I learned journalism basics at Michigan State University; later there were a couple good years at Queens University of Charlotte in North Carolina, where I grappled with new ways to tell true stories. Fact: I'm not above confessing my petty crimes and bad decisions in memoir.
But my meat-and-potatoes is crime reporting. My first books examined three unsolved murders, including a stranger-than-fiction wrongful conviction case, the New York Times bestseller, Wicked Takes the Witness Stand.
In my hometown they've been publishing a newspaper, the Traverse City Record-Eagle, for 165 years. It's delivered daily to readers in the wilds of northern Michigan where snow sometimes drifts over our mailboxes. The newspaper employs one investigative reporter. Me.
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Beginnings matter. I'm a Detroit baby — it's complicated — and I'm still trying to solve my own personal mystery. In the meantime, Go Lions.
