Carter, Maureen

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Carter, Maureen

PERSONAL:

Female.

ADDRESSES:

CAREER:

Worked as a newspaper reporter; BRMB radio, Birmingham, England, news reader; twenty years with the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), Birmingham, began as broadcast journalist, became assistant editor; worked in London, England, as a presenter on Newsnight.

WRITINGS:

"BEV MORRISS" CRIME SERIES

Working Girls, Creme de la Crime (Abingdon, England), 2004.

Dead Old, Creme de la Crime (Chesterfield, England), 2005.

Baby Love, Creme de la Crime (Chesterfield, England), 2006.

Hard Time, Creme de la Crime (Chesterfield, England), 2007.

SIDELIGHTS:

Maureen Carter enjoyed a successful career in broadcast journalism before becoming the author of a series featuring Detective Sergeant Bev Morriss. In reviewing Working Girls, the first book in the series, for her blog Rullsenberg Rules, Lisa Rullsenberg noted that Carter exhibits "a real sense of character and a sharp ear for both spoken and internal dialogue." Rullsenberg also commented that "she brings the demands of journalism for spare if still engagingly fluid prose to conveying such a compelling tale without losing sight of what dramatic genre fiction needs. Good plots, convincing settings, internally consistent characterisation." Other characters in the series set in Birmingham, England, include the cocky Detective Inspector Mike Powell.

The third book in the series, Baby Love, finds Bev moving into a new home. She hasn't fully unpacked and her romance with Oz Khan, also a detective, is on shaky ground. She has been taken off of a high-profile rape case and assigned to a baby kidnapping, largely because of her bluntness and uninhibited nature, which is now threatening her career. The single mother of baby Zoe is Natalie Beck, a teen who lives with her mother, Maxine, with whom Bev has a history.

ReviewingTheEvidence.com contributor Sharon Wheeler commented that Carter "writes clean, spare prose which nails both the bleakness of the city and the pressures of Bev's job. The book's conclusion is dark and frightening." "Carter writes like a longtime veteran, with snappy patter and stark narrative," commented David Pitt in Booklist.

Carter told CA: "My years in journalism inform and influence both how I write and what I decide to write about. As both a print and broadcast reporter, I covered hundreds if not thousands of stories, many of them serious crimes. I worked alongside police officers and observed how they operate, and interviewed many detectives, crime victims, grieving relatives, and, less often, criminals. As an author, crime fiction is the perfect genre for me. It allows me to write in depth about issues I formerly covered in, say, a one-and-a-half minute film for TV news. As a reporter I was accustomed to creating arresting openings, structuring stories, writing tightly, editing as I worked and always delivering on deadline. This is how I write now. I set a minimum daily target and don't stop until I've hit it. I adore writing but don't do it for me. I write because I want my books to entertain and give pleasure to readers. I hope my work and the characters I create make readers laugh, cry, and think."