I had the pleasure of meeting Karen Pullen at
the Malice Domestic Conference when we promoted Carolina Crimes: 19 Tales Of Lust, Love, and Longing, in which I had a short story published. Although
I’m a member of North Carolina’s Triangle Chapter of SinC, it would take me
over four hours travel time to get to the meetings, which I never attend and
for which I apologize.
I
also had interviewed Karen about the first Stella Lavender series
book, Cold Feet. When the second book
in the series wasn’t forthcoming, I wondered if Karen was trying to find a new publisher
because I’d heard Five Star Cengage was pulling out of the mystery market. But they
released her second book Cold Heart
(finally) in January.
The
series is traditional. There are police-procedural, romantic, and cozy
elements, but there is also action-adventure with touches of violence. Poor
Stella keeps getting in the line of fire. Karen portrays strong women leading
their lives with courage. And her characters’ pets have the best names!
I
liked Cold Feet, but I loved Cold Heart. Karen seems to be hitting
her stride with this book. Her metaphors are wonderful, for example: “Never far
from my mind was the sensation a bullet causes as it flies by, that firm push
of air, as fresh a memory as the taste of strawberries.” (Loc. 1992) As I get
to know Stella Lavender more, I realize Karen has barely touched on her
backstory, compelling me to prompt Karen to write faster. Her books are the
type I enjoy reading.
Please
welcome Karen Pullen back to WWK. E. B. Davis
Here’s
the jacket blurb:
Cold Heart, a traditional mystery. Motivated by her mother’s long-ago
unsolved abduction, Stella Lavender has
joined the North Carolina State
Bureau of Investigation only to be severely
challenged by her first assignment:
undercover drug agent. Stella works nights,
buying drugs from paranoid drug
dealers, gathering evidence to send them to
prison or turn them into informants.
She’s great at the job because, as her boss
says, “you don’t look like a cop.”
But the physical danger and the necessary
betrayals are getting to her.
When she sees a chance to work homicide,
she’ll always take it.
One afternoon Stella gives a hitchhiking
teenager a ride to her babysitting
job in a wealthy neighborhood. Horror awaits
them—the father lies dead in a
pool of blood, and his toddler is missing.
Stella joins the murder investigation
as the puzzle quickly grows. Most
importantly, where is the toddler? A dizzying
array of plausible suspects provides more
questions than answers.
At the same time, Stella’s personal life
offers plenty of distractions.
Her grandmother Fern, a free-spirited artist
with male admirers wrapped
around every one of her paint-stained
fingers, needs Stella’s help with
expensive house repairs. And Stella’s
attraction to three very different men
means her romantic life is, well,
complicated.
Cold Heart draws the reader into a darkly
delightful page-turner as Stella rummages through every strata of
society in her relentless and sometimes
unconventional pursuit of a
cold-hearted murderer who won’t stop at just
one victim.
Tell
readers about your North Carolina setting?
Small town in a rural county, near Chapel
Hill and Raleigh. Wait… that describes Pittsboro, my hometown! In these books,
the town is called Verwood, in Essex County. Law enforcement departments are
small and will call on the SBI to assist with murder cases.
As
a State Bureau of Investigation Special Agent, Stella doesn’t have room in her
life for babies, but you revealed her maternal instinct in this book. Why do
the Lavender ladies favor babies over husbands?
Fern has always proselytized against
marriage, feeling it’s a bad deal for women. She arrived at this belief
watching her mother nurse an ill husband for many years. Grace, Fern’s
daughter, disappeared when she was 25, so who knows, she might have married
eventually!
Stella
cons the victim’s stepbrother, Bryce, without misgivings. Why does she feel
that doing undercover drug buys is betrayal? In both circumstances she does
good.
Stella’s undercover work is by definition deceptive.
It requires lying about her identity, her history, her involvement with the
police. Stella is a moral person. Sometimes it’s difficult to reconcile the
deception with the fact that’s it’s difficult to catch narcotics dealers any
other way.
There
are a lot of guns and rifles in Cold
Heart. As an author, what determines your choice of weapons—popularity,
function? Do you get advice?
Google is my friend. And gun-owner blogs. I
run my choices past a real friend who knows a lot about guns.
Young
adults, Bryce and Nikki, have much in common and show a lot of resentment. Are
they acting out? In one instance, the reason isn’t teenage angst but real. In
the other, you’ve left the reader wondering. Is that an intentional loose end
or does Stella look the other way?
Stella gives them a break, I think, because
they are young. Bryce’s mother spoiled him; she died, leaving him adrift and
unloved. Nikki’s had a hard time; her parents divorced and her mother’s second
husband was emotionally cruel to the child.
Richard,
Stella’s boss, irks me. She’s more sympathetic to him than I would be, even
after constantly reminding her about her ex, Hogan. Why?
Haha! Richard is modeled on a boss I had once,
insensitive and clueless, who tried to connect on a personal level but always
missed the mark. I felt sorry for him. Very well-dressed, though.
One
of your characters is the town’s beloved and retired Pro football star, Lincoln
Teller. He’s a decent man, but lousy at business. Is he also lousy at picking
employees? Does he think his success on the field will enable him to be
successful in any field? Is he loyal to a fault?
You’re right! Lincoln’s manager is ripping
him off. Lincoln is too trusting, I think. Let’s hope he uses a recruiter to
find his next manager, who will be ethical.
Temple,
the victim’s wife, has more pluck than I gave her credit for. But then, you
weren’t very nice to her. She suffers the loss of her husband, her first child
is kidnapped, and shortly after her husband’s murder—births her second child.
Is she normal, or does she have post-partum depression or PTSD? Has she just
had enough or is her upbringing by her father, an ex military man, Wesley, the source
of her strength?
As you say, poor Temple is put through an
emotional wringer until she collapses with post-partum depression. I always saw
her as a tough mama, though, capable of acting decisively and bravely. And she
does.
I
wanted to slap June Devon. Is she passive-aggressive or what?
She is bitter at her lot of life, and not
particularly interested in helping the police, especially since she’s far from
innocent.
What’s
going on with mysteries and Five Star Cengage?
Five Star will not publish any more
mysteries. Instead, they’ll focus on westerns. Maybe Stella should meet a
cowboy and move to Montana?
Why
so long between books? Chapter anthologies? Business?
A busy life:
my B&B and family responsibilities. I edited a Sisters in Crime
chapter anthology in 2014, Carolina Crimes: 19 Tales of Lust, Love and Longing,
which was nominated for an Anthony award in 2015. There’s great stories in
there, right, Elaine?
What’s
next for Stella Lavender?
I’m working on Cold Fury,
in which Stella investigates murders that happened at three different points in
time.
At
the end of the book, the following exchange takes place between Stella and
Fern, Stella’s grandmother (Loc. 3919):
“You can think ‘what if’ all you want. Things
happen for a reason.” [Fern says]
“What’s the reason for murder?”
Over her coffee cup, she blinked at me with
true-blue eyes. “To teach us a lesson.”
“And…the lesson is?”
“You have to figure it out. That’s your
purpose in life, to learn your lessons.”
Do
you agree with Fern?
Fern says the reason for murder is to “teach
us a lesson” but she leaves it up to Stella to figure out what that lesson is.
I think Fern is saying, cryptically, that we each walk our own path. Some paths
are smooth; others have ruts and snakes; a few, sinkholes and quicksand. She
and Stella have had to walk strong.
