Great Review and Q&A for JUSTICE FOR SARA by The Gulf Coast Times!
Guilt vs. Innocence
Author, Erica Spindler
By: Yohana de la Torre, Chief Editor
On August 6, in Justice for Sara, New York Times bestseller Erica Spindler will deliver a fast-paced whodunit, and ingeniously-plotted thriller, in which the entire cast of characters is suspect.
Kat McCall was seventeen when her sister Sara was murdered, brutally beaten to death with a baseball bat. And as her sister lay dying inside the home they shared, Kat claimed she was locked in her bedroom, unaware of the tragedy unfolding just outside her door.
Liberty Chief of Police Stephen Tanner was convinced it was Kat who carried out the crime, and so had her charged and tried. But in the case of the People of Louisiana vs. Katherine Ann McCall, Kat was found not guilty.
Kat picked up and left Louisiana for a fresh start on the west coast. Despite moving more than 2,500 miles from her childhood home, Kat still receives letters taunting her, threatening her, and demanding she seek justice for Sara’s death. Finally prompted to move home to catch the killer and seek justice for both her and her sister, Kat snoops around and gets hot for the police chief’s son, Sergeant Luke Tanner. Together the two reopen the decade-old case, reconvening with the leading players.
Spindler so expertly interjects Kat’s detective work with riveting flashbacks to that fatal day ten years ago. She’ll leave you clamoring for clues hidden between the lines, and second-guessing your own detective work. And even as the climax is revealed, there are a few more stones left to unturn.
We had a chance to catch up with Spindler and this is what she had to say:
YD: How did this book come to fruition? What inspired you?
ES: “I’ve always been fascinated by crime and punishment, guilt and innocence. Two recent murder trials — the Casey Anthony trial in Florida and Amanda Knox in Italy — caught my attention. In both, the women were charged on circumstantial evidence. Their behavior made them look guilty. And when they were acquitted, we were outraged. In Justice for Sara, I wanted to crawl inside the head of the accused. What if everything pointed to your guilt? What if you were innocent and no one believed you? What if, because of your actions and the public’s presumption of guilt, your sister’s killer went free? From those questions, the book was born.”
YD: What is it about thrillers that interest you so much?
ES: “The fascination with crime and punishment, guilt and innocence that I talked about a moment ago. But also the psychology of crime. The emotional ramifications of it. The twisted mind of the psychopath. And also, the power writing the mystery/thriller gives me, the author. I solve the crime, I see justice done. You’ve got to admit, that’s pretty cool stuff.”
YD: Do you consider your talent as a writer innate, or did you grow into it?
ES: “A little bit of both, I think. Being a storyteller is innate, but the technique of writing can be learned. One cannot exist — not successfully — without the other.”
YD: Can you tell us a little about your writing style?
ES: “My writing style has actually changed. Until about four books ago, I wrote very long, very detailed synopses. They’d be 60/65 pages long and I loved doing them. Also, the beauty of so much detail up front, I could write no matter what life threw at me. But with Watch Me Die that all changed. I just couldn’t bring myself to do all that pre-plotting. I felt as if my muse was simply insisting I start writing the actual book. So I did, and it’s been like that ever since.”
YD: How does a writer draw people into a work of fiction?
ES: “Wow, that’s tough. I wish I had the ‘legion’ of fans formula. Books that explode in popularity — like Harry Potter, The Da Vinci Code, The Bridges of Madison County, Twilight —just happen. They hit at the right moment in time, striking some sort of universal chord in people. However, I do know that above all, good fiction must have compelling characters you can believe in and/or care about. Everything else takes a secondary role.”
YD: Do you have another novel on the cutting board so to speak, and can you tell us about it?
ES: “I do. It’s tentatively titled Finding True and is another story of a woman’s search for the truth, in this case, about her new husband’s shadowed past and what really happened to his first wife, True. I hope for it to be available in August 2014.”
- For more on Justice for Sara or Erica Spindler visit www.ericaspindler.com.
Author, Erica Spindler
By: Yohana de la Torre, Chief Editor
On August 6, in Justice for Sara, New York Times bestseller Erica Spindler will deliver a fast-paced whodunit, and ingeniously-plotted thriller, in which the entire cast of characters is suspect.
Kat McCall was seventeen when her sister Sara was murdered, brutally beaten to death with a baseball bat. And as her sister lay dying inside the home they shared, Kat claimed she was locked in her bedroom, unaware of the tragedy unfolding just outside her door.
Liberty Chief of Police Stephen Tanner was convinced it was Kat who carried out the crime, and so had her charged and tried. But in the case of the People of Louisiana vs. Katherine Ann McCall, Kat was found not guilty.
Kat picked up and left Louisiana for a fresh start on the west coast. Despite moving more than 2,500 miles from her childhood home, Kat still receives letters taunting her, threatening her, and demanding she seek justice for Sara’s death. Finally prompted to move home to catch the killer and seek justice for both her and her sister, Kat snoops around and gets hot for the police chief’s son, Sergeant Luke Tanner. Together the two reopen the decade-old case, reconvening with the leading players.
Spindler so expertly interjects Kat’s detective work with riveting flashbacks to that fatal day ten years ago. She’ll leave you clamoring for clues hidden between the lines, and second-guessing your own detective work. And even as the climax is revealed, there are a few more stones left to unturn.
We had a chance to catch up with Spindler and this is what she had to say:
YD: How did this book come to fruition? What inspired you?
ES: “I’ve always been fascinated by crime and punishment, guilt and innocence. Two recent murder trials — the Casey Anthony trial in Florida and Amanda Knox in Italy — caught my attention. In both, the women were charged on circumstantial evidence. Their behavior made them look guilty. And when they were acquitted, we were outraged. In Justice for Sara, I wanted to crawl inside the head of the accused. What if everything pointed to your guilt? What if you were innocent and no one believed you? What if, because of your actions and the public’s presumption of guilt, your sister’s killer went free? From those questions, the book was born.”
YD: What is it about thrillers that interest you so much?
ES: “The fascination with crime and punishment, guilt and innocence that I talked about a moment ago. But also the psychology of crime. The emotional ramifications of it. The twisted mind of the psychopath. And also, the power writing the mystery/thriller gives me, the author. I solve the crime, I see justice done. You’ve got to admit, that’s pretty cool stuff.”
YD: Do you consider your talent as a writer innate, or did you grow into it?
ES: “A little bit of both, I think. Being a storyteller is innate, but the technique of writing can be learned. One cannot exist — not successfully — without the other.”
YD: Can you tell us a little about your writing style?
ES: “My writing style has actually changed. Until about four books ago, I wrote very long, very detailed synopses. They’d be 60/65 pages long and I loved doing them. Also, the beauty of so much detail up front, I could write no matter what life threw at me. But with Watch Me Die that all changed. I just couldn’t bring myself to do all that pre-plotting. I felt as if my muse was simply insisting I start writing the actual book. So I did, and it’s been like that ever since.”
YD: How does a writer draw people into a work of fiction?
ES: “Wow, that’s tough. I wish I had the ‘legion’ of fans formula. Books that explode in popularity — like Harry Potter, The Da Vinci Code, The Bridges of Madison County, Twilight —just happen. They hit at the right moment in time, striking some sort of universal chord in people. However, I do know that above all, good fiction must have compelling characters you can believe in and/or care about. Everything else takes a secondary role.”
YD: Do you have another novel on the cutting board so to speak, and can you tell us about it?
ES: “I do. It’s tentatively titled Finding True and is another story of a woman’s search for the truth, in this case, about her new husband’s shadowed past and what really happened to his first wife, True. I hope for it to be available in August 2014.”
- For more on Justice for Sara or Erica Spindler visit www.ericaspindler.com.
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