When I was in high school, there was a story of a teenage girl who had been killed in Fairmount Park in Philadelphia. I was the same age as that girl at the time. I’m sure she was not the first or last teenage girl to be killed in Fairmount Park, but for some reason that story stuck with me. I kept thinking, What if you came across a crime that just seemed random, like the person was just in the wrong place at the wrong time, but then turned out to be much more complicated? Kind of like when you pull a thread on a sweater and the whole thing unravels, that’s what I wanted to do in this book. I wanted to do a story about a teenage girl being killed in the park and then build an elaborate plot around that.
Sydney Adams is the girl in my book. She is a very accomplished young lady, and the world loses a lot when she is cut down.
I added an element of desperation with the character Augustus Knox, a retired homicide detective who only has a few months to live. His whole life has become about solving this case, and he wants to finally do that before he passes on.
Jocelyn Rush, the P.I. in the book gets swept up in Knox's mission and vows to help him solve the case before he dies. It's just that she gets way more than she bargained for. Jocelyn has to make some tough choices in this book and people die.
It's just not as simple as figuring out whodunit and arresting them. Once you pull at the thread on the sweater, you better be prepared for what is to come.