One of my FAVE authors — Jean Rabe

This is a must read. Piper is a seriously cool character and Jean Rabe is a seriously good author. Below is a blog from the author. To read excerpts and buy, you know where to go! Your favorite bookstore.

Yes, Virginia, there really is a Santa Claus, Indiana.

Many years ago I was a reporter for the Evansville Press. In my explorations and assignments I traveled to nearby Spencer County, Indiana. Fast forward a few decades and I traded news reporting for fiction writing, where all the blood is imaginary. I knew Spencer County would be a great place to set my first mystery.

The original title was Christmas Card Killer, but my publisher convinced me to change it to The Dead of Winter, said I would not limit my sales as much to the strictly holiday readership. My first victim—Conrad Delaney—was a man propped up next to a stuffed Santa Claus in a big sleigh.

Santa Claus, Indiana, and all of the county, embraces the holidays. The Christmas Store is open year round, there’s a big Santa statue, a volunteer fire department has named its trucks after reindeer. Enchanting to write about.

The county is ultra-rural, no movie theater or big-box store, lots of tiny towns … dinkburgs, I call them. There are stretches where it feels like Green Acres. It’s a place where you should live without worry, right? Far from big bad cities. Not everyone locks their doors.

Into this I inject murders and assorted villainy, often stealing these crimes from my own tiny town in Illinois. I think these sorts of horrors hit hard because you’re supposed to feel safe in small, country places.

I researched the county, driving there after attending a Killer Nashville convention. I talked to a lot of locals, dined in a little restaurant where the manager explained about politics and elections. I drove up and down the streets of Rockport, snapping pictures and putting those places in my book. I chatted with the sheriff, deputies, the dispatcher, and made some stops in a few of the dinkburgs. I loaded up on maps and pamphlets from the Chamber of Commerce; the chamber representatives were helpful in filling in some gaps.

I discovered where some of my characters could work, where they would go for fun, and found some good spots for my fictional deputies to discover bodies.

It was only going to be one book. Set right after Christmas before all the decorations came down.

But the book was well received, and so I wrote another, The Dead of Night, starting it off in Rockport’s park near the bluff. Then came The Dead of Summer, set at the county fair. I went across the river for The Dead of Jerusalem Ridge, but brought the action back to Spencer County and little Fulda. The Dead of Autumn visits the county’s very rural roads and addresses an issue that the real cops and deputies face.

Some of the businesses and industries I mention in my books are real. The roads and towns are real—I use maps provided by the Chamber of Commerce. I call helpful folks at the courthouse to gain historical bits about places that have faded away.

My chief deputy and detective live in Santa Claus. One of my dispatchers recently moved there, too. Sheriff Piper lives in Hatfield, which used to be called Fair Fight. Her significant other runs a Quick Stop in Fulda.

So … real, but not real, as I put a fictional stamp on the territory and populate it with characters I’ve dreamed up that I hope have an authentic feel. Admittedly these characters have traits borrowed from people I know. The Mailbox Mauler was inspired by a neighbor. Mark the Shark was created from veterans living in a retirement complex. The coroner sprang from my doctor when I was a kid. There is some of me in Oren; no, quite a bit of me in Oren. Piper’s love of dogs … well, that comes from me, too. Zeke the Geek and Teegan—I am a gamer and have stitched my dispatchers together out of convention cloth.

Santa Claus and Spencer County, I picked those because of the Christmas Card Killer, and now they’ve come to feel like home. I guess I’m sticking around Southern Indiana for a while, as I’m already plotting book six. It opens in Santa Claus, and there’s snow on the ground.