An Interview With G. Miki Hayden, Author of Dry Bones

 G. Miki Hayden started her working life as a computer programmer before beginning her true career as a business journalist writing on subjects from computers to factory automation and robotics to health care. Her first novel, Pacific Empire, was on the NYTimes Summer Reading List the year it came out. She has published several novels since; one of her short stories won an Edgar Award. She taught classes online at Writer's Digest for many years and currently works as a free-lance editor.

 

Her new book is Dry Bones. I have things to say about it, but who better to tell you about it than Miki?

 

One Bite at a Time: Welcome to the blog, Miki. To begin with, as I started to read your police procedural, I did a little digging into the setting, Holder, Oklahoma, and found it to be a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma. I’ll allow you the pleasure of describing the place and how you came to set Dry Bones in it.

 

G. Miki Hayden: A while back, I read that crime fiction editors thought too many novels were set in New York City. Certainly, a lot of crime novels have been set here—as well as California and Florida—and I have a suspense adventure set in Florida coming out from the same publisher, Down & Out Books—next year.

 

So, I took that comment to heart and decided to work on a regional. Why Oklahoma? Everyplace is interesting, and as I looked into Oklahoma, I found a number of points of special interest—the sizable Native American population, a Black populace that crossed the country after the Civil War and created Black towns and areas in Oklahoma, the oil drilling industry, and the intense climate, to mention a few.

 

Then, I followed the example of Ed McBain (Evan Hunter), the author of the 87th Precinct police procedurals, and went into not one but several distinct crimes. And just like McBain’s Isola, Holder, Oklahoma, too, is a made-up place—though Isola is largely based on New York City. Holder is thus not a place I actually know, but I continue to research Oklahoma as a wider location, and I will write another procedural set in Holder and with my same protagonist.

 

OBAAT: Speaking of which, Aaron Clement is not your typical Oklahoma lawman. Tell us a little about him and what makes him unique.

 

GMH: To begin with, Clement is smart, and he has his own ideas as to how to do the job. He’s a decent guy and wants justice, real justice for all, whatever that takes. And because he has been in this department for a number of years, he knows the people and he knows how to get around the way things are. He knows who to take to lunch for information. And he’s very aware of what the old regime was like, since his father was something of a dishonest cop in this very department. Clement doesn’t want to be the casual, suit-yourself, kind of officer that his father was, but on the other hand, he might not care to do everything by the book. If following the preferences of, say the prosecuting class, seems wrong, he might skirt around their demands.

 

OBAAT: As someone who writes procedurals set in a small city, I appreciate how well you create a rural police department. What did you draw upon to build such a vivid entity?

 

GMH: Thank you!

I actually feel that I developed a knowledge base over many years from three great sources.

Firstly, I had the real pleasure of attending the NYPD Citizens Academy, which I don’t know if they offer anymore. At the time I attended, this series of classes was given in Manhattan at the actual police academy near where I lived. Our instructors and the structure of the class really made this a lot of fun. For instance, we had some acting out of scenarios, such as dealing with a couple fighting to the degree that the police had to be called in. How would a trained officer handle that situation—we or our fellow students were helped to act that out on stage. Also, how would officers perform a traffic stop, or deal with an emotionally disturbed person—both very fraught situations. What were the laws regarding pursuing a fleeing felon, and so on. I took tons of notes and really enjoyed the weeks of classes. We students all showed our appreciation with hearty enthusiasm at our graduation. People loved the program.

 

Source two of my knowledge of policing came from participation in Mystery Writers of America over many years of monthly dinner meetings and talks by a range of subject experts, such as a forensic anthropologist, a cold case police investigator, a financial fraud investigator, and so on. These then were enjoyable and educational events with food—what could be better? Also, as a result of belonging to the NYC chapter of MWA, I was one of a group who went to Sing Sing prison with our member Judge Andy Peck. Yes, prison was fascinating, and I know why they call Sing Sing the slammer—it’s really noisy when the iron gates slam shut. We MWAers also had the opportunity to go to Connecticut to a shooting range, the only time in my life I ever shot a gun. I wrote articles about the talks and events, and in that way put a lot of what I learned to good use.

 

Source three of my crime fighting understanding was also great for me. I worked as a business journalist, and at one time I wrote a newsletter entitled Corporate Security, for which purpose I joined the American Society for Industrial Security and learned a lot of other cool things at conferences and special programs. What might be the job of an executive protection specialist, and what did practitioners have to be aware of? What’s the difference between interviewing and interrogating? What are some martial arts basics that might be used? I went to the ASIS lunch meetings and events and hobnobbed with the former FBI and upper-level police officers who worked as corporate security managers and directors. A lot of this, too, went toward some novels I wrote and placed with a publisher for real money, also satisfying.

 

Of course, we’re all aware in our world of many of the ins and outs of policing—we watch TV. I keep my ears open constantly for new technology as well as new forms of criminality, since the bad guys are also inventing new types of crimes from low level ones, such as stealing from seemingly safe street mailboxes, to new wrinkles in international trafficking of drugs and humans.

 

OBAAT: Dry Bones weaves three mysteries, one of which is a cold case, in with some personal matters. The stories are complex without becoming confusing, no mean feat. This leads me to a question I often wonder about: Do you outline or fly by the seat of your pants?

GMH: Thank you!

 

I outline, but not all at once. Luckily, I have so much to do in working with students and clients that I can’t write every day. So, I go over scenes in my mind any number of times before I start to actually put them down. The scenes change and then come out the way they come out. I’m not one of those people color-coding sequences in their exact places before writing. I know the scenes and the characters, but I like to be flexible.

 

OBAAT: Give us an idea of your process. Do you edit as you go? Throw anything into a first draft knowing the hard work is in the revisions? Something in between?

GMH: I pretty much write as the scenes and story will eventually come out. I don’t change much—although I do improve the wording/phrasing to some extent.

 

OBAAT: Who are your major influences and what has their influence been? Can be writers, TV shows, movies, whatever has helped to shape your work.

GMH: I mentioned Ed McBain/Evan Hunter, but actually I never read him extensively, though I refer to his choices to validate my own. What I discovered, though, from reading Nelson DeMille’s Cathedral was that explosive openings work really well—and from reading Martin Cruz Smith’s Arkady Renko novels that a bold protagonist can be thrilling. I would say those two writers influenced me.

 

OBAAT: The unavoidable last question: What’s next?

GMH: I’m working on book three of my Rebirth series. Though these aren’t crime novels, I can’t escape the draw of crime because crime is effective. Book one, Rescued, focuses, at the start, on six-year-old Jay Gardner who is being neglected, and indeed starved, by his stepmother with his father’s willful blindness. We know that Jay doesn’t die because this is his memoir. Jay is a genius and he makes friends, adults who rescue him, and he thrives to become a person of significance, a martial arts grandmaster and a university professor. Book two, Re-Live is another character’s book. Steven is a student of Jay’s, a martial artist, who is becoming a psychotherapist. Book three, Respiration, returns to Jay who is a man of greatness beset by elements in this world that will either take him down (not likely) or thrust him to his highest potential as he battles a yakuza gangster who wants to steal his power. As if.

 

And, of course, Clement will find himself in a book two, as yet untitled, but that will include a lot of the history of Oklahoma and some of the biggest crimes of the last century. First though next spring from Down and Out will be Political Alliances about some Florida bad guys and the good people who win the day. Yup, the good guys win.