We are delighted to welcome author Jean Rabe to Omnimystery News today.
Jean is the author of dozens of books in a variety of genres, but her first mystery has been recently published, The Dead of Winter (Imajin Books; October 2016 trade paperback and ebook formats), and we recently spent some time with her talking about it.
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Omnimystery News: Introduce us to your new series characters.
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Jean Rabe
Jean Rabe: Piper Blackwell is a 23-year-old newly-minted sheriff in a southern county in Indiana. She just came off four years with the 101st Screaming Eagles and spent a couple of tours in Iraq, where she distinguished herself on downrange assignments and picked up some medals. Piper intended to make a career of the military, but her father — the previous sheriff — fell ill with lymphoma and she came home. He encouraged her to run for sheriff, and she did, figuring the campaign would keep both of them occupied. She touted her family name, won, and is in way over her head. The character was put together with the help of some folks at the Fort Campbell Army base; they crafted her military background to make her plausible.
The book’s other protagonist, Oren Rosenberg, is her chief deputy. He’s 65, with a granddaughter Piper’s age. He was her opponent in the election, and he is not silent in his displeasure that she won. She needs him to help her catch the various felons in the county, and he needs the department because he doesn’t want to retire to a boring life.
OMN: How do you expect these characters to develop over the course of a series?
JR: I believe some things need to remain constant with a character — her core beliefs, what motivates her. However, for a series to remain interesting and to engage the reader, it is essential that the character change. Piper Blackwell will age as the series progresses, and she’ll be exposed to people and conditions in the county that will shake her and help her to grow and see the world in shades of gray, not black and white. She starts out young, so it is easier to mold her, but her youth also feeds her determination and stubbornness. I’m hoping to keep the changes subtle for a while. And as Piper changes, her chief deputy will subtly change too. They are opposing characters — she young and inexperienced, he old and a law enforcement veteran. Slowly they’ll move toward a middle ground.
OMN: Into which genre would you place The Dead of Winter?
JR: Labels made it difficult for me to sell this book. So I’d say there are disadvantages to labels. Another author whose books fit nicely into a category might say there are advantages. I thought I’d written a cozy, but agents and editors told me it wasn’t wholly a cozy, that it was an uncozy-cozy because of the violence. One said it was a cozy police procedural and that “there is no such beast,” said it would be difficult to find a place for it on the shelf. I just thought it was a nifty mystery. So how would I categorize my book? I like “uncozy-cozy,” and oddly one of my reviewers blurbed: “Murder just got a little less cozy.” So, yeah, an uncozy-cozy. I sold it to a publisher who liked it and didn’t care about labels — Imajin — and I’ve been getting great reviews. And I’ve started work on the second in the series.
OMN: Tell us something about the book that isn't mentioned in the publisher's synopsis.
JR: I’m a kind and generous soul. I will pull over to the side of the road to free a wasp stuck under my windshield wiper. I rescue dogs. I take homeless people to lunch. I give to charities. AND I based the vile killer in The Dead of Winter on myself. Seriously.
OMN: When starting a new book, what comes first for you: the principal characters or the storyline?
JR: Always the character comes first for me, whether a stand-alone or a series. I wanted to write a young character this go-round, and I wanted to make her a sheriff. So I scoured the Internet to discover the country’s youngest sheriffs and how they got elected or appointed, how few of them were women. I created the character first in The Dead of Winter, then I plopped her in Spencer County, IN … after reading about all the southern counties. Then I traveled there and walked the sidewalks she’d be taking and drove the back roads she’d patrol. I went to the stores she’d shop at. I built her backstory, laid in her traits and motivations and how she came to be in the county. And then I created the story around her. I think starting with a strong character makes the story richer.
OMN: How much of your own personal or professional experience have you included in the book?
JR: Well, I did mention that the killer in The Dead of Winter is roughly based on me (though I honestly go out of my way to save insects). The Vietnamese gas station/convenience store owner is loosely based on a fine Chinese gentleman I know who runs a restaurant in Lake Geneva, WI, and the chief deputy is a compilation of law enforcement officials I knew when I covered western Kentucky for Scripps Howard. My office was in Henderson, Kentucky, that literal “stone’s throw” from the southern counties of Indiana. I was familiar with the area, the climate, the attitudes of the residents, and the crimes committed. That typically isn’t the case with other books I’ve written — I’ve set books in Thailand, Vietnam, Egypt, New York City, fantasy realms, bases on the moon, and other places I’ve not physically been.
OMN: Where do you most often find yourself writing?
JR: Late spring through early fall I write at a table I bought at Walmart on my screened in back porch … on a laptop. I move around so the sun strikes my back and makes me pleasantly warm. Then when the summer rolls in, I move around so I’m in the shade and under the ceiling fan. I’ve a fenced backyard and a dog door off the porch so my dogs — three of my own and a long-term foster — can go in and out as they please, romp and splash in the kiddie pool. There are two train tracks near the house, and a big farm field so the music I type by includes trains, farm equipment, and the strains of the high school band practicing from two streets over.
Fall to late spring I write at a beautiful walnut desk my father-in-law made in my office. The chair is more comfortable, I use a desktop with a 19” screen, and it’s probably a better work environment. But I get just as many words … if not more … written on the back porch because I love being out there.
And, yes, my writing desk and table is messy … filled with notebooks and a dictionary and a word origin book and usually roadmaps so my characters drive the correct routes.
OMN: How do you go about researching the plot points of your stories?
JR: I’m big on fact-checking — maybe because I used to be a news reporter. And I once wrote a true crime book (When the Husband is the Suspect) with F. Lee Bailey, and that required tons of fact-checking. I use the Internet as a springboard to find people I can interview. For example, in The Dead of Winter, I used it to get the names of local law enforcement officials — many of whom I called or visited to talk about crime in the county. I found a nearby coroner via a website, who was willing to talk about morgue setups and answer my list of questions. I stopped by the chamber of commerce to get copies of brochures, maps, and to chat about county concerns. I stopped at a restaurant to eavesdrop on conversations, spent some time with an election worker to get a better understanding of local politics and some of the nepotism going on. I took lots of pictures. I think the best part of my research was going to the HUGE Christmas store in Santa Claus (a real city in the county). It was a happy place, beautiful, and I spent more time and money there than I should have. My most exciting topic to research? I’d say interesting … the history of the county. For being an ultra-rural place, it has an amazing and varied amalgamation of cultures and tidbits. Abraham Lincoln lived there in his young years. There is a big monastery and some vineyards. In its early years it sported a German settlement. There isn’t a single movie theater or hospital or mall. It has a meth problem; with all its tiny towns and empty fields people set up meth manufacturing places and hide from the authorities. DUIs are the number one ticketed offense in the county. All interesting stuff.
OMN: If we could send you anywhere in the world to research the setting for a book, where would it be? All expenses on us, of course!
JR: The Galapagos Islands. Because you said it would be all expenses paid. I’d have to come up with a reason for needing to go there for research. Maybe one of my characters won an all expenses paid vacation there and one of the other vacationers gets murdered and she has to figure out who did it. I am enthralled by every nature program that focuses on the islands and the wildlife, some of which are found nowhere else in the world. Incredibly beautiful, remote, precious and threatened. I think it’s a treasure to put on a bucket list and then find a reason to write something with it as the backdrop. Plus, I think the other folks making the trip might be an interesting lot I could cull from for character ideas.
OMN: What are some of your outside interests? And have any of these found their way into your books?
JR: Dogs. I have four in my house, and as I write this three — two Labradors and a pug — are crammed into the niche under my desk, and a Boston terrier is squeezed behind me in my chair. I am uncomfortable, but they are comfortable, so I am writing this way. Always I will accommodate my buddies. I guess rescuing dogs is a hobby. I play with them, take the pug for little walks, and some of them invariably find their way into stories. The Dead of Winter is the first time the pug has been in a book. He actually plays a key role. Some of my other activities also find ways into my books. I love museums. Any kind of museums. And if I’m traveling somewhere and see a sign for a little museum, there’s a good chance I’ll go off track to visit it. The various displays niggle at me and give me ideas for stories or characters. I always have a notebook and camera with me if I’m going museuming. Some of the best museums I’ve discovered by accident, namely I got lost and drove right past them — turned around, found a place to park, and then spent the rest of the day there. I also play boardgames, wargames, and role-playing games. I love games. These I keep out of my fiction. However, some of the fellow players have been great to help me with plot problems and details, as I’ve come across doctors, lawyers, archaeologists, and more by playing games. I play in fantasy football leagues, and have sketched out an idea for a short story I’ll get to sometime. When I find time I also fuse glass and bead, neither of which has or will find its way into one of my stories.
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Jean Rabe has written 35 fantasy, urban fantasy, and science fiction novels. The Dead of Winter, her 36th novel, is her first mystery. She has roughly 100 short stories in print, has edited a couple dozen anthologies, and has edited more magazines than she cares to tally. She is originally from Ottawa, Illinois, a smallish town divided by the Illinois River. It's where she learned how to play the clarinet, to treasure used book stores, to love football, and to appreciate the company of dogs.
Her first full-time newspaper job was for the Quincy Herald-Whig in Quincy, IL., where she also worked as a stagehand for the local theater group, and adopted a most-amazing grandfather from the Illinois Veteran's Home. Her newspaper career took her to Evansville, IN, where she ran the Western Kentucky news bureau for Scripps Howard. She played still more role-playing games, helped run local game and science fiction conventions, exposed a corrupt county jailer, was shot at on a country road while covering an embezzlement story, and traipsed through flea markets held at an aging racetrack.
Tiring of reporting on the assorted acts of violence people commit on each other, she went to work TSR, Inc., the makers of the Dungeons & Dragons game, and then left after nearly eight years to write fiction full time.
For more information about the author, please visit her website at JeanRabe.com and her author page on Goodreads, or find her on Facebook and Twitter.
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The Dead of Winter by Jean Rabe
A Piper Blackwell Mystery
Publisher: Imajin Books
In a deceptively peaceful county, a murderer hides in plain sight …
Fifty-eight minutes into her first day on the job, twenty-three-year-old Sheriff Piper Blackwell is faced with a grisly murder — the victim artfully posed amid decorations on his lawn. Drawing on former military training, Piper must prove herself worthy of the sheriff's badge, and that won't be easy.
Chief Deputy Oren Rosenberg, Piper's opponent in the recent election, doesn't like her and wants her to fail. She doesn't like him either, but she needs Oren to help catch the killer before another victim is discovered. Too late!
As Piper leads the manhunt, another crisis hits close to home. Her father, the previous sheriff, is fighting for his life, and she is torn between family and duty. Facing personal and professional threats, Piper has to weather a raging storm, keep the sheriff's department from crumbling around her, and reel in a killer during the most brutal winter sleepy Spencer County, Indiana, has experienced.
— The Dead of Winter by Jean Rabe
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