Katherine Howell and her Silent Fear

Katherine Howell – two-time Davitt Award winner (this year for Cold Justice, and back in 2007 for her debut novel, and first in this series, Frantic) – gives us the lowdown on setting the place for Silent Fear.

It always starts with something suspicious

by Katherine Howell

February 2012 will see the release of Silent Fear, the fifth novel in my series about police detective Ella Marconi.

The story opens on a baking hot day three weeks before Christmas when paramedics Holly and Joe are called to a man collapsed in a riverside park in the Sydney suburb of Earlwood.
     To Holly’s horror one of the friends standing around the patient is her estranged brother Seth, and when she discovers that the victim was actually shot she can’t help but think Seth is somehow involved. Once the victim is declared dead at hospital, Detective Ella Marconi is quickly on the case, and she soon finds that neither sibling is keen on telling her much, the dead man’s wife is a bit too helpful, and there’s something odd going on with his former boss as well.

About a year ago I stood in that park by the river, taking photos, scribbling notes, and absorbing the warmth of the summer day so I could write about how it felt to the paramedics and police in those early scenes.
     As an ex-paramedic I know how it feels to kneel on hard dry earth to do CPR, the way the heat beats down from the sun above and rises into your face from the ground at the same time, but I also wanted to put in the smell of the river mud exposed by the low tide, the whisper of the breeze in the casuarinas along the bank, the clop of a golf ball being struck on the nearby course. I want to bring the place to life on the page, and I hope I’ve done it well enough that readers will feel they’re standing on the summer-crisp grass right there with Holly, Joe, and Ella.
     I’ve been so fortunate with this series. Ella as a character keeps growing, and readers constantly ask me what will happen to her next and declare that she deserves to find love. It’s thrilling that my cast of paramedics touches people too, with readers saying they can’t wait to find out what happens to Lauren and Joe, for instance, and “please won’t you tell me? I won’t tell anyone else!”
     It’s amazing that these characters once existed only in my mind but now people talk to me about them as if they are real.

I’m fortunate with this book even before its release, too. The Get Reading! programme has chosen Silent Fear as one of its ‘Guaranteed books you can’t put down’ and this means I get a silver sticker announcing that on the front cover and the book’s promotional tour has been extended from the east coast to take in WA and SA as well.
     As I write this post, however, all that excitement is still seven weeks away and I’m working hard on the next book.
     It starts with a car accident that is not what it seems, and then... Well, you’ll have to wait until 2013 to find out. 

Katherine