Summer Fling Tour: Marry Me, Minnesota
There would be one less prisoner in the Hennepin County Jail right now if I hadn't invented a Chicagoland kidnapping two years ago this October.
No lie.
It's partially Tony Scott's fault. I watched "Man on Fire" on a night when I was hungry for new story ideas. By the time the movie was done, I had a whopper of a premise that I itched to write about, and a week or so later, I opened a new Word file and set to work.
The first scene was the kidnapping of a Chicago businessman by a group of itinerant criminals. A thousand words. In the next scene, I introduced the criminals. And in the scene after that, I gave them a reason to get the hell out of Illinois.
They chose to go north.
I chose to send them north, to Minneapolis, and that random decision has turned out to influence my life in some pretty significant ways. It has also landed some poor bastard in jail.
I'm here in the Twin Cities to research locations for my second novel. I hadn't planned to set a series of thrillers in Minnesota--John Sandford territory--but it's funny how things work out.
My itinerant criminals raised the interest of a bored state policeman during their stay in the North Star state. The state policeman enlisted the help of an enigmatic FBI agent, and together, my cops chased my robbers all over the country. And as they chased the bad guys, my odd-couple good guys developed something of a rapport, enough so that my publisher asked if I would consider writing them another crime to solve together.
Would I?
I haven't spent much time in Minnesota. Clearly, if I were to write a series based on a couple of Minnesota cops, I would have to learn the lay of the land. So here I am. A field trip. I'm writing it off as a business expense, right down to the Quarter Pounder value meals.
I didn't set out to write about the Twin Cities, but after a couple of days here I'm damn happy I did. Today, I toured St. Paul. It's a beautiful--if quiet--city built on bluffs overlooking the Mississippi. I found some kickass locations downtown, walked through posh Summit Hill, and found my state policeman's home and headquarters.
Very cool.
I've spent the last six months writing Book 2 and living these locations in my mind, so it was kind of a trip to experience them in the flesh. I use Google Street View as a kind of cheater, so I had an idea what to expect, but I wasn't prepared to "feel" my protagonists' presence in the city as strongly as I did.
I don't know if this makes me strange or not, but I half-expected to see my Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension agent's Jeep Cherokee in the parking lot at BCA headquarters in northeast St. Paul. And it was a bit jarring to realize that in reality, my agent, well, doesn't exist.
Probably makes me strange.
Having seen my character live and work in these locations in my mind's eye for nearly two years, though, it's hard to divorce myself from the idea that he belongs there.
Yesterday I toured Minneapolis, a city with which I immediately fell in love. It's historic and beautiful and clean, and I wouldn't mind at all living here. I immediately made plans to return on more field trips.
In the afternoon, I drove west into the city's 4th Police Precinct where, thanks to my new writer friends and a couple of very generous MPD officers, I'd been offered a ride-along with a senior sergeant. If I had any doubts that I'd chosen the right career, the following six hours erased them.
My senior sergeant was a former SWAT commander. He gave me a tour of the city's Special Ops facilities, introduced me to a bunch of SWAT cowboys, and answered any and every question I posed with unflinching (and often brutal) honesty. Along the way, he gave me a cop's-eye view of northwestern Minneapolis, and an idea of how a Friday night shift in the former Murderapolis plays out.
Answer: pretty damn quiet, these days.
We answered a few calls, from domestic disturbances to shootings (non-fatal) to traffic violations to an assault on an officer. And along the way, we arrested somebody.
I played a role.
I hesitate to give details, but it was nothing major. I opened my mouth. A butterfly flapped its wings in China. Twenty minutes later, some guy was headed downtown in handcuffs.
And it's all because some criminals I know kidnapped a businessman from a Metra platform in Highland Park, Illinois, two years ago.
I'm a Minnesota convert. The Twin Cities are wonderful. I never planned to set a series here, but I couldn't be more delighted that it worked out this way.
Fate works mysteriously.
No lie.
It's partially Tony Scott's fault. I watched "Man on Fire" on a night when I was hungry for new story ideas. By the time the movie was done, I had a whopper of a premise that I itched to write about, and a week or so later, I opened a new Word file and set to work.
The first scene was the kidnapping of a Chicago businessman by a group of itinerant criminals. A thousand words. In the next scene, I introduced the criminals. And in the scene after that, I gave them a reason to get the hell out of Illinois.
They chose to go north.
I chose to send them north, to Minneapolis, and that random decision has turned out to influence my life in some pretty significant ways. It has also landed some poor bastard in jail.
I'm here in the Twin Cities to research locations for my second novel. I hadn't planned to set a series of thrillers in Minnesota--John Sandford territory--but it's funny how things work out.
My itinerant criminals raised the interest of a bored state policeman during their stay in the North Star state. The state policeman enlisted the help of an enigmatic FBI agent, and together, my cops chased my robbers all over the country. And as they chased the bad guys, my odd-couple good guys developed something of a rapport, enough so that my publisher asked if I would consider writing them another crime to solve together.
Would I?
I haven't spent much time in Minnesota. Clearly, if I were to write a series based on a couple of Minnesota cops, I would have to learn the lay of the land. So here I am. A field trip. I'm writing it off as a business expense, right down to the Quarter Pounder value meals.
I didn't set out to write about the Twin Cities, but after a couple of days here I'm damn happy I did. Today, I toured St. Paul. It's a beautiful--if quiet--city built on bluffs overlooking the Mississippi. I found some kickass locations downtown, walked through posh Summit Hill, and found my state policeman's home and headquarters.
Very cool.
I've spent the last six months writing Book 2 and living these locations in my mind, so it was kind of a trip to experience them in the flesh. I use Google Street View as a kind of cheater, so I had an idea what to expect, but I wasn't prepared to "feel" my protagonists' presence in the city as strongly as I did.
I don't know if this makes me strange or not, but I half-expected to see my Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension agent's Jeep Cherokee in the parking lot at BCA headquarters in northeast St. Paul. And it was a bit jarring to realize that in reality, my agent, well, doesn't exist.
Probably makes me strange.
Having seen my character live and work in these locations in my mind's eye for nearly two years, though, it's hard to divorce myself from the idea that he belongs there.
Yesterday I toured Minneapolis, a city with which I immediately fell in love. It's historic and beautiful and clean, and I wouldn't mind at all living here. I immediately made plans to return on more field trips.
In the afternoon, I drove west into the city's 4th Police Precinct where, thanks to my new writer friends and a couple of very generous MPD officers, I'd been offered a ride-along with a senior sergeant. If I had any doubts that I'd chosen the right career, the following six hours erased them.
My senior sergeant was a former SWAT commander. He gave me a tour of the city's Special Ops facilities, introduced me to a bunch of SWAT cowboys, and answered any and every question I posed with unflinching (and often brutal) honesty. Along the way, he gave me a cop's-eye view of northwestern Minneapolis, and an idea of how a Friday night shift in the former Murderapolis plays out.
Answer: pretty damn quiet, these days.
We answered a few calls, from domestic disturbances to shootings (non-fatal) to traffic violations to an assault on an officer. And along the way, we arrested somebody.
I played a role.
I hesitate to give details, but it was nothing major. I opened my mouth. A butterfly flapped its wings in China. Twenty minutes later, some guy was headed downtown in handcuffs.
And it's all because some criminals I know kidnapped a businessman from a Metra platform in Highland Park, Illinois, two years ago.
I'm a Minnesota convert. The Twin Cities are wonderful. I never planned to set a series here, but I couldn't be more delighted that it worked out this way.
Fate works mysteriously.