But, I was working on my fourth Samantha Kincaid novel – it’s still half-finished on my computer. I had just finished a scene and something wasn’t quite right. So I did what I always do; I went to the gym, and while I was on the treadmill, I realized that I had Samantha hailing a cab in a residential area of Portland. It’s hard enough to get a cab in downtown Portland.
[Regarding her first Ellie Hatcher novel] …I had been living in New York for a while. I was scared to write it at first; New York is so iconic. So many people know it so well, and if you get it wrong, they’ll call you on it. But, I spent a lot of time out in the city — I soaked it in.
I think the aspect of 212 that I found most fascinating was that you gave us a very complete picture of the lives of the victims. In most crime novels, the victim is more of a prop than a character. Does this treatment of the victims in your novel stem from your experiences with the realities of crime?
That’s exactly right. Even before I wrote, I loved the genre. One thing that bothered me was that in the cat-and-mouse game between the criminals and the police, the victims became pawns. Bodies became irrelevant. You might get a couple of pages about the horrible things that happened to victim number eight, but without knowing about her or the impact on the people around her.
I always try to show something about the victim, or about the impact of their deaths on the people around them. It’s my personal code, I guess.
Recently as I have been doing Internet research on authors, it has occurred to me that the line between information and stalking seems to be narrowing in our society.
[Laugh] Yeah.
But, like most authors, you have a website, Facebook page, blog, MySpace page, and Twitter account. Yet, at least two of your novels focus on Internet-related crimes. With your background in criminal law, what is your take on the intrusiveness of technology?
Yeah, it’s funny. Ironically, given how much I write about how technology can bite you in the butt, I’ve probably done some stupid things online… You have to decide how much to share; I’ve chosen to try to share some stuff to give people a clear picture of who I am.
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