Author Guest Post with Frank Zafiro, The Worst Kind of Truth

Detective Katie MacLeod has her hands full.

Welcome to the September 29th stop on the blog tour for The Worst Kind of Truth by Frank Zafiro with Goddess Fish Promotions. Be sure to follow the rest of the tour for spotlights, reviews, more author guest posts, and a giveaway! More on that at the end of this post.

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Author Guest Post

“Hey, that’s me, right?”

I was a cop for twenty years (and a day!) in Spokane, Washington. About halfway through my career, I started publishing crime fiction. By the time I retired in 2013, I had about a dozen novels out. Most were police procedurals with an ensemble cast set in “River City,” which was a thinly veiled Spokane. Since I was a cop in Spokane, writing crime fiction set there, the inevitable questions formed: “Do you base your characters on anyone?”

Or, for the more egocentric, the question becomes, “Hey, did you base that character on me?”

The larger answer to this question is one of I’ve covered more than once on my own blog. But for our purposes today, it breaks down like this:

No.

And yes.

First, the no. With one glaring exception—the Thomas Chisolm character—none of my River City characters are directly based on anyone. I wouldn’t have been comfortable doing that, especially while I was still working.

What about now that I’m retired, you ask?

Pretty much the same answer, though my resistance threshold is probably less these days. I mean, anyone reading Dirty Little Town will probably draw their own conclusions regarding one vile character in particular. But even he was an amalgam, at best.

It isn’t just about the potential of getting sued, although I suppose that’s something a person should always keep in mind. My creative process is such that even in the one instance where I did base a character on a real cop (with permission), the moment that fictional character came into being, his path and his real life counterpart began to diverge. By the time Chisolm retired (sorry for the spoiler!), he was still like the man who inspired his existence, but he wasn’t the same person anymore.

So even if I had based a character on someone, that divergence would immediately happen.

But I said “yes,” too, didn’t I? What does that mean?

I have been inspired by the people I’ve worked with (both cops and criminals). I’ve even lifted a phrase or a mannerism or a quirk or a physical attribute here and there. Or, truth be told, often. So if someone recognizes themselves in a River City character, that is probably why. The flavor and texture of my police experience is what fills out the fictional River City world. But those flavors and textures are mixed and matched.

In The Worst Kind of Truth, the main character is once again Katie MacLeod, now a detective. I’ve spent so many hours writing her that I feel like I know her as a person as well as if she were a sister. But I think that part of my understanding of her as a female cop was informed by the women in law enforcement that I worked with and around. Thankfully, enough of them have told me I got it right to give me the confidence to keep featuring Katie as the core of the series.

I think that this phenomenon— “Is that me?” or “Is that so-and-so?”—is something every author encounters. But when your fiction lines up with your day job, it gets even more pronounced. That’s why, when asked, I always say no.

Even if the answer is yes.

(Note: Even though The Worst Kind of Truth is #11 in the series, each volume stands alone, too. Also, no sexual assaults are depicted on the page, though they are discussed frankly, as you might expect in a police procedural).

Excerpt from The Worst Kind of Truth:

“Thanks,” Nicole said.

Katie looked at her. “This wasn’t your fault, Nicole. I wish I could change that it happened to you but I can’t. But I am going to do my best to catch the man that did this to you.”

“You’ll catch him,” Nicole said.

“I’ll do my best,” Katie repeated. She knew better than to make promises to victims, no matter how tempting it was.

“You’ll catch him,” Nicole repeated. “I know it. You’ve done it before.”

Katie cocked her head. “What do you mean?”

Nicole looked at her intensely. “I know who you are. I recognized your name as soon as you came in.”

That didn’t surprise Katie. She’d been involved in a number of high-profile incidents during her career. The media coverage wasn’t always favorable, either. But Nicole’s stare didn’t have the anger or blame that came with that sort of attitude. Instead, it resonated with belief.

“This happened to my mom,” Nicole said. She looked away to pluck more tissues and wipe her eyes. “A long time ago. I was fifteen at the time.”

Katie did some quick math. That meant her mother was assaulted in 1996 or 1997. And ninety-six was the year of—

“What’s your mother’s name?” Katie asked. Her heart-rate quickened as she waited for the response. Her mind flashed back to that case, back when she was a patrol officer. She ran through the names of the victims of that man, all of them indelibly imprinted upon her memory… and then she knew what Nicole would say.

“Maureen Hite,” said Nicole, just as Katie expected. “She was attacked by him. The Rainy Day Rapist.”

“I remember,” Katie said, quietly. Images of her and Thomas Chisolm searching a parking lot on the north side flashed through her mind. Of her finding Maureen Hite huddled near the front wheel well of a Chevy Blazer. She could still see the stark blue and white stripes of the quarter-panel and the door beside the woman. Maureen’s baffled expression, lost and fearful. “How is she now?”

Nicole shook her head. “She died six years ago. Pills.”

“I’m… I’m sorry.”

“She never really got over it,” Nicole said.

Katie nodded. “I don’t think it’s something you get over. It’s not a cold. You just learn to live with it.”

“Yeah, well, she didn’t really learn how. Or only for a while.”

“I’m sorry, Nicole.”

“Don’t be. It wasn’t your fault. You caught him. You caught him and you killed him.” Nicole’s jaw was set and her eyes burned brightly. “I know you’ll do the same for me.”

Katie Macleod stared back at her, unable to answer.

About the Book

The Worst Kind of Truth
River City Crime Book Eleven
by Frank Zafiro

Published 20 September 2022
Code 4 Press

Genre: Mystery, Police Procedural
Page Count: 286
Add it to your Goodreads TBR!

Detective Katie MacLeod has her hands full.

It has been four years since her promotion to detective, and after paying her dues in property crimes investigations, she has made it to the Major Crimes unit. This is where the highest profile cases land—homicides, robberies, serious assaults, and sexual assaults.

Katie catches two rape cases almost back-to-back. One victim is a prostitute with an unknown suspect… who Katie fears may be gearing up for more assaults. The other victim is a college student who has accused her boyfriend, a popular baseball player, of raping her at a party.

Both cases have their own set of perils. Katie juggles her time investigating each one, encountering many obstacles—a lack of evidence in one, and wondering how to parse conflicting statements in the other.

As she battles past these difficulties, Katie faces another fact… that both cases hit home with her in very different ways. Solving them becomes more than just a job for her, but something deep-seated and personal… something that may exorcise some of her own demons from the past.

Or will they consume her?

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Excerpt

As soon as the door closed, Katie put the car in gear and chirped the tires. She felt Tower’s gaze upon her as she left the parking lot and headed toward First and Madelia.

After a block, he asked, “Uh… what’s up?”

“Nothing.”

“You know your coffee was on the roof, right?”

Shit. “And now it’s on the ground. What’s your point, Tower?”

“That something’s obviously wrong.”

“Nothing’s wrong.”

“Then I must be horrible at reading people.”

Katie made an indecipherable sound and continued driving, still not looking at Tower.

After a few more blocks, Tower asked, “Where we going?”

“Here,” Katie answered, turning right on Madelia Street. When she reached First Ave., she pulled to the curb and parked.

Tower glanced outside the car, then back at her. “All right. You want to canvass?”

Katie nodded. Finally, after a few long seconds, Katie turned to him. “Patrol didn’t do any canvassing at all.”

“Okay.”

“You don’t sound surprised.”

Tower reached up and scratched the stubble on his cheek briefly. “I’ve seen it plenty. The uniforms are hammered with calls. And it’s not an active crime scene. Probably, they took a look around, saw that all the cockroaches had scattered when they arrived, and—”

“You’re defending them?”

“I’m being realistic.”

“You know they put my victim in the back seat, too?” As soon as the words left her mouth, she regretted them.

Tower frowned. “That’s unfortunate. But it is a two-officer car.”

Katie sighed. “I know.”

Tower eyed her carefully. “You want to talk about it?”

“There’s nothing to talk about.”

About the Author

Frank Zafiro writes gritty crime fiction from both sides of the badge. He was a police officer from 1993 to 2013, holding many different positions and ranks. He retired as a captain.

Frank is the award-winning author of over three dozen novels, most of them crime fiction. These include his River City series of police procedurals, Stefan Kopriva mysteries (PI), SpoCompton series (hardboiled), Jack McCrae mysteries (PI), and Sandy Banks thrillers. He has also co-authored multiple series with other authors, including the Charlie-316 series (procedurals with Colin Conway), Bricks and Cam Jobs (action, dark comedy with Eric Beetner), and the Ania series (hardboiled with Jim Wilsky).

In addition to writing, Frank hosted the crime fiction podcast Wrong Place, Write Crime. He has written a textbook on police report writing and taught police leadership all over the US and Canada. He is an avid hockey fan and a tortured guitarist. He currently lives in the high desert of Redmond, Oregon.

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Giveaway Alert!

Frank Zafiro will be awarding Winner #1 a box set of River City series 1-3 (Kindle version) AND Winner #2 a surprise package of out-of-print versions of Zafiro titles (paperbacks) – US Only. International readers may substitute digital version of any title in the author’s back catalog to two randomly drawn winners via rafflecopter during the tour.

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