A Conversation with Lisa Gardner,
author of Catch Me
Catch Me involves not one but two cold cases, a different side of D.D. Warren, characters from past books, and a complex plot that keeps you guessing until the very end. Would you say this is your most ambitious book to date? Can you tell us the inspiration behind it?
The inspiration for Catch Me came from a book signing in southern New Hampshire. I was visiting with readers, talking crime, as sometimes happens at my book signings, when someone mentioned an odd case she'd heard about—a local house where two murders had happened, exactly one year apart, but supposedly, unrelated. I think I joked at the time, tell that to the third person who lives there, and that notion just struck me. What would it be like to be the third person in a string of murders? Knowing about the first two, feeling the clock wind down on your own gruesome deadline? The house connection was too abstract, so I changed it to three best friends, two down, one to go, four days and counting.
Now a book about a girl simply waiting to die would be boring, so of course Charlene Grant is preparing to fight back. She's training to box, shoot, run, etc. In her own words, once she was good, now she can kick ass.
It also occurred to me that Boston detective D.D. Warren should get in on the action. I mean, how often does a detective get a chance to solve a murder before it happens? Of course that would suck D.D. right in, especially now that she's a mom, feeling the maternal pull of a young woman in crisis. Personally and professionally D.D. finds herself committed to the cause.
Finally, given that I had a string of previous murders in multiple jurisdictions, I decided to include law enforcement characters from my other novels—former FBI profiler Pierce Quincy, his daughter FBI Special Agent Kimberly Quincy, Rhode Island detective Roan Griffin. Sort of a family reunion, but also a tribute to my fans, who write me regularly to request more stories with their favorite characters. Who am I to deny that kind of devotion?
The end result I hope is a taut page turner that doubles as a love letter to my fans. You wrote and I listened. Enjoy!
You introduce us to the character Charlie Grant. Tell us about her.
Charlie Grant is a woman about to die. She's counting down to her own murder, four days, a handful of hours. She doesn't want to be murdered, mind you. Hence, she's spent the past year learning to shoot, run, box. But on the other hand, she's definitely battling PTSD. Here's a woman who's buried each of her best friends, two years running, killed on the same day at the same time. She comes from a very troubled household with a mentally ill mother. There's a piece of her that's fatalistic, and this aspect of her character drives her to make some pretty dramatic decisions in the final hours of her life.
But, there's another part of Charlie, as well. The optimistic inner-child who recognizes her mother was wrong, that she can do better, be better, have better. That's the Charlie we root for. I think that's the piece of Charlie that speaks to D.D. Warren as well. Here is a young woman facing a very dark fate, who's determined to make a last stand. On January 21, when the killer comes for Charlene Grant, she's not going down without a fight. A murderer took out her two best friends, and Charlie is determined to make him pay.
You are known for doing more research than most thriller writers, what research did you do to create Charlie?
Eight years ago I had the opportunity to visit a 911 call center in Colorado. I'll be the first to say I didn't understand much about emergency dispatch operators until that evening. The sheer volume of calls, the variety of situations, the complexity of both calming oftentimes hysterical callers while extracting pertinent information mesmerized me. Nine-one-one operators are one of the most valuable and unrecognized members of emergency services. They work extremely long hours handling extremely stressful situations for very low pay. The burn out rate is very high, but the ones who remain will tell you they can't let it go. The job becomes a calling, a feeling of duty and obligation to not just their community, but to their local officers who depend on them for accurate information to keep them safe.
I remember talking to a young man that night who'd handled a call where a man was breaking into a house. Two young girls lived there, one was on the phone, pleading for help. He was relaying the information to police when shots were fired. The call ended. And that's all he got to know. Next emergency call came in, he continued on with his shift. Days later, he got to read in the paper how a man shot and killed his ex-girlfriend and her roommate. But as he explained to me at the time, 911 operators rarely get to learn the end of the story. They are thrust into a moment of time, where they scramble to extract as much information as possible while activating the appropriate level of emergency response, and then it's on to the next call. Call after call, shift after shift, night after night. As a writer, that thought almost horrified me. To be involved in so many stories, and never get to reach the end of any of them.
It's definitely a job for adrenaline junkies, who are great under pressure and cool under crisis. Eight years later, I thought of Charlie, and bingo, knew I had the job for her. I did follow up research with some local police dispatch operators in the Boston area, and came up with the position of police communications officer. Charlie is a one-woman team, taking in the calls, dispatching her officers, and covering their backs. Especially in this day and age of department cuts, most police officers patrol alone. Dispatch serves as their wingmen, and as Charlie will tell you, you don't want to let them down. Fail to ask the caller the right questions like do you have a dog in the house, or is your drunken husband armed, and your officer will pay the price. Definitely, not a job for the faint at heart.
Once, I had Charlie's job identified, my next step became to toughen her up. She's a woman expecting to be murdered right? She should definitely learn some self-defense moves! Which worked out perfectly, as my whole family had just discovered boxing. Yep, every Sunday, my husband, myself, and our eight-year old daughter, head to the local ring, and pummel the daylights out of each other. We have a blast! And I've learned so much. It's very difficult to be a grown woman, having spent your entire life being told hands are for hugging, then stand in the middle of a boxing ring and try to throw a punch. In the beginning, I honestly couldn't do it. I'd run around, dodging my coach's blows, worrying so much about defense I couldn't mount an offense. Then I got hit. Several times. Hard. It's actually quite liberating. The worst had happened, I was still in one piece, and if I didn't want to get hit again...
Our coach is a three-time kickboxing world champion. He also teaches self-defense classes for women, and showed me a number of tricks for Charlie to use, including creative and dangerous uses of basic household objects. By the end of the novel, trust me, Charlie is a woman who knows how to get the job done!
We learn a lot about how predators often use the internet to find their victims. What drew you to this subject and what research did you do for this?
OK, so I'm a mom, and I use the internet, and I have a basic understanding the internet can be both a useful tool, and a possible threat to our children. Take care, use good judgment, don't give out too much personal information, blow up the computer when your kid turns 14, yada, yada, yada.
Then one day, I met another mom, whose job is to teach internet safety to kids as well as educate parents. I figured her job was to help teenagers and their parents figure out safety protocols on Facebook. No. Turns out, the group of children most targeted by sex predators on the internet is 5-9 year old boys. And while young kids may have Facebook pages, most likely they're hanging out at parent-approved corporate "kiddie" sites, as well as playing various video games that incorporate on-line components (which is most video games in this day and age).
By the time she got done explaining to me how an average child predator can bypass all basic safety precautions and target my child, sitting in my home, playing on a parent-approved website right in front of my eyes, I knew I had a book.
Sometimes, there are things as a parent you think you don't want to know. But trust me, knowledge is power. Catch Me will make you reconsider your household computer policies, but most likely, in a good way. We are parents, and we can still protect our children, we just need to know how.
You interact quite a bit with your fans through your website and your Kill A Friend Sweepstakes. In the acknowledgments of Catch Me you say there is a real story behind the dog that follows Charlie around. So what is the real story?
I am an animal lover. I have a twenty-year old, three-legged incredibly hostile cat who bangs her head against my leg while I write, then bites my hand when I attempt to pet her. I have two barky shelties, who I swear are the sweetest dogs in the worldwhen they're not barking at the ringing phone, clanking ice maker, squeaking chair, or the Fed Ex delivery guy. Two years ago, my local animal shelter contacted me about an auction item for their annual fundraiser. With a bit of brainstorming, we came up with the idea of auctioning off a pet to appear in my latest novel.
Last year's winner was Tulip, a very special dog, beloved by her family. They're not sure what kind of dog she is—she was adopted from a shelter at four months old, capturing her family's attention with her winning smile. She looks like a Harrier hound, maybe, short-haired, with silky ears and tan and white markings. Smartest dog in the world, I was told. Loves cats, kids, maybe once stole a baked chicken, but no one could prove it at the time, and otherwise has led an exemplary life. So much so in fact, that at the time of the auction, with Tulip's sixteenth birthday looming, the family wanted to do something special to commemorate an incredible dog, nearing the end of an incredible life. The more they talked about Tulip, the weepier I became.
A writer can never make promises about things like a guest character. It works out the way it works out. But Tulip must have some pretty special magic, because before I knew it, she'd not only crept her way into Catch Me, but she stole the show. Certainly, the dog that is not Charlie's dog, is one of my favorite parts of the novel. I hope the book comes out in time for Tulip's family to share with her; she is a special dog indeed and I just hope the fictional Tulip will do her justice.
Many of your characters from previous books make cameo appearances. What made you decide to do this? Can you give us examples?
My favorite part of writing is spending time with my characters, and I understand from the mail I get that my readers feel the same. If I'm writing about Boston Detective D.D. Warren, they want to know when they're going to have another book on former FBI profiler Pierce Quincy. If I write about Pierce or his daughter Kimberly, they want a book on J.T. Dillon, ex-mercenary who took on a serial killer in The Perfect Husband.
I understand. Characters become like family, and part of the reading experience is getting to spend time with them again. Thus, when I went to write Catch Me, and realized Charlie would need self-defense training, I had the brilliant idea to bring back J.T. Dillon for a cameo. I mentioned this to my mother, who being an avid reader (and perhaps a Lisa Gardner fan), said she loved the idea, except what about Roan Griffin, my RI State Detective? She really missed him. And it had been a bit since she'd gotten to read a Quincy family story, how were they doing?
Being a neurotic author, I immediately grew cranky. But then the good writer in me started to wonder. Why not Roan Griffin, or Pierce Quincy, or Kimberly Quincy? Catch Me is about a string of murders reaching a cataclysmic conclusion. Meaning I had plenty of crime scenes to involve plenty of experts.
Next thing I knew, Roan Griffin was handling Randi's murder in Providence, while Kimberly Quincy covered Jackie's murder in Atlanta, and Pierce Quincy, an independent consultant, was brought in to profile the killer of both best friends on behalf of the lone survivor, Charlie Grant.
So there you have it. One novel, an entire career worth of characters, brought to you by the author's mother. Clearly, you should write her letters, instead of me, as she knows how to get things done.
Now let's talk about D.D. Warren. You have said before she really exists. Really?
D.D. Warren is my incredibly patient and gracious neighbor. I stole her name originally for what I thought would be a walk-on character in my police sniper novel, Alone. Basically, I needed a Boston homicide detective for a couple of murders that would fall under BPD jurisdiction. Next thing I knew, however, fictional D.D. Warren refused to stand down. She was working crime scenes in stilettos and rekindling her on-again, off-again relationship with state police sniper Bobby Dodge, and by the end of Alone, it was clear she had more story to tell.
So wise-cracking, urban smart, hard ass Detective D.D. Warren has continued on. And my wonderfully supportive neighbor, known for her gorgeous gardens and homemade bread, has gone along for the ride. Thankfully, she has a great sense of humor, especially for this latest novel, where D.D. becomes a mom and faces her greatest challenge yet: baby Jack!
You have also said D.D. often surprises you. Did she surprise you in writing Catch Me?
What I like best about D.D. is that she's constantly evolving. She's growing up, confronting professional challenges and also personal fears. Can a tough cop find true love? Or does a female detective lose something to domestication?
Certainly, D.D.'s a woman who understands she's better at solving homicides than managing personal relationships. But where there's love, there's a way, and with each book, D.D.'s grown a little wiser.
Catch Me, of course, ramps her personal challenges to a whole new level. Not just a man, but a baby! For the first time in her life, workaholic D.D. is realizing she has to set boundaries. Her baby needs her, not to mention daycare requires a parent to show up at five.
I think it's interesting how D.D. wrestles with the modern complexities of balancing work and home life, while realizing that what doesn't break you can make you stronger. Maybe she's not always winning, but she's trying. I think in that regard, Catch Me is D.D.'s best book ever. She's more human, more vulnerable, more relatable. I hope readers enjoy her journey!
What is next for D.D?
I don't know. By the end of Catch Me, D.D.'s life feels complete to me. But never say never. This is a book that brought back many characters from my previous novels, so it's possible we'll see D.D. again. I'm leaning toward spending some time with Bobby Dodge sometime soon, and/or Tessa Leoni from Love You More. They're the only characters that didn't get to appear in Catch Me, so maybe it's their turn next.
