My third Casey Holland mystery has finally
been released to the public. I waited a long time for this, and there were many
obstacles along the way, but tenacity is everything in this business.
The idea for the book came to me one night
several years ago while I was working in the fashion department at Zellers. At
the end of evening shifts, my job was to straighten the racks and fold
sweaters to return to the display tables. Oddly enough, this was one of my
favorite tasks. It was relaxing and gave me time to think. Most of what I
thought about was which piece of writing I would work on next. Back then, I was
still working on my second Alex Bellamy novel, several short stories, and the
first two Casey novels…crazy times … slow, but productive.
One night, I was heading home on a dry,
chill October night. There’d been updated news coverage about a pedestrian
who’d been killed by one of two vehicles in a street race many months earlier.
Of course, the tragedy was originally a hit-and-run, but the racers were
eventually caught, tried and convicted, and one of them deported. As those
events slowly unfolded over the years, more people died.
I can’t tell you how many deaths there’ve
been in Vancouver’s Lower Mainland this month alone, as school has reconvened,
and the sunny weather has inspired pedestrians, cyclists, and motorcyclists to
share the roads with distracted, bleary-eyed drivers.
As a transit officer who rides the buses a
lot, Casey would have seen more than her share of accidents. This book opens
when she witnesses a hit-and-run, tries to help the victim, and fails.
One of the things I also thought about
while folding all those sweaters was how wonderful it would be to have five
books published one day. Well, now that it's happened, the time has come for new publishing goals. I should probably go find some sweaters to fold.
The book is available through e-book
formats and in print, and you can find links through my newly created website
at www.debrapurdykong.com
Or on my page at TouchWood Editions, http://www.touchwoodeditions.com/display_author.php?contributor_id=2383
2 comments:
Congratulations on the new release and all your success! It always amazes me, the number of occupations there are that we never think of. Watching television, you'd think everybody in the world was a cop, a doctor, a PI, or an office worker.
I love your choice of transit officer! What made you think of that? It had to be more than folding sweaters! lol
Marian Allen
Fantasies, mysteries, comedies, recipes
Thanks for your kind comments, Marian. I thought of a transit officer while I was working a temp job for a transit company years ago. A young woman walked in wearing a leather mini-skirt & jacket, and I learned that she worked undercover on the buses. That job stuck with me a long time before I had the opportunity to write about it.
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