Sherry here — we went from 60 degrees Sunday evening at 6:00 to snow in the morning!
It’s my pleasure welcoming back Tracy Clark! I loved Hide the first book in the Detective Harriet Foster series. Harriet has been knocked down by life but keeps getting back up. I’m really looking forward to reading the second in the series, Fall!
Tracy: FALL, book 2 in my Detective Harriet Foster police procedural series, just released. Yay. I had a semi-okay time writing it.
An outline probably would have helped. A linear-thinking mind would have helped, even better. But, alas, I am what I am (a pantser), and like Popeye, the sailorman, “That’s all that I am” … or I suspect ever will be.
Anyway, I finally got FALL done. I think it’s okay. I hope it is. I always worry. All writers do.
In FALL, I have Harri and her dedicated team of Chicago homicide detectives pursuing a killer who is dropping dead aldermen all over town.
Three aldermen.
When I talk about the book with people not from Chicago, the mention of three dead aldermen barely raises an eyebrow. I don’t know where these people are from or what kind of municipal representation they’re working with, but I get quite a different reaction when I talk about FALL in my neck of the woods.
It goes something like this:
“In FALL,” I say, “Harriet and the team must find a killer who is murdering aldermen and leaving thirty pieces of silver on their bodies.”
My Chi-town peeps (eyes wide, mouths agape): “Whoa!!! No way!!!”
Then I go, “I know, right?”
Then we share a moment of conviviality, not that we’re blood-thirsty or maladjusted in any way, but rather because, to the man, every one of us has spent hours on the phone trying to get our alderman’s office to fix a busted streetlight on our block that went dark on Easter Sunday and would have stayed out past New Year’s Day if we hadn’t called the local television station and threatened a little press coverage.
But it’s all in good fun, right? Just fiction. No harm no foul. Just a little idea I had. Writers get ideas all the time. We use what works, we toss what doesn’t. Hahaha. Fun, fun, fun. (That last bit was in case my alderman is reading this.)
Moving on.
In addition to the aldermen, FALL is also about the turns we humans make in life and the journeys back many of us have to take. The aldermen fall, one by one, with the silver piling up. But Harriet, my main character, my cop, has also fallen. She is living a half-life profoundly impacted by loss and grief. And other characters in the book have taken dramatic falls, too. There are falls from grace and prideful falls. Each character is different afterward, but not all change is for the better. I like complicating the lives of book people. It makes me think, and I hope the complications give readers something interesting to think about too.
If I’d been thinking, I would have set the book in fall to match the title, but, again, pantser. We don’t think too far out on these things. Therefore, FALL takes place in February when it’s as cold as the dickens in Chicago.
So, Harri and her partner, Det. Vera Li, and the rest of their team, must hunt this politician-murdering killer across the gray-tinted city fighting slush, and snow, and freezing temps. In one scene, I have them slip-sliding their speeding unmarked car up Lake Shore Drive behind a lumbering city snowplow spitting rock salt all over their grimy windshield. That’s winter in Chicago.
I love it. A Chicago winter builds character … if it doesn’t kill you.
FYI. I capped the alderman death count off at three. I’d had my fun. And, quite honestly, I want my garbage picked up next Friday. Best not to antagonize.
Readers: What are local politicians called in your area?
Bio:
Tracy Clark is the author of the Cass Raines Chicago Mystery series and the Detective Harriet Foster series. A multi-nominated Anthony, Lefty, Edgar, Macavity, and Shamus Award finalist, Tracy is also the 2020 and 2022 winner of the G.P. Putnam’s Sons Sue Grafton Memorial Award and the 2022 Sara Paretsky Award. She is a member of Crime Writers of Color, Rogue Women Writers, Mystery Writers of America, Sisters in Crime and is a Bouchercon National Board member and a board member of the Midwest Mystery Conference. The Cass Raines and Detective Foster series grew out of her desire to see capable, competent, African American females on the page as major players in their own stories.
X, @tracypc6161
Instagram, tpclark2000
Facebook, https://www.facebook.com/tclarkbooks
website: http://www.tracyclarkbooks.com
Cover Copy:
In the second book in the Detective Harriet Foster thriller series, author Tracy Clark weaves a twisted journey into the underbelly of Chicago as Harriet and her team work to unmask a serial killer stalking the city’s aldermen.
The Chicago PD is on high alert when two city aldermen are found dead: one by apparent suicide, one brutally stabbed in his office, and both with thirty dimes left on their bodies—a betrayer’s payment. With no other clues, the question is, Who else has a debt to pay?
Detective Harriet Foster is on the case before the killer can strike again. But even with the help of her partner, Detective Vera Li, and the rest of their team, Harriet has little to go on and a lot at risk. There’s no telling who the killer’s next target is or how many will come next.
To stop another murder, Harriet and her officers will have to examine what the victims had going on behind the scenes to determine who could be tangled up in this web of betrayal…and who could be out for revenge.
The Wickeds 
Congrats on your recent book release. I believe we call them council people.
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TRACY: Congratulations on FALL (set in February)! In Ottawa, local politicians are called councillors.
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TRACY: Congratulations on FALL (in February)!
In Ottawa, our local politicians are called councillors.
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Oops, didn’t mean for the same post to go up twice!
I will add that our ward’s councillor is a rookie, elected last October. She is super keen to do good work.
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Tracy, congrats on the new book! I hope to be able to read it soon.
As for your question, the local politicians here are the Board of Selectman. Of course, the women are called Selectwoman but to the best of my knowledge any change in what the board is called to reflect updated times and language has not happened. I could be wrong about that but honestly, I just don’t care much about these people. (Oh, we also have the Town Administrator.)
Because they are also called liars, thieves and a whole lot of more curse-related invective. They keep raising property taxes, sewer rates, water rates and they had the nerve to put in a trash service that originally no one could opt out of. People who only lived here half a year got charged the full rate, seniors were getting stuck with a bill with no warning. And those like me who had other ways of getting rid of trash (my one bag a week was being thrown out at my job’s dumpster with the okay from my boss) were initially told “too bad, pay the bill” like I was the victim of a protection racket. And yet, they were never investigated for it. Why? I have little to no use for the local politicians who seem to think I get up and go to work every morning so I can hand my paycheck over to them and be happy about it.
Not that I’m bitter about it or anything. LOL!
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We have Selectmen here in Maine, I’ve never heard of alderman (sounds like a church decision maker to me?!). So, thanks for the first new thing I’ve learned today lol! Good luck on your new book!
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We call our local politicians Town Councilors.
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Congratulations on the release of FALL! Sounds amazing and is now on my TBR list.
Ours are called councilmen. I’m assuming they are called that in all of the state of AR since that’s what they’ve been called in the different locals we have lived. If you think it’s frustrating trying to get something done from the outside, you ought to see the workings from the inside. Hubby worked for city municipalities and believe me its not any easier. Bad enough in small towns where their numbers are down, but the bigger the city the more there are – unfortunately.
2clowns at arkansas dot net
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I read FALL last weekend and loved it! Congratulations, Tracy, on another knockout winner! I’m from Chicago, so alderman is definitely the term of art. Here in New Jersey, where I now live, the local reps are town council members and county freeholders. But it’s the mayor who gets the streets cleaned and the garbage collected. Every benefit and transaction flows from her and we all know it. In fact the whole state knows it. They call her, THE Mayor for a reason! I may, or may not, have been inspired by her example as I wrote my newest mystery!
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Congratulations, Tracy. I loved HIDE, so I’m looking forward to FALL.
We’re boring here in PA. We have the town council (or the city council, depending on how big the community is) and the mayor. Sometimes they even get along.
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Big time congratulations on the new release, Tracy! Here in Indianapolis, we have the City-County Council, whose members are called Councillors, though most people call them representatives.
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Really small town here so I’ve never heard of an alderman. And if a streetlight is out? Well if the street even has one, probably no one is going to notice, let alone complain about it. Our previous town mayor (who served for over 20 years until his death) was my bus driver in school and drove the gas truck too. Our current one is a maintenance man at the nursing home. Cutthroat politics and heated election races is pretty much unheard of around here.
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Welcome back, Tracy! I loved Hide and can’t wait to read fall. I grew up about 180 miles southeast of Chicago in Iowa and we also had alderman. We’ve lived a lot of places and most of them had town councils. I was fascinated by the selectman (now board) in Massachusetts.
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Welcome, Traci! They are called representatives, but I call them “#@%$&*!!!”. I loved your blog, and I look forward to reading FALL. I have lived in Chicago and loved it, except for the snow and cold…I could well picture your description about following a snowplow, and hope I never have to do winters again 🙂 Luis at ole dot travel
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I am so sorry, TracY 🙂
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Welcome Tracy! I can’t wait to read FALL. And your description of your process makes me laugh, as it does when I hear it in person. Just keep doing it, it’s a gift to us all.
PS, I live in Somerville, outside of Boston. Our history is almost as storied as yours in Chicago. Here, it’s all about the mayor.
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Indeed it is, Julie!
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Sounds fabulous, Tracy. Looking forward to reading FALL. We have selectmen here in Maine – I have to be honest, I’m not sure what they do on a day to day basis!
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Chiming in from the Windy city! Looking forward to read FALL. I think Tracy is brilliant and her portrayals of our shared beloved city is so on point. As for our aldermen……..
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Welcome back, Tracy! I’m clearly remiss in not having read the first Harriet book and can’t wait to read FALL, too. I love that your local audience knows EXACTLY where you’re coming from with the aldermen. (I assume there are alderwomen by now – any push to call them alders or anything unmarked for gender?)
My small city has city councilpersons, and a few doozies have been elected recently. Luckily sane ones are still in the majority, including my representative and the three at-large ones.
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Here in California, we have city counsel people. Maybe that’s the reason people don’t react like they do. They don’t get WHO is being killed, just that people are dying. Which isn’t that shocking in a murder mystery.
Congrats on your new book. And it’s coming out just as fall turns into winter. Perfect! Admit it, you are a planner and you planned it this way when you first started writing the book. 🙂
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Can’t wait to read another Tracy Clark story.
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In Toledo, we have the City Counsel as well as the Lucas County Board of Commissioners. Thank you for sharing. Merry Christmas. God bless you.
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