It's quite a lofty goal, Kava freely admits, to try to create another Atticus Finch or Antonia Shimerda. "But when readers finish my novel, Whitewash I hope they remember Miss Sadie, the eighty-one-year-old black woman who helps the protagonist make her escape in a 1947 Shenandoah-green Studebaker. Or Leon, the hitman who keeps screwing up because he swears a Coney Island fortune teller put a curse on him. It's a bonus when readers see the similarities between my character, Charlie Starks in One False Move and real-life killer, Charles Starkweather. Six years after my first novel I gave in and wrote an unplanned sequel when readers kept insisting Father Michael Keller to be brought to justice."

Kava writes both stand alone novels and the series character Maggie O'Dell. Although she hadn't planned on writing a series -- "for a while I felt like I was learning on the job" -- she does feel she made the right decision in using the third person point of view.  "I'm able to bring in other POVs, not just Maggie's. It keeps each novel fresh for me, so I don't feel like I'm stuck with only Maggie. In Exposed (due out in October) R.J. Tully, Maggie's partner, plays a major role. Maggie is always the focus but the readers get to see different perspectives of her through other characters."

The biggest challenge in a series book is that "the story doesn't end on the last page. You need to wrap things up with each book so the readers are satisfied, but at the same time, you have to leave them anxious for more."

Kava is the sort of writer who has a consistent theme running through her work. "I'm constantly examining that fine line between good and evil," she sais. "I want to see what people are capable of. What are we willing to do to survive, to not get caught, to preserve our reputations, to save our lives, to save a loved one's life? It's been said that everyone shows his or her true character when pushed to the edge. That's what I like to do. Push and shove my characters to the edge and then see what they're capable of doing."

I asked Kava about her typical writing day. "There lies the problem," she told me. "There is no typical. In Florida I write on the deck or in my office or by the kitchen counter. In Omaha it's on the screened-in porch or in the writing shed or late at night sitting up in bed. Sometimes I use a stand-up desk because I tend to pace. I write bits and pieces of chapters and dialogue in a notebook. Another notebook has all my research notes. These days I force myself to use a laptop as much as possible because it's quicker, though I swear I think better in longhand. I still do what I like to call my writing marathons. I try to clear my schedule of appointments, distractions, engagements for at least a week at a time and I write from morning until evening. I'm not a coffee drinker but I've been known to guzzle pots of the stuff during my marathons. That's about as typical as I get."

But it all works, as Kava's growing readership attests. Her devotion to the craft creates a reading experience that brings people back for more.

"When the story is over, the last page is read, and the book passed along--if the readers still remember your characters, that's something special."

Contributing editor James Scott Bell is the author of Try Dying (Center Street), first in the Ty Buchanan thriller series, and Write Great Fiction: Plot & Structure (Writers Digest Books).