Christine Carbo is the author of the new novel The Confession Artist. She also has written the Glacier Mystery Series. She lives in Montana.
Q: What inspired you to write The Confession Artist, and how did you create your character Crosbie Mitchell?
A: I had completed a four-book crime fiction, ensemble series called the Glacier Mystery Series where each book stands alone and secondary characters are picked up in each new book, à la Tana French (the Dublin Murder Squad series). I play through the entire arc of the protagonist in each but, in essence, all four are part of the same universe.
I wanted to continue writing stand-alones set in Montana, but I wanted to try something new with a different voice, pace and energy. I also hoped to try something a little more “high-concept” in nature.
But coming up with a “high-concept” idea is no easy task. I was struggling to land on a crime-based idea that really intrigued me when one day my son and I were hiking and chatting about composite sketches and how lots of people can resemble a composite.
From there, the idea for The Confession Artist, a thriller about a serial killer terrifying the nation by announcing their next victim six days ahead by releasing a sketch of in the individual.
My protagonist, Crosbie, a strong-voiced, somewhat polarizing character, materialized as I began writing. I knew I didn’t want a police procedural structure, but I love how detectives and law enforcement characters in procedurals have built-in ways of following breadcrumbs based on the very work they’re hired to do.
So, I compromised and made Crosbie a former cop who’s left the field because of a whole host of issues: harassment, backlash, guilt… .
Of course, what’s the obvious next step for a young former cop? A PI. So, from there, I had a character who carries emotional baggage, has investigative skills, but who I can still treat like a domestic-suspense or psychological thriller protagonist in many ways since she operates alone and is the target of The Confession Artist.
Crosbie’s personality was born from all these currents mixing together and she became a character who could add layers of complications.
Q: Did you know how the novel would end before you started writing it, or did you make many changes along the way?
A: I did not know how it would conclude. I started it first just to get writing. I am more of a panster, but I’m the kind of panster who needs to know where I’m ultimately headed.
E.L. Doctorow’s famous quote comparing writing a novel to driving a car at night and seeing only as far as the headlights suits me well. We can drive in the fog or the dark with only seeing as far as the end of our headlights and still make our destination.
But even in the dark most of know—at least in general— where we want to end up. Are we driving to a store, to a different town, to three states over, to a friend’s house? I usually don’t know what lies immediately ahead, but I need to understand my endpoint.
So, after a few chapters in, I wanted to determine who the Confession Artist is and whether my protagonist will figure it out before they meet, and if so, how? With this said, the ending did get altered slightly from my original vision, but not all that much.
Q: The novel is set in Montana--how important is setting to you in your writing?
A: Very important. In fact, I can be a little obsessive about it. I enjoy the benefit of landscape, urban or rural, acting as an avatar for characters’ emotions. In other words, setting can communicate things characters might not say or do out loud, or things narrators don’t want to hit too square on the nose.
For example, a mudslide blocking your protagonist’s car might show how they’re feeling constrained while also showing how they react in such a situation.
Smaller, rural communities turn out to be ripe for mystery and thriller dynamics. Everyone seems to know each other or think they do. Memories are selective. Outsiders stand out. Grudges get nursed. Secrets are held. Protectionism runs thick, sometimes at a cost.
For a mystery writer, the balancing act between a wild backdrop and the intimacy of the community can become a pressure cooker.
But as rich as these elements are, one of the biggest challenges I face is not how well-written or gorgeous a certain description is, but how to keep readers from getting bored with descriptions and settings, or to not the descriptions interfere with pacing.
I try to ensure the setting somehow collides with the psyches of the characters in interesting ways, in the connection between place and character. I enjoy the challenge of accomplishing this while also giving the reader a glimpse of the stunning—and sometimes stark—landscape surrounding me in Montana.
For Crosbie, she lives alone in a house surrounded by fields on one side and forest on the other. I aimed to connect her sense of isolation—while being targeted by a serial killer—to the portrayal of each spot, linking these places to her dread, vulnerability, survival instinct, anger, and understandably heightened paranoia.
Q: A Publishers Weekly review of your writing says, “Carbo paints a moving picture of complex, flawed people fighting to make their way in a wilderness where little is black and white...” What do you think of that description?
A: This description is for my Glacier Mystery Series, but I feel like it’s applies to all my writing, including The Confession Artist and even the book I’m working on now, another stand-alone also set in NW Montana.
However, I do feel that since I was purposely trying for something a little different in The Confession Artist, there is bit less of a tie-in with the wild setting than in my Glacier series.
The Confession Artist could be played out in any location, urban or rural. I just happened to set it in NW Montana because I love to write about the area and how humans construct rules and morals to be able to be in community with one another and how that jives with the surrounding wilderness which has its own set of systems.
Q: What are you working on now?
A: A stand-alone featuring another female protagonist who steps away from a very overlooked and politically delicate job in the Montana justice system as a death row mitigator after she, against her ethical and professional standards, develops strong feelings for a murderer.
But nine months after she steps away, a dead woman, another death row mitigator, is found near the remote cabin where she lives and she gets dragged back into this world that she’s trying to take an emotional break from.
Q: Anything else we should know?
A: Thank you so much for having me on your blog! The Confession Artist comes out June 1. For more updates and news on events, you can find me on Instagram (@christine.carbo) or on my website at christinecarbo.com.
--Interview with Deborah Kalb
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