Florida Is Murder (Due Justice and Surface Tension Mystery Double Feature) (Florida Mystery Double Feature) (68 page)
Authors: Diane Capri,Christine Kling
Readers may not know that we’re both Florida transplants. I came to Florida from Michigan and you arrived, eventually, from California. I can say for sure that while I was living in the cold and snowy north country, bundling up by the fireplace with a good book carried me across the country for many a tan and sandy silence. Another particular lanky boat bum had a lot to do with me falling in love with paradise until we finally moved here to the same side of the state John D. MacDonald once ruled. What about you? While you were out there sailing and reading, when you could have set your anchor anywhere in the world, what brought you to Florida?
Christine:
Ah, Florida. I must say, I’ve had a love/hate relationship with our state. Or maybe I should reverse that to hate/love because that is the order it happened in. Back in 1984, I was married and my husband (captain) and I (cook) were running our 55-foot charterboat in the Virgin Islands taking folks on week-long sailing vacations. In the middle of the charter season, with nine weeks of charters left to go, I discovered I was pregnant when I - who never got seasick - began to feel queasy. It was January, and I told my husband we weren’t going to make it for the ‘85 charter season. Nobody is going to book a vacation on a boat with an infant aboard, so it was time to come up with a PlanB. We discussed returning to California, but I had been spending my few hours off charter reading these great books about this guy who lived on a houseboat at Bahia Mar in Fort Lauderdale, and I wanted to go have my baby there. See, while John D. MacDonald did live on your side of the state, Travis McGee lived over here.
But we both know there’s a big difference between fiction and reality. When I arrived here, I thought South Florida was horribly ugly. I was accustomed to mountains and it was so flat. I expected seasons and there didn’t seem to be any. Slowly, though, the place seeped into my soul. I began to see the more subtle beauty of the Everglades grasses and the mangrove swamps, the stalking great herons and the flocks of parrots. And then when I started reading Florida crime fiction, and I saw the place through the eyes of Barbara Parker, James W. Hall, Randy Wayne White, Carolina Garcia-Aguilera and the many other great Florida crime writers, I knew I wanted to be one of them when I grew up.
I pretty much decided to write crime fiction because it was what I enjoyed reading. But, you know, sometimes it kind of creeps me out that we write about murder and mayhem for entertainment. What about you? Why did you choose to write about crime? I know you’re a lawyer so is that the primary force that drove you to write about crime or was it something else entirely?
Diane:
Crime writing. Yep. Pretty creepy. On the other hand, I really love a story to have a plot. And I like to know how it ends. And it needs to make sense -- to me, at least. And I love a good puzzle. I enjoy learning new things. I like to figure stuff out. And I don’t want the ending to be predictable. In fact, if possible, I like the ending to be a surprise. And I need a heart-pounding thrill in the tale, but I skip all the gross and slimy stuff. So, given all of that, when I started writing fiction with intent to publish instead of the millions of words of non-fiction I’d already written by that time, mysteries seemed not just the best choice, but the only choice.
We’d moved here following the day job. I’d read all of Travis McGee’s knight errant exploits in his idyllic male world more than once and fallen in love with Florida. I’d read quite a few Kinsey Milhones, too. Of course, John Grisham had made the legal thriller popular after Scott Turow showed the way, giving me the idea that maybe people would want to read about lawyers, after all, if we could just make our work seem realistic but not quite so boring.
Yet, I wanted to create something different, explore new stuff that hadn’t already been mined. Murder here in paradise seemed the perfect solution. All of the other great Florida crime writers were living on your side of the state or setting their stories over there. So a different setting took care of itself, really. Most crime writers were still men and they wrote single male protagonists. Barbara Parker wasn’t on the scene yet. Edna Buchannan might have been. The few women protagonists out there were single private investigators of one kind or another.
So I did what I do: set about solving this puzzle. At first, knowing the fiction writing would be hard enough as it was, I figured I should write something I knew something about. I’m a lawyer. I’m married. I love Florida. No kids. Foodie. Love dogs. There’s nothing better than a good red wine when it comes time to unwind......Eventually, putting all those pieces together led to Judge Willa Carson, living what was to me an idyllic lifestyle doing her own version of knight errant exploits right here in paradise. Pretty much, I still feel that way. Which is a good thing, since I’ve written more than a million words of fiction now, too.
For me, the pleasure is in the writing. But the joy of it all is when readers say they love my work. There’s nothing better than hearing from readers whose lives have been touched by one of my stories. When someone says, “That book kept me up reading all night!” I feel like I’ve done something good and right and I want to do it again. How about you? What’s the best part of being a fiction writer for Christine Kling?
Christine:
Of course, hearing from readers that they enjoyed my stories and came to care about my characters is the best. But I am going to make a confession. Another of the best parts about being a crime fiction writer is trying to do certain things better than the guys do. Maybe this comes from having an older brother - I don’t know. I remember when I was in high school and I read the D.H. Lawrence novel
Women in Love
. There was this one scene that really touched me, and I’ve never forgotten it. Gudren and Ursula are walking through the woods on a rainy day and they come to a boathouse on a lake. Suddenly, a naked man runs out across the dock and launches into the water in an arcing dive. Lawrence wrote:
“Gudrun stood by the stone wall, watching.
‘How I envy him,’ she said, in low, desirous tones.”
I read that when I was sixteen years old and I knew exactly what Gudren was talking about.
The story continues:
“‘God, what it is to be a man!’ she cried.
‘What?’ exclaimed Ursula in surprise.
‘The freedom, the liberty, the mobility!’ cried Gudrun, strangely flushed and brilliant. ‘You're a man, you want to do a thing, you do it. You haven't the thousand obstacles a woman has in front of her.’”
I always wanted that freedom from the vulnerability of being a woman. Knowing that about me helps to explain why I rode my bicycle 1000 miles down Mexico’s Baja Peninsula when I was 19 years old, why I’ve sailed tens of thousands of miles, and why I now enjoy sailing my boat solo. It also helps to explain the female characters I write. Seychelle Sullivan also grew up with brothers, and she is trying to succeed in a man’s world. Some readers have told me they think she is reckless, but I insist that’s only because she is female. Nobody calls Jack Reacher reckless and he gets into far more trouble than Seychelle. When any woman walks into a dangerous situation to try to get justice, some in our field say that she’s being too stupid to live. I disagree. I believe in strong, confident, and competent women characters. I write them because I want to read about them. Men aren’t the only ones who can throw caution to the wind and rush into a burning house to save somebody.
In a way, writing crime fiction is just as adventurous as sailing or bicycling. And according to some, like the organization Sisters in Crime, there are still many obstacles placed before women in this field. There are men who refuse to read books by women. And often, women are accused of not getting their details or facts straight. So this is another man’s world, and I love it when readers write to tell me that I “got it right.” I was thrilled recently with a review that was posted on Amazon by H. E. Roberts where he admitted to a gender bias when reading thrillers. Then he went on to say,
“I don't always pay attention to who the author is until I get to the end and read his/her bio. I have to admit, until I got to Kling's bio, I was certain a man had written this book. I mean that as a compliment to her. This book is full of well-researched, well-analyzed, well-imagined attention to the type of details that will interest male readers. What I'm trying to say is, if you're a dude who's unsure whether this woman has written a book worth your time, she has. If you think a woman can't write a male-driven action thriller, you're wrong...and so was I.”
That is why I write the books I do. That makes all the sweat and tears worth it.
So, Diane, I would like to go back to something you said about when you created your Judge Willa Carson. You said that you made her a dog lover like you. And you know I’m a dog lover. So what I want to know is how you came up with her dogs. Were they based on a real dog you once had? And finally tell us about the dog you have now.
Diane:
Ahhhhh, the dog’s life. That’s what I want. I mean, I like cats as well. But dogs are, well, woman’s best friend, too. Seychelle can go out there and bust a few heads and slug it out with the guys, but from experience, Willa knows it’s better to be smarter than the average or even above-average criminal.
Remember me? I’m from Detroit, where the weak are killed and eaten and you never see the bullet that gets you. When every morning the local news station broadcasts the number of homicides committed overnight, as they did when I lived there, you know you’re living in a dangerous world and you just might not survive until morning. That’s not Willa Carson’s idea of paradise.
Willa’s big dogs are masters of their universe, oh-so-clever at getting out of tight spots, instinctively wary of those who would do them harm. Famously warm-hearted but hard-headed, the independent Harry and Bess run free when they choose, swim like olympians, know where to find the best treats, and cuddle up only when it suits them and with whomever they please. Unfortunately, we don’t live in Willa’s huge home and don’t have enough room for Harry and Bess, two independent minded Labrador Retrievers. But our mini schnauzers are just as fabulous and maybe twice as tough.
Our lives have been enriched for the past 20 years with three miniature schnauzers and each has been a complete joy. Right now, we’re lucky to share little Miki’s home. She weighs eleven pounds, but she’s got us so well trained that we even pay the mortgage! Now there’s a smart dog, hmmm? Judging from what you write about your Yorkshire Terror, you’ve got to agree with me on this one, right?
Christine:
Oh yes, I could not imagine living without a dog. I gave Seychelle a Lab, too, even though I had never owned one. They are great water dogs, and I thought she should own a big dog. Then my son - who at that point had never read any of my books - went out and got himself a Lab. We took his dog on my boat on a trip down to Key West one year and that dog thought every lobster pot buoy was a ball. We had to hold him back from leaping in to retrieve them.
I have always owned smaller dogs. My first was a Schipperke, also known as the Belgian Barge Dog. She sailed to Venezuela and back with us and lived to the ripe old age of 16. For a while, I owned two dogs after I adopted Chip, the Intrepid Seadog. Chip’s mother was a St. Lucia street dog that was adopted by a German family on a cruising boat. My son insisted we take one of her puppies, so I always secretly called Chip the son of a bitch from the Caribbean. Chip also lived to be 16 and sailed many miles with me. Two months after Chip died, I rescued Barney, the then 8-month-old Yorkshire Terror whose mug shot from the Dade County Animal Shelter made him look like he was running with a Jamaican street gang - dreads and all. He’s now about 18 months old and still very much a puppy. It’s quite a change to go from an elderly blind dog to a hard-headed energetic puppy who is an escape artist, a master thief and the most curious dog I’ve ever known. Neither of us has the other trained to do anything - although we are both trying. The Terror wears me out, but he sure keeps me laughing, and I know I have never loved a dog more.
It’s been great chatting with you, Diane. I expect I can speak for both of us, when I say that this is a great time to be a writer, and we are both so lucky to live in this great state and write our stories of murder and mayhem full time. I hope our readers have found it entertaining to learn a bit more about us, as well. Now, I guess we both have to go back to our desks and get to work on the next books because, as you know, Florida is Murder.
We love to hear from you. If we left out something you’d like to know, please send us an e-mail.
Contact Christine Kling here:
http://christinekling.com/contact.html
Contact Diane Capri here:
http://dianecapri.com/contact/
Books by Diane Capri
Jess Kimball Series:
Fatal Enemy
(short story)
Hunt for Reacher Series:
Jack in a Box
(short story)
Jack and Kill
(short story)
Justice Series:
Mistaken Justice
(short story)
Books by Christine Kling
In the Seychelle Sullivan Series
CROSS CURRENT
BITTER END
WRECKERS’ KEY
The Short Story Collection
SEA BITCH: FOUR TALES OF NAUTICAL NOIR
First in the Shipwreck Trilogy - available in both print and ebook format
CIRCLE OF BONES
Table of Contents