website. You can follow her on Twitter as @kateflora, and she also blogs at Maine Crime Writers.