Christine Carbo: Mystery in the Majesty of Glacier National Park

INGRID THOFT

One of the many fantastic things about books is their ability to transport readers to unfamiliar and exotic places.  Christine Carbo, the author of the Glacier Park Mystery Series, is a master of immersing readers in the beautiful, but often unforgiving, landscape of Montana.  I'm thrilled that Christine is joining us today to discuss her latest book, "A Sharp Solitude."  The novel features FBI agent Ali Page as she treads on the edge of a murder investigation in which her daughter's father is the main suspect.  The intersection of her professional life and personal life make for mighty high stakes and a propulsive read.

INGRID THOFT: "A Sharp Solitude" the fourth in your Glacier Mystery series, features FBI investigator Ali Page, for the first time as a point-of-view character.  What made you decide to let Ali be the star of the show this time?

CHRISTINE CARBO: I had a lot of fun writing Ali as a side-character and decided to explore her more in my fourth novel. I plucked her from book three, "The Weight of Night," à la Tana French, and made her the protagonist in "A Sharp Solitude" – a formula I’ve been following throughout the series so far. So yes, this is the first book where we are in her head. Ali is a pistol in "The Weight of Night" where she is introduced as one of the resident local agents called in to take over a case involving a missing boy from one of Glacier Park’s campgrounds during fire season. She comes across as gruff and a bit irate in this book. In "A Sharp Solitude," I dialed her back a little, perhaps because I developed her situation as a mother in addition to being a professional FBI agent, but I still explore issues surrounding her anger and develop her tenacity. She had a less than ideal childhood and carries that with her as she strives to protect her daughter from the kind of difficulties she has as a child. Her father was an addict, abusive to her mother, and spent time in jail for selling drugs.

IPT: Montana, and in particular, Glacier National Park, is essentially another character in the book.  All of your books are so atmospheric and capture the isolation and majesty of their setting.  How did you decide to set your books in Montana, and how did you find your way there from Florida?

CC:  Thank you very much. I love to hear that because I enjoy including the dramatic landscape of where I live into my novels. Of course, too much setting can be a drawback, so I’m always working on finding the right balance. When I decided that I wanted to write crime fiction, I realized that I particularly loved the ones steeped in a strong sense of place: Denise Mina’s Glascow; Elizabeth George’s mysterious English countryside; Tana French’s Dublin; Dennis Lehane’s Boston, John Connelly’s Maine… the list goes on. At first I thought, I just live in Cowtown, USA with no sexy, dynamic, bustling cities around me. As a naïve new writer, I thought, how was I supposed to write what I knew so that it was captivating? (Of course, we all know that what makes a story fascinating is so much more than simply it’s setting!).

However, at the time, it dawned on me that I lived only a half hour from a place that people from all over the nation and the world come to visit. And that place—Glacier National Park—is not only stunning, it’s haunting at times. Plus, some of the local areas around Glacier are economically depressed and tend to have their share of crime. Automatically, when I began to think of Glacier, the awe and fear-inspiring grizzly came to mind, and I began to ponder what would happen if my main character had issues with bears and the very park he needed to conduct an investigation in. Hence, my first book, "The Wild Inside," is as much about whether the protagonist will find some emotional peace as it is about who committed the crime. My second book, "Mortal Fall," featuring a secondary character from the first book, again à la Tana French, also takes place in Glacier. The park, in essence, remains a strong secondary character in "Mortal Fall" and "The Weight of Night." The crime in "A Sharp Solitude" actually takes place right outside of Glacier near its border, so it has a different jurisdiction, but the setting is still extremely dramatic, stark, and isolated.

I came to the mountains when my family moved from Gainesville, Florida to Kalispell, Montana when I was still in middle school. My father left a position as Chief of Neuropathology at the University of Florida simply because he and my mother wanted to move to the mountains. In fact, I often find myself exploring the idea of how one finds the west as a place for personal reinvention, and I think this stems from relocating at a fairly formative age. At first, I hated leaving the beaches and my friends, but it didn’t take long for me to fall in love with Montana. As Steinbeck says in "Travels with Charlie," “I am in love with Montana. For other states I have admiration, respect, recognition, even some affection, but with Montana it is love…” However, the mountains are so much more than just a place for adventure—for skiing, hiking, biking, snow-mobiling, and in most of my stories, I try to reflect the ways in which human crime might butt up against the wild.

IPT:  "A Sharp Solitude” couldn’t be more timely in that gun violence is a recurring theme.  What made you hone in on that particular issue?

CC:  I read several articles about tragic gun accidents that had stuck with me, and there were several that took place in my native state of Florida, which spurred on some intense political debates during the 90’s on whether parents should be held criminally liable for crimes committed with their firearm by their children. The incident I wrote about was of course fictional, but I was inspired to write about such accidents anyway in spite of what a divisive topic it has become in our nation. The tragedy at the high school in Santa Fe has shone a spotlight back onto negligent storage laws since the suspect used his father’s weapon. However, in Texas, the suspect’s father will probably be immune from prosecution under the law because Texas law defines a child as 16 or younger, and the suspect is 17.

Additionally, separate from the gun issue, I have always been interested in how disasters and trauma that happen purely by accident can affect children for their entire lives. I also dealt with this topic in "The Weight of Night," how one child’s tragedy and trauma affected her family, her town, and of course, herself. Additionally, I knew someone when I was in high school who died by an accidental gunshot while on a hunting trip in Montana, and that has always stayed with me.

But as far as the national gun debate, I tried to remain neutral about the topic for several reasons. I don’t believe very many readers enjoy it when a writer gets preachy in a novel, so I wanted to stay away from getting too political. At times, I worried I was copping out as a writer, but I believe I stayed true to my characters. My other main character, Reeve, is neutral. In a way, for him to remain impartial is a coping mechanism. He has emotional baggage and he finds that staying clear of the topic is the only way for him to proceed—a form of detachment, yet survival for him, even if others believe it is a cop out.

IPT:  What has surprised you most about being a published author?

CC:  Definitely how supportive and generous the entire community of people who write, read, sell, promote, and loan books is. When I first got published, I was so green at the business. I felt like a tiny spider casting filament around with no place for it to stick. But as I started to go to writers’ and readers’ conferences and visit bookstores and libraries, it became apparent that there is a strong, supportive web in place. I remember being so excited to get a blurb from one of your Jungle Reds, Deb Crombie, for my first book. I didn’t even know Deb then, but she was very generous to help a debut writer like me out, and I always try to do the same for new writers no matter how busy I am.

Even though publishing is an incredibly challenging, tough business, it is also very encouraging and highly rewarding no matter what level of success your books achieve because readers, other authors, booksellers, librarians, bloggers, reviewers, and many, many more in the industry are so amazingly big-hearted. Being your guest on this successful and engaging blog is simply another reflection of how the writing community is so helpful and generous!

IPT:  Is there a wannabe book lurking in the back of your brain, something you would write if you didn’t have to consider agents, editors, and fans?  A romance?  Non-fiction?  Cookbook?

CC:  I’m pretty happy writing suspense for now, but you never know. I did write two non-genre books years ago in my twenties. I consider them my training-wheel books, and I never seriously tried to publish them. Readers sometimes ask me if I’ll go back to them to update them and try to publish them, and I usually answer that so far, I haven’t had the desire. But you never know what the future holds. I figure there are more than enough sub-genres within crime-fiction to keep me exploring new ways of approaching suspense for a long time to come. So far, psychological procedurals have worked well for me, and I love to write them and tinker with their structure. In fact, I like to think of "A Sharp Solitude" as police procedural meets domestic suspense meets the wild. I can imagine trying an entirely different type of suspense novel at some point.

IPT: I think that's a perfect description of "A Sharp Solitude," and I'm sure it's going to resonate with a whole range of readers.  

Christine is joining us today to answer your questions, and she's also giving away a copy of "A Sharp Solitude."  Just comment to enter.

“A Sharp Solitude” 
A gripping new Glacier Park mystery by the acclaimed author of "The Wild Inside" – perfect for fans of C.J. Box and Nevada Barr.

In the darkening days of autumn, a journalist’s body is found near the Canadian border. The victim was last seen with a man named Reeve Landon, the secretive subject of an article she’d been writing. Now Reeve is the prime suspect.

FBI investigator Ali Paige is not assigned the case, but Reeve is an ex-boyfriend, the father of her child. If she can find out what really happened, she might be able to save her daughter from the pain of abandonment. Meanwhile, a reckless and paranoid Reeve ventures deep into in the woods, assuming his karmic punishment has finally arrived. As the clock ticks and the noose tightens around Reeve’s neck, Ali isn’t sure how far she’ll go to find the truth. And what if truth isn’t something she wants to know?

Propulsive and suspenseful, evoking the breathtaking beauty of Glacier National Park, A Sharp Solitude demonstrates that people can’t outrun their demons, even in the vast, wild terrain of Northwest Montana.

Christine Carbo is the author of the Glacier Mystery Series, an ensemble series set in and around Glacier National Park. Her books include "The Wild Inside," "Mortal Fall," "The Weight of Night," and her latest, "A Sharp Solitude."   Carbo is a recipient of the Womens' National Book Association Pinckley Prize, the Silver Falchion Award, and the High Plains Book Award. A Florida native, she and her family live in Whitefish, Montana. Find out more at ChristineCarbo.com.

Guns in mysteries: How not to get it wrong.

JAN BROGAN: One of the most intimidating things for me as a mystery writer was the whole "weapons" thing. Not only were guns completely foreign to me, I had so many preconceived notions, I didn't even want to learn about them. I had to get over that for Teaser, and the way I did was spend a morning at a shooting range(where I learned a lot of respect for gun owners.) But there are easier ways, and Bill Chipman, police sergeant, firearms instructor, and mystery author, has agreed to give us a primer.

Bill began his career working for the Oak Bluffs Police Depatment, and worked as a patrol officer there and at the Littleton, MA, Police Department, and is now a sergeant on Harvard University Police Department He has been a Mountain Bike Patrol Officer, a Motorcycle Officer, Firearms Instructor, and Rangemaster there. He teaches Verbal Judo to Police Officers and has also taught Close Quarters Combat and Response to Active Shooters.

Bill Chipman: Ever read or watched a scene and realized that the author has described or depicted something that’s impossible? He’s talking about a city where you lived for a few years or went to college, and you realize that those streets he’s talking about don’t exist, or traffic travels in the opposite direction?

Depending on your suspension of disbelief, your reaction can range from wanting to scream and throw the book out the window to a mild bump in the smooth path of your enjoyment of the story. It’s about attention to detail and research, and it happens all the time with guns, on the screen and the page.

Ever read in a book about how someone’s just fired ten shots from a revolver? Doesn’t happen. Revolvers carry six shots. Yeah, sure, a tiny number of specialized revolvers carry five, and fewer still eight, but a revolver is a six shot gun. Once you fire six, you have to open it up and reload the bullets into each chamber, and then it can fire six shots again. And revolvers are not ‘pistols.’

‘Pistols,’ or ‘Automatics’ are common names for the Semi-Automatic Pistol. They are not fully automatic. They cannot fire multiple rounds from one trigger pull. The trigger must be depressed each time a round is fired. The ‘Semi-Automatic’ part refers to the way the gun reloads the chamber to fire again.

When a Semi-Automatic Pistol is fired, the explosion from the charge creates rapidly expanding gas, generating recoil energy, just like a revolver. The difference is, the Semi-Automatic makes use of that energy to push the long part on the top of the gun, known as the ‘slide,’ along rails to the rear (hence the name), held in place by those rails and a big spring.

The spring then stops the motion to the rear, reverses it, and brings the slide back forward to the firing position. As it does, it scoops another bullet from a spring-loaded magazine (often incorrectly referred to as the ‘clip’) and deposits that bullet in the chamber, so that the pistol is ready to be fired again. All of that happens in a fraction of a second, mechanically and ‘automatically.’

The Semi-Automatic Pistol was designed so that it could carry and fire more bullets in a shorter period of time, giving its carrier a tactical advantage over the revolver. And then it can be reloaded easily by carrying extra magazines. The revolver and the pistol are markedly different weapons, a fact often overlooked, both in our writing and in TV shows and movies.

And there are no guns made of plastic that can pass through metal detectors without setting them off. Some guns have parts made of polymer plastic. Incorporating the polymer prevents corrosion and reduces weight. Both good things.

But there is no plastic that can withstand the heat and trauma associated with the explosive charge of a bullet. It melts and deforms. So even guns with plastic parts have enough metal, necessary to the function of the weapon, to set off a metal detector or bein an x-ray.

Ever read a newspaper story where they talk about someone having an ‘accidental discharge,’ and how ‘the gun just went off?’ Guns don’t just go off, even if dropped. Unless there’s something mechanically wrong, the trigger has to be pulled.

Now that can happen, for instance, when someone’s sticking a gun into their waistband, and the trigger catches in clothing, or if something else gets caught in the trigger guard as a cop is holstering the weapon. But guns do not just go off. Accidental discharge is a neutral way of saying that someone screwed up.

The fact that the trigger has to be pulled itself points to another common inconsistency on the screen: Cops running around with their fingers on the trigger. Cops don’t do that, because it’s proven to be one of the precursors to accidental discharge. Imagine that something startles the officer, and she tenses up. Her fingers tense too, it’s an instinctive reaction. Fight or flight stuff. You get scared, your whole body tenses up. And cops get scared.

But say it’s not something dangerous, just something unexpected, in an already tense situation. The cop tenses and pulls the trigger instinctively, without making a decision based on the threat level. Bang goes the gun, the bullet finds whatever stands in front of it, and an innocent or unarmed person is shot without cause. Cops are trained not to place their finger on the trigger until a rising threat creates the need to fire the gun.

And the whole dramatic approach, with the gun up by the protagonist’s ear. I know it looks great, because you can do a tense facial close up, and still see the gun. But not in the real world. Guns are kept pointed at the ground unless they’re about to be fired. This is because if you have an accidental discharge while the gun is pointed up, well, what goes up, comes down. And, while rare, there are documented cases of innocent citizens, miles away, being injured by a stray round fired into the air. Think Third World celebratory gunfire. Scares the hell out of me every time I see it on TV.

The gun is kept in the ‘low-ready position’ until there is an identifiable threat. That means pointed at the ground, never up, and never ‘lasering’ the cop in front of you. Imagine a laser attached to the front of the gun, on all the time. Any time that laser crosses another person, you either intended to shoot that person, or you made a mistake. That’s gun safety 101.

Every gun manufacturer has a schematic of its weapons on the internet, and will send them to prospective customers upon request. And there’s no shortage of gun enthusiasts posting how to use them, and what they’re capable of, on Youtube and similar sites. Not to mention the helpful enthusiasts at your local firing range. The guns in our dramas deserve the same attention to craft that gardening, or racecar driving, deserves.

JAN: In the spirit of holiday giving, Bill has generously agreed to try to answer any gun questions you may have, so.... pardon the pun....shoot away! And if you want more information on his new mystery, Sucker's Dance, check out his website at www.billchipman.com