Featured Interview With Chris Karlsen
Tell us a little about yourself. Where were you raised? Where do you live now?
I am a retired police detective. I started with a major urban agency in the mid 1970’s when law enforcement was beginning to allow women to work patrol cars. I later moved back to California in 1980 and started with another agency in the Los Angeles area. I was born and raised in Chicago until my late teens when my family moved to California. I attended UCLA and graduated with a business degree. I currently live in the Pacific Northwest. My husband and I are huge animal lovers. We have had four horses (3 were rescues). They have all passes away. We have four rescue dogs now we adore-there’s our Dobie “Rita”, our black Lab “Sascha”, our Heeler/Sheperd mix “Happy” and our Chiweenie, “Trooper.”
At what age did you realize your fascination with books? When did you start writing?
My mother was a voracious reader and I developed a love for reading at about 12. I’m an only child and spent a lot of time alone. Books were a wonderful way to go to other places with the characters. It was the same with movies for me. My imagination ran rampant with both books and movies.
I started writing late. I never seem to have the time to sit and write. After I retired I decided it was time to write the story that had been sitting in the back of my mind for ages.
Who are your favorite authors to read? What is your favorite genre to read. Who Inspires you in your writings?
Bernard Cornwell writes the most visceral and dynamic battle scenes. In my Knights in Time series the Battle of Poitiers (1356) connects all the heroes. I tried to recreate the visual strength of Cornwell’s work.
Julie Anne Long writes wonderful romances. I am not terribly comfortable writing love scenes and read through hers to give me direction.
Joe Wambaugh writes the best cop stories but he was a cop with LAPD. His characters are filled with humor and pathos. I never wanted to write contemporary cop stories but love writing my historical suspense books, The Bloodstone series. I am inspired by the complexity of Wambaugh’s police officers.
I read historicals, romances, and some suspense/thrillers.
Tell us a little about your latest book?
My latest book is A Venomous Love, which is book three in my Bloodstone series. The series is set in Victorian London. Several years ago a London Metropolitan Police officer told me about a time when she was vacationing in Morocco and a British couple came running into the hotel lobby claiming they’d just been robbed at snake-point. I though that was an interesting tale and tucked it away for the day I might use it in a book. A Venomous Love is about a young woman who is attacked by a snake wielding man and later stalked by him. My series detective, Rudyard Bloodstone, realizes she needs protection the department can’t provide due to manpower. He refers his brother to her as a bodyguard. (There are some hints at an attraction between them and I hope to do a follow up book where I can develop that element. ) Bloodstone and his partner are hampered by lack of evidence and under a time crunch as the crime has drawn the attention of Scotland Yard. If Bloodstone and partner cannot solve the case is a short timespan, the Yard will take over, a failure the detective partners and their supervisor dread.
I am a slow writer and the story took eight months to write but that includes research time. I do a tremendous amount of research for all my books. I verify that language I use is common to the time and not an Americanism. I look into what well known restaurants were in London in 1880′-90’s. I research clothing, foods, special locations like the Regent’s Park Zoo or Battersea Park, the British Museum’s exhibits, music hall songs of the time, and anything I am not certain about describing. My protagonist, Rudyard Bloodstone, served in the army for ten years. He won a Victoria Cross for courage he showed in the Battle of Rorke’s Drift. He doesn’t like discussing the medal and the battle as he doesn’t consider himself a hero. He has a love interest, Honeysuckle Flowers, who is music hall star. I introduced Rudyard’s brother, Will, in the last book, Snifter of Death. For this new book I brought him back and gave him more page time as he is a character that has been very popular with my critique group. He’s likeable and good looking, like Rudyard. Both have been fun to write. Over the course if the three books I have tried to fill Rudyard’s world with a variety of friends, family and acquaintances. I thoroughly enjoy populating his world with all kinds of people. There is a fourth book with Rudyard and Honeysuckle but it isn’t one where he is acting as a detective. I wrote it for a holiday anthology a year ago. It is a novella called “Choosing Heart or Home.” Rudyard brings Honeysuckle home to his family in Wales at Christmas. Things don’t go as planned. It is a sweet holiday story where I introduce his parents, the small town in Wales he grew up, and also I bring in her parents.
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