Kathleen Kent
I grew up in Texas, but lived and worked in New York for twenty years. Upon returning to Dallas, I found that I was enchanted and, at times, baffled by the rich cultural soup of my reclaimed city, with its cowboys and Confederate Army re-enactors standing toe-to-toe with wealthy bankers and society doyens. I knew that someday I’d want to write about this city of contradictions. The heroine of my new contemporary crime novel, THE DIME, was developed in part from my personal experiences with members of my family who are in law enforcement, and my growing admiration for the female police officers who are forced to confront “the way things are done in the South.” It was immensely fun to develop a fearless female character who stands up for herself, and for all women, and to bring to life the sprawling, fractious city known to Dallas locals as Big D.
Kathleen Kent is the author of two best-selling novels, THE HERETIC’S DAUGHTER, for which she
received the David J. Langum Sr. award for American Historical Fiction, and THE TRAITOR’S WIFE (published in hardcover as THE WOLVES OF ANDOVER). Her most recent historical fiction novel, THE OUTCASTS, was awarded the American Library Association’s “Top Pick” Historical Fiction in 2014 as well as being the recipient of a Will Rogers Medallion award for Western fiction. She has completed her fourth novel, THE DIME, based on a short story published in the crime anthology Dallas Noir. Her novels are collectively published in 16 countries. Most of the books that have influenced and touched me the most are historical fiction. When I was a child I read a lot of Dickens, Poe and James Michener. And I have read everything by Annie Dillard, Larry McMurtry and Cormac McCarthy. Some of my more recent favorites are Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier, A Reliable Wife by Robert Goolrick, and The Son by Philipp Meyer.
