Interview with mystery author Sasscer Hill

My special guest today is mystery author Sasscer Hill to chat with me about her new thriller, Shooting Star.

Bio:
Author Sasscer Hill was involved in horse racing as an amateur jockey and racehorse breeder for most of her life. Her mystery-thrillers portray the world of horse racing, and the skullduggery that big money and gambling so often attract. Her novels have won the Dr. Tony Ryan Best in Racing Literature Award (Flamingo Road) and the Carrie McCray Award (The Dark Side of Town). Her Nikki Latrelle mysteries have also received multiple award nominations for Agatha, Macavity, Claymore, and an additional Dr. Tony Ryan Award.

Travels of Quinn, published in 2020, stepped away from horse racing. Instead, the mystery-thriller revolves around the gypsy con artists known as Irish American Travelers. This novel was a finalist for a Silver Falchion Award for Best Mystery of 2020.

Her new novel, Shooting Star, July 2021, is the Fifth in the award-winning Nikki Latrelle Horse Racing Mystery Series. Nikki is charged with protecting the racehorses used in a movie filmed at Santa Anita Racecourse.

Sasscer lives in Aiken, South Carolina horse country, with her husband, a dog, and a cat.

Welcome, Sasscer. Please tell us about your current release.
When Nikki’s ex-lover Will hires her to protect the horses used to film a movie at Santa Anita Racetrack, she learns evil is alive and well in Hollywood.

Keeping Thoroughbreds safe from a director who doesn’t know a horse from a hamster is tricky. More difficult are the unresolved feelings between her and Will, especially when sexy, young movie star, Jamie Jackson, sets his sights on Nikki.

But when a sniper’s bullet shatters the brain of a cameraman close enough that she can smell his blood, Nikki’s need to protect the film crew overrides everything. Her sleuthing unearths a trail of corruption and when she must lie to Will to protect his life, she’s on her own. Can she identify the evil behind the scenes before she and Will become the next victims?

Shooting Star is the fifth rocket-paced story in the award-winning Nikki Latrelle mystery series. If you like protagonists with heart and courage, unexpected twists, and a thrill ride to the finish, you’ll love Shooting Star.

What inspired you to write this book?
A few years back, HBO produced the ill-fated series, LUCK, starring Dustin Hoffman and Nick Nolte. It was filmed at Santa Anita Racetrack and was a popular show until it was suddenly canceled. Because of my former racing connections, I was able to meet at Santa Anita with the point man who worked with the cast and crew of LUCK. Apparently, he told me, the director and film crew knew little about horses. They’d send the horses out to film a race, and then decide to do another take. Horses started dying from overwork, public outcry grew, and the series was canceled.

Since I’ve written novels about fictional agents who work for the real agency, Thoroughbred Racing Protective Bureau (TRPB), I thought what if a horseracing movie was filmed again? Since the TRPB’s mission is to protect the integrity of horse racing, what if my character was subcontracted to look after the horses used in the movie? And what if one of the crew was murdered? The what ifs kept coming, and before I knew it, I had a multi layered plot for a mystery-thriller.

 

Excerpt from Shooting Star:
The movie camera’s dark eye unnerved me. Like a hungry bird of prey, it swept after me as I raced the horse down Santa Anita’s backstretch.

Knowing the camera, a Panavision Genesis, recorded my every move and facial expression intimidated the hell out of me. So did the truck and crew rolling dangerously close to our side.

Maybe movie stars like Tom Cruise, who loved to do his own stunt work, get used to this stuff. But me, I was glad I was only an extra, used by the director of photography, or DP, to work out his blueprint for shooting scenes in The Final Furlong, a horse racing movie about to be filmed at Santa Anita Park.

Somebody in the truck yelled, “Cut!” The vehicle fell back, and I stood in the stirrups and eased my horse, Daisy Dan. It was the third time we’d shot this scene, and Daisy Dan was tired. The DP, Gabriel Dubois, might be French, stylish, and handsome, but he didn’t know a horse from a hamster.

“Okay, Nikki,” Gabriel yelled, “that’s a wrap. You can take the horse back.”

I sketched a wave and patted the horse’s sweaty neck, relieved he was done for the day. As I held him to a slow jog, he rounded the far turn of the mile-long oval before I pointed him toward the gap that would lead us off the track.

The GMC camera truck sped past us, with Dave, the assistant cameraman at the wheel. The pickup had a crane bolted to its bed. It held the Genesis camera, remotely controlled by Gabriel from the passenger seat.

Dave stopped to let Gabriel out by the grandstand. He was probably going to see his contact at Santa Anita’s special projects office. As Gabriel walked away, Dave circled the vehicle back toward me. Glancing at his profile, he once again struck me as a nervous loner with secrets to hide. He wasn’t the friendliest guy in the movie crew.

Keeping Daisy Dan to a walk, we passed through the gap in the rail, soon leaving the dirt path behind and stepping onto the dirt and gravel of the parking lot. Nearby, Dave rolled in, heading for the base camp, a parking area track management had allotted the studio. The dozen or so trailers for actors, wardrobe, makeup, catering, and camera crew had turned this space into a luxury trailer park.

The air was clear and cool, a dry seventy degrees in February in Arcadia, California. In the distance, the Santa Gabriel mountains rose to meet the golden-blue skyline. No wonder so many people loved living in this state. Except the Arcadia summers were hot and dry, and when the wind blew off the mountains, the forest fires started. I wouldn’t want to be around then.

I rode toward the private gate that allowed us into the limited stable area we’d been given. Nearby, Dave paralleled my path, heading his truck for his parking spot by the trailers.

It was late afternoon, and my scene was the last of the day. Most of the movie people had left or were in their trailers behind closed doors and curtains.

Since it was a “dark,” or non-racing day, the backstretch was quiet. Grooms would reappear closer to five p.m. to give the horses their evening feed, water, and hay. Now, the area was all but deserted. Sensing a change in the air, I glanced at the mountains. A gray cloud bank had built behind them, and its gloomy presence crept toward me and Dave, who’d parked about a hundred yards away.

A muffled, but sharp pop zinged past me. My gaze swept to the sound of shattering glass. Dave in the camera truck. Blood blossoming from the side of his head.

Horrified, I stared as red gore splattered and spread across the inside of the passenger window. Dave’s form slumped and slid sideways toward the passenger door, finally disappearing from my sight.

 

What exciting story are you working on next?
I’ve just started the sequel to Travels of Quinn, a mystery-thriller about the Irish American con artists who live in a sequestered area called Murphy Village not far from where I live in South Carolina. Travels of Quinn became a finalist for the Silver Falchion Award for Best Mystery of 2020.

The Irish American Travelers are an insular and secretive society where the girls are locked into marriage contracts at an early age. Children are pulled out of school no later than the eighth grade. What if, I thought, one of these girls wanted out? What if even though she would be ostracized from her family and everything that was familiar, she still yearned for a different way of life? What if her mother, Jennifer, had been an educated outsider who’d fallen in love with Quinn’s father, a handsome and charismatic con artist? What if Jennifer had abandoned Quinn and disappeared when Quinn was only two?

The sequel will be called, Where is Jennifer? The opening lines might be, “My mother abandoned me when I was two-years-old. I still haven’t found her.” Quinn’s search for her mother will become a perilous journey that will take her from the Southern, horse town of Aiken, South Carolina to her first glimpse of big city life in Washington, D.C. It will be a story of the greed, treachery, and murder that threaten Quinn on a quest driven by hope.

When did you first consider yourself a writer?
As a child I loved horses, action, and adventure. Naturally, I discovered the Walter Farley’s Black Stallion books and became addicted to them as soon as I could read. In the fifth grade our teacher asked my class to write a story. I wrote a scene with a boy and an old man trailering a horse to the races. Something was wrong and the boy was worried. That’s all I remember. But I do remember this – after the teacher had me read it to the class, several kids asked, “What happens next?”

There is no greater compliment a writer can get than to have that question asked, and I knew I had something.

Do you write full-time? If so, what’s your workday like? If not, what do you do other than write and how do you find time to write?
Sadly, no author can write fiction full time. A third of my time is spent working on promotion and publicity. A third is spent writing, and the rest is spent on house chores and working with my young dog to keep us both exercised and healthy.

What would you say is your interesting writing quirk?
Removing my cat from my keyboard.

As a child, what did you want to be when you grew up? 
I wanted to be free and not stuck in an office job, which of course is exactlywhere I ended up initially. I was very fortunate to be able to leave the office world, raise racehorses, and start my first novel.

Anything additional you want to share with the readers?
The major themes that run through my books are chasing the dream, fighting the odds, and helping the helpless. My mantra is, “You get what you give.”

Links:
Website | Amazon Author Page | Goodreads | Facebook author page | Bookbub  

Thanks for joining me today, Sasscer.