Lara Bello is being followed. No one believes her. Lara's had
only one showing of her art work and she's letting her ego get
the best of her. Why would anyone want to follow her?
Lara's husband, Sgt. Tony Bello of the NYPD works Central
Park with his bicycle-mounted team. He has his own problems.
Homeless people are turning up dead. What bothers him is that the Angel
of Death, as the homeless call him, feeds his victims well and
gives them top shelf liquor - something his homeless victims
could never afford. But the liquor is laced with barbiturates and
the victims are lovingly covered with a warm blanket to keep them
from freezing as the drugs take effect and they drift peacefully
into Death's waiting arms. What's worse, the killer asks for
Sgt. Bello by name and will deal only with him. The political
animals on the force are up in arms, but they have to bow to the
killer's whims in order to catch him.
While Tony deals with the killer Lara's stalker slowly makes
himself known and sends Lara and her sons, David and the twins,
onto the road to terror and straight into a trap within a trap.
Judith Woolcock Colombo moves from one character to another,
dividing their points of view in separate chapters. What at once
seems a story about characters caught in the disturbed mind of a
stalker changes into a tale that carries the characters into
anxiety, fear, and ultimately into direct conflict with their
nightmares and worst fears. Readers find their beliefs stretched
as they question the nature and quality of reality.
Night Crimes is a far different world than the one that
springs to life in The Fablesinger, both of which bear the
unmistakable stamp of Colombo's personality and views. In The
Fablesinger Colombo positions a modern young African woman
from a wealthy family squarely in the center of an older world of
spirits and magic. Night Crimes is as modern as the
headlines of your hometown newspaper and as familiar as your own
front steps and therefore carries the ring of truth and the
unmistakable stamp of fear. The reader will check all the doors
and windows before shutting off the lights.
Night Crimes is Colombo's second novel and grew out of
her own experiences of being followed home from the subway one
night by ".a crazy man." Her husband, Vincent, a sergeant
with the NYPD, told her there was nothing he could do ".because
it [is] not illegal to follow a woman home." The man would not
be prosecuted, but he stayed in Colombo's mind and the
experience grew into Night Crimes.
When asked about her experience with publishing, Colombo stated
she had been writing ".since age ten. I wrote my first full
length novel at fourteen. It took up about ten of my math exercise
books; that's almost two hundred pages. You would have to threaten
the life of my only child to get me to show it to you. Even then,
I would have to think about it."
From those early beginnings Colombo went on to write The
Fablesinger, which was published in spring 1989 by the
Crossing Press - a then small and now medium sized publishing
house. When Crossing Press moved from upstate New York to
California they discontinued their fiction line and the rights
reverted back to Colombo who offered the book to iUniverse, a POD
(publish on demand) house, in June 2001. Authors' Guild and
Backinprint.com edition paid iUniverse to republish the book.
Colombo did not have much interaction with her editors on
either book, except for a request to make the transition between
chapters two and three of The Fablesinger better and to
make the ending tighter. Since her editor and publisher were the
same Colombo found her easier to talk to. With Night Crimes, she
had no interaction with the editors until the galleys were sent.
Colombo was told to look the galleys over and make any changes.
"I went over the manuscript and made changes, mostly minor,
expecting the editor to then make her own changes and send it
back. She did not. I [saw] some typos after I sent in the book and
emailed [the editor] about them. I don't think they were
corrected."
Colombo's experience in getting Night Crimes published
was different. ".I attended a "Meet The Agent[s] Conference"
in 1999 sponsored by The International Women's Writing Group. I
listened to agent after agent say they were not taking new or
unknown writers at the moment and that the best bet was to try a
publisher directly." Undaunted, Colombo queried agents and
publishers and was rewarded with an invitation to submit the
manuscript. The manuscript was accepted by Erica House of AmErica
House in 2000. Colombo was unaware they were a POD, stating, "Nothing
on their website in 2000 specified that."
When asked if she would consider sending her latest mystery
manuscript to another POD publisher Colombo said, "In
retrospect, I probably should have tried harder to get an agent or
tried for a non-POD publisher. With a POD publisher all the work
for publicizing the book is up to [the author] and most bookstores
won't carry the book because the publisher does not accept
returns."
Colombo has high hopes for her second mystery and is currently
seeking an agent. She hasn't given up. And her advice for
authors still struggling with the labyrinthine workings of
publishing? "Don't write to please someone else.please
you[rself.] [B]e prepared to work hard to promote [your
]books."
The proof is in black and white in Night Crimes and The
Fablesinger. ".[W]rite what you love, what you know, and
what you like to read.and do it well."
