Guest Author: Clare O'Donohue

  

            My newest novel, my fourth, is also the start of a new direction for me. My other series, Someday Quilts, is a gentler, more innocent series. The kind of books I love when I’m looking for an escape.

            Missing Persons isn’t an escape. Not really. My main character, Kate Conway, is a freelance television producer who lies to get the story she needs for the true crime show she produces. She’s human enough to feel bad about manipulating people, but she has a mortgage to pay. Her about to be ex-husband, Frank, has left her for another woman, a nicer woman, and Kate has wrapped herself in sarcastic bitterness to get through it. And then Frank dies.

I really liked the idea of putting a character in this situation. Let’s face it, when a relationship ends badly there is a tendency on the part of friends, family and the break-ee, to see the worst in the other person. Suddenly, everyone is telling you that he was never good enough for you, or no one liked her. You focus on the bad stuff and feel better because of it. But when someone dies, it’s just the opposite. In death, people are perfect. They were special.. they were saints… the love you shared was envied by everyone.

How fun for a writer to have a character deeply invested in all that was bad about her husband when the narrative suddenly shifts. The Frank that everyone said was a louse is now remembered as the ideal husband. Kate is too smart and self-aware to leap from one extreme to the other. She remembers the bad stuff, but she also remembers the good. Realizing she may still love a man now permanently out of reach is bad enough, but Kate has another problem. Frank’s girlfriend Vera, a helpful, kind woman who only knows the good about Frank, wants to be friends. It’s enough to put Kate nearly over the edge.

Kate becomes both suspect and investigator of Frank’s death, and that’s just in her off hours. She has to produce an exploitive crime TV show about Theresa Moretti, a seemingly innocent 22-year-old nursing student who disappeared the year before.  

I realized after I wrote the first draft that maybe what Kate is looking for - beyond an explanation for the death of her husband and the disappearance of Theresa - is closure. Closure is, at least as far as I can tell, that elusive, and probably non-existent, end to a relationship in which both parties feel sad but complete. The questions are answered, the anger is put to rest, and everyone goes on, wiser for having known one another.

It sounds great. But do any of us get to say goodbye in a way that really feels as though everything’s been said? I don’t think I’ve ever really had that moment. No matter the reason, when someone who used to be in our lives isn’t anymore, there are “what ifs”, there are empty spaces. Maybe as time has gone by, the pain dulls and the loss feels more bearable, but I wouldn’t call it closure. I’d call it getting on with life.

Kate, in her jaded, sarcastic way, just wants to do that. She wants to go back to a life of take-out Chinese and watching re-runs on the couch. She wants to put her memories of Frank in a neat little box, and keep them from hurting her anymore.

For her that means finding all the answers she can, and living with the questions that will forever remained unanswered. No one, least of all Kate, wants to be living through this mess, but as a writer, it’s just the most wonderful place to be. 

 Bookingly Yours review of Missing Persons read here

             

Bloodlines First Chapter Up!!

Yay, the most awaited first chapter. . . . . enjoy reading! Bloodlines by Richelle Mead, Chapter 1

Book Review: Missing Persons: A Kate Conway Mystery by Clare O'Donohue

Missing Persons: 
A Kate Conway Mystery

Author:   Clare O'Donohue
Paperback:  288 pages
Publisher: Plume; 1 edition (May 31, 2011)


Ratings: 

★ ★ ★ ★

My thoughts:

After more than fifteen years together, Kate Conway's husband, Frank, left her for another woman, an older woman. Not long after Frank left her, he suddenly died and since the doctor could not tell what Frank died from, the homicide detectives are thinking that Frank was murdered and Kate was the primary suspect. 

I really enjoyed reading this book, the story was well-written. This is a page turner, the moment I picked it up, I couldn't put it down. I was reading it fast because I want to know what really happened with Frank. Was it Kate who murdered Frank or was it Vera, his fiancee'? I also enjoyed the other story regarding the disappearance of Theresa Moretti. The witty dialogue made it better than those other mystery novels I've read in the past. I laughed and cried with Kate, the author did a great job in presenting the main character. If you're looking for a great mystery novel, try this and you won't be disappointed.

About the book:

The debut of an exciting new mystery series featuring a funny, but cynical television producer turned amateur sleuth.

The cause of death is "undetermined," but the cops peg Chicago television producer Kate Conway as the main suspect when her soon-to-be ex-husband, Frank, is found dead. To make matters worse-and weirder- Frank's new girlfriend suddenly wants to be friends.

Happy for the distraction, Kate throws herself into a new work assignment for the television program Missing Persons: the story of Theresa Moretti, a seemingly angelic young woman who disappeared a year earlier. All Kate wants is a cliché story and twenty-two minutes of footage, but when the two cases appear to overlap, Kate needs to work fast before another body turns up-her own.

About the author:

I was born in Chicago, Illinois, the youngest of four children. My parents are both from Ireland, but they met in London, moved to the US, and settled on Chicago’s South Side, where I was born and raised.

I always knew I wanted to be a writer and in fact wrote my first novel (mini-novel actually. It was 60 pages) when I was 15. It was a mystery. After college I worked as a newspaper reporter and writing teacher before moving to LA and getting my first job in television. That was on the HGTV show, Simply Quilts.

I worked on the show for four seasons, eventually becoming the Supervising Producer, but I’ve written and produced for a lot of other shows as well. In the last twelve years, I’ve worked on shows for The History Channel, truTV, Food Network, A&E, Discovery, TLC, and others. My work has taken me all across the US and abroad and I’ve met a diverse group of people – from CEO’s to prison inmates, Malaysian orphans to famous athletes.

But all along I thought about writing a novel. I still loved mysteries so I finally sat down to write one. And lucky for me, I had the time. There’s a lot of what we in the freelance world like to call downtime, but is more commonly known as unemployment. Since I wasn’t earning any money, I also had motivation to write something that could catch the interest of a publisher.

And, luckily, I did. In 2008 I published The Lover’s Knot, the first in the Someday Quilts series. Now I’ve added A Drunkard’s Path and The Double Cross. And in the fall of 2011, The Devil’s Puzzle.

With the release of Missing Persons, I’m launching a new, edgier mystery series; one that gives an inside look at the world of television. It deals with murder, friendship, and love, just like Someday Quilts, but from a very different viewpoint.

It’s been an amazing few years and hopefully it’s just the beginning. Thanks for being a part of it.

Clare

Note:

I received a review copy of this book free from the publisher, Plume Books. The review posted above is based on my personal thoughts while reading the book.