"The nature of Man is always the same; it is their habits that separate them". Confucious
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THICKER THAN BLOOD In one of my several incarnations, I headed the publications unit of a large California water agency. Here, I have to confess something: after writing about many, many subjects, I fell in love with water. Think medicine is interesting? Take a long look at all the facets of water. Whole civilizations rise and fall on its availability. People kill for it. They really do. The present triangle of warring water interests -- agriculture, urban developers, environmental interests -- fascinated me and the industry magazine I edited won quite a few awards. But it wasn't until long after I left that job that it occurred to me that water was absolutely overflowing with passion and drama: heroes, villains, corruption, misguided messiahs, the very stuff of novels. I needed a heroine, someone outside the world of water, but close enough to see into it. I was killing time waiting for someone in a parking garage, when I saw a newsletter written by the owner of that garage. A young attractive woman! And Rachel Chavez was born. Listen To The Mockingbird It is truly amazing what one finds when idly leafing through the pages - and places - of history. Much of the Mockingbird story is based on real people and events, although I confess to playing fast and loose with some of the facts. Matty, the protagonist, is loosely based on two real women of the Civil War era. One was an Army wife who came to New Mexico over the Santa Fe trail. In real life, she went on to become a relatively well-known writer in 1870s San Francisco. Mathew is based on this woman's real husband except for his final appearance. But building a novel around that time and place didn't occur to me until I discovered another woman of the New Mexico Territory. This one wasn't in the history books. In fact, there wasn't much written about her at all. Perhaps the only words were on her tombstone in southern New Mexico: She owned a ranch and held up a stagecoach. I began to wonder what if..? And it wasn't long before Matty Summerhayes walked straight out of that question and into Listen to the Mockingbird. Other "real" characters include the general, the colonel and, of course, Kit Carson. The itinerant priest and the gold mine are based on a legend that predates my story by about 60 years. The newspaper editor, the captain, and certainly the duel are almost entirely factual. The exorcism and the character of Winona, Matty's former slave, though, are entirely imaginary. But was their story to be a Civil War novel, a historical mystery, or perhaps a thriller? I've never quite answered this question myself. Maybe the reader can. LIFEBLOOD At first I didn't think I could do a sequel to Thicker Than Blood. I had originally planned that as a stand‑alone. But people began asking me for more of Rachel Chavez. So I Googled Crime+Parking and discovered that 38 percent of violent crime takes place on the street or in parking lots. Parking Lots? And the highest rate of that violence occurs in parking areas connected with hospitals. Hmmm. A number of my years in Los Angeles was spent as a medical writer and I had worked with a large hospital. My excitement began to build. As Rachel's Lifeblood episode grew, I discovered what a pleasure it was to get to know my characters better: Rachel, who Booklist had described as “one of the most refreshing heroines to wander into the crime genre in quite a while,” Goldie a wise-cracking Whoopi Goldberg sort, and Irene, a cell-phone-toting homeless woman. They began to talk on their own. And I began to listen.
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