The Fine Print; Program 05 03 Alafair Burke Close Case 02

heidi head maker fourteen even gone from there to come up with their wonderful nine hi hi hat maker designed to put out a funny story actually i am one of the very nice things you can do as a writer om unit can a free from a un and a lot of good for other people is you donate the right to have your name as a character of buck and one of my favorite turn of options as the police activities laid in portland oregon and they run at your summer sports camp for canton i donated a character named to their annual auction last year and a friend of mine bought it and her name is currently heidi less the problem with using her name heidi lashes that her husband david leser is already a character in the buttocks his name is a curator of books and he's an unmarried characters i could have hired lesson salamis or made a name with his high year old law so that's carole maine and the funny thing is that before she ever married my friend david i used to i would tell every time i saw you have the cutest thing i've just i've ever heard of an eye

i would tell you you should be skipping down cobblestone street is getting president with a name like it had maker i thought i was actually really good name for a young reporter who picks up her secret jazz notes and says you know what i am i not experienced but i'm smart and i'm patient really stubborn and tenacious and i mimic the euro will percy was working i'm in a i'm a right that's the american story as a tribute to percy like say she's a researcher in a newspaper wanting to be an investigative reporter tragic place of a wannabe this gray reporter but i'm never going to be there because i'm never gonna get the cover story that i need to get there and they start researching other people's doors for the rest of my life which really propels her do want to find out what percy was working on in as you say she's patient but she's also hone the skills that she needs to find it out by doing all this research for other people for these past two years right she and she reflects back to that she thinks about the times that percy was kind to her and she remembers a time when

percy somerset i've noticed you know sitting there in the corner quietly and really paying attention you in your smart brilliant we're not going for a hundred the state of seize the day and annie tells its thats part of partly that name of the high hat maker is if you need to think of years self or the hannah storm or a wolf blitzer about a high hat maker and so she decides that if you're the place where her skills could could really help her because nobody else is thinking about percy's announced a look at them and they don't make any sense and they said well i guess we've lost whatever he was working on bit that she's patient sees patients issue likely to turn up again it's funny i hadn't ever thought about that but i've been surprised at is finished it two half week booked were going around the country talking to people about the book and i heard from a lot of people saying you know i read more about haiti site but when i saw heidi the real heidi hatmaker less in portland i said gee i hope you don't mind i think i should have to come back maybe even ever owned series that'll be interesting

i think the idea of the launching a nerf missile at the people in the office who deserve it is a really great idea and i think it's they're reprehensible of that gentleman to call the police i mean it sounds to me like you deserve it and there could've been a whole lot worse a love that knows a few things in the book that i do the books for comic relief right because unlike the books to be suspenseful gritty but also fein and senate it's pretty funny or in her own right but she has funny dog writer vinnie is always leaving little presents for on the kitchen floor in an end this book with chuck forbes moving into and vinnie and smelters house vinnie is i think he's pretty scientists buckle he treats portugal but then the other thing i didn't try to do that finding is it the da's office every day at noon or some a storyteller even get in to them every day there is some story of him stupid things people do in the final ana please reports and discuss the crazy things we think what they may do is i kind of uses place reports is as funny things for the reader as a

break from that and some of the darker stuff but yeah i like the guy calling the police because coworker show runner for a nerve all what are police getting a call out to the man who is making a naked man making love to a tree yeah that's a true story oh no really that's one of the true ones yeah he was backed up in the eu is having a moment with a tree in the french in that in the full view of everybody and worth they called the police and he was taken away on an eerie kind of shows why the crow justice system is like these days and have room to hold him on that and there were them where he put the men to lockup for some reason he didn't qualify for mental lock up and they had to let him go and he went right back to the same jury is that or three hours later and the same police officer went to try to get him again and i think the theory was the guy with an axe to

serious i'm kind of a loser the gin and was in love with this release for that i mean there are a million stories in the media to tell you that well if you're a good death i did not write it make i couldn't make that work that is that is great and so funny and that was enough to make our own and the fire your part in this is just part of the atmosphere of being a prosecutor talk of the mets some people read the book they said oh come on and the losses can really be like that might go yes again them because when the police reporting i showed up at his demeanor and take it didn't just stay there what happened was the prosecutor who is reading it we made a copy in an all white about the defendant's names are out and wrote in another prosecutors <unk> fact that everything i knew about a year now well if it makes you feel better at the radio station we are and we will often take on things that people have

recorded and twist them ourselves as always that it's always going on about jazz bar well turn into something serious domestic violence is another one of the threads in close call and i would assume you probably saw a lot of domestic violence cases when you're a da that was primarily what i did i was there i am i was in the domestic plans yet for a couple of years on prosecuting those cases and they're incredibly difficult to prosecute because it's a case where really nobody wins its am you know oftentimes the victim as uncooperative for various reasons mit to be scared or still in love with the guy and don't want to go to jail or you know whatever their reasons are so so they're mad at you for prosecuting the case the defendant's obviously not going to be prosecuted and a lot of the judges storehouse of old fashioned views on that and think you're wasting their time and it's hard work those places are hard to prove and very hard to talk to the victims there's

plot does take a lot of twists and turns and making me wonder how do you go about putting a book you know how much do you know about that book before you actually start and probably somewhere in the middle of what other writers do my father for example doesn't out why at all and he swears up and down that he has started books without knowing who did it he is philly and i couldn't have that much faith that would work itself out i am other writers know every scene had a tiny it in that words can come in and they have a very detailed treatment a buck or to somewhere between now and i think with closed case which has a very intricate plot was one of several different levels of it i started with maybe a thirteen page summary of each of the main cases and then how they come together in the end and that's about it and i said of all know the big clues you know in my view a really good mystery when you get to the end and you go oh that's what

happened in about the union we feel like about all come together and they'll usually you know a few things but you should've seen it that were there all along that he never put together and yet his once put together for you it seems obvious right then i'll know what those big closer and how they come together in the end i won't know that water all tell the manner which character will come upon them that step tends to work itself out as i'm writing and the only times i really had writer's block with oil couple of boats at least i'm has actually been when i plan something out and it won't write ui premeditated it'll help to maj gen you know was wedded to some structural idea or some plot twist in and then when i get to the part where i need to write it it won't happen and the reason why a wall right is because it's always been because the characters would we do that you know jim chuck really wouldn't do something bad or samantha would never go that guy's house and in those circumstances or something like that and i'll have to rethink how to tell that story or work or change

or ham that you know so i didn't matter to start with the bones and the rest is sort of work itself out inconsistent the characters i was fun and interesting what people do to structure their books where it's a mystery or a novel or or anything and as you said it's it's always so different from a zero writers all have their own in their own style hoerr the question of how much of it comes organically i think and how much of this is intellectual damaged needs to be thought out ahead of time you get injured and i'll mention this i talked to him recently forum his latest book crusaders cross and he is so proud of you and as a matter of fact one of the reasons that i'm originally picked up close case was he said oh this is her best book yet she has really grown with this book she has she's just this is wonderful you've got to read this it's nice to know that he is so proud of unison

oh it's terrific yes both he and my mother are incredibly supportive of modern parents and we've got a very nice relationship and it is fine and you know i'm thirty five years old they all but you know i think like those parents really still see me as a kid and so it's pretty cute it's it's like i'm getting gold stars from it as it as for extra allowances turnbow yeah they do they're very very proud and it's an authentic i got home about a month ago and dad had red clothes case and he left a message on my answering machine and it is america's fallen about ghazal often leaving his lengthy answer is receiving messages like his old i like that straight out of my own relationship with my dad he talks to my machine aloha and so i came home as we are you know this is the i think the quote was this is the dallas police procedural ever written there's something that i

i have asked my editor mike pence was we can use that as a no blood relatives the rule behind the yankee's he's very prominent lot to me obviously alastair burke who has just written her third samantha kincaid legal thriller close cases and that doesn't include our program for this week and i hope you enjoyed it and i hope you'll join me next week as well when together we'll check out the fine print for national public radio i'm rebecca bain the fine print is produced by rebecca bain and scott smith for nashville public radio to listen online to order cds and this workout programs visit our website wpln thought oh archie slash fine print it's big fb