Writers Police Academy 2013: Part One

“The Writers’ Police Academy offers the most hands-on, interactive and educational experience writers can find to enhance their understanding of all aspects of law enforcement and forensics.
This is a one of a kind event, featuring real police, fire, and EMS training at an actual police academy. Top instructors and experts!”

Here are bits and slices of my weekend at the outstanding event described above.One of the things I took away from this is that the men and women who put their lives on the line for us truly believe in God. They believe that a higher force watches over them, and it was very moving for me to hear them speak.

L-R Chief of Police Scott Silverii, ATF Special Agent Rick McMahan, and former Secret Service Special Agent Mike Roche.

One of the gals I met at Writer's Police Academy hid in the rubble of the 911 World Trade Towers just so one of the Search and Rescue dogs could find a live human. Those dogs were terribly traumatized because they were not cadaver dogs. Their job was to find live humans and they couldn't.  

                                           The Jaws of Life!


After these firemen took this car apart there was nothing left but pieces!

     When the EMT training goes on, they make it look real!

                    Sasscer Hill the EMT Victim and Rhonda Lane

This post was written for Nancy Christie's blog: http://www.nancychristie.com/oneonone/2013/08/one-on-one-with-mystery-novelist-sasscer-hill/ 

How long have you been writing? When did you start? Why did you start —what triggered your writing?
As a child I loved horses, action, and adventure. Naturally, I discovered the Walter Farley’s Black Stallion books and became addicted to them as soon as I could read. In the fifth grade our teacher asked my class to write a story. Some wrote about waking up, brushing their teeth, and eating cereal. I wrote a scene with a boy and an old man trailering a horse to the races. Something was wrong and the boy was worried. That’s all I remember. But I do remember this – after the teacher asked me to read it to the class, several kids, genuinely interested, asked, “What happens next?” There is no greater compliment a writer can get than to have that question asked, and I knew I had something.

What does the act of writing bring into your life? Why do you want to write?
Writing makes me feel complete. When I’m “in the zone,” anything that is wrong in my life becomes unimportant.

Who are three of your favorite authors and why?
Michael Connelly, Robert Crais and Sue Grafton. They are so talented. They create a world where I like to spend time.

Courtesy of James Lipton, host of “Inside the Actor’s Studio”: what profession other than that of a writer would you like to attempt?
I already did it. I was a breeder, rider, owner, and trainer of Thoroughbred race horses. I loved it, but it is a game for the young.  I might also like to teach mystery writing.

About your writing process

Where is the strangest place you’ve written?
In the Anne Arundel County, MD, cancer infusion center while receiving intravenous drips of Rituxan for lymphoma.

Where was the most inspirational?
On a jet to Fort Lauderdale to visit Gulfstream Park, the site of The Sea Horse Trade, immediately after I’d been diagnosed with cancer.

What stimulates your creativity or serves as a writing inspiration?
Reading a great book. Attending an intense writer’s conference.

Conversely, what creates a major writer’s block for you?
Those negative feelings that all writers experience from time to time – the plot is no good, the writing doesn’t sing, I’ll never finish this book. Those sorts of feelings.

What part of the writing process do you enjoy the most? The least?
The last fourth of the novel where everything is coming together, moving fast, and I know I’ve got it. The least? The first fourth of a novel.

How do you begin your novels: with a character, a setting or dialogue?
First I have to have a plot. Setting, dialog, conflict is easy for me. Knowing where the story will go next is not. I have to have a road map so I can keep driving.

The Sea Horse Trade

Where do you come up with your titles—what is the story behind the title for The Sea Horse Trade?
I was attending classes at the Bethesda Writer’s Center and jotted down words like, “sea horse, trade winds, waves, white slave trade, ocean,” and asked class members if they could help me come up with a title. Author Patrick Hyde suggested, “The Sea Horse Trade,” and I loved it.

About your writing projects

What inspired The Sea Horse Trade?
The idea of female abduction and slavery has always fascinated and horrified me. How could I weave the subject into a story about my jockey Nikki Latrelle? As a breeder, owner, and avid fan of race horses, I had occasion to visit Gulfstream Park racetrack located in Hallandale Beach, on the coast between Fort Lauderdale and Miami. I spent time at the track, toured Fort Lauderdale and Miami and saw the glitz, the glamour, the sex, the horses, and the money. A man could work at a desk for forty years and not earn a fraction of what it would cost to buy the immense yachts and huge mansions I saw there. Who owns something this valuable? Where does the money come from?

One morning, I got up early and walked down to the beach. A cold wind blew off the sea. Far, far out on the horizon, I saw a huge container ship shrouded in mist. It was creepy, like seeing a ghost on the water. The white caps were roiling, and a keen awareness of the depth of the water, the distance to the yacht, and the ice cold spray made me wonder how anyone could possibly feel safe out there on the ocean.

What if Nikki Latrelle was working the January meet at Gulfstream? What if her oldest friend’s daughter was missing, a girl Nikki has never met? What if that first night in Hallandale Beach a girl is shot dead at Nikki’s feet? The story all came together. What a perfect safe harbor a city like Fort Lauderdale would be to spawn the trade of human trafficking. I had to write this story. I flew home to Maryland and rented the documentary, Human Trafficking. It was appalling, but it was fascinating, it was shocking, but it was engaging, it was disgusting, but it was believable. More than ever, I wanted to write my story, so I did.

How did your real-life experience with a stalker influence some of the story?
My real life experience with a stalker helped me understand the fear and uncertainty that overcome you when you are forced to realize that with today’s legal system, you are on your own. By defending my husband against this man who hounded us, I had warrants out for my arrest. Fortunately, a local retired Police Detective helped me out, and we got through it.

In the first chapter of The Sea Horse Trade, Nikki is alone on the street with a dying girl and she tells the reader, “We were on our own.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Seems like the perfect place to break this interview! Stop back on August 15th for the second half of Sasscer Hill’s interview on One on One!

THE NEW "NIKKI LATRELLE" NOVEL

"This twisty and fast-paced page turner is cleverly plotted and genuinely entertaining—Hill’s insider knowledge and love of the horse-racing world shines through on every page. Sasscer knows her stuff!”
Hank Phillippi Ryan -- Agatha, Anthony, Mary Higgins Clark, and Macavity Award–winning author

 When Nikki works the January meet at Gulfstream Park near Miami, something about new racehorse owner, Currito Maldonista, worries her. Bad enough she’s expected to handle Maldonista’s evil-minded colt, Diablo, but Nikki begins to suspect Maldonista may be a Colombian drug lord. Worse yet, could he be abducting underage American girls and forcing them into the sex trade?  

Nikki’s world and Maldinista’s collide when Nikki’s oldest friend, Carla Ruben, comes to Florida to find Jade, the teenage daughter she gave up for adoption years ago.  Jade’s adoptive parents are dead; and the exotically beautiful girl is missing. Could Maldonista be involved? Nikki and Carla put their lives on the line to find out!

Buy on Amazon Now! http://tinyurl.com/bv275nw

Also available as a Nook Book, or directly from the Publisher, Wildside Press.

Racing from Death and Celebrating Life

Three years ago I was diagnosed with Indolent Non-Hodgkin's B-Cell Lymphoma. “Indolent” is the magic word here, as it means lazy, idle, or sluggish. And thank God it’s a couch-potato cancer or I would have an aggressive, severe disease that would probably have already killed me.

I recently moved with my husband to Aiken, South Carolina, and needed a new house, a new driver’s license, new insurance, and new doctors. I hated giving up my Maryland oncologist, Doctor Selonick, as he is a brilliant cancer doctor who teaches medical students and oncology staff at Johns Hopkins.  

Oncology Pavilion at Aiken Regional Medical Center

There are only two oncologists in Aiken, a Turk and a Pakistani, both of whom received their degrees in their native countries. My new primary doctor, a woman named Doctor Kulik, who I still haven’t met, referred me to the Pakistani, Doctor Ahmed Gill. I had misgivings. 

I got an appointment and met Doctor Gill. Swarthy, with a beard, he had wonderful intelligent eyes and a kind face. He was astonished when I said my lymphoma had presented itself as bilateral tumors in my lungs. Nowhere else. My case was so unusual it was presented to Johns Hopkins in 2010, so I guess I have to cut Gill a little slack.

Gill was concerned that I’d had only chest scans during the last three years. He insisted I have a PET scan to make sure the cancer had not popped up elsewhere. 

PET Scan Machine. Just love being swallowed by this thing!

“PET scan: a positron emission tomography scan. A unique type of imaging test that helps doctors see how organs and tissues inside your body are actually functioning. The test involves injecting a very small dose of a radioactive chemical, called a radiotracer, into the vein of your arm. The tracer travels through the body and is absorbed by the organs and tissues being studied.” 

As I understand it the chemical also contains sugar and cancer loves sugar. I believe that any organ with cancer lights up like a carnival. Now you have another reason to cut back on sugar: cancer loves to eat sugar.

The test was scheduled, and the waiting began. Wait for the scan, wait for the results. Wait, wait, wait, all the while feeling heavier and more frightened. A week after the scan, I cooled my heels in the waiting room with other cancer patients. Two cups of coffee later, I was shown into an examination room by a male nurse who was holding my chart. My chart! He put the papers onto a small desk outside my room and closed the door. I waited. I sat in the chair, I stood up, I opened the door and peeked at the chart on the table. Two nurses came down the hall. I scurried back inside. 

I sat in that room like a sheep and then I thought, “What would Nikki do?” I darted from the room, grabbed the chart, sat down, and read the radiology report. 

No cancer in the body, except the radiologist noted the middle lobe of the right lung had a 1.3 centimeter nodule. The uptake on the radioactive sugar was fairly minor, but of some concern.

Okay, this was the old one, right? I’d had a bunch of tumors and Selonick had treated me with Rituxan. The drug and knocked out all the tumors save one, which was essentially just residue. Selonick’s last test had shown a withered shrunken thing compared to the first reading in 2010. But damn it, I couldn't remember the last recorded size. Was the current 1.3 bigger? Was the cancer growing again? 

I didn’t know the answers to those questions. I did know I didn't want to be caught with the chart.

I opened the door and scanned the hall. Nobody. I whisked the chart back onto the table and disappeared into my room and waited some more.

When Doctor Gill came in, he told me what I already knew. I gave him an okay-and-this-means-what-exactly look, and I got nothing. He said he would have to compare this latest test to the records from Maryland.

“You mean you have not received my records from Maryland?” I was incredulous. “You haven’t spoken to Doctor Selonick?” 

Apparently Gill had wanted to get the PET scan results before he did anything. But he showed himself to be a pretty cool dude. He picked up the phone and called, Selonick, although I could tell by his expression he never expected to reach another oncologist so easily. But Selonick took the call and the two doctors had a ten minute conversation, including sociable facts like Selonick’s wife is from Sumter, South Carolina. Selonick is very personable that way. And I knew he probably was in an examining room with an anxious patient who was ready to strangle him while he spoke to Gill. God knows he took plenty of calls in the examining room when I was his patient. 

I almost hugged Gill when I heard him ask Selonick, “What do you recommend?” No prima donna in this Aiken office. He was more concerned about his new patient than playing a game of “who’s the best doctor?” Turns out that the last time I had a chest scan the tumor residue was 1.5 centimeters. The miserable little monster is still shrinking! Gill and Selonick agreed the best course of action is to wait six months, take another chest scan and if all is fine, wait another six months and so on.

I got in the car, drove myself home, and when Rosco met me at the door, I bust into tears.  

THE NEXT MORNING: What a difference a day makes.

The Darley two-year-olds "backing up" on their way to the gate.

The next day I got up very early, put Rosco in the car, and off we went to the Aiken’s "Breakfast at the Gallops" event. 

Aikenites on the rail watching the youngsters gallop.

I met some great new people, 

The legendary Cot Campbell, who moved to Aiken 26 years ago.

Two of Cot Campell's stretch their legs on the Aiken mile track.

celebrated life, and Rosco vacuumed up stray biscuit crumbs. He also got to see a lot of horses, meet a Pomeranian, two Skye Terriers and a Welsh Corgi. A most excellent experience for both of us.

But I think the best thing I saw was afterwards. I stopped at the Darley stables and saw their two-year-olds turned out together, just being horses, not locked into stalls 23 hours a day. Awesome!

A paddock at Darley Stables, Aiken, SC.

One of the Darley Barns at Aiken.

Video and Upcoming Book Signings

 Click bar at bottom of screen to see RACING FROM DEATH Trailer!

Book Signings:

Aiken Public Library, Aiken, South Carolina. Saturday, April 27, 3:00 p.m.

 

The new Nikki Latrelle Novel,  THE SEA HORSE TRADE premieres at Malice Domestic Mystery Conference, Bethesda, Maryland, May 3, 2013.  

Click to read first chapter of THE SEA HORSE TRADE! 

Sasscer Hill will speak at the “Malice SVU: Mysteries With Sex Crimes” panel at Malice Domestic on May 5. Sasscer Hill’s newest book, THE SEA HORSE TRADE will debut at the Malice conference. Her novel deals with the illegal sex trade of minors. Authors Allison Leotta, Laura Lippman and Lynne Raimondo are also featured on this panel. The panel will take place at the Bethesda, Maryland, Hyatt Regency on May 5, at 9:45 a.m. 

In September, Hill will appear at the Writers Police Academy in North Carolina and at BOUCHERCON 2013 in Albany, NY. Dates and times to be posted.

THE ROAD TO A NEW LIFE

A friend said, “Whatever you do, when you drive out of Pleasant Hills for the last time, don’t look back.”

I didn’t, and with Kitty mewling pitifully –she’d never been caged before -- and Rosco whining, I turned left onto on Route 301 South, and kept on going. An unharmonious chorus of complaints continued from the back in the Equinox’s cargo compartment for three hours, ceasing only when I'd left Maryland far behind and was almost clear of Virginia, where both animals gave it up and fell asleep. Bums. 

I still had six hours of driving ahead, and had been sleeping on the floor at Pleasant Hills for the last two nights. I’d left Daniel packing the horse trailer and pickup truck. He’d stay one more night. I didn’t envy him.

When I hit Weldon, North Carolina, I stopped at the KFC, and Kitty, Rosco, and I ate chicken like a pack of starving animals. After Rosco marked a number of tires in the parking lot, we hit the road again.

By the time I pulled into the driveway of my new home in Aiken, South Carolina, it was almost dark, the neighborhood quiet. My exhaustion and exhilaration tracked so closely together they’d become a single, overwhelming force. 

Deep breath, kept on moving. Climbed from the car. Put dog in fenced part of yard, cat onto screened porch. Lugged pet food/dishes, litter box, and toilet paper inside. Fed animals, left Rosco in the new house with a promise to return. Stopped for KFC on way to hotel.

Like a robot, I checked into my room and unpacked my suitcase. Hot shower, changed clothes, and back to the new house by eight. 

I wanted Rosco to know that after I left him in this strange house, in an area that felt and smelled so different, I would return. As a four-month-old, he was found on the Baltimore Washington Parkway almost starved to death. I’d adopted him from the pound in Prince Georges County, Maryland, and suspected he has abandonment issues. 

That evening, I took Rosco for a walk around his new neighborhood and discovered a conundrum. How do I tell a dog that’s had the run of two-hundred-acres in Maryland he is not allowed to pee on the neighbor’s bushes in South Carolina? It remains an ongoing puzzle.

Back at the house, Kitty stood on the screened porch staring into the night, lashing her tail.  Who knows what this means? After lavish petting and cooing, I drove back to the hotel where all I’d left behind caught up with me.

I poured myself a drink and odd details of Pleasant Hills floated in my thoughts. The sunken stone step outside the kitchen door -- an impression made by the tread of relatives going in and out for more than two centuries. The pine step plates of the grand staircase I padded up and down as a small, barefoot child. The horse stable where I’d raised so many young Thoroughbreds.

Daniel had said to leave Pleasant Hills would be like a death. Refusing to sink into that dark place, I turned on the TV and was saved by the new season premier of my favorite TV show, “Burn Notice.” The main characters, Michael and Fiona, were also trying to escape from something and apparently needed to fake their own deaths. 

Fiona and Michael

While they were figuring out how to do this, I attempted to remove the key to Pleasant Hills from my key ring. 

While I stared at the ring assembly, Michael and Fiona drove to their house with several gallons of gasoline. I slid a fingernail between the key ring’s metal pieces and tried to pry them apart. The metal was heavy and tight as a padlock. Meanwhile, Michael and Fiona were splashing gasoline around the interior of their home.

I had to separate myself from Pleasant Hills. I used a thumbnail and the nail on my forefinger. I pried. My fingernail broke. On TV Michael and Fiona were pouring gasoline onto their bed. Pry harder! My finger bled, the skin tore. Fiona lit a match and torched the bed. My thumbnail broke down to the quick. Damn it! Michael and Fiona’s home burst into flames. The rings finally separated and the key slid off.

Michael and Fiona prevailed against all odds that night, and I did too. Death and rebirth. I fell into a deep and dreamless sleep and in the morning, I was ready for our new home.

Rosco enjoying his new home

CAPTION CONTEST! Photos from Bouchercon 2012

  On the my last day at Bouchercon, I was picking up my few unsold books from bookseller Richard Katts of Mystery One Books. It was time to catch my flight and lug the books home. I looked up from my bag of books and Lee Child appeared before me. Right there, sitting at my bookseller’s table! 

Never one to miss an opportunity to be annoying, I thrust my camera at an unsuspecting stranger, darted around the table, and knelt next to the man who’s almost as tall as Jack Reacher. The stranger snapped the picture below. 

It’s not the best photo, so I asked my Facebook friends for help. We ran a photo caption contest. 

The number of Facebook “likes” for each caption narrowed the contest to three entries from dozens of great ones. The committee’s giggle meter provided final order of finish. 

Third place goes to, Bob Sanchez: “Sasscer Hill, taking success in stride."

Second place goes to Anna Tauzin’s entry, “Act cool, it's Lee Child, OMG!" 

Notice Lee’s smile and picture a caption bubble over his head as you read Rhonda Lane’s winning quote: “Wait ‘til I tell Lynda that the studio wants to produce the Nikki Latrelle books starring Tom Cruise in drag." 

Below are some other fun photos from Bouchercon 2012 in Cleveland, Ohio.

The Murder in the Great Outdoors panel. Stephen Booth, Robin Harlick, Paul Doiron, Sasscer Hill, and Curt Wendelboe.

Sasscer Hill and Curt Wendelboe before the start of the panel.

Robin Harlick and British author Stephen Booth. He was very popular and really drew in a crowd. I was proud to be there.

Sasscer Hill outside the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, where the opening ceremonies were held for Bouchercon 2012.

Inside the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Mary Higgins Clark!

Author John Connolly interviews "Tom Cruise" who will star in the new "Jack Reacher," movie.

Parnell Hall entertains us at the Sisters in Crime breakfast on Friday morning. Did he know SinC would sweep the Anthony Awards?

 Hank Phillippi Ryan and Sasscer Hill in the Book Room. I need to get some red lipstick . . .

Thriller author Zoe Sharp, looking sharp.