Journal of Alta California

Chasing Your Heroes

I write because of curiosity. I like to look into things, to understand them, and then to find a way to write about them in a crime novel.

It’s a curiosity that I’ve long held. Almost 50 years ago, it led me to a night in a police station that changed the course of my life and, well, brought me here. I had not committed a crime and was not suspected of committing one. I was a witness brought to a detective bureau. I was put in a chair and questioned extensively by a tough, no-nonsense detective who was trying to solve the shooting of a motorist by a man who had run off. I had found the

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