more about karen

Karen as a character evolved slowly, almost fitfully, even as the murder mystery sprung boldly to life. I had watched several women in law enforcement (and, frankly, out of it) fall victim to the worst kinds of abuse. “You’re ugly, stupid, useless…” The long, slow, painful fall is difficult to watch. She would find the strength to leave, somehow.

who is karen

I hesitate to write that Karen was an afterthought. I wrote Amy Painter first, a sort of conglomeration of all the strong women I’d met in and out of police work. When the story line of Out of Ideas emerged after a trip to Wisconsin, I needed a main character.

How do you describe a friend to others? Probably in the most positive manner. Awesome, engaging, bright. Downsides? Not for general publication. We all have our friends’ backs.

But, writing Karen meant dealing with the struggles, the pains, the things she kept to herself. A very good friend gave me the title for a short – “One Critical Mistake.” It seemed to me Karen had done just that, made one critical mistake. I thought that would be a way to describe a non-sequitur most people miss. That is, police women are not immune from making mistakes of the heart. Neither are they forbidden to discover the restorative aspects of relationships with good people.

why karen

Writers say things through their characters. I wanted to say that people deserve to be treated with respect. Self-esteem is perishable, especially when a close someone questions a person’s worth. No one owns someone else, even when they have pledged their lives to each other. That pledge is conditional, primarily upon the way the other holds the heart entrusted to them.

A good police officer sees the world painfully clearly. They do not often give their hearts away carelessly, either personally or professionally. They follow the facts dispassionately, faithfully, without regard to how much they want things to turn out a certain way.

Karen is tough, but vulnerable. She is smart, but sometimes makes poor decisions. She is hesitant, careful…and all in.

I loved writing this character.

synopses

If your attention was focused on a smoking hole, one containing the remains of a wrecked airplane and its equally wrecked pilot - would you notice the next chapter of your life walking up behind you? 

Karen O’Neil is a California girl, legally separated from the abusive husband who ripped her from a sun-drenched, stimulating life as a San Diego cop to isolation in rural Fond du Lac, Wisconsin. Talented, attractive and intense, she is cut off from everything she wants.   Her rock-bottom self esteem lunges at a mysterious airplane crash as though it is a life line, a chance to escape the doldrums of dismal failure in every aspect of her life.

National Transportation Safety Board investigator Adam Phlatt has his own issues. His career is going nowhere - a destination toward which his love life has already lurched. He somehow entangles himself with his new friend Karen’s complex personality; she is professionally tough and demanding, but personally vulnerable, especially around him. The accident investigation is a no brainer, a simple case of too much airplane and too little pilot.  The easy inquiry over, he plans his return to Chicago and the safety of his own loneliness.

Karen refuses to let go of the case, or of Adam.  When she discovers that the pilot’s identity is in play, it’s a whole new ball game.  Carried along from one perplexing clue to the next, they tumble headlong onto a ring of Florida smugglers intent on protecting their operation with violence, if necessary. Karen and Adam face a confrontation that they cannot win, even as hope triumphs over experience and they fall in love. Their first intimate encounter as lovers is interrupted by the disappearance of a friend under sinister circumstances. The friend’s rescue leads to Karen’s kidnapping and Adam must regain what he once was, a man passionate enough to save the woman he loves.

I had no intention to write this book.