Stories about crimes have always resonated with me, whether it was Crime and Punishment or The Quiet American. Maybe it’s because I started my career as a police reporter, or because I worked for a time as a teacher in the county jail.
More than a decade ago, when I decided to finally get serious about writing, I started with short stories based on real misdeeds I’d witnessed. I wrote one about my next door neighbor, who’d been murdered by a friend, another about an ambitious bike racer who decides to take out the competition, and a bunch of others based on characters I met in jail.
Over time these got picked up by various magazines online and in print. More than a dozen now exist, with most of the latest in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine and Big Pulp.
For my debut novel, They Tell Me You Are Wicked, I drew inspiration from the most infamous event in the history of my hometown: the real life killing of a political candidate’s daughter (though I made up all the details).
The second volume in the series, They Tell Me You Are Crooked, is set two years later, after my hero, Duncan Cochrane, has become governor. He’s haunted by the family secret that got him elected and fighting a sniper who’s targeting children in Chicago.
Book three, They Tell Me You Are Brutal, resumes another two years later as a saboteur kills five people with a pain reliever. Duncan must pursue this terrorist as he tries to contain a leak of his shameful family secret and run for reelection.
The latest book, They Tell Me You Are Cunning, follows Duncan after he’s left office. Despite his pledge to stay out of sight and out of politics, allegations of police brutality and false confession pull him back into the spotlight. He must investigate the case of a man sentenced to death and protect his own son from the prison system.
To read excerpts from all four books, please visit my website: http//davidhagerty.net
