Contributing editor Clare Langley-Hawthorne, caught up with Karen Olsen to discuss her latest novel, Shot Girl
Tell us a bit about Shot Girl
Shot Girl is the fourth Annie Seymour mystery. Annie is a police reporter in New Haven, and in this book, her ex-husband is found dead outside a local club while she's inside at a bachelorette party with her colleagues. Annie has to face a lot of ghosts from her past in Shot Girl and also come to grips with her current relationship with private detective Vinny DeLucia.
How has your character Annie Seymour evolved since the first book, Sacred Cows, came out?
Annie has evolved emotionally, in that she's connecting to a man in her life and making a commitment for the first time in a long time. She's also more accepting of Dick Whitfield, boy reporter, who has been threatening her job. Unfortunately, she's a bit rigid in many ways and evolution is difficult for her.
Tell us a bit about Shot GirlShot Girl is the fourth Annie Seymour mystery. Annie is a police reporter in New Haven, and in this book, her ex-husband is found dead outside a local club while she's inside at a bachelorette party with her colleagues. Annie has to face a lot of ghosts from her past in Shot Girl and also come to grips with her current relationship with private detective Vinny DeLucia.
How has your character Annie Seymour evolved since the first book, Sacred Cows, came out?
Annie has evolved emotionally, in that she's connecting to a man in her life and making a commitment for the first time in a long time. She's also more accepting of Dick Whitfield, boy reporter, who has been threatening her job. Unfortunately, she's a bit rigid in many ways and evolution is difficult for her.
How have your experiences as a journalist helped or hindered writing about Annie?I've used my 20 plus years of experience working in a newsroom to mold Annie and her environment. It has helped tremendously, although when I was still working for the New Haven Register I was very careful to point out that the newsroom in my books can be any newsroom anywhere.
The victim in Shot Girl is Annie's ex husband - what impact does this have on Annie?
Well, this is complicated and you'll just have to read the book :)
What inspires your stories - True crime? Your experiences as a journalist?
The plots and subplots in my first three books were "ripped from the headlines," although I've twisted the actual stories around and turned them inside out and made them their own. Shot Girl's plot is my first foray out on my own without a real news story as my crutch.
We were both on a panel at Bouchercon about social issues in crime fiction - how to you view the genre as a vehicle for examining current social issues?
I think crime fiction is very good at examining social issues. Crime can be a direct result of issues in our communities, and through fiction authors can explore what's happened and the results.
Tell us about your writing process - you used to have to write at night - how do you juggle writing, editing a medical journal and family life now?
I write when I can, an hour here, an hour there. I don't wait for a muse to come or I'd never get any work done! I take advantage of my daughter's after school activities to carve out writing time.
Annie is more 'hard-boiled dame than gray-haired lady with cats' - what's your take on the new female detective archetype?
The "new" female detective is not so new anymore. Marcia Muller first introduced Sharon McCone in the 1970s, Lillian McDonnell began writing Norah Mulcahaney even earlier. These are strong women protagonists who get the bad guy. That's the kind of protagonist I set out to write, and I think Annie falls into that category.
Who are your main influences?
There are so many, but my first influences were Marcia Muller, Sara Paretsky, Sue Grafton, Linda Barnes, and Laura Lippman.
I see you also have a new series coming out next year - what was it like changing gears for this? What are the differences between your current series and the new one, the first of which, The Missing Ink, I believe comes out next July?
It was a huge change when I started writing the new series. My new protagonist, Brett Kavanaugh, is a tattooist who owns her own shop in Las Vegas. I do not have a tattoo, and I don't live in Las Vegas. I've only been there twice. It was a challenge, but once I started researching and writing, I had so much fun with it. It was actually liberating to leave my little cocoon of familiarity and just spread my wings, so to speak, creatively. The protagonist of The Missing Ink is tough like Annie, but she's in a more secure life position and job position, and she's a bit more "together." She also doesn't curse like a truck driver like Annie. She's very different, but she's still a strong character in her own right.
Contributing editor, Clare Langley-Hawthorne, was raised in England and Australia. She was an attorney in Melbourne before moving to the United States, where she began her career as a writer. Her first novel, Consequences of Sin, has been nominated for the 2008 Sue Feder Memorial Historical Mystery Macavity award. The second in the Ursula Marlow series is The Serpent and The Scorpion. Clare lives in California with her family.
