We are delighted to welcome author Patricia Skalka to Omnimystery News today.
Patricia's second mystery in her series featuring Door County sheriff Dave Cubiak is Death at Gills Rock (University of Wisconsin Press; June 2015 hardcover and ebook formats) and we recently had the chance to catch up with her to talk more about her books.
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Omnimystery News: Introduce us to the principal cast of characters in your Door County mystery series.
Photo provided courtesy of
Patricia Skalka
Patricia Skalka: The first two books of the Dave Cubiak Door County Mystery series are out. I'm working on the third and have six planned altogether. From the start, my protagonist Dave Cubiak develops close relationships with two other characters, the coroner and an attractive freelance photographer, forming a triad that will continue through the series.
Let's begin with Cubiak. A former Chicago homicide detective, Dave is a tragic figure, a man burdened by the deaths of his wife and daughter who are killed in an accident he feels he could have prevented. Haunted by both grief and guilt, he drinks himself out of his police job and retrains as a park ranger. In Death Stalks Door County (published in 2014), he moves from Chicago to the Wisconsin resort area, ostensibly to start a new life but really to escape death. But death is all around and Cubiak must face up to his own demons before discovering the how and why and by whose hand of the murders. By the second book, Death at Gills Rock, which was released in June 2015, Cubiak is the new sheriff, an office he will continue to hold as the stories unfold.
Cubiak is principled and thorough. He's the kind of lawman who looks beyond the obvious, doesn't hesitate to bend the rules and digs deep to uncover and understand the relationship between the victim and the killer. Familiar with the urge to avenge a wrong, he is not without empathy for those who commit the most heinous crimes.
Evelyn Bathard — physician and lifelong resident of Door County, Bathard is an erudite, cultured man who represents the opposite of Cubiak's drunken, bitter father. Bathard is Door County coroner in the first book and retired coroner and friend from that point forward. He is the first person on the peninsula to befriend the sullen, moody Cubiak, forging a bond that slowly grows stronger between them. Cubiak increasingly relies on Bathard's insight and wisdom as well as his knowledge of the people and history of Door County to help in sifting through evidence and theories.
Cate Wagner — an internationally regarded photographer, who comes from privilege and wealth, Cate represents all that Cubiak is not. She is the kind of woman he normally would shun, but Cate carries her own burdens and Cubiak finds himself strangely drawn to her. Still, the relationship is rocky and at one point they are clearly estranged. When Cate reappears, the question is what role she will play in Cubiak's life.
OMN: How do you expect these characters to develop over the course of the six books in the series?
PS: Early on, I decided that the series would move through time and that the characters would change and grow as their lives evolved. Cubiak begins as a deeply troubled man; if I maintained the same time frame for each book, how could he ever progress beyond his pain? I've set him on a journey through time, never fully unburdened of his loss but learning slowly to re-embrace life.
As I envision the series, the books will cover a span of some fifteen or so years with each book occurring at approximately a two- or three-year interval. Like all of us, my characters will grow older. Like us, they will face new circumstances and challenges. Cubiak is forty-two in the first book; by the end of the series, he will looking at sixty.
OMN: Describe your writing process for us.
PS: My writing process begins with an intense amount of hard mental work. I create elaborate biographies of my characters and think the story through from beginning to end, plotting the details step-by-step before I start writing.
Initially, I may have a 13 page bulleted step-sheet or beat-line, but I will continue to add and expand until it grows to some 21-23 pages, which is generally what I need to develop the concept into a full length manuscript. During this prewriting phase, I add or delete characters, expand their roles and complicate the plot as the story demands.
I find the upfront process challenging and demanding but infinitely rewarding. When I am ready to sit down to write, there's never a question of "What now?" I know what comes next and what I need to tackle that day. Taking the extra time up front to plot the story pays off because I don't lose time wandering off track during the writing.
OMN: And where do you most often find yourself writing?
PS: I write either in my home office or at my cottage in Door County. The office is a converted attic in my Chicago home, with a comfortable chair and sky lights that provide a flood of natural light. I am surrounded by books and stacks of papers on the floor but nothing else. No music or interfering noise, only my cat Nico who lounges on the desk and swings her tail over the keyboard. I write on a desk top and when I work, I try to avoid social media and often let the phone go unanswered.
The cottage is rustic but comfortable and I sit with my laptop either in front of the large window that faces the Lake Michigan shore or on the screened porch. Here, too, my work is done in quiet isolation.
OMN: Tell us more about Door County, the series setting.
PS: Door County, which is located in northern Wisconsin, is a spectacularly beautiful peninsula that juts out between Green Bay and Lake Michigan like the thumb from a mitten. It is a real place with a rich history, home to generations of steadfast residents as well as artists and musicians and tourists who start arriving with the spring thaw and don't leave until the last of the fall leaves have dropped.
Door County sits at the western edge of the Niagara Cuestra, a horse-shoe shaped bluff that originates in upper New York State, where it gives rise to the famous falls. From there, the bluff extends along the upper rim of the Great lakes basin until it arches downward into Wisconsin and Door County on a ridge of cliffs that reach heights of one hundred and fifty feet and offer spectacular views into the surrounding waters.
The setting is essential to the series; in fact, it inspired the idea for the first book — I was sitting on the beach on a bright sunny morning and then again later in the pitch dark on a cloudy, moonless night. Over the course of 12 hours, I went from blinding beauty to eerie darkness. Anything can happen here, I thought. This was the genesis of the first book: the notion of the great gap between the forces of good and evil and the concept of a story about sinister forces at work beneath the veneer of a place with a seemingly perfect surface.
In the series, I use real names for towns, bodies of water and major parks and roads. Everything else is fictionalized. While I try to remain true to the geography of Door County, I take liberties as well, but only if they serve the purpose of the story.
OMN: What kind of feedback have you received from readers?
PS: My readers really care about my protagonist Dave Cubiak. I like Dave — he's one of the reasons I refused to give up on the story during those long, dark pre-publication days — but I never anticipated such affinity between my lead character and my readers. At the start of book one, he's not really a likable guy — which several readers have noted — but as he mellows, they find him increasingly appealing.
Readers worry about Dave, wonder if he's working through his problems, speculate about his possible romantic interests and offer suggestions about how he should proceed with his life. It's quite amazing, really, and an absolute delight to connect with readers in this way.
OMN: What kinds of books did you read when you were young? And has any specific author influenced how and what you write today?
PS: Books were scarce in my childhood home, so I wasn't raised on the great voices of literature. No Shakespeare for me growing up. Still, in this literary desert, I recall my father reciting lines from Tennyson's "The Charge of the Light Brigade" and always encouraging me to read. Turn off the TV and pick up a book was the mantra in my house. So I did, diving into the local library's collection of biographies of famous women, then on to Nancy Drew. I loved the why, who and how of these simple mysteries. From there I moved on to the more complex and often exotic Sherlock Holmes stories.
But it was Dorothy Sayers, more than any of my other early authors, who made me realize that more than simply solve a puzzle, a good mystery provided insight into human character. Here in her stories of Lord Peter Wimsey and Harriet Vane were three-dimensional, real-life characters who were struggling with serious ethical questions and personal issues. All of this resonated with me and planted the seed for the kinds of books I would continue to read and hoped one day to write.
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A lifelong Chicagoan, Patricia Skalka is a former Reader's Digest Staff Writer and award-winning freelancer, as well as one-time magazine editor, ghost writer and writing instructor. Her nonfiction book credits include Nurses On Our Own, the true-story of two pioneering, local nurse practitioners.
For more information about the author, please visit her website at PatriciaSkalka.com, or find her on Facebook and Twitter.
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Death at Gills Rock by Patricia Skalka
A Dave Cubiak, Door County Mystery
Publisher: University of Wisconsin Press
After tracking a clever killer in the first book of this series, park ranger and former Chicago homicide detective Dave Cubiak is elected Door County sheriff. His newest challenge arrives as spring brings not new life but tragic death to the isolated fishing village of Gills Rock. Three prominent World War II veterans who are about to be honored for their military heroics die from carbon monoxide poisoning during a weekly card game. Blame falls to a faulty heater but Cubiak puzzles over details. When one of the widows receives a message claiming the men "got what they deserved," he realizes that there may be more to the deaths than a simple accident.
Investigating, Cubiak discovers that the men's veneer of success and respectability hides a trail of lies and betrayal that stems from a single, desperate act of treachery and eventually spreads a web of deceit across the peninsula. In a dark, moody tale that spans more than half a century, Cubiak encounters a host of suspects with motives for murder. Amid broken dreams, corruption, and loss, he sorts out the truth.
— Death at Gills Rock by Patricia Skalka
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