TV vet collars 'Killer' run with female detective By JOSEPH SZCZESNY
FROM THE OAKLAND PRESS
TV vet collars 'Killer' run with female detective
By JOSEPH SZCZESNY
When April Smith published her first novel back in 1994, she had no intention of creating a new series of detective stories. But FBI Agent Ana Grey, the heroine of Smith's first book, "North of Montana," returns to the streets of Los Angeles in "Good Morning, Killer," a meticulously crafted detective story that also gives a revealing look at the internal rivalries that play out in a major investigation as well as large dose of sexual politics.
Grey, Smith's wonderful central character, bends but she never breaks in the fast-paced story with a surprising twist that will leave readers gasping.
Smith says she never set out to make Ana Grey into the central character in a series of books. Her editor advised against it: "He said, 'You don't want to do a series character,' " she says.
But mystery readers are very attached to the notion of a series character, and she was often asked, "When are you going to write another Ana Grey story?"
"Even when I did 'Be the One,' my second book about a woman baseball scout, (readers) asked, 'Where is Ana Grey?' " Smith says.
It was when she was working on her second book that she came across a short item in the Los Angeles Times that she thought might be the basis for a new story involving Grey. She eventually used it in "Good Morning, Killer."
"It just leapt out at me," Smith explains. "The notion of Ana Grey, who believes in the law more than anything, crosses the line, and what would it take to get her to cross the line and then how could we still like her."
"I'm going to do a third one," adds Smith, who says she believes readers respond to Grey because of the honesty of her perceptions and "also because she is the story."
"She experiences the story and hopefully the reader is experiencing it with her," Smith says. "She's not objective. I think readers like that. She's not cold. She's warm. She's vulnerable. She suffers in real ways. She does things people don't like. I'll continue to develop her.
"Whenever she's sexually aggressive people don't like that. But that's real too. Red flags go up. I'm going to take her out of LA in the next book. She'll be on assignment somewhere else. Ana is always a fish out of water. This will be another opportunity for her to really be an outsider in another environment.
"A series can fall flat if a character doesn't have depth and they aren't three-dimensional."
With the exception of Robert Crais and Michael Connelly, two Los Angeles based "buddies" who also have developed highly regarded fictional detectives, Smith says she doesn't read much detective fiction. "They're both very good with plot," she says.
Smith, who is asked frequently if her own experience as a police officer led to the creation of Ana Grey, says she never worked directly in law enforcement. But she did carve out a career for herself in television as a producer and writer of police-centered shows such as "Cagney and Lacey" and dramatic shows such as "Chicago Hope" and "Lou Grant."
"Cagney and Lacey was kind of a seminal experience in terms of crime," she says.
While working on television shows, she rode along with police officers to gather material.
"It was really the visceral experience of riding along with the cops in New York that gave me the bug about cops," says Smith, who can recall "running up the steps with them and not knowing what was at the top."
"I like cops," she says. "They're really smart and they understand human nature. They really help with my characters. They are psychologically acute."
"The women I've met in law enforcement tend to be physically active. They like that kind of physical work. They're smart. You have to have a college degree to get in the bureau and they want to do good. They come forth with real confidence. Among the new agents right now I'd say almost a third are female, which is a lot," Smith adds.
Smith, a graduate of the masters of creative writing program and Stanford University, started to write "North of Montana" during the lengthy strike by television and screen writers. It took her five years to complete the book, she says.
"There were four leads in the book and I originally wrote it in the third person. But Ana Grey took over and I rewrote the whole book in her voice and from her point of view. It was a long process of discovery," Smith says.
"Be the One," also took a long time to write because Smith had to learn about the inner working of baseball and the way baseball scouts look for prospects, Smith says.
While Ana Grey is now the central character in a detective series, Smith says it doesn't mean she has abandoned her effort to write a many-layered, literary novel. Her objective is to offer readers a fulfilling and challenging story. "You should feel nurtured at the end of it."
ŠThe Oakland Press 2003
This material is copyright by the publisher and is used here for purposes of information on the work of April Smith.