Q. First, the question all your readers want to know: Are there dogs in the Blood River series?
A. There are no dogs in UNFIXABLE, which takes place over a very intense three-day period, but readers can expect Buck to get a dog in Book Two. What family (or book) is complete without one?
Q. And the second question on everyone’s mind: Does this mean the end of the Raine Stockton Dog Mystery Series?
A. Absolutely not! Raine, Cisco, et al will continue their adventures in the Smoky Mountains while Buck takes care of business in Mercy, Georgia. There may even be an occasional crossover between the two series, even though the characters no longer play a major role in each other’s lives.
Q. This makes your third ongoing mystery series: Raine Stockton Dog Mysteries, Dogleg Island Mysteries, and now Blood River. Not to mention The Hummingbird House series! What made you decide to start another series?
A. It wasn’t actually my intention to do anything of the sort. I have enough trouble keeping up with readers’ demands for new installments in my current series, and I knew that this book would be a huge divergence from what they were used to from me. But Buck’s story was one that demanded to be told. It practically wrote itself. I kept telling myself I’d stop writing when I got to the point that I could no longer hear the words in my head—and that point never came. The result was that this book was written in three months. By contrast, FLASH IN THE DARK took eighteen months to complete.
Q. What was the most challenging thing for you about writing UNFIXABLE?
A. Without a doubt, it was the characters. I had to take a secondary character from a very popular ongoing series and make him substantial enough, and interesting enough, to carry his own series. Buck plays a pretty important role in the Raine Stockton series, but the truth is we don’t know that much about him. In previous books, he’s been portrayed as a basically good guy with some rather substantial flaws. We know he’s naturally charming and popular with just about everyone. He has a reputation as a philanderer, which cost him the love of his life. Women are innately drawn to him, probably because they sense he is genuinely interested in them. We know he loves children and at least one dog. He has strong leadership qualities and he doesn’t mind breaking the rules now and then. And that’s basically it– not a lot to go on when it comes to building a three-dimensional character. But when you also consider the fact that in the past two years Buck has lost his mother, a child, and two wives; that he has changed jobs twice, left town and returned, and almost died in a shooting incident, there are plenty of questions left answered. I began to discover who Buck was by exploring what he experienced behind the scenes in the Raine Stockton books, and how that shaped him into the kind of man who was ready to take on a town like Mercy. One of the tenets of good storytelling is to start your story at the moment of change. Buck Lawson is one of those rare characters who had the courage to change his life. UNFIXABLE begins when he decides to do so.
Q. This is a much darker book than anything you’ve previously written. Do you think your readers are ready for that?
A. I actually started my mystery/suspense career writing books with far darker themes than UNFIXABLE, so for me the dog mysteries are the outliers, not this. However, I do understand that some readers follow an author for a particular series, and will not be interested in a new sub-genre. I’m the same way. However, for those readers who just like good books, I don’t think they will be disappointed. UNFIXABLE has the same humor, atmospheric setting, quirky characters and unexpected twists that readers have come to expect from me, only more of everything. It’s not cozy. It’s not a dog mystery. But it may well be my favorite book of the past ten years.
Q. How did you come up with the title “Unfixable”?
A. I had been toying with the idea of giving Buck his own series for a couple of years. All I knew was that he would take a job as police chief of a small southern town, and end up knee-deep in corruption. As I was rather half-heartedly describing the idea to my critique partner I said, “The problem is that if he cleans up the town in Book One, what will he do for the rest of the series?” She suggested, “Well, maybe the mayor says to him, ‘We don’t expect you to fix the whole town. We know it’s unfixable…’” And I thought, Unfixable. That’s a great title. An idea started to take shape at that moment, but it didn’t really gel until I realized it was Buck who was broken and in need of fixing. From that, a book was born.
Q. UNFIXABLE takes place a year after the events of MURDER CREEK (Raine Stockton Dog Mystery #14). How should readers reconcile the time jump?
A. Think of it this way: UNFIXABLE was published out of turn. The next Raine Stockton book will take place a few months after Murder Creek and before the events of UNFIXABLE. It will catch readers up on some of the things that happened in the interim, and will not disturb the flow of events in Hansonville.
Q. When can we expect another installment in the Blood River series?
A. There are a couple of books in line ahead of it (including the next Raine Stockton book) but I can’t wait to get back to it. I’d love to have another Blood River installment out in the winter of 2022.