Kris Calvin is the author of the new mystery novel One Murder More. A former local elected official, she is based in the Sacramento area.
Q: You’ve worked in politics. Why did you decide to write a
mystery novel set in the political world as opposed to some other sort of book
about politics?
A: I read two to three novels a week, all types. It’s my entertainment and escape. But it never occurred to me to write a book of my own until a few years ago when I picked up Kate Atkinson’s Case Histories, a complex, challenging mystery that tells several distinct stories and then brings them together in the end to solve a puzzle.
Having worked in politics for years, I realized a similar structure might work to explore the many motives for murder and mayhem that exist in politics.
Q: How did you come up with your main character, Maren?
A: Most people think of lobbyists as little better than untrustworthy hired guns. I wanted to go against type by writing a mystery featuring an ethical lobbyist. That idea sparked the creation of Maren Kane, a principled lobbyist who finds herself embroiled in a murder investigation.
Q: The book takes place in Sacramento. Do you think it could take place in another state capital, or is this a story that could only happen in that particular city?
A: Certainly, other state capitals have been witness to
political scenarios as outrageous as the fiction in my novel. A former Chicago
governor was convicted of trying to sell an appointment to a state senate
seat.
But the particular diverse set of suspects and sidekicks and trajectory of the plot in One Murder More may be best suited for California. There’s a gorgeous young public defender, half African-American, half Latina, who is the spitting image of a well-known (imaginary) movie starlet, an openly gay dedicated junior homicide detective, and a governor who plays jazz piano and left office to establish nonprofit schools in impoverished areas in Africa.
Q: Which mystery novels do you particularly like?
A: I like series best. There are so many good ones. John Lescroart’s Dismas Hardy legal thrillers. Catriona McPherson’s amateur sleuth Dandy Gilvers in 1920s Scotland. Kirk Russell's John Marquez California-based ecothrillers. And I consider some literary fiction to be at its heart a mystery—To Kill A Mockingbird may be the greatest “whodunit.”
Q: What are you working on now?
A: The second book in the Maren Kane series, working title A Timely Mystery. It’s in the first stages of development, where anything seems possible, There’s arson, kidnapping and a lost treasure. Some will need to fall out in rewrites, but for now it’s pleasant chaos.
Q: Anything else we should know?
A: My NBA team, the Golden State Warriors, last won the championship nearly 40 years ago. They’re in the finals battling LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers, who’ve never won it all.
A critical game in the series conflicts with one of my readings/author events for One Murder More, and it’s killing me. I know I can tape it, but it’s not the same.
A: I read two to three novels a week, all types. It’s my entertainment and escape. But it never occurred to me to write a book of my own until a few years ago when I picked up Kate Atkinson’s Case Histories, a complex, challenging mystery that tells several distinct stories and then brings them together in the end to solve a puzzle.
Having worked in politics for years, I realized a similar structure might work to explore the many motives for murder and mayhem that exist in politics.
Q: How did you come up with your main character, Maren?
A: Most people think of lobbyists as little better than untrustworthy hired guns. I wanted to go against type by writing a mystery featuring an ethical lobbyist. That idea sparked the creation of Maren Kane, a principled lobbyist who finds herself embroiled in a murder investigation.
Q: The book takes place in Sacramento. Do you think it could take place in another state capital, or is this a story that could only happen in that particular city?
But the particular diverse set of suspects and sidekicks and trajectory of the plot in One Murder More may be best suited for California. There’s a gorgeous young public defender, half African-American, half Latina, who is the spitting image of a well-known (imaginary) movie starlet, an openly gay dedicated junior homicide detective, and a governor who plays jazz piano and left office to establish nonprofit schools in impoverished areas in Africa.
Q: Which mystery novels do you particularly like?
A: I like series best. There are so many good ones. John Lescroart’s Dismas Hardy legal thrillers. Catriona McPherson’s amateur sleuth Dandy Gilvers in 1920s Scotland. Kirk Russell's John Marquez California-based ecothrillers. And I consider some literary fiction to be at its heart a mystery—To Kill A Mockingbird may be the greatest “whodunit.”
Q: What are you working on now?
A: The second book in the Maren Kane series, working title A Timely Mystery. It’s in the first stages of development, where anything seems possible, There’s arson, kidnapping and a lost treasure. Some will need to fall out in rewrites, but for now it’s pleasant chaos.
Q: Anything else we should know?
A: My NBA team, the Golden State Warriors, last won the championship nearly 40 years ago. They’re in the finals battling LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers, who’ve never won it all.
A critical game in the series conflicts with one of my readings/author events for One Murder More, and it’s killing me. I know I can tape it, but it’s not the same.
--Interview with Deborah Kalb
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