Avidbookreader Catches Up With Mystery Writer, Chelsea Cain

NYT best­selling author, Chelsea Cain, took the time to gra­ciously answer ques­tions from a reader. She has a new book out, Sweet­heart, that is the follow-​up to last year’s debut, Heartsick.

I have read and enjoyed both Heart­sick and Sweet­heart and I am really excited about this series. I was more than thrilled when Chelsea Cain granted me this inter­view. If you enjoy fast paced thrillers that serve up sur­pris­ing plot twists with inter­est­ing char­ac­ters, then this series is one that should not be missed. Hope you enjoy the inter­view.

Can you tell read­ers a little bit about your new series? What read­ers can expect in your new novel, Sweetheart?

CC: HEART­SICK and SWEET­HEART are basi­cally both really twisted love sto­ries. HEART­SICK is about a Port­land, Oregon, Detec­tive, Archie Sheri­dan, who has spent ten years lead­ing a task force look­ing for an infa­mous and quite lovely serial killer dubbed “The Beauty Killer.” She catches him and tor­tures him for ten days, then mys­te­ri­ously lets him go and turns her­self in.

The book picks up two years later, when Archie is called off med­ical leave to hunt a second serial killer. He’s addicted to pain killers and still obsessed with the Beauty Killer (her name is Gretchen Lowell) – he still visits her in prison, and is work­ing to close cold cases they sus­pect she’s behind. Susan Ward, a jour­nal­ist for The Oregon Herald tags along during all this for a pro­file she’s writ­ing about Archie. SWEET­HEART, the second book in the series, takes place a few months after the events of HEART­SICK. Basi­cally, Gretchen escapes from prison and all hell breaks loose.

What is your back­ground in rela­tion to the sto­ries that you write?

CC: Well I lack con­sid­er­able expe­ri­ence in the serial killer depart­ment. I’ve never killed anyone. Not a single person. I’ve also never been a cop. I’ve never even been a secu­rity guard. But I have been a jour­nal­ist. That was my way into the story. I cre­ated the char­ac­ter Susan Ward. Susan has an MFA and writes funny, random fea­tures sto­ries, and then gets thrust into cov­er­ing crime for the paper. I’m no Bob Wood­ward, but I know news­pa­pers enough to give that expe­ri­ence a little author­ity. I also live in Port­land, Oregon – where my series take place. Which is very handy. I’m trying to figure out a way to make my mort­gage tax-​deductable as a work expense…

As a debut novel, HEART­SICK, was well received and a NYT best­seller (debut #8 in hard­cover and #26 in paper­back) and I really enjoyed read­ing it. Did you feel any pres­sure in writ­ing the follow-​up?

CC: I was almost done with SWEET­HEART by the time HEART­SICK came out, so I actu­ally feel way more pres­sure with the third book, which I am work­ing on now. But it was def­i­nitely a chal­lenge to write a sequel. I kept find­ing myself indulging in these enor­mous asides that tried to catch read­ers up on char­ac­ters and events. It was so tedious. Finally I just cut any­thing that I found myself skim­ming over.

How many books are planned for the series? Or what direc­tion you see the series going?

CC: I have so many ideas for sto­ries about these char­ac­ters. I want to write books about them until I can’t sell any of them – even to my relatives.

Why did you choose to write about a pro­lific serial killer? Was the gender purposeful?

CC: I wanted to write about a female serial killer for a bunch of rea­sons. I was inter­ested in explor­ing the kind of obses­sive rela­tion­ship between a killer and the cop who’d hunted her for so long – so it seemed obvi­ous that making the killer a woman would add a com­pelling sexual tension.

But I also wanted to explore the danger of beauty and the layers of power in any sort of rela­tion­ship, but specif­i­cally between men and women. Plus, there aren’t a lot of models for female serial killers, so felt some free­dom to really have fun with the character.

Are your sto­ries inspired by any real life serial killers?
CC: By hun­dreds of them. But the idea of the task force and the long-​term hunt for the killer came from grow­ing up in Belling­ham, Wash­ing­ton, when the Green River Killer was at large. He was on the loose for twenty years, and there was a task force assigned to catch him. Even as a kid I was fas­ci­nated by the fact that there were all these people work­ing to catch the bogeyman.

Do you feel that there is a double stan­dard in being a woman crime nov­el­ist as opposed to a male crime nov­el­ist in rela­tion to the vio­lence that you read about in most mys­tery novels?

CC: I think that I’m asked more to jus­tify the vio­lence in my books than I would be if I were a man. People seem to want to know what it’s like for me to write grue­some scenes “as a woman,” or “as a mom.” I don’t think that male thriller writ­ers are asked what it’s like to write gore “as a dad.”

How did you come to create Archie Sheri­dan? He is such a riv­et­ing char­ac­ter along­side his neme­sis, Gretchen Lowell. I know as I was read­ing Heart Sick, I antic­i­pated his scenes.

CC: He’s the kind of char­ac­ter I’m always a sucker for. Smart. Dam­aged. Suck-y at inter­per­sonal rela­tion­ships, but great at his job. Obses­sive. Loyal. Most of all, he’s got self-​knowledge. He’s fucked up, but he knows he’s fucked up, which I think allows the reader to for­give some of his sins.

Can you please describe this rela­tion­ship between Archie and Gretchen? It is dri­ving me crazy. [g] Why has he allowed her to be such a divi­sive and manip­u­la­tive force in his per­sonal life?

CC: I try to address this ques­tion in SWEET­HEART. It’s com­pli­cated. He’s addicted to her. And addic­tion is, by def­i­n­i­tion, destruc­tive. I think it’s this ques­tion of “what the fuck?” that drives the books. What draws these two people together? (Besides some seri­ous pathol­ogy.) Once I answer that ques­tion entirely, the ten­sion is lost. That said, I will explore the rela­tion­ship a bit more in each book.

What is the pur­pose of writ­ing for you? What inspired you to put pen to paper and craft your own novel?

CC: I really just write the kind of books that I want to read. (I’m incred­i­bly self-​indulgent that way.) It’s all about me, me, me.

Off the wall ques­tion: what is the strangest thing a reader has ever said to you?

CC: “I find Gretchen Lowell so inspiring.”

As an avid reader what other authors do you enjoy reading?

The two books I’ve blurbed recently are The Call­ing by Inger Ash Wolfe and Sworn to Silence by Linda Castillo. Both are ter­rific, twisted, gory thrillers. Seri­ously fucked up. I mean that in a good way.

*****

Thank You Ms. Cain! Sweet­heart is avail­able in hard­cover at your favorite book­store and the first book, Heart­sick, is avail­able in paper­back and ebook at Amazon, Fic­tion­wise (mobipocket). You can also read excerpts of both books from the author’s website.

Tagged as: Author interview, Chelsea Cain, Crime Novelist, Mystery Novelist