HANK
PHILLIPPI RYAN: So—high school. My reunion
is coming up, and it got me thinking about what went on back then.
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There
were the students—girls—who went away and didn’t come back. The boys who were “hoody” as we called them, who
did mysterious stuff. We talked about
the goat killer, of course. (Did you have him?) And one classmate died in a car
accident—sad, but not sinister.
But
we were all mesmerized by the killing of a local school-aged girl named Sylvia Likens—she
was tortured to death by a gruesome landlady and her hideous collection of teenage
crazy people. Yeesh. I still get chills.
They called the killer The Torture Mother.
Anyway.
Susan
Bickford's debut mystery, A Short Time to Die has its start and heart in high school.
This dark tale of suspense opens as Mary Shaw hears gunshots on her way home
from a high school dance in rural Central New York. A wild chase begins, ending
in the death of two men and the start of her life on the run.
Susan,
tell us more! (And whoo hoo—a giveaway at the end!)
SUSAN BICKFORD: One of the biggest ah ha
moments for me came in writing the middle part of A Short Time to Die. It took me down a dark path that I hadn’t
intended to travel and challenged me to look at many aspects of human nature
that I found disturbing. When I looked back over my shoulder, I was surprised
by the rough road I had traveled.
The
inspiration for the opening scene was much more simple and also easily
compelling.
At
the end of my freshman year in high school, two classmates from my homeroom did
not show up for the last day of classes. They had gone to a local swimming hole
in their bathing suits and never came back. There were whispers that they had
“run off.”
They
hadn’t run off. Their bodies were found several months later, but that didn’t
stop the whispers, blaming them for their own deaths. Their killer or killers were never found or
identified.
Decades
later when I started writing, I knew I needed to address the deep ache that
episode had imprinted in my heart. I had to write about a girl who is
confronted with mortal danger and escapes.
A Short Time to Die begins
with a chase and the deaths of her assailants. She doesn’t go to the police.
She doesn’t tell her family. She goes home as if nothing happened and makes her
plans to get as far away from her this town and her family as possible.
That
was the easy part.
I
knew I had a compelling beginning, but what next? Why couldn’t Marly go to the
police even though she knew it was the right thing to do? If she couldn’t tell
her family, what kind of people were they? What about the community around her?
Marly’s
life is dominated by her extended family, the Harris clan, a loosely connected
gang of relatives who operate a criminal network out of the rural area where
they live. What made these characters so twisted and cruel?
As
I wrote, I realized that there is a side to all of us that comes from our
ancestors who had to identify the weakest animal in a pack of deer, for
example, or recognize danger.
Sadly,
that instinct also can be used in a cruel way, to pick out others who are
weaker or different and target them for bullying or abuse. Marly’s family is
filled with people like this, who infect their own relatives and neighbors with
violence and fear.
At
the same time, there is another ancient instinct: empathy. The ability to feel
the pain and emotions of others allowed our ancestors also to form bonds with
those around them, ensuring safety and comfort.
Marly
realizes that she cannot survive—let alone escape—on her own. She gradually
sees that there are people around her who are ready to help if she will let
them.
Marly
and her step-father, Del, are opposite sides of the same coin. Both are smart,
self-aware, and resourceful. Del succumbs to the crushing malevolence of his
family, but that same environment pushes Marly to embrace empathy and that is
what enables her to survive and build a life.
A life I could have wished for my classmates.
Did
anything happen to you in high school that haunts you? Or is there an event
that’s haunted you for years? I’d love to hear. I’ll be picking a commenter’s
name at random to receive a gift copy of A Short Time to Die.
Hank: Yeah, so fascinating! It makes me realize that there as probably a lot
more going on than I knew. Now I’m
thinking about Sylvia Likens again. The world was so much smaller then, right? Did
that make us feel safer? Or not? And do you have a haunting high school memory?
Susan will draw a winner tonight!
Susan Alice Bickford was born in Boston, Massachusetts, and grew up in
Central New York.
After
she discovered computer graphics and animation her passion for technology
pulled her to Silicon Valley, where she became an executive at a leading
technology company.
She
now works as an independent consultant, and continues to be fascinated by all
things high tech. She splits her time between Silicon Valley and Vermont.
A
Short Time to Die is her first
novel.
Find
her on Facebook and Twitter and on her website: www.susanalicebickford.com
A Short Time to Die
Walking
home on a foggy night, Marly Shaw stops in the glare of approaching headlights.
Two men step out of a pickup truck. A sudden, desperate chase erupts in
gunshots. Both men are left dead. And a terrified girl is on the run—for the
rest of her life . . .
Thirteen years later, human bones discovered in the Santa Cruz Mountains of California are linked to a mother and son from Central New York. Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Detective Vanessa Alba and her partner, Jack Wong, dive into an investigation that lures them deep into the Finger Lakes. They find a community silenced by the brutal grip of a powerful family bound by a twisted sense of blood and honor, whose dark secrets still haunt the one family member who thought she got away . . .
Thirteen years later, human bones discovered in the Santa Cruz Mountains of California are linked to a mother and son from Central New York. Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Detective Vanessa Alba and her partner, Jack Wong, dive into an investigation that lures them deep into the Finger Lakes. They find a community silenced by the brutal grip of a powerful family bound by a twisted sense of blood and honor, whose dark secrets still haunt the one family member who thought she got away . . .
