Kathleen George chats with Big Thrill contributing editor Janice Gable Bashman about The Odds, George's fourth thriller that has focused on Pittsburgh homicide detectives.Entertainment Weekly states, "If anyone's writing better police thrillers than George, I don't know who is."
Give us a quick run-down on The Odds and what makes it such a fascinating read.
I show what the police are doing, how they are working a case, but I also track the criminals and the victims. The reader is in the cat-bird seat, seeing everything, making the connections, and it can get very tense when the reader watches the police almost catching up to something or a victim making a bad decision. I love those big tapestries in which you see many stories unfolding. In this novel I have several versions of "motherless children" - which is one of my themes throughout all my work. I'm interested in people who missed out on nurturing and in children who become adults before their time.
My police characters have that in their history. Commander Christie had to be the support for his mother when she was abandoned by his father. As a result, he takes on a paternal role with almost everyone. The effect at the office and with the families of victims is that almost everyone ends up with a crush on him. His novice detective Colleen Greer has that particular form of magic too. She had unattentive parents. She made up for it with charm and will, so people get crushes on her, too.
But I think the main ingredient the EW reviewer refers to is the tension between the stories - the police working hard but the worlds of characters unraveling at the same time.
Four abandoned kids are at the center of your story. Tell us about them and why we want to know them.
I fell in love with these characters as I wrote them. They've had really rough breaks - they're orphans abandoned by their step-mother, but they're extremely smart in a number of ways. They're alert, well-read, and at the top of their classes in school. So this smartness and sense of responsibility both help and harm them. They are able to get away with being on their own. They're so good at it that people don't notice. That's frightening. Because they still need things - food, clothes, basic things. And they need adult attention. But a tricky thing I discovered about them as I wrote them was that they still had a capacity for love. For each other, for others. They're immensely generous kids.
Your books are thrillers and procedurals. How do you create a balance so that you present the police procedural without losing the thriller aspects of your story?There is a lot of danger to the police and to the innocent characters. So while the police are slowly gathering facts, mostly playing by the rules, there is a storm brewing. Things are happening all the time.
You like "dark, tough stories." Why?
The truth is I like all kinds of stories that go deep. This includes "deep" comedies - the ones based in truth and, well, pain. I count the very popular play, Norman Conquests, among the dark comedies. With more serious novels and plays, I want to be able to believe in complex, thoughtful characters in some sort of trouble. This means stories that have a moral question. Nick in The Odds is a complex fellow. He's been in trouble most of his life, but he is capable of kindness. He knows he's an addict, a guy who needs thrills, and he knows, too, that he needs love. He needs a mother. Funny, he finds what he most needs in a thirteen year old girl.
You stated your "evil characters aren't empty. They're 'at work.'" What do you mean by that statement?
Ah, this is where plot premise is so crucial to me. I think the best evil characters are not mustache twirling villains but people like the guy in the next cubicle, the guy next door. Circumstances pile up and that person's mental landscape changes. A good model is Macbeth. He starts out as an ordinary, pretty good guy, who has to keep working to erase what he just did. He is just working hard to survive. But I love the working hard part of it. That's Joe in Taken, that's Frank in Fallen.
How has your work in theater informed your writing?
Theatre has made me aware of writing dramatic scenes - scenes in which lots is going on under the lines. People lie, people pretend. Also characters are active - pursuing an objective and pursuing it hard - whether that means trying to get a meal or trying to threaten someone. My characters seem very real to me. I could cast them. A long time ago, when I wrote the first Richard Christie book, I cast Gabriel Byrne. He's still my choice, and his work on the series In Treatment only persuaded me I was right.
What's next for Kathleen George?
Another Richard Christie book. It's called Hideout, and it's on my editor's desk right now.
Contributing editor, Janice Gable Bashman, writes for leading
publications, including "Novel & Short Story Writer's Market," "US
Industry Today," "Food & Drink Quarterly," "The Wild River Review,"
"Bucks," and others. Her serial feature "Thrill Ride: The Dark World of
Mysteries and Thrillers" (co-written with Jonathan Maberry for the
"Wild River Review") includes interviews with Barry Eisler, Lawrence
Block, Steve Hamilton, and other thriller and mystery writers. She is
working on a thriller, "Vengeance," and her writing won multiple awards
at the 2007 Philadelphia Writer's Conference. 
