A Q&A with Casey Hill
Casey Hill is the pseudonym for husband and wife writing duo Kevin and Melissa Hill. A desire to delve into the darker side of people’s lives led the two to team up in 2010 to write Taboo, the first in a series of forensic thrillers featuring CSI investigator Reilly Steel.
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Forensic investigator Reilly Steel, Quantico-trained and California-born and bred, imagined Dublin to be a far cry from bustling San Francisco, a sleepy backwater where she can lay past ghosts to rest and start anew. She’s arrived in Ireland to drag the Irish crime lab into the 21st century, plus keep tabs on her Irish-born father who’s increasingly seeking solace in the bottle after a past family tragedy.
But a brutal serial killer soon puts paid to that. When a young man and woman are found dead in an apartment, the gunshot wounds on their naked bodies suggest a suicide pact. But Reilly’s instincts are screaming that something’s seriously amiss, and as more bodies are discovered, the team soon realises that a twisted murderer is at work, one who seeks to upset society’s norms in the most sickening way imaginable…
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Where did the idea for Taboo come from and what made you decide to write a crime thriller together?
Melissa: The idea for a story about a serial killer who uses society’s most despicable acts as a means of torturing people had been knocking around inside my head for a couple of years. I’d made a start on writing it, but became so busy with other projects that I never had a chance to get back to it.
Kevin: I was taken from the outset with the ideas she’d come up with for Taboo and kept urging her to complete it. While she couldn’t find the time, I decided I’d grasp the nettle and give it a go myself. I’ve always been involved in helping Melissa iron out plot points and constructing characters for her own novels, so it was a surprisingly easy transition. We switched drafts back and forth between us until the manuscript was ready. It was more of a pet project rather than a conscious decision to write a book together. We weren’t sure if it was even publishable until our agent read it, loved it and wanted to send it out. Amazingly we had an offer within 24 hours.
Where did the name Reilly Steel come from?
Reilly has Irish roots (her father is Irish) so we wanted to give her a name that reflected this. Her surname Steel denotes strength and reliability and also has a slightly clinical slant, perfect for a forensic investigator.
The characters in Taboo are likable but real (especially Reilly). How did you develop her as a character?
We had a clear idea of the kind of personality we wanted Reilly to have – tough but inwardly rather fragile. We didn’t like to sketch out too much of her beforehand, as this takes all the fun out of the writing process. Writing about her job and the minutiae of her day to day life naturally revealed elements of her character that we didn’t expect, especially in relation to her past. This more than anything else has shaped the person she is when we first meet her in the story.
Considering there are two of you working on the manuscript, do you plan out the story before you write?
We’ll agree and loosely plot the overall journey of the novel, but are never certain of the roads we will take to get there. The writing is very organic for both of us, and often leads us in directions we never quite expect. We change things a lot as we go along, and when we’re not physically working on the script, are constantly discussing plot points and ideas. It makes for some ‘interesting’ dinner table conversation.
What is your ultimate goal when you start a book? Are you writing for yourself, or do you have a particular audience in mind?
We always discuss very clearly what we’re trying to achieve with each book. There has to be an impetus that comes from the psychology of the characters as well as the momentum of the story. We want to write about the things that disquiet or intrigue us as well as have a mystery running through the narrative, driving the story on.
It can be dangerous and even corrupting to think of what will attract readers. You have to temporarily put away the world, and go deep down inside and find things that are mysterious and compelling to yourself. Hopefully then readers will feel the same way.
What’s it like working together on a novel as husband and wife?
They say that when you find a job you love doing you never work a day in your life again, and this is especially true of writing. But it must be doubly true when you get to share it with your partner and best friend.
It’s not all a bed of roses, and we argue like cats and dogs over plot points and character development, but ultimately it’s great fun, and we feel very lucky to be working together in this way.
What’s next for Casey Hill?
We’ve just finished a novel in which Reilly Steel and the GFU team try to find a twisted murderer who is using a gruesome medieval text as his blueprint.
August 18th, 2011 at 8:48 pm
the taboo book was very good me and my daughter like it very much
September 8th, 2011 at 11:25 pm
Way to use the intreent to help people solve problems!