The Weird and Wonderful Workings of the Criminal Mind

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The Weird and Wonderful Workings of the Criminal Mind

I'm enjoying a lovely, summery day ride in the car with my husband.  Our favourite rock and roll music wafts in the background.  A fine cooling breeze lifts our hair and our arms are being tanned as we lean casually through the open windows.

Inside my head, it’s a different picture altogether.  Down in a dark, dank basement, a man lies slowly bleeding to death from a shotgun wound.  I am contemplating how long it would take him to die, when my husband asks me what I’m thinking.  Unfortunately for him, I tell him.  This is a scenario from Book One.

A large raccoon is splayed upside down in the slope of the ditch on my right.  He is stiff and awkward on his back, lips pulled back in an angry grimace.  Maggots crawl out of his mouth and flies swarm everywhere.  I can hear their frenzied delight as we stop for a red light.  I am fascinated.  Book Two!

Next we pass a burned-out shell perched forgotten on a side road.  I am thrilled to see it.  I ask my husband to stop so I can get out and breathe in the scorched wood smell and the stench of furled plastic and dead things underneath the ash.  Great experience for Book Three.

Forensics for Dummies, Until You Are Dead, Criminal Investigative Failures – these were the books that dominated my shelves during the writing of Book Four.  Along with questions to which I find an answer through Sisters in Crime’s forensics specialist: Can you paint scenery on a dead body?

The mind of a psychopath: what if you were ensnared in his/her way of thinking? What if you followed the path of their skewed morality and began to really like him/her? What if you fell in love? What would you do if you were betrayed, manipulated, swindled by that person? The seeds of Sweet Karoline! Book 5, but not in the series.

Lucky for me, my husband is not only tolerant but is actually enabling of my weird and wonderful way of thinking.  He likes my books, helps edit them in fact, and isn’t easily startled or frightened.

If you are in the mood to traverse the weird and wonderful workings of my "criminal mind", come visit: www.catherineastolfo.com.