Author and Criminal Profiler Pat Brown On Her Latest Literary Endeavor…
In addition to our review for her new book, Fifty Is The New Forty was able to ask author and Criminal Profiler Pat Brown what inspired her to write her new novella, Only The Truth. Her answers were both a bit surprising and revealing, giving us some more glimpses into what makes her such a uniquely interesting baby boomer entrepreneur…
Q. Did you have a real case inspiration for this unique story?
A. Actually, not any one case in particular. I based Billy Ray’s love interest, Charlene, on a composite of a number of women who commit crimes for a variety of reason and have questionable psychological issues and
Q. This style of this book is quite a departure from the typical novella or crime novel out there. How did you arrive at this place?
A. I hate to say my answer is, “No clue!” Well, maybe there is something in that I love John Steinbeck and other fairly old-fashioned authors and I am not overly found of extremely violent mystery/crime novels. I get tired of all the excessive gore and such and prefer a story with more of a literary quality. Having said that, I WILL have a new mystery series coming out in which the protagonist is a female criminal profiler (you will never guess who that character is based on) and it is a bit more “modern” and in the vein of Janet Evonovich and Sue Grafton mystery novels with a sense of humor and the female sleuth chasing down suspects and leads
Q. Do you think that the main character in your story, Billy Ray, represents the “every-man” sort of character who becomes involved in a real-life murder-for-passion type of scenario? The “innocent involved”?
A. I have seen quite often that when a significant other commits homicide, there is a great deal of confusion and disbelief on the part of this secondary “victim” of a heinous crime. It is always a horrific place to be; one either has to stand by the killer or recognize one has been a chump and the relationship one believed to have been real is but a fraud. Emotions ping-ponging back and forth are the norm and where one ends up much depends on the evidence finally uncovered and the own personal emotional makeup of the individual.
Q. With the success of this book, are you anticipating changing your career direction to spend more time writing?
A. Heh, well, I have two more books coming out this year with traditional publishers: How to Save Your Daughter’s Life (HCI Sept 2012) and The Murder of Cleopatra (Prometheus Feb 2013) and my next self-pubbed fiction is in the works, BUT I am a profiler first and an author second, and I have much to do in the field to establish criminal profiling as a tool of law enforcement and to educate the profilers of the future, so I have decided to clone myself and live to be one hundred and twenty.
Q. What kind of response have you had to this release?
A. Quite frankly, extraordinary! I am absolutely thrilled with the readers’ responses to Only the Truth. When one writes fiction, one gets very involved with the characters and by the end of the book, those characters are quite real to the author, as is the story, the towns, the locations, the circumstances…even the dog. So one gets quite concerned that when the book gets into the hands of the reading public, they will not see any of what the author believes they will. I have been ecstatic to learn that readers are seeing everything the same way as me! Woo hoo! They love Sweet Billy Ray who I am most protective of and they adore Police Chief Williams who I think The Rock should play in the movie version (and he has said he will if I promise to provide some bad guys for him to whoop ::laughs::).
All in all, I couldn’t be more pleased with the response. Thank you, Readers!
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