A Conversation with Mystery Author Shannon Baker

We are delighted to welcome author Shannon Baker to Omnimystery News today.

Shannon begins a new mystery series with Stripped Bare (Forge Books; September 2016 hardcover and ebook formats) and we recently had the opportunity to spend some time with her talking about it.

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Omnimystery News: You've written several stand-alone novels. How did the Kate Fox series come about?

Photo provided courtesy of
Shannon Baker

Shannon Baker: The Kate Fox series is the first time I set out to write a series on purpose. I left the Nebraska Sandhills over a decade ago and always knew I wanted to write about it. I was an outsider when I moved there as a young bride, and I grew up in cities, not on an isolated ranch. So much of the land, culture, and lifestyle was foreign to me and much of the time, I found it humorous.

After I left, it took me a while to get my sense of humor back about the Sandhills. And suddenly, Kate Fox popped into my brain and started telling me her stories. She's an insider with lots of brothers and sisters and family. So she's got a ton of adventures to tangle in.

Kate definitely grows and changes in the series. I had a general idea where I wanted her to go from book one to book two, but she decided she had other ideas. And with Kate, as her family knows, it's just best to let her have her rein. So I'm having fun seeing where she takes me.

OMN: Into which genre would you place Stripped Bare?

SB: Ever since my first writers conference, where I stumped a panel of agents and editors who volunteered to help us categorize our books, I get all sweaty about this question. So yeah, I write mysteries. I know it's not a cozy because I've got no recipes, no cats, and I don't knit.

It's not Karin Slaughter-esque with lots of gore and blood. It's pretty character driven but not really women's fiction. Kate is a small town sheriff, but in this modern wild west, where she's the only law in the county, it can't really be called police procedural. Midnight Ink called my Nora Abbot series a medium boil and I liked that. I think it fits Kate Fox, too.

The best way for me to describe it is to say it's kind of like Linda Castillo, with a woman officer in rural, tight-knit area. It's a little like Craig Johnson with the wide open west. As with CJ Box, we have a big family. Similar to William Kent Krueger there's lots of landscape and local characters. We call it Fargo meets The Good Wife.

OMN: How much of your own personal or professional experience have you included in the book?

SB: So … my husband had an affair in a town of 300 and I was the third to the last person to know. (After one of my daughters and my husband's parents, who were in Mexico.) Kate deals with this kind of situation but that's about as close to me as Kate gets. She's a totally competent, self-contained, calm, sensible, and determined, insider in her community, who has always known what she wants in life. So not like me. And I love her for it.

But part of the fun for me in writing the Kate Fox series is getting to bring all these quirky characters onto the page. So many of the characters in the books are amalgamations of people I knew when I spent 20 years in the Sandhills. I love writing about brandings, ropings, small-town politics. Oh my, wait until the school board hysterics in a later book! The Sandhills is like a big family where everyone knows so much about each other there is really no sense in trying to hide the quirks. But the area is so wide and empty, there's plenty of opportunity to keep secrets.

OMN: Tell us a little more about your writing process.

SB: I used to plot using an Excel spreadsheet. I had columns for each character and how they developed. I've used a modified form of Story Magic by Laura Baker. I've followed the Hero's Journey by Joseph Campbell. Save the Cat by Blake Synder had a turn. Right now I'm following Larry Brooks's Story Engineering.

In other words, nothing and everything and I switch it up all the time. I use the corkboard in Scrivener and then I print it out and put it on a real corkboard. I stomp around and tell the dog that if I were only smarter, this would be easier.

Then I write a really shitty first draft (thank you Natalie Goldberg). And a better second draft. And on it goes. I wish it wasn't as messy and dysfunctional as it is. The longer I write, though, the more I trust myself. I have a better handle on what needs to happen when, and I know I'm going to get better ideas as I work through the book. So I try to get the plot points clear, then take off. And try very hard to trust the process and not panic.

OMN: How did Stripped Bare come to be titled?

SB: I'm terrible with titles. I had a good one once, Sledding Down Mt. Olympus. Sadly, the title was better than the unpublished book. So I was ecstatic when a critique partner suggested the name Kate Baer, and then title everything with Baer, such as Stripped Baer, Baer Essentials, Baerly There, etc.

Even my editor liked the idea. Then marketing got wind of it and put the kybosh on it. By that time, my editor was in love with Stripped Bare, because it seemed so right for Kate's story in this book. So we gave Kate a new name. It took me some time to adjust to Kate Fox, but now it seems just right.

OMN: How do you go about researching the plot points of your stories?

SB: For years I avoided writing a police procedural, legal or medical thriller, because I don't know anything about those worlds. But Kate called me to write these stories and she can't just wander around being a rancher and solving crimes. So she had to be in law enforcement.

Here's the interesting part of it for me: The Nebraska Sandhills has five of the nine least populated counties in the country. The population density is .95 per square mile. The county sheriff is the only law enforcement officer in the county. They've formed some co-ops and sheriffs will cover for each other if they need some time off. The state patrol fills in. And they share a deputy that works weekends so they each get one free weekend a month.

The beauty of this is that the sheriff where I lived is a good friend of mine. Sheriff Shawn is on my speed dial and he always answers my questions. He comes up with some pretty good ideas, too. I also know the county officials, so I can call the clerk/assessor and ask her about record keeping or property tax laws.

I lived in the Sandhills for twenty years, so that's a lot of research.

OMN: How true are you to the setting of the series?

SB: The Nebraska Sandhills is a real place. It took lots of effort and time for me to learn to love the landscape and isolation out there. I want to show how amazing, brutal, and beautiful that vast area can be. So it's pretty true, down to spring curlews and January blizzards.

The town of Hodgekiss is fictional. But anyone (all 300 of them) who lives in the town where I lived will recognize much about it. The railroad tracks run through it and there is a windmill in the center of town. Even the Long Branch plays a big role.

Everything about the town and the prairie and pastures in the area is part of who the people are, how they live, and why they have conflict. People are a product of where they live and that's why I love these stories so much.

OMN: What's next for you and Kate?

SB: Dark Signal, the second in the Kate Fox series, which involves the Burlington Northern-Santa Fe Railroad, will be released next year. Until then, I'm working on more adventures for Kate, including short stories. I'll continue to run my crazy Weimeraner on the desert every day and sometime soon, I'll be underwater, scuba diving off a tropical beach! I'm working on getting Kate involved in diving so I can write off these necessary trips.

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Having grown up with a father who worked in big retail, Shannon Baker's family moved around frequently — living in California, Colorado, and Missouri. She married a rancher and moved to the Nebraska Sandhills for nearly 20 years, where cattle outnumber people by more than 50:1. After escaping Nebraska, Baker continued the nomadic life, moving seven times in ten years; and while it may seem schizophrenic, it helped to create the incredible western settings in her novels. Baker has since settled in Tucson, Arizona with her favorite person, and her Weimaraner, Jezebel. A devout fan of the beautiful Arizona sunsets, Baker still is, and always will be a Nebraska Husker. Go Big Red!

For more information about the author, please visit her website at http://shannon-baker.com/ and her author page on Goodreads, or find her on Facebook and Twitter.

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Stripped Bare by Shannon Baker

A Kate Fox Mystery

Publisher: Forge Books

Kate Fox is living the dream. She's married to Grand County Sheriff Ted Conner, the heir to her beloved Nebraska Sandhills cattle ranch, where they live with Kate's orphaned teenage niece, Carly. With the support of the well-connected Fox Clan, which includes Kate's eight boisterous and interfering siblings, Ted's reelection as Grand County Sheriff is virtually assured. That leaves Kate to the solitude and satisfaction of Frog Creek, her own slice of heaven.

One night Kate answers a shattering phone call from Roxy at the Bar J. Carly's granddad Eldon, owner of the ranch, is dead and Ted has been shot and may never walk again. Kate vows to find the killer. She soon discovers Ted responded so quickly to the scene because he was already at the Bar J … in Roxy's bed. And to add to her woes, Carly has gone missing.

Kate finds out that Eldon was considering selling his ranch to an obscenely rich environmentalist. Some in town hate the idea of an outsider buying up land, others are desperate to sell … and some might kill to get their way. As she becomes the victim of several "accidents," Kate knows she must find the killer before it's too late …

— Stripped Bare by Shannon Baker