Karin Salvalaggio discusses why she wrote Burnt River

“Burnt River” is the second installment in Karin Salvalaggio’s Macy Greeley Mystery series. In this interview, Karin Salvalaggio reveals how her nomadic childhood as the daughter of a career military man influences her current-day writing.

“My writing is cinematic,” said Salvalaggio. “I start with an image in my head and the camera begins to roll. My books are set on the borders of the Glacier National Park so there is often a dramatic landscape at the heart of an opening scene.”

One of the reasons Salvalaggio begins her novels with a sense of place is that she moved—a lot—as a child. Karin Salvalaggio’s father was on a military salary, which meant they couldn’t afford commercial flights.

“Whenever he was transferred to a new location, we packed up the family station wagon and drove there. Along the way we stayed in crappy motels next to interstate highways where ice machines whined through the night and locals scowled at us by day. We played ‘I Spy’ and collected different state license plates for hours on end.

“We travelled the Alcan Highway all the way to Alaska in the middle of winter, covered both coastlines and crisscrossed the continental United States multiple times. Most of the time I was stuck in the backseat with my two brothers and the family dog where there was nothing but books, passing scenery and fending off rampant teasing to occupy my mind. We pulled into gas stations, fast food restaurants and rest stops with the precision of a Formula One pit crew.”

Despite all their experience, there were still a few mishaps along the way—cars in ditches and one child left behind—which happened to be Salvalaggio. With so much travel as part of a military family and living on military bases in her background, is it any wonder that homecomings have become a theme Karin Salvalaggio writes about?

“Homecoming is a recurrent theme in my work and given my books are set in Montana where the number of retired military personnel is higher than the national average, it’s hardly surprising that I chose to write about war veterans. Addressing the difficult issues they sometimes face when returning to civilian life was an inevitable consequence of this choice, but I would like to stress that ‘Burnt River’ is first and foremost a thriller.”

Karin Salvalaggio said that when she started writing “Burnt River,” she didn’t realize it would evolve into a full-length novel. “I set up a point of tension, added a cast of characters who are living on the edge, and threw in an inciting incident. After that I pretty much let the book take me wherever it wanted to go.”

Part of that path involved research, which Salvalaggio loves to do. “I’m incredibly curious, but chasing down the sources listed within the text of articles is time consuming. It’s worth it as following these leads has sometimes turned up information I would have never found if I’d stuck to the first source I came across.”

Another element of writing that Salvalaggio enjoys is exploring points of view outside the realm of her experience. “I feel an immense sense of satisfaction at having written ‘Burnt River,’ but I’m not sure I actually enjoyed writing it. Some of my characters were struggling with complex psychological traumas and immersing myself in their mindsets meant I spent a lot of time with some very dark thoughts rolling around in my head. Not only did I write from an ex-soldier’s point of view but also a recovering drug addict’s.

“I researched, I cried, I researched some more, I cried a lot more and then I put it all away for a while because I needed some distance. In the end I wrote what was in my heart, at times digging up my own emotional traumas and reconfiguring them to my character’s experiences. It was one of the most intense experiences of my life.”

Karin Salvalaggio also indicated she’s concerned about becoming a “Jack of all trades, master of none.” She said, “I’d like to think it makes me more interesting to sit next to at dinner parties! After all, how many other guests are going to know how to cook up a batch of meth, make a homemade bomb, prescribe the perfect painkiller and give advice on how best to cover up a murder?”