Impossible to absorb too much information when you’re writing about a time two millennia before your own. I hasten to add that I haven’t read all these books cover to cover, otherwise I would never have time to write any of my own. Often the most useful items in them are their maps and indexes,…
[May 17, 2025] A panoramic shot of the beautiful little bay of Nora, a seaside community outside of Cagliari, Sardinia. The ancient Romans used it to get away from the city. Basically it’s the Hamptons, or Lake City in Seattle or Homer in Alaska. (photo RobR) There are towers on both headlands and all the…
[reposted from June 11, 2021] This is what my dining table looks like these days. I’m beginning the third novel in the Eye of Isis series, and I’ve written enough of Tetisheri’s story now to revise her calendar. Calendars are very important in series–when did she do what, where, and to whom? Writing a calendar…
The Raeside cartoon above has its own shrine on my wall. This post by Damon Linker, Lament for the Declining Art of Editing, recently popped up in my feed, as random animadversions so often do in this Internet age. So okay, some guy whining about Taylor Swift, what else is new, and I haven’t heard the…
[repurposed from November 2010] An interview with Les Wanner of TheCrimeofitAll.com.
Len Wanner: Should crime fiction get more critical attention?
Dana Stabenow: No, I think it gets plenty nowadays, both online and off.
LW: Have you read any Scottish crime fiction?
DS: Scottish crime fiction isn’t separated out as a separate subgenre on Amazon or at Barnes and Noble, so I don’t know.
LW: What are the merits of crime fiction for you?
DS: The merits of good crime writing are the same merits of any good writing: The better I tell a story, the more engaged the reader will be.
LW: Did you choose this genre because it gives a voice to those we rarely listen to?
DS: If I wanted to bang the drum for a cause I’d write non-fiction. I do believe evil exists in human form, however, and the snake always has the best lines.
LW: How do you see yourself as a writer?
DS: I’m an entertainer. I’m the one sitting around the fire, spinning tales, hoping to get a few coins in my bowl before turning in for the night. If I don’t deliver, no coins, and no supper.
LW: Would you say that crime fiction is becoming ever more popular because it offers ersatz justice?
DS: Yes. Most of the time in crime fiction justice prevails. If we can’t have the reality of social justice, at least we can escape to it in fiction.
LW: Can the genre be too heavy-handed on questions of corrective measures?
DS: Only by accident, if the writer is doing their job properly.
LW: Does the genre afford us an opportunity to identify with a person driven to crime?
DS: Some people are just plain mad, bad and dangerous to know. No crime fiction writer can afford to underestimate the human propensity for evil. But no crime fiction reader should forget they are reading fiction.
LW: What makes a hero?
DS: All the best crime fiction heroes share at bottom the core characteristic of decency and many of them a willingness to sacrifice for their code or an individual or the common good. That’s what makes them heroes, they are better than you and me.
LW: Is the crime novel read as the new social novel – to identify with people in distress, to feel that we are not alone in our fears and uncertainties?
DS: The social novel has disappeared? Wait, I don’t even know what a “social” novel is. This could apply to any novel in any genre.
LW: Would you agree that crime fiction is read with a view to sounding out one’s own lived experience through the contrast between idealized patriarchy and how things actually work?
DS: Judging by my fan mail, some do. Some just read for the thrill.
LW: Do you write crime fiction because this genre doesn’t hesitate when it comes to the extremes that human beings are capable of?
DS: Crime fiction is a very versatile genre. There is nothing you can’t do in crime fiction and make it work. So yes.
LW: Who does it best?
DS: Reading is a wholly subjective exercise, and every book has a different effect on each individual reader. You’re casting a pretty wide net here. I will simply say that lately I’ve been enjoying Ariana Franklin, Craig Johnson, Barbara Cleverly, PD James and Reginald Hill.
Abduction of a Slave, the fourth Eye of Isis novel, publishes in January 2025. I'll be launching the book at the Poisoned Pen Bookstore in Scottsdale. Hope to see you there!
Excerpt… Prólogos Summer, 55 BC Ithaca It was a beautiful morning, a sky no bluer than the sea, a soft breeze keeping the biting flies off as she laid another bunch of dark, red grapes gently in the basket at her feet. She picked one and ate it and felt the small, sweet…
The statue of a Greek archer, found in the temple of Aphaia on the island of Aegina, just offshore of Athens. The temple was built circa 600 BC. This statue is a 3D printed copy of the original and painted to what they think it looked like back then. –currently on display at the “Chroma”…
The first chapter from the third Eye of Isis novel. prologos “How deep is it?” In spite of every effort to keep it steady, Henu heard the tremor in his voice. “If you fall in you won’t care because you’ll be dead, and if you don’t fall in you won’t care because you’ll be rich,…
From the second novel in the Eye of Isis series. 4 His last remark had interfered with her dreams and was interfering again with her work the following morning. What did he mean, when, not where? She felt he was being unnecessarily cryptic. It annoyed her. Men were supposed to be simple and easy to…
The third chapter from the second novel in the Eye of Isis series 3 They parted from their new friends when they reached the Way, crossing it to walk through the Emporeum. Here, Tetisheri was obliged to stop and say hello to every shopkeeper and business rival who called out her name, which was most…
