Guest Post: "When Nothing is as it Seems: A True Crime Writer meets a Thriller Writer" by Carla Conti
It is not very often that I offer up my blog to another author for the day. But recently, I was given the opportunity to read an advanced copy of a book to which I became utterly obsessed, and I wanted to highlight, not only the book but the author as well.
Carla Conti is an award-winning true crime author, whose latest book, THE JACKLIGHTER: MURDER, BETRAYAL, AND JUSTICE IN PENNSYLVANIA'S ENDLESS MOUTAINS just released. This book retells the true story of the 1976 death of Pennsylvania attorney, Martin Dillon, and the decades-long quest for justice. Carla is a member of my local chapter of SISTERS IN CRIME, and specializes in, what she calls, "crimemoir." A few weeks ago, she gave me an advanced copy of the new book, and, like it said, it did not disappoint. Watch my blog on November 3rd for my full review of THE JACKLIGHTER.
Despite her busy book launch schedule, she was willing to take a few minutes to write a short guest post for my blog. So, over to Carla.
When Nothing is as it Seems: A True Crime Writer meets a Thriller Writer
Carla Conti
I have a confession: I haven’t read Michael Bradley’s new novel THOSE WHO SHALL DIE yet. The months and weeks leading up to the launch of my latest true crime book, THE JACKLIGHTER, have eaten my reading life. But at our last Sisters in Crime meeting, he read the first chapter, and I haven’t stopped thinking about it.
Not to get spoiler-y, but when Zach Hargrove goes in for the kill with his serrated hunting knife on a burdensome invalid named Nelly, whose heavy, awkward body he was tired of moving “from chair to chair, room to room,” I was immediately hooked. Nothing is as it seems in that opener, and I’ll say no more. (And I actually can’t since I’m limited to chapter one and the back cover description 😂 )
But that back jacket copy for THOSE WHO SHALL DIE is catnip for a true crime writer. A group of mystery writers hits it big with a podcast, and their fame paints a target on their backs. It feels ripped from the headlines of the true crime podcast era.
My own books come from a different kind of headline. THE JACKLIGHTER: MURDER, BETRAYAL, AND JUSTICE IN PENNSYLVANIA’S ENDLESS MOUNTAINS begins with a real 1976 “hunting accident” that everyone in a small Pennsylvania town thought they understood. I spent years with the yellowed newspaper coverage, faded old photos, and thousands of pages of non-digitized paper court transcripts. For my book, I was immersed in legacy media across three decades, beginning in the 1970s. By the 1990s, my story overlaps with the O.J. Simpson trial and the start of the true crime boom—an obsession that has only grown since.
In both fiction and nonfiction, good storytelling is universal—especially when the truth turns out to be something else entirely.
That’s another secret my genre shares with Michael’s. Readers say both THE JACKLIGHTER and my first true crime book, CHAINED BIRDS, read like thrillers, and I think I know why. Fiction invents the twist and plants it. True crime has to find it, in court records, in old interviews, in what a family never said. Either way, the reader is turning pages because the story they were handed is a mystery that keeps unfolding, never really letting you know where it’s headed—until it lands, and it’s something that makes sense and was there all along.
So if you like your mysteries invented, pick up Michael’s THOSE WHO SHALL DIE. If you like yours real, THE JACKLIGHTER is out now.
Thank you, Carla.
If you are a true crime fan, you will definitely find THE JACKLIGHTER to be compelling read. Watch my blog for my full review on Tuesday, November 3rd.
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