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Get to Know the Book—To Catch a Cop Author Elle Druskin Meet Lindy Kellerman. No money. No job security. No man in her life. Oh yeah, and one dead body. A killer is on the loose at a university and Lindy is Suspect Numero Uno. Detective Fraser MacKinnon can’t decide whether to arrest Lindy or seduce her. Both are good options. There’s only one thing for Lindy to do: Catch the killer and clear her name. Doesn’t watching Law and Order count as on the job training? Can Lindy and Fraser catch a killer before the killer strikes again? That’s pretty much the story of To Catch A Cop. But, of course, there’s always a back story. Sure, there are all sorts of things in Lindy's and Fraser’s background. She’s a secret fan Scottish romance novels, hidden in her office behind scholarly textbooks. Both are single parents doing their best to juggle jobs and kids and a fair amount of guilt over divorce. Both have had more than their fair share of terrible “set-ups,” never mind dates. I knew before I started to write that I wanted mature characters. Not that twenty year olds can’t be mature; but I wanted them to have life experience. Lindy is 40, Fraser a few years older. I had a hunch that a lot of readers could relate to their circumstances, so I just started to write and that brings us to another back story. Where did this book come from anyway? I am, and always have been a voracious reader. I read almost anything and average about 4 books a week. Professionally, I am an academic and that means I spend a portion of my time writing scholarly articles for publication. I had done a fair amount of that quite successfully. It didn’t teach me anything about fiction writing but I did know something general about the writing process. I remember reading that Diana Gabaldon wrote Outlander for practice. Pretty outstanding practice novel, as we all know. I knew darned well I could never do anything like that and I wouldn’t consider attempting to do what she achieves so beautifully. No point, because it has been done so well and besides, every writer has a unique voice. Rather than attempt to imitate another writer, it would be much better to find and use that unique voice to do something original and reflected whatever skill I might have. I wasn’t sure I had any skill, to be honest. I did know I had a story in me. Since I knew nothing about fiction writing, I thought I might as well start and see where it took me on the theory that there was little likelihood anyone would see what I wrote, I didn’t know if I could write a coherent story with a plot that hung together and characters whose dialogue, quirks, and behavior were realistic, but I had nothing to lose except time. At best, I would learn something and worst, nobody would know. Like Lindy, I too, had a secret. So, I started. I worked at it every day and when I finished, was quite pleased with myself. Then, I put the manuscript away and didn’t look at it for a few years. In the interim, I thought it might be wise to actually learn something about fiction writing so 41