Miles Corwin

From a Q & A with Miles Corwin, author of Kind of Blue:

What inspired you to write your novel?

I was sitting inside the LAPD’s Robbery-Homicide Division squad room – while I was researching my book Homicide Special – waiting for the next case to emerge. The detectives I was shadowing were between homicides. While I was waiting, I started sketching some fictional ideas in my notebook, loosely based on some of the cases I’d followed.

How did you use your life experience or professional background to enrich your story?

I’ve spent many years writing about cops, criminals, prisons and courts as a crime reporter for the L.A. Times. During the research of my first book, The Killing Season, I followed two homicide detectives in South-Central Los Angeles for about six months. My third book – Homicide Special – chronicled a year inside an elite homicide division that investigates only the most difficult, sensitive, and high profile cases in Los Angeles. Any murder case that involves celebrities, organized crime, requires sophisticated technology, or is considered a high priority of the chief of police is transferred to Homicide Special.

In both books I was given complete access, and I followed the detectives from the time they picked up their cases, to crime scenes, death notifications, autopsies, witness interviews and, finally, to arrests.

Before I was a reporter, I spent more than five years as a Los Angeles County beach
lifeguard. I have some surfing scenes in the book that reflect my time on the beach.
I used...[read on]

--Marshal Zeringue