Excerpt: Kate looked from the garage door lying flat on the ground to the cache crumpled up on the opposite side of the yard and sat down hard on the doorstep, the rifle clutched in her hands, waiting for her heart rate to drop below 200. “Breakup,” she said. Fun fact: Breakup has been called…
Excerpt: There was a large boulder on the near bank, the top worn smooth from years of use by Shugak backsides. Kate sat down. Mutt sat next to her and leaned up against her legs, a warm, heavy presence. They watched the horizon, waiting. At first it was no more than a luminous outlining of…
Excerpt: Dinah lowered the camera. “This tape is almost full, anyway.” Her eyes were bright and excited. “There’s stories all over this place just walking around on two legs. See that girl over there? She quit her job waitressing to pick mushrooms. Said she could make more money. And that guy? He builds log homes.…
Excerpt: “One more thing,” King said. “Can you pass a drug screen?” “I beg your pardon?” “You’ll have to pass a drug screen. And you’ll be required to sign a loyalty oath.” “Am I going to work on the North Slope or am I joining the American Nazi Party?” Childress flushed a dark red. “It’s…
Excerpt: The pot was seven feet tall and seven feet wide and three feet deep, a steel frame covered in metal netting, 750 pounds of dead weight empty. Kate was five feet tall, weighed just over 120 pounds and was mere flesh and bone, but she had Newton on her side, and she waited. She…
[from “Wreck Rights,” a Kate Shugak short story] Jim sighed. “My night for drunks in pickups.” “Every night’s a night for drunks in pickups,” Hazen said. “The woman driving the Ford Escort is dead. So’s the eleven-year old riding in back of her. The teenager riding next to her has at least a broken arm.…
[from “Under the Influence,” a very short Kate Shugak story] Kate stood up. Mutt cast a languishing farewell look at Jim and padded to her side. “You’re scaring me, Chopin. You’re starting to sound like a crusader.” I’ve already got a cause, he thought as he watched her walk out the door.
[from “Conspiracy,” a Kate Shugak short story] At the same time the Grosdidier brothers were settling on a command structure at home, they were willing, nay, eager to assert their independence abroad. There were a few years when Park rats had only to see the Grosdidier brothers coming in one door to exit immediately out…
[Written at Laurie King’s request for The Arvon Book of Crime and Thriller Writing, 2012.] Those “Eureka!” moments Writing successfully is sweat equity. Butt in the chair, hour after hour, grinding out sentences and paragraphs and pages, none of which, one is grimly aware, may make the final cut when it comes time to edit. That…
One question every writer gets at every public event is what is our process, as in how do we write our books. For example, how many words do I write every day? I always answer in pages, lately five pages a day. I’m aware that that is an oblique answer, but there is a reason.…
