Author Tracy Clark is back with another installment of her popular Detective Harriet Foster series. I recently spoke with her about Edge.
Tell me about your latest book.
Edge, book four in my Detective Harriet Foster series, is set in Chicago and features Harriet “Harri” Foster, a Black homicide detective with the Chicago Police Department. Edge is the name of a tainted opioid that has hit the streets and is claiming the lives of innocents. Harri and her team must find the source of this drug and stop the flow, even as bodies continue to fall.
Why did you decide to write it?
No decision. I’m a writer with a contract. I must write. This installment, however, I found interesting because it attempts to say something about the impact of greed, soullessness, mental illness, and struggle appears to have on what has kind of become a throwaway society. We blame instead of treat, we lock up instead of rehabilitate, we make up our minds on the most superficial amounts of evidence of who the “bad” people are. Sometimes good people just get caught up. Now what? Who are we as a society then?
What do you want readers to learn from the story?
I want them to first of all go along for the ride and find the story entertaining, but also to maybe think about how easily everything they have, or think they have, can go away. One bad choice. One careless decision. All it takes.
When did you fall in love with the written word?
Dr. Seuss. Green Eggs and Ham. Maybe I was three years old? I got bedtime stories at night read to me by a tired working mother who thought reading was important for children. Those storytimes fostered a love for books and reading and stories that has carried me through my life. My books couldn’t have happened without Mom.
If you could pick another profession, what would it be and why?
I’d like to be a triple threat on Broadway, like Audra McDonald or Bernadette Peters. Eight shows a week with me bringing the razzmatazz, then a late dinner at Joe Allen’s or Sardis.
What’s the best part of being an author?
Finishing a book and having the feeling that you said what you set out to say, and that your characters resonate with readers. Writers write for that reader connection. We want our readers to care about our book people, worry about them, and stay to the end of the story to find out if these characters got what they needed. If I can hook a reader, and have them finish a book, then come back for the next one, and the next one, and the next one, then that’s it. That’s the prize.
What’s the worst part of being an author?
Cobbling out a story paragraph by paragraph, page by page. Sometimes the words flow like water, sometimes I literally have to pull them out of my brain one by one, and the struggle is hard fought. Self-doubt is a problem. I’m never all that confident that I’m doing it right. Always in the back of my head is this feeling that there are real writers, and then there’s me. Impostor syndrome, maybe? But that doesn’t stop me from writing. Writers write; they don’t sit around and talk about writing. I do the best I can and always strive to do better.
What books have you read lately and loved, and what books are you looking forward to reading?
This is my problem. I want to read everything. My TBR stack, truly, is a fire hazard at this point. I certainly try to read the books of all my writer buds. I just finished Ian Smith’s Beyond Midnight, the latest in his Ashe Cayne PI series. Before that while I was on vacation, I finally got around to reading Tess Gerritsen’s The Spy Coast, then immediately bought the second book in the series, The Summer Guests. I read anything by SA Cosby. I think he’s a genius. The language alone. Wow. It’s an automatic buy. There’s so much good stuff out there. I want it all now. I want all the stories, all the voices, all the richness of diversity. All of it.
What’s next for you?
I’m currently writing my first standalone novel entitled You’ll Never Find Me. It’s about a wife and young son running from a possessive husband and father. A bit of a cat-and-mouse piece. It’s not quite soup yet, but hopefully it’ll be good.
Do you have anything you would like to add?
Only this, if any of your readers are looking for good books in the mystery genre by authors of color, there are a lot of us out here! Anyone can look us up at Crime Writers of Color. Many of us began writing to put ourselves on the page, to tell our stories. We’re doing that.
Use the Black Fiction Addiction affiliate link to purchase your copy of Edge by Tracy Clark.
To learn more about Tracy Clark, visit her website or connect with her on social media.
Website: https://tracyclarkbooks.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tclarkwrites/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/tclarkbooks