Kate Flora: In general, when I blog here, I try to talk about more general aspects of writing or being a writer, (or living in Maine) rather than focusing on my own books. Although I will sometimes use my books as examples of points I’m trying to make or illustrations of my thirty year writing journey.

Today, my focus is specifically on my upcoming book, Those Who Choose Evil, book nine in my Joe Burgess police procedural series. And on writing those Joe Burgess books. The writer’s journey is fascinating to me. I never know what I’ll be called to write, or what discoveries I’ll make about myself, the craft of writing, or my characters along the way. A reader once asked me what I wanted her to take away from the book. Entertainment, of course. The endlessly fascinating questions that arise about good and evil. And often, I don’t know the answer until the book is done. This is a book about parents and children. Good and bad. And about those who chose evil for their lives.

For this book, also, it was a continuation of the bond my three detectives have as their lives change and they are impacted by the cases they solve. It was a story that drew in Burgess’s family—the one he thought he’d never have. It called on his newly adopted “crime scene” dog to help when one of his children was in trouble. And it explored the complex relationships between public safety agencies. It also explored the nature of people who don’t want their criminal activities revealed, the nature of parent/child relationships and how some parents can abuse them, and the lengths people will go to to protect themselves, their wealth, and their reputations.

Thinking about reading it? Prepare for another breathless adventure through the cities and forests of Maine.

The book almost didn’t happen.

The Joe Burgess series begins with Playing God

As some readers may know, my original plan for the series was to write four books, a quartet that spanned the year’s four seasons. Playing God, the first book, begins on an icy February night.

The small black dog skittered into the street, shining eyes registering canine astonishment that a vehicle dared to be out at this hour. Burgess stomped on the brakes, the Explorer responding with orgasmic ABS shudders, stopping just short of the beast. Four-wheel drive beating out four-foot traction. With a look Burgess decided to take as gratitude, the dog turned and trotted away. A good result. The cops waiting with the body wouldn’t have taken kindly to freezing their nuts off while their detective worked a dead dog scene.

 Book two, The Angel of Knowlton Park,  begins on a hot July morning:

The fat, blue-black fly circled lazily in the July heat before landing in the child’s open eye. Burgess stifled his instinctive impulse to brush it away. He’d just started working this scene, and he wasn’t letting anything muck up his chances of learning everything it had to say about what had happened to this small dead boy.

 Book three, Redemption, begins on a clear blue October day:

The two boys on the curb shot out into the street so abruptly Burgess had to stand on the brakes to avoid hitting them. It was seven a.m. Saturday. Columbus Day weekend. The weather was perfect. The city was quiet. And even as he rocked to a stop, shoved the truck into park, and rolled down the window, he knew from the wild look on the taller boy’s face and the single gasped word, “body,” that his day, and probably his weekend, was lost.

And book four, And Grant You Peace, the planned conclusion of the quartet, takes place in the spring.

Most people run away from fires; firemen and cops run toward them,  especially when someone is screaming.

 Joe Burgess was sitting in his car, window down to catch the soft spring air, not ready to face the chaos at home, when a kid he knew from the street came running up. He got a gasped, “Fire at the mosque and someone’s in there,” and a frantic gesture toward the battered old commercial building that now housed the religious needs of a part of Portland’s growing Somali community.

The series didn’t end there because my readers weren’t ready for Joe Burgess to retire. Those books were followed by Led Astray, A Child Shall Lead Them, A World of Deceit, and Such a Good Man.

 Those Who Choose Evil is book nine. It opens on a cold, late fall night when a weary Burgess, eager to head home, finds himself instead at a city park.

It was a habit Burgess had developed years ago. A nocturnal one. At the end of a shift or if he needed some space with his thoughts, he’d swing by the park. Sometimes he’d stay in his truck and think. Sometimes he’d get out and walk into the park. He liked the smell of the earth, sometimes of fresh cut grass, sometimes the fall scent of decaying leaves or, in winter, the sharp bite of cold air mixed with the salty tang of the sea.

 It was the place where, maybe five years ago, he’d found a young teenage hooker, naked, badly beaten, and left to die in the winter cold.

She’d survived and after some setbacks and missteps, had gone on to train as a massage therapist. Now Alana Black sometimes came to dinner with him and Chris and the kids. She thought it was hilarious that she’d gone straight and ended up with a cop for a friend.

 Tonight, even though a late November frost had turned the grass silver under a full moon, tempting him to a nocturnal walk, he was too tired to bother. A bad night’s sleep and a long day at work had worn him out. He was planning to head home, where Chris would have saved a plate of dinner for him, but his truck had other ideas. When he told it to go left, it went right, rolling to a stop where he always parked when he wanted to check the park. Bad enough that his teammate Terry Kyle could read his mind. Now his vehicle was doing it?

 Swearing, he grabbed his flashlight—the big, bright one that could sweep the park—and stepped out into the crisp night. Moist air had gathered around streetlights in nebulous halos and the frozen grass crunched under his feet. In the distance, an occasional car up on the highway sped past but down here he was alone. After a day of constant human contact, it felt good to be alone. Maybe his truck just knew?

 His back to the highway, he stood looking out into the darkness, filtering out the traffic sounds behind him and focusing on anything that might not sound right. He might be annoyed at the way the universe decided things for him, but he was pretty sure he was here for a reason. Cops had instincts. They had gut sense. Just like he sometimes believed in divine intervention, Burgess believed that his city sometimes spoke to him. Tonight it wanted him here; now he needed to know why.

If you’re interested, here’s a quick interview with me for WABI TV 5:

https://www.wabi.tv/2025/06/12/crime-fiction-true-crime-writer-discusses-two-new-stand-alone-books/