Mindy: Welcome to Writer Writer Pants on Fire, where authors talk about things that never happened to people who don't exist. We also cover craft, the agent hunt, query trenches, publishing, industry, marketing and more. I'm your host, Mindy McGinnis. You can check out my books and social media at mindymcginnis dot com and make sure to visit the Writer Writer Pants on Fire blog for additional interviews, query critiques and more as well as full transcriptions of each podcast episode. at WriterWriterPants on Fire.com. And don’t forget to check out the Writer, Writer, Pants on Fire Facebook page. Give me feedback, suggest topics you’d like to hear discussed, and let me know if there is someone you’d love to see a a guest.
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Mindy: We are here with Lisa Gardner, whose book One Step Too Far is a stand-alone, but it's using a character that you’ve used before, your character of Frankie Elkin who is a recovering alcoholic, she travels light and is obsessed with locating missing people whose cases have been forgotten. Which I think is just particularly interesting in the world that we're moving in today where so many people do have an interest in true crime, and they might not necessarily have a background in it or not be officially cops, or in the justice system. But they're interested in being a part of it.
Lisa: Exactly, Mindy. Thank you very much. It's somewhat the basis for Frankie Elkin, that there is this very real world trend of everyday people getting involved in cold cases, and part of that has to do with forensics. If there was the magical hair fiber or the smoking gun that was gonna solve the case, it would have happened. If the police had the right interview, lead suspects, it would have happened. So when you start getting into these cold cases and missing persons often, well, you don't need an investigative background, you don't need to be a forensic scientist or a detective or a hacker, you get down to, as Frankie likes to put it, the right person asking the right questions at the right time. And yes, there's two books with Franiey Elkin. They're pretty distinct because both just encapsulate these totally different scenarios of the very real world situations in the US where there are a lot of people missing and no one's looking for them.
Mindy: It's so scary. I am particularly interested in, drawn in by Frankie’s second book here, the one coming out, One Step Too Far, because it focuses on something I personally am very interested in, is people disappearing in state parks, national parks, wilderness areas. This happens a lot more than people realize.
Lisa: Yes, I live in the mountains of New Hampshire, so I happen to be an avid hiker, and it's actually a part of the writing process. Every time I get stuck, I hit a hiking trail. So about two years ago when I started reading about... Again, there's like 1600 people missing on national public lands, they call it. It's everything from the toddler that wandered away from the fire during the camping trip to - in the case of One Step Too Far, you have a young man doing his bachelor party who disappears in the woods. But all of this is handled by volunteers, when someone goes missing, there is a lot of attention in the short term. Thousands of people will come in to volunteer, and you'll get pilots and you'll get drones, and you'll get dog teams and anything you could ever ask. But they ultimately have to return to their normal life, so three to six weeks later... That's it. If that was your four-year-old wandering from the campfire, that was your son, who disappeared on his Bachelor weekend. That's just it. And that was kind of staggering to me that we could have this huge gap of who is looking for these people, who is bringing closure to those families. In my book One Step Too Far, that's what Frankie Elkin is all about. She doesn't know how to solve her own problems, so she really likes to get involved in some of the problems of others.
Mindy: Wonderful and it's going to appeal to so many mystery readers in general, but also maybe people that haven't necessarily dipped their toe into reading fiction. They're more into the true crime arena, but they themselves are really going to relate to Frankie and what she's doing, I think.
Lisa: What I love about Frankie Elkins is, she's very real-world-based, she doesn't have any special skills, she's not kick ass, she's not bad ass, she's not a computer hacker. There's nothing special really there, I mean, that's something she's very aware of, she's leading an anti-life. She's a recovering alcoholic, she has more regrets than belongings. She stays in one place, tries to have one job, keeps to herself with one set of relationships. She drinks. She gets that society is telling her - these are the things she should want, and that's the lifestyle she should aspire to, but Frankie's pretty blunt, real world, the things she's supposed to want... Makes her drink. If she travels, if she moves, she does this very kind of different and bizarre sort of mission, she goes from town to town, she looks for the missing that other people have forgotten. She listens, she learns. She connects the dots. It keeps her sober. No one gets it. But it works for her.
Mindy: I love it, I love it, particularly because often as a reader, but also as just a consumer in general, I have become, as I got older, very disillusioned with the Uber men and the Uber women. They can do anything, they can get shot five times and still have sex. They're fine. And I'm just like, No, they're not. They're bleeding out. But yes, I get so frustrated watching people that aren't real people, people that are functioning just at a higher level, either physically or mentally than the rest of us. Because I can't relate, like you're saying, I can't put myself in their shoes because they're not human in many ways. So I find it so refreshing that Frankie really is someone living on the outer edges of life, and she's not leading that traditional life and she's not buying into some of what other people would claim is happiness.
Lisa: Yeah, and she's not super powered, she's really a lot of fun to write. In my writing career, my previous best novelist, I had the FBI Serial Profiler. I've had the urban Boston detective, I've even had this fabulous vigilante Flora Dane who, her own survival is knowing how to kill you in more ways than Sunday. Frankie is none of those things. She's an excellent proxy for us, and she's a challenge because of that very reason.
So in her case, she's following missing persons boards online, she's reading articles in the newspaper, and that's what brings her to Wyoming and in One Step Too Far this young man went missing several years ago, his mother is dying of cancer. Her dying wish is to be buried next to her son, so here's the father, the husband kind of - Alright, this is it, and we're gonna have this final push into the wilderness and we're gonna find him. And he's angry and he's determined. And then you have the friends who were last with Timothy O’Day when he disappeared and they’re guilt-stricken and remorseful and hang dog. And then you got the experts and the search and rescue person, the Bigfoot hunter –which turns out, they know a lot more than you think. And Frankie who stumbles upon an article in the paper and was like - So I solve missing person's cases, I can do seven weeks in the wilderness of Wyoming. Within two hours she is really sorry she ever thought. Frankie does not like hiking and camping, and it kind of occurs to her halfway up the mountain that she's not enjoying all of that. What the hell? There's no neighbors to ask questions. Why was I ever thinking I could do this? But of course, this things evolve, but I love that when I go to write the books, when I go to think about it, it's like, Okay, you and me... We're sitting at home right now. What would we do? We have only the resources available to us as everyday, average people. What would you do? Francis, ingeniousness is to Listen, Learn and have empathy.
Mindy: And I think you hit on something that I want to talk about a little bit more, 'cause it's such a rich area. Emotion, all of the different conflicting emotions that revolve around a missing person's case, you mentioned the people that Timothy O’Day was with when he disappeared, they have guilt. You've got the mother who's like, I just need to know what happened, and I have a small window in which to get my answers. And the dad who is angry, and you've got professionals that probably have an amount of frustration and volunteers who are putting themselves out on the line, there's so many different relationships and avenues to develop emotions within your story.
Lisa: I kind of classified One Step Too Far when I was writing it as my official Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None goes on a hike. And it was fun for me because Frankie, we quickly establish, she's not a hiker, she's used to inner city urban environments where minorities, the disenfranchised have been left alone and no one's looking for them. This is her first true, really wilderness remote experience. So she starts to kind of reflect upon, okay, I know I’m in the woods. I have established now I hate hiking and I don't actually like the woods. What do I bring to the table? How do I help this group? Then starting to understand that anything is a human experience, and this party of eight, this group of eight, which she starts to observe, but they're not a group. You’ve got two leaders over here, you got three hikers over there, the groomsmen, and then you got like her and the other two professionals over here. We're gonna have to make this work, and that's kind of Frankie's super power. She's a loner, but she's a people person. Again, she's not there to just kick ass and take names, she's trying to put the pieces together, so she talks, she listens, she learns, and as things continue to go very, very sideways and bad things start to happen, she is the first to really clue in, if we're ever gonna make out of this alive - we're gonna have to become a true group.
Mindy: This group that's not a group is not getting out of the woods any time too, and I love that you tackle that, but also that you yourself are an avid hiker. I am as well. I've always been an outdoors person. One of my recent books is actually a survival story about a girl lost in the smoky mountains by herself. And when I was writing it, first of all, I was cursing myself because it's literally one person alone for 98% of the book. God, every time I sat down to write, I was like - You idiot. But I have been in situations where I wouldn't say I was lost, but I was not prepared. And in the dark and not having overnight gear or lights and in a national forest, which aren't really very well maintained. I've been in situations with weather and storms where I was like, Oh, this could actually be really bad. I was in Maui this past December, when the kona storm went through and there were landslides. When you're in nature, it's like nature doesn't care about your gender, your income, what you look like, who you are, whether you're important, whether you're not. It's going to kill you regardless - especially if you are not either bonding with someone else and helping each other get through or extremely capable.
Lisa: What I love about Frankie in the course of One Step Too Far, she's in this environment that's not her. She's a fish out of water. She's trying to learn, Frankie’s superpower is listening. And I think she struck a chord with readers and reviewers because I think at some fundamental level, all of us recognize we all wanna be heard, but no one knows how to listen. But at a point, it becomes this on-going thing. As you get to a pretty severe survival situation, what you're talking about - food is gone, weather is bad, someone's injured, someone else's injured. What the hell are we gonna do? What is survival? Is it being tough enough? Is it being the biggest badass present? 'cause there are some in the group that will tell you, Yeah, I'm gonna make it through this, 'cause I'm the biggest tough ass in the world. But Frankie’s kinda argument to this is - it's adaptability. I don't know any of this, and I'm not even particularly tough. I have no idea what I'm doing, but I can continue to adapt, adapt, adapt, and think of, Okay, solution A. Solution B. Okay, now I'm on solution X, Y, Z.
I love that, 'cause I think there's a parable in that for all of us. I think a lot of us have spent the past two years of what the hell does it take to get through it? Is it being mentally tougher? Is it being more resilient? Is it being this, is it being that? And I think Frankie, speaking for her, as a character, she's like - I'm not any of those things. I just keep listening, learning, adapting, and somehow I have faith, this is gonna get me through these woods.
Mindy: We live in a world where everyone is looking for … I don't even know if it's 15 minutes of fame anymore, I think it's more like 15 seconds. And you have to be screaming to get the attention and you have to be constantly fighting to keep any number of eyes on you, and it is almost impossible. The actual listening - very few people do. I had an interesting guest on my blog a couple of weeks ago, an author who wrote a guest post, and it was titled Introversion Is My Superpower. I thought it was wonderful because she was talking about how she is not an outgoing person, she's not dancing on tiktok, she's not doing all of the things that you're supposed to do to gain attention, and she's like, I listen and I observe. And that's why I'm a good writer. And that is my goal, is to be a good writer. Not To Be A Good TikToker.
Lisa: The other thing, there's a little bit of backlash, and I think we're getting aware of it, but maybe can't get off the treadmill. It's not for Frankie. She doesn't do social media, but she’s connected. Because if you wanna check boards for missing people and follow some of these cases, you need to. But essentially her issue with life is somewhat the social media day and age where we are surrounded by images that tell us - this is how your life should look, this is what should make you happy. And I think one of the reasons readers and reviewers and fall in love with her is - She's already like, yeah, I tried the norms, I tried to do what everyone tells me I should do, I tried to do that the Instagram post, the Facebook, all it did was make me drink.
If I do this, if I go from town to town, if I just keep moving, if I solve other people's problems, which I know is a cop-out, on some level I get, I should probably solve my own, but at the moment, solving other people's problems that’s what I am capable of. I think she recognizes that, she actually really doesn't know yet how to solve her own problems. Her doing this is giving her purpose, it's giving her momentum, it is keeping her sober, but it's a harder life. She is the outsider in this group, the wedding party, the father, everyone else has some kind of connection to something. She's connected to nothing, and it makes her both powerful and haunted and compelling.
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Mindy: You mentioned something earlier that I want to touch back on because it was something that I wanted to bring up with you, so I'm thrilled that you actually opened the door. You talked about a Bigfoot hunter. Like I said, I have for various reasons, mostly 'cause I am a hiker, and so I am aware of the amount of missing people in public lands is a very real thing people don't necessarily know a lot about. And when you wander into those mysteries and the wilderness mysteries and things like that, one of the very first things you're gonna bump into is Bigfoot theories. One of the main cornerstones for missing people in public lands and in wilderness areas is a show and a series of books called Missing 411. I'm sure you're probably somewhat familiar, but it does focus on assuming maybe that Big Foot or aliens are responsible for all of these experiences. So I always thought it was mildly amusing, but I actually bought a Missing 411 book that was about my area, and I live in Ohio, and I am near a designated wilderness area, not necessarily a park or any halibut, it's a wilderness area.
And there was a case in the 30s of a little boy that disappeared like five miles for me, and I got so freaked out. I had to give the book away, I was like, I can't have this in my house. And so I think it's really interesting because I was a little bit like, amused about all these theories, and I'm not saying that I think Bigfoot is responsible. But what I'm saying is that once I started reading these cases, it was amazing to me, minus the end solution that it's Bigfoot, how much information and how capable many of these researchers are.
Lisa: And that's really the word. So I'm an avid hiker, and I'd read this article about all these people that go missing, no one's looking for... And I'm like, there's a story there. And then we start delving into it deeper, one of kind of crazy real life things, stuff you didn't know–there's not even a national database of all the people that have gone missing on our public lands. Which is staging itself. And in fact the best source of data comes from the North American Bigfoot Association. That's kind of crazy. They are actively engaged in mapping disappearances because anomalies have an interest to them, where a lot of people go missing, maybe that's a sign of activity. But the other thing too, in missing persons cases - And this, again, this is the real world - they’re hikers. Outdoors people, people were into looking for BigFoot... Yes, they're out, they know their mountains and when people go missing, they are often some of the first to step forward and to volunteer their time to be guides. And there's several prominent cases in the Olympic Peninsula where they're still searching, and it is the Big Foot society that's frankly, they're the ones who are still looking for these people. No one else is, but they are, and they play this kind of very legitimate role. I could not help but bring it to the table, so in One Step Too Far, in addition to the Father, the grieving groomsmen and the search dog - we’ve got to talk about Daisy, because we both love dogs. But you’ve also got Bob, the Big Foot Hunter, it's like, I didn't even know I needed a bigfoot hunter as a character, but in trying to research this book, I'm like, Oh, yeah, and the team must include a Bigfoot hunter.
Mindy: It's true, and it's something that when I ran across it as well, because like you, I sniffed it out and I was like, Man, there's stories here. And I ended up digging around a little bit, but like I said, there was one just way too close to my house and I got way too scared and I was like... 'cause I run at night and I run in the morning, And I was just like, I can't, I can't do this. But yeah, it is interesting to me, and again, you have those people that are on the fringes of society, but they're out there doing that work. So you mentioned Daisy, of course, I wanna go back to that. I'm a dog person, I've got my Dalmatian, Gus. He's actually sitting on my feet right now, I mean, I don't know about you, but I will forever be scarred by all Old Yeller and Where the Red Fern Grows. So as the author, when you go into writing a dog what are your thoughts and feelings on that?
Lisa: I'm a huge animal fan in general, particularly dogs, and I've had cats for most of my life and horses, and I do think they make anything better. Anything you experience, a pet makes it better. And I am fascinated by working canines, the ways that dogs can sense, do, feel, things that are far beyond our experience. I had the opportunity 10 years ago or so, to visit the body farm, and it just happened that there was a search and rescue team, canine team there. They were looking for human remains to work on their cadaver recovery, because you're not really allowed to bury body parts in your backyard, it turns out. And just talking to them and the training and the cases - what dogs can find, what dogs can do. Having these forensic scientists, they are saying, Oh, forget all the science in my lab. Your best chance of finding human remains is a dog's nose. And I just love that concept. So of course, if you're doing a search and rescue team in the mountains such as One Step Too Far, you have to have a dog. And one of the things I love about One Step Too Far, is Daisy really is the star. The group actually acknowledges this upfront. They have this rugged mountain guide, who's a local legend. And he is not just from the mountains, he is of the mountains. and even he is like - if we are successful in this mission, it will because of Daisy the dog, it will not be us. As humans, we're not actually very good at hide and seek at all.
Mindy: I run with my dog. My doggy comes with me everywhere, and we run together. If I have the ability, I take him with me on hikes and I always just... You really said it, everything is better with your animals with you.
Lisa: And Daisy is based on a real story. When I was working with this cadaver dog team, they talked about, they had all the pure breeds, the German Shepherd. Purely coincidentally, they were somewhere in South America and Puerto Rico working a mudslide. And they adopted his stray dog, it was just clearly starving, brought her home to be a pet. She became by far their best dog. Just the drive to work, the desire to please... It was actually kind of funny to them 'cause they were trying to keep her separate, like you are a pet. This is our work, and she just wouldn't stay put. She kept intruding into the work exercises and training until they finally started to realize that's really what she wanted to do.
Mindy: Last thing, why don't you let listeners know where they can find you online and where they can get the book One Step Too Far?
Lisa: One Step Too Far will be available any place books are sold, you could find me on Lisa Gardner dot com, on social media, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, LisaGardnerBKS for books.
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