Story ideas can be a pain in the ass.

Most aren’t. Most pop into a writer’s head, rattle around there for a day or so and then vanish just as quickly as they appeared. Those are whims, not ideas — as thin and impermanent as clouds.

But then there are the real ideas. The aforementioned pain-in-the-ass ones. They refuse to go away, sometimes resurfacing weeks, months, even years after they first arrived. The idea behind DEVIL’S NIGHT, the third book in my Kat Campbell mystery series, was one of those. In fact, I’ve been carrying it with me for going on thirty years.

In DEVIL’S NIGHT, the small town of Perry Hollow, Pa., is terrorized by a series of arsons on Halloween. And the idea for it first took hold of me when I was at the ripe old age of nine. That was the year the general store in the tiny village where I grew up burnt to the ground on Halloween night.

I don’t know why the fire spooked me, but it did. It might have been because fires were a rare occurrence during my sheltered childhood, as dangerously exotic as, say, an avalanche or tornado. Is also could have been due to the fact that my school bus rumbled past that store every day, which, to a kid, suggested some sort of kinship and familiarity. Most likely, though, the blaze unnerved me because of when it took place. A fire on Halloween felt ominous and vaguely sinister to a nine-year-old with an overactive imagination. It conjured up thoughts of demons and devil’s and witches. I didn’t know it back then, but the idea for DEVIL’S NIGHT was born. →

I live with a cold blooded killer. I haven’t turned him into the cops because he’s my cat, Tegan.

He’s on a roll at the moment. It’s spring and that means young and inexperienced creatures are poking their heads from their protective homes and Tegan is there to bite them off. I spent last week picking up the chewed remains of mice, rats, birds and a lizard. As soon as I’d drop a carcass in the trash, he’d have the remains of something else dangling from his jaws.

“Tegan, you git. Stop killing things.”

He’d look at me with a typical cat arrogance that said, “Yeah, right.”

After I’d dealt with his latest trophy and sat down, he joined me on the couch for cuddle and a purr (okay, I purr. It’s what I do). I stared into his big eyes and I looked for a sign of remorse and obviously saw none. Morally, he wasn’t doing anything wrong. He’s an animal and his genetic code is programmed with the need to hunt and kill—irrespective of how much kibble I give him. He’s doing what he’s supposed to do. But he takes lives on a pretty regular basis without a hint of killer’s repentance. →