The authors were seated at the panelist's table in alphabetical order. Each introduced themselves and spoke of the reasons they started writing mysteries and how they chose their characters.
Robert Cullen spoke first. His background is that of a journalist. He was Newsweek's correspondent in Moscow for several years, beginning during Andropov's years through the beginning of Gorbochov's reign. It therefore stands to reason that his protagonist would be a foreign correspondent, his name Colin Burke. Other reviewers have compared Cullen's work with that of Eric Ambler, but I am more inclined to compare it to the works of Tom Clancy in the action/trhiller category.
The second author was Ed Dee, a twenty-year veteran of the New York City Police Force. Dee is a man small in stature and tells the story of some of his time with the organized crime task force. Because of his size, he seemed the perfect candidate to scrunch himself into a television box with a camera, staking out a meeting of organized crime members. It was a hot August day and the box was in the back of a parked and locked station wagon. He was in the box for three long, hot hours until a child playing ball in the street finally shouted in to him Hey cop, the Don is in Vegas. This experience convinced Dee that he might like to try another line of work. Not surprisingly, Dee writes police procedurals, his team of New York City detectives being Joe Gregory and Anthony Ryan who find themselves also involved with the bringing down of organized crime.
Joanne Dobson told us that she was neither an ex foreign correspondent nor an ex-police officer. Indeed, she is neither as she is a college professor, an Emily Dickinson scholar. Her protagonist, Karen Pelletier, is also a college professor. Dobson's works fall in to the category of cozies, but Karen Pelletier is an interesting addition to recent crime fiction.
