Bad Intent

A Maggie MacGowen Mystery #3

by Wendy Hornsby

Maggie’s life is rocked by a mistake from her boyfriend’s pastAfter making progressive documentary films for decades, Maggie MacGowen did not expect to fall in love with a Los Angeles cop. But Mike Trent, whom she met while investigating her sister’s shooting, is no Los Angeles Police Department stereotype. Tall, with salt-and-pepper hair and a craggy Bogart face, he inspires her to uproot herself and her daughter from San Francisco and move down to L.A. It takes only a week for their new life to collapse. Fifteen years ago, Mike had just made detective. His first homicide investigation was high profile—an off-duty cop shot during a hold-up—and there was pressure to get results. Though he claims the conviction was clean, police methods of 1979 do not look good in the light of post-Rodney King L.A. As the district attorney comes down on him, Maggie must choose between defending her lover and confronting the fact that he may not be as kind as she thought.

Genres: Mystery, Fiction

384 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published August 1, 1994

About the author

I can’t remember ever not knowing that I was a writer. When I was in the second grade, because I was forever writing little stories, my teacher, a lovely woman named Barbara Heath, gave me her own copy of Little Women, to keep. Hardcover, illustrated, no less. The story wasn’t so much magic for me as was the character of Jo March. Somehow I knew Jo, I pretended I was her sometimes, and knew I was going to grow up to be, as she was, a writer.

When I was in fourth grade, I turned pro. My essay, “Why I love Camp Nawakwa,” won a community contest, earning me a camp scholarship, and my future was set. Sort of. Loving Camp Nawakwa was my writing pinnacle for quite a while.

When it was time for college, I headed off to UCLA, where I tried on a large number of majors before I decided on History. History, well told, has more romance, adventure, intrigue, courage, provocative mystery than any fiction that can be imagined. Besides, the process of historical research and writing mysteries have a great deal in common. One snoops through the remnants of people’s lives – real or fictional – asking the important who, what, where, and when questions and implying insight with the hope of making sense of things. The study of History is great preparation for a writer, especially a writer of mysteries.

The afternoon that I learned I had passed my comprehensive exams for the Masters degree in History at CSULB, I was hired to teach History as an adjunct at Long Beach City College. Over the next decades I taught, went to school some more, raised two beautiful babies to adulthood, acquired a full-time tenured position at LBCC, and, somehow, between school and soccer and baseball and school plays, managed to get seven mystery novels and many, many short stories published. Amazing how that happened.

When my kids, Alyson and Christopher, were of a certain age, I took them to visit The Orchard House in Concord, Massachusetts, where Louisa May Alcott grew up and where she wrote Little Women. I stood in her upstairs bedroom, beside the little half-moon desk where she created Jo March, and thanked her for giving a little girl a bit of courage to believe that she, too, could be a writer.

Wendy Hornsby is the Edgar Award winning author of the Maggie MacGowen mysteries.

Reviews

[LJ · Rating 4 out of 5]

BAD INTENT - VG+
Hornsby, Wendy - 3rd in series

While settling into L.A. life with her lover, homicide detective Mike Flint, independent filmmaker Maggie McGowen, seen last in Midnight Baby , continues to compile an impressive portfolio as an amateur sleuth. For Maggie's film on growing up in the housing projects, Mike suggests she interview librarian LaShonda DeBevis and prostitute Hanna Rhodes. He omits telling her that both women were key witnesses 14 years ago, when they were children, in the conviction of Charles Conklin for the murder of an L.A. cop--and Mike was on the case. Now, as elections loom, the incumbent DA is trying for political points by requesting the release of Conklin, saying that police pressured the witnesses into lying. While Maggie, who feels ill-used by Mike, pursues her film and some sideline queries on the case, Mike is told by his superiors to take time off until things cool down. In the midst of confusion about the past, the old murder leads to a new death. In this compelling tale, issues personal and professional, good and bad, past and present all contaminate each other, leaving no character in a position to cast stones.

I so enjoy this series, and love the relationship between Maggie and Mike. Hornsby gets better with each book.

[Milley · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 I’m rereading these again. This review is from 7 years after my last 4 star rating. I read this one before midnight baby by accident. This one was the weakest I guess at least against Midnight Baby. I think it is a terrific series and should be up there with Sara Paretsky, Sue Grafton, etc. The protagonist is a bit dated I find.

The sex scenes aren’t bad but they seem to me to scream feminist proving she can please a man. Not the character but the fact they are included.

If you like the family focus of her life I would recommend the Joanne Kilbourne series ( that’s the character). At least the first ones.

I like the way these books tend to look back into the 60s. It isn’t my generation but I see the mystique.

And now I see that s’more then 10 of these books. I only own 4 and have read 0-2 others so something to look forward to.

[Alison]

OK, I was down with this series until this book...I just felt like it was really dated in a bad way. I felt like the scenes with African-American characters were pulled from Newsweek coverage of the time and didn't reflect real life experience with actual people, you know? Just felt uncomfortable with depictions.