C. E. Lawrence

Debra Webb interviewed C. E. Lawrence for ITW's The Big Thrill. Part of their Q & A:

Publishers Weekly likened your work to Keith Ablow -- quite a compliment -- is psychology a field that particularly intrigues you? How do you go about your research to capture such a sophisticated characterization of a psychologist-turned-criminal profiler?

As a writer and an actor, psychology is one of the subjects that I do find endlessly fascinating. If you read the great writers, even pre-Freud, they pretty much knew what was going on in people's heads.

Though at school I was an English/German major, I've been studying psychology and criminal psychology for quite a few years now. I have an extensive library of books on the subject, and I took an excellent course in criminal psychology at John Jay College from Dr. Lewis Schlesinger. I was also in therapy myself for a number of years, and that helped too. I think my therapist sometimes got frustrated when instead of talking about myself, I would ask her about her job - but I really wanted to know!

With lots of great stories out there involving serial killers, what decisions did you make as you developed the story to create a unique killer?

One thing I did was to write some chapters from his point of view. It helped me to find my way into his head, to experience motivation from the inside out. I also hoped it would be interesting for the reader to have a ringside seat, so to speak - as well as rather creepy (in a good way, I hope).

In real life the...[read on]

Visit C. E. Lawrence's website.

--Marshal Zeringue