True Crime, Jungle Red Style

ROBERTA: As you heard from Hank last week, we're experimenting with a new feature called "True Crime Tuesday". Since we all write crime fiction, I thought it would be fun to hear how much and often the Jungle Red Writers have contact with real crime fighters.

I've never been tempted to write a police procedural because I haven't had much personal experience with cops. In fact, I've always been a little afraid of the police. Besides, getting all those details nailed down looked like an awful lot of work. (Although my very good friend SW Hubbard, who wrote a wonderful police procedural series, claims she made every bit of hers up.)

With my amateur sleuth mysteries, I assumed I could finesse most of the police work details and concentrate on things I was more interested in, like psychology and golf. But as I wrote my first book, SIX STROKES UNDER, I realized I needed some specific local facts. In particular, if a murder occurred on the golf course just before a tournament began, would they cancel or postpone the event? A cancellation would ruin my story, so I had to know. Not seeing any way around it, I ferreted out who had jurisdiction of the area covering the Plantation Golf and Country Club and drove to the Sheriff's office.

"I'm a writer," I told the heavyset fellow who manned the front desk, "and I have a question." I explained the scenario. Golf course. Dead body. Tournament. He looked at me blankly. A crackpot, I could imagine him thinking, but is she dangerous?

"There's a law enforcement library in Orlando," he finally said (3 hours away). "I'm sure you could find the answer there." I left in a quiet huff and promptly wrote him into the book as Sheriff Tate, a "short, very sweaty man whose uniform barely stretched over the expansive girth of his stomach."

HANK: Oh, what a great question—this is happening to me right now! The other day in a cab, the driver told me he was an ex-cop. Hurray, I thought, exactly what I need. (Although why an ex-cop is a cab driver might be a better story.) But I said—okay, listen, question for you. You’re going up to a house to ask the resident for information. You don’t who or what is behind the door. What do you say? How do you stand? What are you thinking about? If they say—‘who is it,’ how do you answer?

Huh? He said.

Sigh. Never mind, I replied.

Then the other day, I was walking down the street and walked by a police officer in uniform. Hurray! I thought. Just what I need.

So I said, “Hey, I’m..”

And he said, “ I know who you are, and I can’t talk to you. I can’t say a word to you. You’re press. In fact, I’ve already said too much, and if anyone saw us, I’m already in trouble.”

SO! Two strike outs? Not at all! I got great info—not what I was looking for, but still great—from both!

ROSEMARY: I've interviewed cops for each of my books, not because I have a lot of procedural detail in them but, I just didn't want to write anything flat-out ridiculous. The most detail I went into was for The Big Dirt Nap in which some crimes took place on a reservation. I spent days researching tribal law. Maybe a page wound up in the book, but ask me anything about tribal law.

HALLIE: My favorite research was back when I was writing about a group of neuroscientists and I needed to know how brains are handled for research. I visited the amazing brain bank at Harvard's McLean Hospital. Can you believe, (donated) brains arrive in Fedex boxes marked PERISHABLE!...like you'd ship a bowling ball. And on the floor, in transluscent buckets filled with some kind of preservative, floated brains looking like heads of cauliflower. I went right home and signed an organ donor card.

JAN: All through my Hallie Ahern series I met for lunch on a monthly or bimonthly basis with the head of the criminal division in the RHode Island AG's office. He kept me up on crime and law enforcement trends and told great anecdotes that often made it into my manuscript. I also was also lucky to meet with Providence Police as well as an undercover detective in Portsmouth NH who was an expert in online predators (for TEASER). I meet with retired cops and investigators, too. I find that not only do you get the "facts" right when you meet with law enforcement, but you also get away from law enforcement stereotypes and write real characters.

I actually think that meeting with cops and prosecutors and defense attorneys is my favorite part of mystery writing. Next week I get to meet with prosectors in the Suffolk County office (Boston) but that's for my true crime book.

RHYS: I'm relieved that my books take place in the past. That way I don't have police departments to deal with any longer. When I was writing the Constable Evans mysteries I had a friendly police officer in Wales who answered all my questions, including complicated ones on the procedure for a child kidnapped by a Russian national father. I've found every expert I have queried to be extremely helpful.

ROBERTA: Great stories, you guys! Hank is right--again--whatever you get, you can use. What's your favorite police story--have you seen it translated into a book? And if not, can we have it?

Homebody or Rolling Stone?

ROBERTA: Confession: Ever since reading a review on Tripadvisor that announced the Los Angeles hotel where I had a reservation was infested with bed bugs, I've been obsessed with the darn things. If you read the recent feature in the New York Times Science section, you would have seen that the scientists who study them are obsessed with them too. One of them leaves his luggage in the bathroom when he's traveling--the other only on hard surfaces. Both of them strip beds and inspect the seams of the mattresses in the rooms where they're staying, looking for evidence of infestation. Here's a link to an interview on Fresh Air about how to look for them in your hotel room.

And what does this have to do with anything? It's this kind of obsession that makes a trip seem like a lousy idea the closer I get to the date. Oh I can do the same thing thinking about air travel or leaving the pets, etc. I think at the core, I'm a homebody. How about you guys, does upcoming travel make you quiver with dread or excitement?

HALLIE: I didn't think they allowed bed bugs in Los Angeles... A dear friend had bed bugs in her Brooklyn apartment awhile back. It was awful. Which, with the start of school again, reminds me of lice. Any of us with kids have been through the awfulness of lice. My head itches just thinking about it. We had to cut my daughters long luxurious hair when she got them...it was like something about of a 19th-century novel. (My husband, who my daughter once described to a friend as having a "very big forehead" (he's bald) was the only one who didn't get it.)

The bed bug paranoia comes just in time - we'd almost forgotten about obsessively washing our hands so we don't catch flu. On the horizon: the everything-resistant bacteria that's being brought back from India and Japan where folks go for elective cosmetic surgery. It always seems like these things can be interpreted as some deity's revenge for people indulging themselves.

ROBERTA: Oh no no Hallie, I haven't forgotten about the hand sanitizer, just adding this latest neurotic concern on to that older one!

JAN: Because I had a plane phobia for so long, I trained myself to never think of travel before I go. That eliminates a lot of the excitement and pleasure most people have in anticipating travel. But it also eliminates the anxiety.

That bed bug thing is pretty compelling Roberta, I understand your obsession and I AM NOT going to follow that link because I'm going to say in a NYC hotel next weekend and I don't want to be likewise obsessed. Which I will be if I read it.

HANK: Oh, the bedbug story. I SAW that! Think about what it's like to be a reporter and have to say: Fires, crimes, violence, car accidents, drama, fine, all in a day's work...but I am NOT going anywhere that there might be bedbugs. I get itchy even thinking about it. And didn't the article say that the bedbugs--which were once thought to be eradicated--came back because DDT was banned?

We were in a hotel in New Jersey this weekend--Thanks so much, Liberty States Fiction Writers!--and I'm not scratching. So, hurray. But trust me, we looked. And then we washed our hands. But yeah, remember when there was Purell EVERYWHERE? And now there isn't. Just don't eat any eggs. Or is that over, too?Is spinach okay yet?

ROSEMARY: I'm flying, staying in a hotel AND going to India next month. Should I just shoot myself now? I do think the media has to come up with something to scare us every once in a while and this is a particularly creepy one. I live (most of the time) in Connecticut, where every little itch is a tick bite and every time you're tired it's Lyme disease. Makes you want to pour a few fingers of scotch and light a Camel.

RHYS: Did we have to post on this subject when I'm in the middle of a book tour? I have to confess that I saw a segment on bed bugs on TV and they suggested we leave luggage on the stand, away from the walls. Well, I'm doing that. I'm staying in very fancy-schmanzy hotels but I gather they are not imune so I may just strip my bed and examine the mattress tonight. Oh dear!

ROBERTA: Oh you Jungle Reds are so sensible! I agree with you Jan, don't look at the link. But do like Rhys and put your luggage on something hard! And Ro, India sounds fantastic. Can't wait to hear about that adventure. How about you guys? does the latest news make you want to stay home or throw caution to the wind and launch yourself into the world?

Writers Challenge VI

JAN: Well, I'm finally back home and oddly thrilled at the cooler weather and to be working at my own desk again.

I'm deeply immersed in my non-fiction book proposal, which has meant fewer new pages and many more rewritten pages, so I'm not sure how to keep count anymore. But what's important to me is my attitude. The new energy I've gotten from writing every day.

What I'm taking away from the Write First challenge is this: I'm going to keep writing every day, even the weekends. At least a page a day. I've also learned that Internet isn't really a problem for me, After next Sunday, I'm going to go back to allowing work interruptions for online research if I need to. (Is this a relief, Jim? )

But I'm going to stick with no email -- for me until 1 p.m. I'm really a hardcore addict. Once I start, I can't stop. And I'm going to be blogging about research into email addiction the week of October 4th on Jungle Red.

I will be announcing the official winners of the Write First Challenge next Sunday, September 19th - which I think might be a day earlier than I promised. I say "official winners" because I think a lot of us are winners, especially me. Aside from the new lease on my writing life, I've thoroughly enjoyed hearing from all of you - your struggles, your successes and your cheating.

I feel like I have all these new writing friends, and I hope to meet as many of you in person as I can. If not the New England Crime Bake this November, surely at another writers conference or at one of your book signings.

In the meantime, tell me: What parts of the challenge will you keep, if any?? What's the first thing you'd like to ditch?