Please Welcome Crime Novelist Robin Burcell

with Robin Burcell

We are delighted to welcome police officer — and crime novelist — Robin Burcell to Omnimystery News today.

Robin's third "Sydney Fitzpatrick" thriller is The Dark Hour (Harper, December 2012 mass market paperback and ebook formats).

We recently had a chance to talk to the Robin about her books and character.

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Omnimystery News: The Dark Hour is the third in your series featuring FBI agent and forensic artist Sydney Fitzpatrick. How do you see this character evolving in her future cases?

Photo provided courtesy of
Robin Burcell

Robin Burcell: Certain cases that I've worked over the years have affected me (even to this day, though thankfully the memories fade over time). Knowing this, it would be unrealistic for my characters not to change or be affected from the fictional cases I create-especially since I tend to put them in larger-than-life situations. I've never had to save the world while dodging gunfire from multiple suspects, then, thinking the world was finally safe, have to go rescue my family from a suspect who managed to escape detection. In comparison, my real-life cases were the kind that might make the local section of a newspaper, not headlines in every major city. So a simple answer would be that what happens in one book is bound to affect my characters in the next, even if it is a simple reluctance to become involved in a similar type case. Once bitten twice shy is certainly an apt description. And that's not including the personal relationships and how the cases can wreak havoc in that aspect of a character's life. (Which reminds me that my husband deserves an award for hanging in there when I've come home shell-shocked after a simple thing like a high-speed chase, never mind all the times he's been called to come pick me up from the hospital!)

OMN: We tend to apply labels to the crime fiction we read: suspense novel, thriller, cozy, hard-boiled, police procedural, paranormal, and so on. How would you characterize your books?

RB: My publisher, HarperCollins, classifies them as thrillers. I'd say they're a crossover between a thriller and police procedural. I like the orderly investigation process that a police officer or an FBI agent might use to solve a case, but I like to twist it, taking a seemingly normal incident and turning it into something no one expected. This comes from my fascination with conspiracy theory and our government-those stories we hear about, but dismiss, because they can't possibly be true... Or can they?

OMN: You're a police officer so we're thinking you have plenty of real-life situations from which to draw upon for your books.

RB: I use my experiences of working as a police officer/investigator for nearly three decades to give the books that edge of realism when it comes to anything relating to law enforcement, but I amp up the action by involving my characters in cases that involve conspiracy theory. As mentioned above, I've never had to save the world, but I certainly know what it's like to be involved in dangerous situations, where I wonder if I'm going to make it home that night. I've worked a variety of assignments: patrol, detectives, crime scene investigations, hostage negotiator, and as a forensic artist. I was fortunate enough to be trained by the FBI for that latter position at their academy in Quantico, and they've used me to do sketches in a number of their cases over the years in California. I like to think my experience in so many areas and for so many years gives me a leg up on getting the details right. (But I still have to do research on the FBI, since I was never actually an agent. And the stuff about saving the world? I totally make that up, since it's a bit out of my area of expertise.)

OMN: How do you go about developing and writing your books?

RB: I used to outline, but haven't for the last several books. My editor hasn't asked for one in years, probably because the farthest I've gotten is about half way through and then I finish it with something like: "… and they catch the bad guy in a really exciting scene — and I'd tell you who the bad guy is, but you know I'm probably going to change him midway through, because I always do."

Honestly I am not sure if this is a good thing or a bad thing. After spending a month trying to write a synopsis, then having to stop to think of this really exciting ending, a process that takes forever (to me), I realized that I got more work done just writing it. Maybe I really do outline, just more like a 400 page outline.

So short answer is that these days, I let the story develop as I write. But I now have a secret weapon that allows someone like me to take that story and tweak it almost effortlessly. I use a program called Scrivener. I now write by scenes, not chapters. And quite often I have a great scene that I know must be in the book, but isn't quite right where it is. Scrivener allows me to move it around on my "canvas" so that I can see at a glance if it works better there or somewhere else. There's definitely a learning curve with it, but to me, it is worth every penny. (And more. It is not very expensive. Designed for a Mac, but there is a new version for PCs, which I don't know much about.)

OMN: What about researching topics that may be unfamiliar to you?

RB: Since I'm writing on the fly, without that dreaded synopsis, if the fact-checking is anything beyond a simple internet search, or popping off an email to one of my several experts (FBI agent, bomb squad, etc.), then I will mark the spot, keep on writing, then go back later to fix whatever it is. This method has its drawbacks, but for me it works, because I'm easily distracted, and I could research forever. (Just the simple internet search for a fact like what sort of snakes are in the Amazon jungle in Brazil can lead me to hours of web-surfing on topics I have no intention of using.) So once I have a finished first draft, when I go back through, I will then fact-check. The drawback to this method is that sometimes you discover a scene you thought might work, isn't even close to working. I've had to rewrite a number of scenes because the fact-checking uncovered a major implausibility.

OMN: After reading two or three books in a series, many readers have a mental image of what the series character looks like. You may have a mental image yourself of the character. If any of the books in this series were to be adapted for television or film, who do you see playing the part(s)?

RB: Oh … good question! The only problem is that I'm really bad about movie star names. With the exception of a few of the early greats (Cary Grant, etc.) and today's biggest stars who are always in the tabloids (none of them are who I picture as characters in my books), I can't place names to faces. In fact, I'm so bad at this (and it's not just movie stars, but people in real life), my husband makes fun of me.

OMN: How true are you to the settings in your books?

RB: I try to be as realistic as possible, but sometimes I have to take liberties so that my plot will work. As a result, I've created banks, hotels, even whole cities where none exist, especially in the U.S. If I portray a small police department in a particularly negative light, I will plunk a city down right in between a couple existing cities. With the larger police departments, be it LAPD, SFPD, FBI, CIA, they've been portrayed fictionally so many times that everyone knows it is fiction. But for a small agency, I feel it's not fair (and some folks might wrongly assume I have portrayed my character after a real officer).

For foreign locales, I try to use those I've actually been to, then I try to do meticulous research. Sometimes it's comical on how I've written a scene before I've researched, and what has to be done to fix it once I've been there! Like the time I placed a limousine in the streets of Naples. After visiting Naples, I realized that I'd be lucky to fit a Volkswagen Bug on the street anywhere in that city. Since it was a key rescue scene, it took some clever rewriting to make it work with a smaller car.

OMN: What kinds of books did you read as a child? Did the genre you read influence your decision to become an author of the kinds of books you write today?

RB: I loved Sherlock Holmes, Nancy Drew, the OZ books, and wore out my copies of J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings series. I read everything. I became a writer, because I never wanted the story to end, and when I was younger, I would actually draw a tiny picture and create my own story — even though I was supposed to be doing homework. To this day I read across all genres. To me a good book is a good book. As to what genre I read, it just depends on my mood.

OMN: How about films? Are you just as flexible in what you watch as in what you read?

RB: Like my taste in books, my taste in films runs across multiple genres. I do love a good intrigue film, however, and I'm particularly drawn to anything with conspiracy theory. In fact, Enemy of the State is a particular favorite and came out around the time I started this series. I love that an ordinary person with an ordinary life becomes embroiled in affairs that seem outlandish on a first glance, but on further investigation, involve national security and a host of enemies one wouldn't expect. In my books, however, I like to take real history, real cases of conspiracy from the sometimes distant and sometimes not-so-distant past, then make it current and give it my own twist.

OMN: Are there any authors whose books you rush out to buy as soon as they are published?

RB: I tend to shop for books depending on my mood. Sometimes I want a good thriller, other times a good cozy or laugh-out-loud funny book, and every now and then something on the romantic side. I tend to read in phases, concentrating on a different genre, science fiction, fantasy, or whatever strikes my fancy. I think the only thing I don't tend to read is horror, especially if it's on the gory side. My imagination is too vivid, and it's hard to shut off the pictures in my head. (For this same reason, I don't watch horror/slasher movies.)

OMN: What are your hobbies or interests outside of writing crime fiction? Do any of these activities find their way into your books?

RB: I'm an artist, and I enjoy drawing, sketching, painting. At work I was a forensic artist (I drew dead people, but more often I drew sketches of suspects based on witnesses' descriptions). So the forensic art finds its way into my books, but also some of the finer art that doesn't involve suspects.

OMN: How do you engage with current/potential readers? What kinds of questions do you most enjoy (or least enjoy) receiving from readers?

RB: If I'm engaging with readers in person, it's hard not to find great things to discuss! It depends on the audience, and as a result, there's a mix of questions. Some want to know about the books, the characters, story ideas and the writing process. Many want to know about the police life and what that was like, and how I bring my experiences from there into fiction. (Most enjoy the war stories from work.) I especially love talking about the serendipity of researching an idea, and finding that it intertwines with something totally unexpected and wonderful. When it comes to books, writing and talking about them, I'm not sure there is anything I don't like to discuss.

OMN: Create a Top 5 list on any topic for us.

RB: Top 5? Yikes. I never do good at these things, being put on the spot, but I'll give it a whirl.

My top five TV series of the moment:

5. Burn Notice
4. Covert Affairs
3. Grimm
2. Justified (Can't wait for the new season to start!)
1. Dr. Who

As you can see, I tend to be all over the board. Campy, funny, spy and science fiction. The top two, Justified and Dr. Who, are probably interchangeable as to being my favorite. The writing on Justified is just incredible. And Dr. Who is, well, Dr. Who. Love it!

OMN: What is next for you?

RB: I am working on the untitled fifth book in the FBI forensic artist series! The fourth book, however, The Black List, will be out this January!

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Robin Burcell is a former criminal investigator in Sacramento County, California. Prior to that she was a police officer and detective for the city of Lodi for eighteen years and was the first female officer hired, which meant breaking through the barriers and prejudices that went with that title.

She has testified as an expert in the fields of forensic art, fingerprints, and child abuse. An FBI academy-trained forensic artist, her drawings have been used to solve a number of crimes, including homicides, bank robberies, and hate crimes, and she was called upon by various law enforcement entities, including the FBI, for this skill. She has worked with live witnesses, and the dead, sometimes having to set up shop in a morgue to draw the corpses for identification purposes after they have been found in a state beyond recognition (hence the term forensic artist).

Before staring her current series, she wrote four mysteries featuring San Francisco homicide investigator Kate Gillespie, two books of which were honored with an Anthony Award for Best Paperback.

To learn more about Robin and her work, visit her website at RobinBurcell.com.

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The Dark Hour
Robin Burcell
A Sydney Fitzpatrick Thriller (3rd in series)
Publisher: Harper

The clock is ticking …

A high-profile killing has brought FBI Special Agent and forensic artist Sydney Fitzpatrick to Amsterdam — even as the assassination of a prominent U.S. senator rocks the political world. Two seemingly unrelated murders are leading Sydney to the threshold of a shocking conspiracy to spread a plague of death across the globe, especially when her sketch of a killer — and possible conspirator — reveals the face of a female CIA agent believed to be dead.

The murder of a witness and the disappearance of the missing agent's husband, covert government operative Zachary Griffin, has Sydney racing against the clock to prevent a biological nightmare of astronomical proportions. For the dark hour is rapidly approaching when all secrets will be revealed … and the lives of countless millions will hang in the balance.