Carl Vonderau--MURDERABILIA

DEBORAH CROMBIE: It's all about downsizing these days, right? All the experts tell us that if we haven't used something, we should toss it. But here's debut author Carl Vonderau to tell us why you shouldn't Marie Kondo everything!!! 

CARL VONDERAU: Never throw away what you write. Let me explain why. In 1995, I decided to write my first book and set it in Bogotá, Colombia. But how could I get the setting right? I’d traveled there but didn’t trust my memory. Much to my wife’s dismay, I decided the best thing to do was visit Bogotá and get the details down. Pablo Escobar was dead, I told her. Bogotá wasn’t as dangerous as the press made it out to be. There was no need to worry. Besides, I had a Colombian friend. I didn’t tell her much about what that friend did for a living. Victor was a Colombian public prosecutor who interviewed suspects and witnesses from behind one-way mirrors with his voice electronically disguised. His colloquial title in Spanish was a “fiscal sin rostro,” which translated to “faceless prosecutor.” Perfect, I thought. I’m going to get so much material. Maybe I was as foolhardy as the hero in my book.

That first night in Bogotá Victor said that maybe I shouldn’t visit him in his office building. No one would probably notice me, but why take chances? Hmmm. I was on my own during the day. Wandering the streets, I soon habituated and stopped worrying about someone putting a knife in me. I was short and my hair was black. I fit in. Right. The wide-eyed guy in bluejeans who toted a backpack displaying a Canadian maple leaf. 

I carried a notebook and a disposable camera. But the pictures couldn’t evince a full sense of Bogotá. I started writing down everything that I saw. I would get it on the page and edit later. Bogotá soon overwhelmed the words. The noise, the smells, the pollution, lines of buses five wide. Hawkers sold food, electrical appliances, umbrellas, and sunglasses. Men sucked in gasoline from Coke bottles and flicked cigarette lighters to spit out fire. A whole noisy street devoted itself to little shops for motorcycles. Another store specialized in rat poisons. I made lists of everything I saw. But I knew I was only capturing a small part.

A local friend arranged a group to see Cartucho. In those special blocks, addicts were free to lay on newspapers while they inhaled basuco, a primitive form of crack. Next to crumbling buildings, many had concocted shelters with garbage bags stuffed with newspaper. We soon arrived at a busy street where a young man lay dead. A photographer in fatigue pants snapped pictures while he smiled and joked with his police colleagues. Beside the squalor were low-end restaurants. On the terrace of one, a teenage waitress glared at us. I took it in and scribbled a few notes. No photographs. In the Cartucho community, pictures were forbidden.

I absorbed the city for seven days. Then went home to Montreal and took years to write the book. Maybe five percent of those great details made it into the manuscript. And when I finally queried agents about my thriller set in Colombia, no one was interested. “That ship has sailed,” one of them said.

But the manuscript survived. Parts of it made their way into Murderabilia, the book Midnight Ink is publishing in July. I converted a scene into a short story and submitted it to the anthology that Sister’s in Crime San Diego is publishing next year. The book will be called Crossing Borders.

You never know when your international adventures will sneak into the fiction you write. It could be tomorrow or twenty years from now. 

William McNary is a private banker who keeps his clients’ secrets — and some of his own. His father is Harvey Dean Kogan, the infamous serial killer known as “The Preying Hands,” responsible for killing thirteen women who abused children in the Chicago area. He brutally butchered them and then arranged their bodies for his disturbing black and white photos. These pictures started the “murderabilia” market, which William can’t seem to escape. Thirty years later, William has carefully constructed his life to exclude his father’s name and history. But a threatening phone call from a man claiming to be his brother shatters his idyllic life and makes him fear for his family’s safety.

Carl Vonderau grew up in Cleveland in a religious family that believed that God could heal all illness. He left that behind him when he went to college at Stanford and studied economics. Somehow, after dabbling in classical guitar, he ended up in banking. Carl lived and worked in Latin America, Canada, and North Africa, and conducted business in Spanish, French and Portuguese. He also secretly wrote crime novels. Now, a full-time author, he also helps nonprofit organizations. He and his wife reside in San Diego, where their two sons live close by. Check out more at  http://carlvonderau.com/.

DEBS: I would add that as a writer, you never know when ANY of your adventures will come in handy. But, Carl, I am absolutely fascinated by the picture you've painted of Bogata--I hope a little of that atmosphere made it into MURDERABILIA.  You have a fascinating set up there. And, eternally curious writer that I am, I'd love to know what happened to you friend Victor. Your own story sounds like a book in itself.

And I have to add that I think Carl's cover is just stunning. Did you have any input, Carl?

READERS, stop by and chat with Carl today!