Karin McQuillan

Here is an interview I did when my books came out on Kindle for Omnimystery News. I hope it answers all your questions.

Omnimystery News: You got an extraordinary number of quotes and reviews for a first novel.

Of course, I was thrilled to get so many great reviews, from the Washington Post to Mystery News. Being nominated for an Edgar and talking at Bouchercon in London was a great honor and very thrilling. I was up against Patricia Cornwell, who had just written her first book and carried away the prize.

I got a quote from Elmore Leonard saying "I like the sound of your writing. You obviously know what you're doing." Amazing.

Ballantine didn't even use it. They chose a quote from Tony Hillerman for the cover, which was great. I admire his work so much, and it meant a lot to be praised by him.

Omnimystery News: You created a detective duo, Inspector Omondi from the Nairobi homicide division and safari guide Jazz Jasper. Were they based on actual people you met in Kenya?

Karin McQuillan: I lived in West Africa for a year, and visited Kenya three times on safari. I tried to create two main characters that I liked, faults and all, and that my readers would like. As a psychotherapist, I enjoyed giving Jazz some love problems she has to solve. She grows and evolves over the course of the four books.

The characters are composites of people I've met and imaginary personality traits and life history that I enjoyed putting together. One of the great pleasures in fiction is making up a character - giving them a history, a personality, dreams, drives, strengths and weaknesses, and trying to make them come alive on the page.

Yes, of course you think of actual people, or more than one person, and you mine some of your own memories. Then you throw in traits you enjoy imagining that you aren't blessed with - great courage, or a sense of humor.

Omnimystery News: Tell us how you came to set your mystery series in Kenya.

Karin McQuillan: Africa occupied a big part of my imagination from the time I was a toddler. My Dad was a combat photographer in WWII, where he was trained as a cinematographer. Back in the States, he couldn't get into the union, and was struggling to make a living. Things were pretty desperate with two little girls at home, so when he got a job offer to spend 6 months in Kenya making a wildlife documentary, he jumped at it. I must have missed him terribly. It was all the more thrilling when he returned to us and entertained by sister and me for the rest of our childhood with his many stories of adventures among the animals in the wilds of Kenya.

Following my Dad's footsteps, in my twenties i lived in West Afric a for a year. I worked in a a community center in a tiny rural town, with no other white people, so i immersed myself in the lives of my African friends and neighbors. I visited villages where I was the first white woman people had seen; witnessed female circumcision; traveled by dugout canoe; danced to drums in the moonlight; saw a baby born while 'the devil' danced outside. Very intense experiences, that enriched my whole understanding of life .

When I wanted to really relax, I loved to read classic British and American mysteries.

My husband and I came to love the natural world more and more. Our interest in wildlife led to a photo safari to Kenya. We rented a car and drove around the national parks and rural roads ourselves, which led to many adventures and fun encounters with people and wildlife.

The trip was so fantastic I wanted to relive the memories. Then I realized I had the key to communicate my love of Africa: put my intimate African perspectives into a fun, page-turning mystery. I could have a detective duo - a black city slicker cop and an American woman running a safari company. I could weave my deeper understanding of Africans into the story background, mine my adventures for plot ideas, and lend the book some of my childhood love of romantic adventure novels. The result was Deadly Safari and the three books that followed.