Women on writing: turning to crime for a fresh start

What in the world would make three law-abiding Texas women turn to crime – writing, that is, audiences at the 2017 Dallas Book Festival wanted to know about authors Kathleen Kent, Melissa Lenhardt, and Lisa Sandlin.

(l-r) Sandlin, Lenhardt & Kent

In two cases, crime writing was something of a second act. Dallasite Kent hit the New York Times bestseller list as a writer of historical fiction with her debut novel, The Heretic’s Daughter, a based-on-real-life narrative about the Salem witch trials, and followed it with more historical novels before making a sharp turn with her latest, The Dime, a contemporary mystery set in Texas. Sandlin made her mark as a writer of literary short fiction (In the River Province: Stories, and others), then made the jump to crime with The Do-Right. Anomalous Lenhardt alternates her own genre of “feminist Western” (the Sawbones series) with mysteries set in contemporary Texas (the Jack McBride mystery series).

But what, besides Texas settings and strong women characters, do the books of Kent, Lenhardt and Sandlin have in common? And why did the authors choose murder and mayhem to showcase their writing?

“All of us love strong women protagonists,” Kent said. And “crime gives you a chance to push people to their limits of depravity, but also to the limits of human courage.”

Also part of the why, for the two most literary members of this deadly trio, the answer was a challenge and an unexpected brush with the noir genre.

It started, Kent said, “with someone I know calling for Dallas authors to contribute to an anthology called Dallas Noir,” from Akashic Books, publisher of noir series set across the world, and featuring authors from each city or country.

Despite being steeped in the nefarious deeds of earlier centuries, Kent has never written contemporary mysteries, but asked if she could, “like any good fiction writer, I said yes.” Her agent pronounced her short story contribution, “Coincidences Can Kill You,” as potential for a novel, and the character of Brooklyn to Dallas detective Betty Rhyzyk was born.

As Kent credits her mother with remarking about an ancestor hanged as a witch in Salem, “There are no witches, only ferocious women.

“I’ve got the same story as Kathleen,” Beaumont, Texas, born Sandlin said: another call from Akhasic Books, this time widening its net for the whole state of Texas with Lone Star Noir.

“I thought I had to have a detective (so) I came up with a private investigator who was the opposite of Sam Spade.” She soon decided that the neophyte PI’s secretary, Delpha Wade, was the stronger character of the anthology story, “Phelan’s First Case,” “and that became the core of the book.” Who needs a detective when he’s got a tough but tender secretary who’s more than decoration, and just released from a long prison stretch for killing her rapist.

Along the way, Sandlin exercises her literary talents and quirky sense of humor for a decidedly un-Spadeish crime story. “I have a gunfight with no bullets, parrots and pirates, but not in the same scene,” as well as a victim whose family is holding his artificial leg hostage.

Lenhardt’s start in crime came from an inspiration as literary as either Kent or Sandlin – with a twist. A self-proclaimed “romantic at heart,” she began her first-published novel, Stillwater, “as a retelling of Jane Austen’s Persuasion,” until in walked agent Jack McBride. As a big city ex-FBI agent, McBride finds himself baffled in the small Texas town of Stillwater (which strangely resembles Lenhardt’s hometown of Winnsboro, Texas) until local Ellie Martin takes him under her wing, and into her bed.

Far from ending with a kiss and a fadeout, to Lenhardt’s mind, the conflict only starts once the relationship has begun, and continues with Jack and Ellie’s second fling at crime, The Fisher King.

And although Stillwater was her first book to be published, she had already written the first volume of her Western series, Sawbones, with two more historicals due out later this year. “But no, I’m not through with Jack McBride.”

(Next: writing craft, agent tips, and results of the dreaded gong show, from the upcoming DFW Writers Conference)

Review: Kent's latest heroine stomps Dallas bad guys

Review of: The Dime

Author: Kathleen Kent

Publisher: Mulholland Books

Source: Purchase, Barnes and Noble

Grade: A

It’s not every author whose first book out of the chute can score New York Times bestseller status, as Texan Kathleen Kent did with her fictionalized account of a distant ancestor hanged during the Salem witch trials. But after a string of award-winning books of historical fiction, Kent has turned to a modern version of her trademark “ferocious women” with her newest novel, The Dime, starring the police detective she first launched as the heroine of a short story in the crime anthology Dallas Noir – Detective Betty Rhyzyk.

Not sure how to pronounce her name? Just call her "Riz". 

She isn't thrilled to relocate from her home in Brooklyn to Dallas, Texas. But when her domestic partner Jackie returns to Big D to be near her aging mother, Betty’s not about to give up the love of her life by staying behind. She’s bested the toughest criminals and most sexist fellow police officers in New York. How much worse can Texas dish out?

Well, there’s the blatant bigotry over her sexual orientation, shared both by Jackie’s family members and the law enforcement officials of Betty’s new department. And the incessant heat, “a monster wrapped around my head, all bristling mirrored scales, sliding tongues of sweat into my ears and down my neck.” And the vicious turf battles between Mexican and biker drug cartels.  

Still it isn’t until one sunny Texas Sunday that things really fall apart. It starts when a perfectly ordinary drug stakeout goes south, leaving three dead, including another cop, and one of her own team wounded, a “bat-shit-weird sequence of connecting circumstances (that) oozes into the world seemingly from an alternative universe. . . so dangerous you don’t even want to think about it.”

Little does Betty know there’s far, far worse to come, as Kent takes her readers on a ride wilder than any bucking bull, following the trail of a gang of drug dealers who scatter the body parts of their murdered victims across the Lone Star State. Although Kent’s language is still as gorgeous as anything in her historical fiction, after The Dime, she makes every other mystery seem like a cozy.

Fortunately, Betty can call upon years of law enforcement experience in the Big Apple to call upon for help. Not to mention her ever-present medallion of St. Michael, patron saint of police, and the wisdom of her Uncle Benny, wise in the ways of “Reaping the Grim,” as he termed his exorcism of the angst and rage that can eat the souls of those who witness the effects of bloody violence in the course of their duties.

A Texas native who spent decades working in New York, Kent demonstrates her knowledge of both NYC and all things bizarrely Texan: living in the city that killed JFK. Or lining up for tacos at a gas station turned zoo.

But is it only in Rhyzyk’s universe that Civil War re-enactors battle drug dealers with 19^th-century muskets and cannon? Or that a professional rodeo rider turns cop. Or drug dealers quote scripture to justify murder and mayhem? It's all in a day's work for Detective Betty.

Kent's fast-paced writing reaches a climax satisfying enough for a stand-alone novel, including a delightful explanation of its title. Luckily for readers in love with Detective Betty, she leaves enough threads hanging to justify the hope we'll see more of her indomitable heroine.