WHEAT, Carolyn 1946-

PERSONAL: Born August 8, 1946, in Green Bay, WI; daughter of Lawrence (an engineer) and Mary (a librarian; maiden name, Sensiba) Wheat. Ethnicity: "Irish-Dutch." Education: University of Toledo, B.A., 1968, J.D., 1971. Religion: "None." Hobbies and other interests: Reading, writing, and talking about mysteries; just learning to work with stained glass.

ADDRESSES: Offıce—University of California, San Diego Extension, La Jolla, CA 92093. Agent—Ellen Geiger, Curtis Brown Literary Agency, 10 Astor Pl., New York, NY 10003.

CAREER: New York City Police Department, New York, NY, staff attorney 1987-91; Brooklyn Law School, Brooklyn, NY, legal writing instructor, 1991-94; University of Central Oklahoma, Edmond, OK, artist-in-residence, 1995-96; University of California, San Diego Extension, instructor in creative writing.

MEMBER: Mystery Writers of America; Sisters in Crime; American Crime Writers League; International Association of Crime Writers.

AWARDS, HONORS: Edgar Award nomination, 1984, for Dead Man's Thoughts; Macavity Award nomination for story "Life, for Short."

WRITINGS:

MYSTERY FICTION

Dead Man's Thoughts, St. Martin's (New York, NY), 1983.

Where Nobody Dies, St. Martin's (New York, NY), 1986.

Fresh Kills, Berkley (New York, NY), 1995.

Mean Streak, Berkley (New York, NY), 1996.

Troubled Waters, Berkley Prime Crime (New York, NY), 1997.

Sworn to Defend, Berkley Prime Crime (New York, NY), 1998.

Tales out of School: Mystery Stories, Crippen & Landru Publishers (Norfolk, VA), 2000.

NONFICTION

How to Write Killer Fiction: The Funhouse of Mystery and the Roller Coaster of Suspense, John Daniel (Santa Barbara, CA), 2003.

EDITOR

Murder on Route 66, Berkley Prime Crime (New York, NY), 1999.

Women Before the Bench, Berkley Prime Crime (New York, NY), 2001.

SIDELIGHTS: Mystery writer Carolyn Wheat spent years as a staff attorney for the New York City Police Department before putting the knowledge she gained there to work in her novels. All of Wheat's mystery titles, including Where Nobody Dies, Dead Man's Thoughts, Fresh Kills, and Mean Streak—feature the same protagonist, attorney Cassandra "Cass" Jameson. Typically, Cass finds herself investigating a crime that rises out of one of her court cases, sometimes at peril to her own life. Tough yet nurturing, she is not stubborn about asking for help from male friends when she finds herself in a tense situation. Wheat has been commended for tackling sensitive issues in her fiction, from gay-bashing in Dead Man's Thoughts to adoption in Fresh Kills. Booklist correspondent Stephanie Zvirin noted that Wheat's novels boast "a well-sketched cast of characters" and "the resourceful yet ambivalent and vulnerable Cass."

A contributor to the St. James Guide to Crime and Mystery Writers observed: "Wheat . . . portrays vividly and with authority the sights and sounds of criminal law courts and characters of the lawyers practicing there. Wheat's style of writing is satisfying to readers for whom the imagery of language is important. The colorful phrases, the description that provides a new image of something familiar . . . and the dialogue that can sculpt a character in a few lines add pleasure to reading these books."

Fresh Kills finds Jameson involved in a distasteful legal capacity surrounding a suspicious adoption. She suspects the birth mother, Amber, may be exploiting possible adoptive parents for maximum monetary gain when she changes her mind about giving up her baby right at the end of her legal right to do so. The plot thickens when Amber is found dead and her baby is discovered to be missing. A New York Times Book Review critic complimented Wheat on her "remarkably thorough and sensitive job of dealing with the emotionally charged issue of adoption," while a Mystery News reviewer asserted that "you won't be able to keep from turning the pages just to find out what in the hell Cass has gotten herself into this time, and how it will all play out." John F. Harvey in Armchair Detective noted that "the continuation of previous adventures of Cass Jameson, lawyer-detective, is certainly welcome. The book is well done in almost every way."

In Troubled Waters the past comes back to haunt Cass and her brother, Ron. When a wanted radical gives herself up after fourteen years on the run to face charges of killing a federal officer, Cass's brother faces related charges. The reader learns of the radicals' actions in the 1960s and the 1980s through a series of flashbacks as Cass seeks to keep her quadriplegic brother—a Vietnam veteran—out of jail. Stephanie Zvirin in Booklist felt that the novel's dynamics "capture the energy and commitment of times gone by." A Publishers Weekly reviewer likewise praised the work for its "long hard look at the idealism of the 1960s." In Library Journal, Rex E. Klett concluded that Troubled Waters "is well focused and crisply written."

Every criminal lawyer's worst nightmare is to overturn a conviction of a seemingly innocent person who turns out to have a closet full of skeletons. This is Cass's dilemma in Sworn to Defend. When she is able to secure a reverse of Keith Jernigan's conviction, she feels that she has helped an innocent man get out of jail. But soon she learns of Jernigan's past as a stalker as she fears that she is being targeted for murder. A Publishers Weekly reviewer deemed the book a "complex page-turner" and "fast-paced novel."

In addition to her full-length works, Wheat has published a collection of her own short stories and has edited two other collections by women writers. Her book Tales out of School offers nineteen crime stories featuring beat cops and detectives alike. In Booklist, Jenny McLarin commented that the author's skill in "concocting fascinating plots and memorable characters" in the space of a short story "is truly remarkable."

Wheat once told CA: "I write mysteries because I read mysteries. I read mysteries because I love them; I'm fortunate and thrilled to be reading and writing in the genre during what everyone has begun to call 'the Second Golden Age of the mystery.'

"I write about a criminal defense lawyer in Brooklyn, New York, because I was a criminal defense lawyer in Brooklyn. This seems to imply that I have no imagination. I do—but I also find that I'm at least as influenced by real life as I am by my fellow writers. I'm fascinated by legal issues that create a large impact on the lives of ordinary people, issues such as adoption, which forms the basis for my third mystery, Fresh Kills.

"As to my writing process, I have a long gestation period (like an elephant). I am a great believer in revision; in my capacity as artist in residence at the University of Central Oklahoma, I'm teaching a course in novel-writing that focuses on the revision process as critical to the success of the finished novel."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

BOOKS

St. James Guide to Crime and Mystery Writers, 4th edition, St. James (Detroit, MI), 1996.

PERIODICALS

Armchair Detective, 1995, pp. 342-343.

Booklist, July, 1997, Stephanie Zvirin, review of Troubled Waters, p. 1805; June 1, 1998, Stephanie Zvirin, review of Sworn to Defend, p. 1736; December 15, 2000, Jenny McLarin, review of Tales out of School, p. 793.

Library Journal, July, 1997, Rex E. Klett, review of Troubled Waters, p. 131.

Mystery News, June-July, 1995.

New York Times Book Review, July 16, 1995; August 10, 1997, review of Troubled Waters, p. 18; September 27, 1998, Marilyn Stasio, review of Sworn to Defend, p. 26.

Publishers Weekly, May 26, 1997, review of Troubled Waters, p. 70; May 25, 1998, review of Sworn to Defend, p. 67; February 12, 2001, review of Women before the Bench, p. 185.*