When  I headed for Los Angeles. I had a couple of screenplays in hand and proceeded to try to land an agent. I didn't find one but was lucky not to find one of the scam artists though I'm not sure they were as prevalent back then as they are now.

In the middle of all this, while living in Hollywood in the mid-80’s my boyfriend of the day and I used to frequent this odd little bar on Santa Monica Blvd. It was odd because it wasn’t a gay bar, it wasn’t a nightclub and it was definitely not high brow. It was almost a country place, since the jukebox featured a lot of Willie Nelson, Oakridge Boys and Johnny Cash. But for my boyfriend the big draw were the room full of pool tables. I enjoyed the fact there were pinball games galore. I loved pinball back then.

The bartender who worked most nights was a tiny, anxious woman who had a bad case of nerves. A year or so earlier she had accidentally set her hair on fire, which was severe enough to put her in the hospital. Ever since then she had been very nervous around open flame. She was also one of those really needy women who is so desperate to find her soul mate.

The night in question my boyfriend and I got to the bar around 11:00 PM. We drank, he played pool while I talked to the bartender. I’m not sure when the guy showed up. But he latched onto the bartender pretty quick. He was a quiet, very unassuming guy, a lot like the bartender. Their interest in each other was obvious. At one point the guy turned to me and asked me if I thought the bartender liked him. I said sure, it looked that way. He just needed to show her his interest.

They spent most of the rest of the night ‘talking’ though their mutual shyness that’s pushing the term. She clearly liked him.

We left right around closing, and I couldn’t tell you if anyone else was still in the bar.
I don’t ever remember who told us what had happened but it turns out she took the guy home to her place. Whether they actually had sex and that triggered his rage, or whether she said no and that set him off. But he apparently took a knife and savagely stabbed her to death. That was really the first time I knew how harmless looking some of the most brutal killers can be. I spent the night chatting with this guy and nothing stood out about him. No warning signs, no ‘whoa, this guy’s weird’ minute. Had I been single and in the right mood, I might very well have gone home with him.

I definitely think my writing took a darker turn then. I was still writing Science Fiction, but my characters were meaner and more likely to walk on the wild side.

After a few more years I started reading mysteries and slowly dropped the SF. Eventually I realized if I was going to read mysteries it might make more sense to write it.

I came up with Chris Bellamere and his in-the-closet nemesis, Detective David Eric Laine and with a few years what became L.A. Heat was born. I'm now working on book two in the series and have ideas for a couple of other books.