See How They Hide: Quinn & Costa #6

The Story Behind the Story

Writing a series is both harder and easier than a stand alone. The easy part is that I know my main characters. Having spent time with Matt Costa, Kara Quinn, and the rest of the team over five books, I feel I have a good grasp on who they are and how they’ll react in a variety of situations. And like real people, they will grow and change over time, but only in an organic and logical way. For example, Kara over five books went from trusting pretty much no one after her some-time partner in the LAPD was killed, to learning to trust her FBI team. It didn’t happen over night. Trust is something that must be earned, especially for Kara.

Writing a stand alone, all characters are “new” and need to be developed and built from the ground up. They need to feel real and three-dimensional and have all the depth of a series character — even knowing that we’re only going to spend 100,000 words or so with them. It’s like writing a first book in a series — everything matters more. It’s challenging and exciting — and a bit depressing when you’re done and know that you won’t be revisiting the town/characters again.

But writing a series is also harder. I am constantly thinking about how to keep the stories fresh and interesting and different from previous books. I want to challenge my characters, but I don’t want to always have to escalate danger until we’re on a Mission: Impossible level of constant threats. This means 1) I need a story/plot point that is unique for the character and 2) I need to create at least one compelling/interesting non-recurring character.

For SEE HOW THE HIDE — which comes out on January 7 in hardcover, audio book, and ebook — the idea popped into my head one night. What if the Mobile Response Team is physically split because of like crimes on opposite coasts?

It was intriguing, and worth exploring.

For new readers, the MRT is a small, “best of the best” group of FBI agents who travel to small or rural communities to solve complex or unusual crimes. A serial killer, corruption, etc. Having the team move around to different areas is fun for me the author because I can write about new places and the books feel more like stand alone thrillers than a series. This helps bring in new readers, I think, because while I have the same team, because they are in new places readers can start anywhere in the series. Each book is designed to be a mystery/thriller with a resolution at the end.

So when I thought of splitting the team, I wanted the crimes in small towns. I picked Ashland, Oregon because I know it well (one of my daughters went to school at SOU and I visited many times.) I know exactly where the victim was killed — I’ve been there! For the east coast, I picked a rural Virginia community, a place where someone who had a complex and troubled past might disappear in and rebuilt their life.

Then I needed the common thread that instantly connected the murders. That took a bit of thought. When I started writing, it was the manner of death — throats slit — but that didn’t obviously connect the murders. One victim was a middle aged man, the other a young college girl. I needed the killers to leave something at the scene that would be so unusual that my team knew immediately the murders connected — after some research, I settled on red poppies. They mean something in the story, and it made complete sense that the killers would leave the petals over the bodies.

And that was it … I don’t plot, so I started with the premise and went from there. I uncovered the story as I wrote. I would love to say I came up with this wonderful plot and painstakingly planned out each turning point … nope. Even the fact that the victims had a laminated poppy in their possession was a surprise until uncovered by Kara!

One thing I wanted to explore in See How They Hide was the concept of utopia. I’ve always loved reading about utopias and dystopias and watching every Star Trek episode that showed a society that was “perfect” only to see the dark underbelly when the truth came out. Havenwood, a community hidden away in the Rocky Mountains, was designed to be a utopia. And, like all utopias, nothing is what it seems to be.

For my characters, Kara is at a much better place personally after the events on book five, The Missing Witness, and Matt has finally filled his team by adding rookie agent Sloane Wagner to the mix. The team works well together and I think they shine here. Even Catherine Jones grows some in her story arc.

I hope all my readers enjoy See How They Hide. Visit my website for all the links!

I’m working on Book 7 now — I’m calling it Game Over, but that may change. (I love the title, but I don’t have the final say!) Book 7 takes Matt & Kara to a resort in Florida where they pose as newlyweds to catch a killer … and they do in the first two chapters. What they think is a quick and easy case ends up being the beginning of a twisted game that requires the entire team to be at the top of their game to solve. I am having so much fun writing this one! Hint: Part of my research is going to escape rooms.

Some updated info:

Publication dates have changed for my upcoming books. Here’s what I know now:

Beach Reads and Deadly Deeds, a romantic mystery, will be out June 17

Don’t Say a Word, Angelhart Investigations book 2, will be out September 16

More on those two books later.

Questions? Just ask!