'Kind' of an obsession: Writer continues mystery series set in Thousand Islands with 4th novel
Dec. 17—At a Darien, Conn., book signing and launch party on Dec. 6, the day the fourth novel in her New York State police detective Shana Merchant series was released, author Tessa Wegert took an intriguing question from a curious fan of the books.
"In so many crime fiction novels, thrillers and mysteries, a lot of the victims are women," Ms. Wegert said the day after the signing in a phone interview from her Connecticut home. "The question was: 'Do I feel that I'm perpetuating violence against women in some way because some of the victims in my books are women as well?'"
"First of all, that's just the sad reality," Ms. Wegert said. "The vast majority of victims of serial killers are women. But I wanted to portray this scenario as realistically as possible. I made a conscious decision to create this protagonist and this investigator who has a vulnerable side and had been a victim herself, and therefore could emphasize with other victims as she investigates these crimes."
Like her past three books in the series, Shana Merchant, the fictional former New York City Police Department detective and now a senior investigator with New York State Police, is caught up in homicide cases in the Thousand Islands/Alexandria Bay area as she battles her own personal demons amid her own memories of a previous abduction.
Ms. Wegert's new novel, "The Kind To Kill," can stand on its own if it's the only one read in the series, but taken together, the four novels follow the protagonist's journey in how she became who she is: someone determined to crack cases regardless of personal peril, panic attacks and community rumor mills.
Through it all, in "The Kind To Kill," and other novels in the series, the Thousand Islands area is the backdrop. In her new novel, Ms. Wegert weaves various landmarks, businesses and events from the region into the story, from the Thousand Islands International Bridge to the newsroom of the Watertown Daily Times. Alexandria Bay's annual Pirate Days festival is also key to the plot of the new book, where the mystery begins with the cell phone of a missing woman discovered near the Thousand Islands International Bridge.
"I'm a curse to this place," Shana says early on in the new novel, believing she was exposed as a traitor — a "Judas Iscariot in State Police gear."
"She's come to this small community, where she was an outsider from the start," Ms. Wegert said. "She's still finding her footing in this new place. Now on top of all that, she feels a little bit like an outcast, a pariah because she's been tasked with protecting this community. Instead, maybe she feels like she's responsible for bringing all of this crime and ruin into this formerly very peaceful town."
Shana often breaks the rules as she investigates.
"I hope what I'm able to do is balance out the female victims with this kind of bad ass female investigator who will stop at nothing, who will defend these women and seek justice for the crimes committed against them," Ms. Wegert said.
The prologue of "The Kind To Kill" flashes back to never-revealed details of the abduction and imprisonment of Shana that has led to her career path first plotted out in Ms. Wegert's first novel in the series, "Death in the Family," released in 2020. In the prologue, readers discover the full extent of the trauma caused by Shana's abduction and imprisonment by a serial killer.
"I didn't ever intend to get into the details of her abduction," Ms. Wegert said. "When I wrote the very first book, I wrote it as a stand-alone and there was a lot about what happened during that abduction experience when she was still a New York Police Department detective that I didn't plan to ever unpack. I expected it to be one book, not a kick-off to a series. But as I continued to work on the series and write subsequent books, I did think about the possibility of revisiting that, even from the killer's point of view. But when it came to writing this book, it felt like the time to kind of tease out the details of what really happened to her there."
Ms. Wegert said she had to figure out a way of how to make Bram, the one who abducted Shana, a big part of her life, despite developments in the third book of the series, "Dead Wind," released early this year.
"This seemed like a good way to do it, to flash back to the abduction, her escape and her outlook on his crime, and to use these new crimes, which she believes are copycat crimes, to understand more about him and the role that he will always play in her life."
In "The Kind To Kill," Ms. Wegert looks at the crime of homicide from all angles, especially the personal worlds left in ruins.
"A big theme in this book is what it's like to be not only a family member of a victim of a violent crime, but also a family member related to the criminal," Ms. Wegert said.
The author gets upset at times with world of "true crime entertainment." But she understands the attraction.
"This is the darkest side of human nature," Ms. Wegert said. "But at the same time, every time I read a book that's based on a true story or watch a documentary series based on a true crime, I always feel a little uncomfortable with it because I always wonder not only about the families of the victims, but the families of the killers."
The author was often left wondering about those relatives of killers: "How this must be for them."
"Are they getting some of the blame for what their blood relative did, even if they had nothing to do with it and people assume the apple doesn't fall very far from the tree?" Ms. Wegert said. "That was an interesting concept I wanted to explore in this book, because, of course, Shana is related to a serial killer and that has a major impact on not only the way she investigates and the way she does her job, but also her family and her relationships, and even her relationship with her partner-turned-love-interest."
intrigued, inspired
Ms. Wegert, who grew up in Quebec, has been coming to the Thousand Islands as a seasonal visitor for about two decades after her husband introduced her to the area. The remoteness and history of the area intrigued the writer, who had nonfiction work published in Forbes, Adweek, The Economist and other publications.
A few days before "The Kind To Kill," was due to publisher Severn House, Ms. Wegert hit a slight snag relating to her St. Lawrence River setting and plot line.
The novel features an upscale inn on an island, inspired by the Carleton Island Villa off Cape Vincent. The long-abandoned mansion is on the southwestern head of the island — a hammerhead known as Government Point. It's been vacant for more than seven decades and had been on the market for years.
"Carleton Island is a place that had been on my radar for quite a while, and as I was thinking about areas that I wanted to highlight in the new book, that island, and that derelict mansion that sits on the edge of the water came to mind,' Ms. Wegert said. "It just had this Gothic quality to it and seemed like such a perfect place for me to re-imagine as something else for the purpose of the story. So, I decided it would become a bed an breakfast, an inn, and went about the process of writing."
When Ms. Wegert selects such real-life locations, she tries to convey them "very closely to what they are in reality."
"I wouldn't ever want, especially if it was someone's business or home, to offend or upset anyone by having a crime occur, even through it's fiction, in a real-life place like that," she said. "Whenever I have a crime occur at a location in a book that's based on a real place, I change the name or change some of the characteristics so there's a bit of separation there."
Because the Carleton Island mansion had been vacant for so many years, Ms. Wegert didn't anticipate an issue.
In her final check of the "The Kind To Kill' manuscript, she double-checked a Carleton Island-related fact by Googling it. In doing so, she discovered that two days earlier, the mansion had been sold to someone who intended to bring it back to life as an inn. She had no time to contact the new owner and to explain her plot relating to Carleton Island and the inn she imagined there.
Over the summer, the building was sold by Charles and William Millar to Ronald Clapp, a real estate investor. He told the Times he wanted to see the building brought back to its former glory, "or something even beyond that."
"Out of respect to the property developer, I changed the name of the island to Carlson Island at the very last minute — the 11th hour, just to create some distance," Ms. Wegert said.
The island with its once-forgotten property is one example of the vast canvass of creativity the novelist finds in the Thousand Islands. It has inspired a fifth book in the Shana Merchant series, scheduled for release last next year.
"The problem I have is not coming up with ideas, it's narrowing down the ideas to decide what I'm actually going to do," Ms. Wegert said. "There are so many scenarios that can play out in the area. It's so rich with opportunities. It's making a decision of what the crime will be and what the story will involve. But it's also a fun challenge."
Ms. Wegert said that when she began the first book in the series, she couldn't have imagined that the fifth one would now be on the way.
"But every time I start a new book, it's like spending time with an old friend, because I know this character so well at this point. After the fifth book, I'm not so sure. I definitely have ideas for more books in the series. It all depends on my publisher. But if readers continue to enjoy the series, I'd certainly love to continue to write it."
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The details — WHAT: "The Kind To Kill," by Tessa Wegert, the fourth novel in the Shana Merchant mystery series. — PUBLISHER: Severn House. — SYNOPSIS: "Shana just wants to get on with her life and win back her community's trust. But as Alexandria Bay fill up with tourists in advance of Pirate Days, a visitor goes missing and the case threatens to destroy not just the celebrations, but what remains of Shana's reputation." — A CRITIC'S VIEW: "The complex plot and subtle characterizations elevate this above similar fare. Wegert remains a writer to watch." — PRICE: $29.99, hardcover. Ebook, $24.99. — WHERE AVAILABLE: Signed copies of "The Kind To Kill" and other books in the series are available at The Little Book Store locations in Clayton and Watertown. The books are also available online.
