Christine Carbo: Mystery in the Majesty of Glacier National Park

INGRID THOFT

One of the many fantastic things about books is their ability to transport readers to unfamiliar and exotic places.  Christine Carbo, the author of the Glacier Park Mystery Series, is a master of immersing readers in the beautiful, but often unforgiving, landscape of Montana.  I'm thrilled that Christine is joining us today to discuss her latest book, "A Sharp Solitude."  The novel features FBI agent Ali Page as she treads on the edge of a murder investigation in which her daughter's father is the main suspect.  The intersection of her professional life and personal life make for mighty high stakes and a propulsive read.

INGRID THOFT: "A Sharp Solitude" the fourth in your Glacier Mystery series, features FBI investigator Ali Page, for the first time as a point-of-view character.  What made you decide to let Ali be the star of the show this time?

CHRISTINE CARBO: I had a lot of fun writing Ali as a side-character and decided to explore her more in my fourth novel. I plucked her from book three, "The Weight of Night," à la Tana French, and made her the protagonist in "A Sharp Solitude" – a formula I’ve been following throughout the series so far. So yes, this is the first book where we are in her head. Ali is a pistol in "The Weight of Night" where she is introduced as one of the resident local agents called in to take over a case involving a missing boy from one of Glacier Park’s campgrounds during fire season. She comes across as gruff and a bit irate in this book. In "A Sharp Solitude," I dialed her back a little, perhaps because I developed her situation as a mother in addition to being a professional FBI agent, but I still explore issues surrounding her anger and develop her tenacity. She had a less than ideal childhood and carries that with her as she strives to protect her daughter from the kind of difficulties she has as a child. Her father was an addict, abusive to her mother, and spent time in jail for selling drugs.

IPT: Montana, and in particular, Glacier National Park, is essentially another character in the book.  All of your books are so atmospheric and capture the isolation and majesty of their setting.  How did you decide to set your books in Montana, and how did you find your way there from Florida?

CC:  Thank you very much. I love to hear that because I enjoy including the dramatic landscape of where I live into my novels. Of course, too much setting can be a drawback, so I’m always working on finding the right balance. When I decided that I wanted to write crime fiction, I realized that I particularly loved the ones steeped in a strong sense of place: Denise Mina’s Glascow; Elizabeth George’s mysterious English countryside; Tana French’s Dublin; Dennis Lehane’s Boston, John Connelly’s Maine… the list goes on. At first I thought, I just live in Cowtown, USA with no sexy, dynamic, bustling cities around me. As a naïve new writer, I thought, how was I supposed to write what I knew so that it was captivating? (Of course, we all know that what makes a story fascinating is so much more than simply it’s setting!).

However, at the time, it dawned on me that I lived only a half hour from a place that people from all over the nation and the world come to visit. And that place—Glacier National Park—is not only stunning, it’s haunting at times. Plus, some of the local areas around Glacier are economically depressed and tend to have their share of crime. Automatically, when I began to think of Glacier, the awe and fear-inspiring grizzly came to mind, and I began to ponder what would happen if my main character had issues with bears and the very park he needed to conduct an investigation in. Hence, my first book, "The Wild Inside," is as much about whether the protagonist will find some emotional peace as it is about who committed the crime. My second book, "Mortal Fall," featuring a secondary character from the first book, again à la Tana French, also takes place in Glacier. The park, in essence, remains a strong secondary character in "Mortal Fall" and "The Weight of Night." The crime in "A Sharp Solitude" actually takes place right outside of Glacier near its border, so it has a different jurisdiction, but the setting is still extremely dramatic, stark, and isolated.

I came to the mountains when my family moved from Gainesville, Florida to Kalispell, Montana when I was still in middle school. My father left a position as Chief of Neuropathology at the University of Florida simply because he and my mother wanted to move to the mountains. In fact, I often find myself exploring the idea of how one finds the west as a place for personal reinvention, and I think this stems from relocating at a fairly formative age. At first, I hated leaving the beaches and my friends, but it didn’t take long for me to fall in love with Montana. As Steinbeck says in "Travels with Charlie," “I am in love with Montana. For other states I have admiration, respect, recognition, even some affection, but with Montana it is love…” However, the mountains are so much more than just a place for adventure—for skiing, hiking, biking, snow-mobiling, and in most of my stories, I try to reflect the ways in which human crime might butt up against the wild.

IPT:  "A Sharp Solitude” couldn’t be more timely in that gun violence is a recurring theme.  What made you hone in on that particular issue?

CC:  I read several articles about tragic gun accidents that had stuck with me, and there were several that took place in my native state of Florida, which spurred on some intense political debates during the 90’s on whether parents should be held criminally liable for crimes committed with their firearm by their children. The incident I wrote about was of course fictional, but I was inspired to write about such accidents anyway in spite of what a divisive topic it has become in our nation. The tragedy at the high school in Santa Fe has shone a spotlight back onto negligent storage laws since the suspect used his father’s weapon. However, in Texas, the suspect’s father will probably be immune from prosecution under the law because Texas law defines a child as 16 or younger, and the suspect is 17.

Additionally, separate from the gun issue, I have always been interested in how disasters and trauma that happen purely by accident can affect children for their entire lives. I also dealt with this topic in "The Weight of Night," how one child’s tragedy and trauma affected her family, her town, and of course, herself. Additionally, I knew someone when I was in high school who died by an accidental gunshot while on a hunting trip in Montana, and that has always stayed with me.

But as far as the national gun debate, I tried to remain neutral about the topic for several reasons. I don’t believe very many readers enjoy it when a writer gets preachy in a novel, so I wanted to stay away from getting too political. At times, I worried I was copping out as a writer, but I believe I stayed true to my characters. My other main character, Reeve, is neutral. In a way, for him to remain impartial is a coping mechanism. He has emotional baggage and he finds that staying clear of the topic is the only way for him to proceed—a form of detachment, yet survival for him, even if others believe it is a cop out.

IPT:  What has surprised you most about being a published author?

CC:  Definitely how supportive and generous the entire community of people who write, read, sell, promote, and loan books is. When I first got published, I was so green at the business. I felt like a tiny spider casting filament around with no place for it to stick. But as I started to go to writers’ and readers’ conferences and visit bookstores and libraries, it became apparent that there is a strong, supportive web in place. I remember being so excited to get a blurb from one of your Jungle Reds, Deb Crombie, for my first book. I didn’t even know Deb then, but she was very generous to help a debut writer like me out, and I always try to do the same for new writers no matter how busy I am.

Even though publishing is an incredibly challenging, tough business, it is also very encouraging and highly rewarding no matter what level of success your books achieve because readers, other authors, booksellers, librarians, bloggers, reviewers, and many, many more in the industry are so amazingly big-hearted. Being your guest on this successful and engaging blog is simply another reflection of how the writing community is so helpful and generous!

IPT:  Is there a wannabe book lurking in the back of your brain, something you would write if you didn’t have to consider agents, editors, and fans?  A romance?  Non-fiction?  Cookbook?

CC:  I’m pretty happy writing suspense for now, but you never know. I did write two non-genre books years ago in my twenties. I consider them my training-wheel books, and I never seriously tried to publish them. Readers sometimes ask me if I’ll go back to them to update them and try to publish them, and I usually answer that so far, I haven’t had the desire. But you never know what the future holds. I figure there are more than enough sub-genres within crime-fiction to keep me exploring new ways of approaching suspense for a long time to come. So far, psychological procedurals have worked well for me, and I love to write them and tinker with their structure. In fact, I like to think of "A Sharp Solitude" as police procedural meets domestic suspense meets the wild. I can imagine trying an entirely different type of suspense novel at some point.

IPT: I think that's a perfect description of "A Sharp Solitude," and I'm sure it's going to resonate with a whole range of readers.  

Christine is joining us today to answer your questions, and she's also giving away a copy of "A Sharp Solitude."  Just comment to enter.

“A Sharp Solitude” 
A gripping new Glacier Park mystery by the acclaimed author of "The Wild Inside" – perfect for fans of C.J. Box and Nevada Barr.

In the darkening days of autumn, a journalist’s body is found near the Canadian border. The victim was last seen with a man named Reeve Landon, the secretive subject of an article she’d been writing. Now Reeve is the prime suspect.

FBI investigator Ali Paige is not assigned the case, but Reeve is an ex-boyfriend, the father of her child. If she can find out what really happened, she might be able to save her daughter from the pain of abandonment. Meanwhile, a reckless and paranoid Reeve ventures deep into in the woods, assuming his karmic punishment has finally arrived. As the clock ticks and the noose tightens around Reeve’s neck, Ali isn’t sure how far she’ll go to find the truth. And what if truth isn’t something she wants to know?

Propulsive and suspenseful, evoking the breathtaking beauty of Glacier National Park, A Sharp Solitude demonstrates that people can’t outrun their demons, even in the vast, wild terrain of Northwest Montana.

Christine Carbo is the author of the Glacier Mystery Series, an ensemble series set in and around Glacier National Park. Her books include "The Wild Inside," "Mortal Fall," "The Weight of Night," and her latest, "A Sharp Solitude."   Carbo is a recipient of the Womens' National Book Association Pinckley Prize, the Silver Falchion Award, and the High Plains Book Award. A Florida native, she and her family live in Whitefish, Montana. Find out more at ChristineCarbo.com.