Cold Case In Ellyson

Someone asked me if the character “Joe” was based on a real person. He is. Today my former partner “Joe” is employed by the FBI still based in the South. We still keep in touch; he came over for dessert last Christmas. “Joe” is not only a good friend, but he is also an excellent […]

When you work for a small department like I did, most of the time there are only two patrol officers on duty. I was fortunate to have a like-minded partner. Neither one of us cared much about minor speeding violations or blinker usage. Our interest was in finding bad guys – users, dealers, felons. And […]

I’m not a big person – I know that. I’m rather short, not fat – just proportional. I guess that’s why so many people are shocked that I used to be a police officer. I had tools, of course, to level the playing field on the job, but most often my words were able to […]

Someone asked me if the scene of the chase through the woods with the K9 was true or not. You bet. It was a surreal night, almost exactly as I wrote it. I consider myself an adrenaline junky, and that search met all my heart-racing needs…

Did you know that to carry pepper spray in Florida as a police office, you must first be sprayed with it? When I joined my department, two men and I met in street clothes and old T-shirts for the “blessing.” Each of us had a bucket of cold water with which to rinse. We each […]

Well, I am. And I have  a book to prove it.  It’s called Cold Case in Ellyson.  Why “Cold Case?” In my varied life’s experiences, I was a cop in a small town. Why “Ellyson?” It’s an area near where I grew up in the South.  And what makes me a writer?  I’ve always had […]

Susan Anderson’s carefully crafted tale of an unsolved murder in an old-fashioned town with old-fashioned secrets is as nostalgic as it is ominous. Personally, I wouldn’t be caught dead in the town of Ellyson. Then again, maybe I would… – Taylor Mali – one of the original poets to appear on the HBO original series […]

Her prose reveals an intimacy with the South that can’t be faked, and this authenticity is part of what enables her to move so fluidly between gorgeous sensory images and scenes of horrifying emotional power. Also, it’s always nice when a crime writer actually understands police work. . . . Susan Anderson is a natural […]

As a new police officer, there is obviously a period of training before you’re let loose on the streets. One day I was riding with my FTO (field training officer). We were in one of the more questionable areas of town. My FTO (I’ll call him Bob) drove up to a group of men, one […]