Thrilling suspense

Olalla author uses peninsula as setting for his latest novel

Brian McLean

of the Gateway

High up on a hill in Olalla, where scenes of the Pacific Northwest play out over the Puget Sound, Gregg Olsen grabbed a table knife from his kitchen and ripped into a cardboard box. The masking tape tore under the pressure and revealed the author’s latest prize, “Victim Six,” a serial-killer thriller set in locations in Kitsap County and the Key Peninsula.

“This one is really crucial,” Olsen said. “I really need to step it up, and I don’t know what’s going to happen.”

Olsen has an advantage over his fiction-writing contemporaries, because his past success likely will draw readers who are familiar with his work to his latest books.

Even if he made his name in a different genre: true crime.

Olsen became nationally known for his non-fiction books, such as “Starvation Heights: A True Story of Murder and Malice in the Woods of the Pacific Northwest” in 1997, and “If Loving You is Wrong: The Shocking True Story of Mary Kay Letourneau” in 1999.

Another title, “Abandoned Prayers: The Incredible True Story of Murder, Obsession and Amish Secrets,” debuted in 1990 and peaked at No. 7 on the New York Times bestseller list in 2003.

While Olsen’s serial-killer-thriller style is similar to the gut-wrenching true stories he’s told in the past, he said there’s one important distinction between the two: longevity.

“Novels come and go, but when you’re in a genre as tight as true crime is, you can stay out there a while,” Olsen said.

Often, it’s Olsen himself, providing media-related content to delve into the deeper meaning behind an actual case. Olsen has appeared on dozens of TV shows, including educational programming for the History Channel, the Learning Channel and the Discovery Channel.

Yet, if he relied solely on fiction, Olsen said people wouldn’t recognize him on the street.

“If I can keep both sides going, then I can really do something,” he said.

Olsen, a Seattle native, studied to be a newspaper reporter while he was in college at Western Washington University in Bellingham. There was just one thing about it he didn’t like.

“I never thought I could work at a newspaper because I thought it would be too hard,” he said. “I never thought I could run around, do all the things they do.”

But he loved crime: Watching it, reading it, learning about why someone committed it. And the people on which he focused were so intriguing that readers found his books difficult to put down.

“I got cases that seemed to catch a little fire and get momentum,” Olsen said.

While he gathered information about his subjects, he spoke to those involved: Investigators, family members and the perpetrators.

After a while, Olsen understood how cases were built.

Four years ago, despite his fear of straying from what he knows best, Olsen wrote his first fiction book, “A Wicked Snow.”

The larger audience for mass-market fiction led to a three-title deal with Kensington Publishing Corp. in New York, and Olsen began to reach a new set of readers.

“Because I know crime now — the cops, the coroners, and I understand how it works — I can characterize these people,” Olsen said.

There are still differences between the genres, though. With true crime, Olsen only writes a proposal to his other publisher, St. Martin’s Press in New York. With fiction — at least for the first one — he had to write the entire novel.

True crime also takes a lot longer to compile, usually a year to research and another year to write, he said. Olsen’s fiction books have been scheduled for one every 12 months. He earned a second deal with Kensington that will take him through 2012.

“A book a year is really hard to do, but that once-a-year cycle is really important,” Olsen said. “If you wait too long, your audience won’t come with you.”

The psychology is different, too — even between mysteries and thrillers.

“With serial-killer thrillers, you often know who the killer is,” Olsen said. “But it’s about who’s in danger. The clock is ticking; will they get there fast enough?”

“Victim Six,” published Jan. 26, is Olsen’s fourth fiction book. It’s also Kensington’s lead title nationwide, so contracted bookstores will have it on display in a prominent location.

Olsen hopes it can crack the New York Times bestseller list so he can become one of very few authors to have accomplished the feat in both genres.

This time, Olsen has described the actual locations of the Kitsap County Sheriff’s and Coroner’s offices, but he’s added fictional crimes.

The Key Peninsula, he said, adds an interesting aspect to the story.

“What a perfect place for a serial killer to hide,” Olsen said. “They could be at the end of some dead-end road, off in their trailer, and nobody could know where they live. And they could hide.

“It’s dark and gloomy some of the time,” he said. “I can imagine a serial killer living out here.”

GREGG OLSEN

VICTIM SIX

Book signing at Borders

Gregg Olsen, a New York Times bestselling author who lives in Olalla, will sign copies of his fourth serial-killer thriller, “Victim Six,” (Pinnacle, mass market paperback, $7.99) at 3:30 p.m. Saturday at Borders, 4601 Point Fosdick Drive in Gig Harbor.

Olsen may be better known for his true crime books, which include “Starvation Heights,” based in Olalla, and “Abandoned Prayers,” which peaked at No. 7 on the New York Times bestseller list in 2003 — 13 years after it was initially released.

Olsen’s eighth true crime book, “A Twisted Faith,” based on a case on Bainbridge Island, is scheduled to be released March 30.

Olsen is proud of the original research that went into the case, especially because it’s his first true-crime book in the past 11 years.

“This is my comeback,” he said. “If you’re going to ask people to spend $28, you better give them something they can’t get anywhere else.”

Editor Brian McLean can be reached at 253-853-9245 or by e-mail at brian.mclean@gateline.com.