To tell
the truth, I became a real life investigator because I needed work. I was a
single parent of three kids I had adopted from foster care, and I needed a
solid job. As any novelist will tell you, books rarely pay all the bills. So I
looked around to see what intrigued me, and as a former journalist, being a
private investigator called.
That was over ten years ago. I’ve worked
hundreds of cases since—including as a stint as a Chief Investigator at a
public defenders office. I’ve helped rescue sex trafficking victims, exonerated
innocents from prison, and spent years working with men on death row. For all
the stress and sorrow of the work, it is the most satisfying, fascinating and
fulfilling job. I not only get to help people, I am constantly immersed in the
stories of others.
As a writer nothing could be better. Every
day people share their secrets with me.
Through the work I have learned so much not
only about crime, but about humanity. The deep inner workings of our minds and
souls; the complexities and the questions at the heart of violence are there
for me to explore, to learn and absorb. Perhaps the most surprising aspect of
being a real life investigator is how hopeful it can be. Rather than be pressed
into despair, and I am constantly surprised at the human capacity for survival.
I have come to believe so much of the
darkness in modern literature is based in helplessness. After all, if you feel
too weak (or important) to confront violence and make change, then you are more
likely to think evil is unavoidable and we can do nothing about it. Thus many
books resort to monster tropes for their villains, with flawed heroes and
saintly victims, rather than the more complex—and I think fascinating—realities
of how violence is created, nurtured, fought and overcome.
To be part of the solution has transformed
me as a person. It has given me confidence to walk into situations others might
find frightening, to save the vulnerable and make sure our system is just. More
surprisingly, the work has filled me with the poetry of life—the joy that is
found when we confront despair; the beauty that exists even in the most
harrowing circumstances. It is the beauty of the wild forests I drive into on
some of my cases, finding witnesses that live the same lives of their
ancestors. It is the beauty of those who survive the intolerable, sometimes
using only their imaginations.
And while I didn’t expect it, being a real
life investigator transformed my writing.
My cases have now inspired two novels. My
new novel The Child Finder is about a young woman private investigator
who specializes in finding missing children. She has been called to a case of a
little girl lost in the snowy Oregon forests three years before, and presumed
dead.
The
Child Finder is rich in procedural details—one of the fun parts about being
a real life investigator is being able to take the reader into the shoe leather
truth of an investigation, instead of relying on pretend CSI nonsense. It’s
exciting to take the reader along on as the character in The Child Finder
finds witnesses, uncovers forgotten documents, and searches for evidence as she
tries to find the missing girl. As she knows, the majority of investigative
work is simple perseverance.
The reason so many cases go unsolved is
not because a handful of brilliant sociopaths are constantly outwitting the
police. It is because proper investigations take time—far more time than
resources or funding is allotted. I recently worked a case that took me over
two years to solve. It involved an innocent man who has spent years in prison.
Likewise, cases involving missing children can take months, if not years.
For me the procedural details are actually
the less important part of my novels. What is important is the human nature of
the characters: they could easily be people from my own cases. I love feeling
the reader can join me as we delve deep into solving a crime. It feels like a
rare opportunity to share what I have learned about not just how we save each
other, but find a way out of the darkness to a better future.
