Wright county author Christine Husom has written eight mystery novels and has no plans of stopping. The sixth book in her Winnebago County series and the second in her Snow Globe Shop series were released last fall, and she’s currently working on more. All her books take place in fictional Minnesota towns, although the setting in her head is often Buffalo, her hometown.
Husom’s journey into writing began before she could even read.
“I was always creating stories, and when I started first grade I was excited to learn to read so I could write them down,” Husom explained.
As she grew older she continued to write, mostly plays and poetry. After she started reading romance novels she decided to give the genre a try. She ended up writing two, neither of which was published, but they started her on the path to writing successfully.
“It [writing romance] taught me two things,” Husom said. “I actually could write a whole book, and after a friend in my writing group told me she didn’t think I knew my character, I realized I needed to work on character development.”
After her kids started school, Husom began working as a corrections officer for Wright County, which proved helpful when she began writing mysteries. In 1997 her father, who was in the hospital for pneumonia and due to be released the next day, drowned he had taken a sleep aid, walked out the emergency exit (the alarm never went off) and fell into a holding pond full of rainwater.
A year after her father’s tragedy, she began to think, “What if it wasn’t an accident? What if someone did it?” The first character in her Winnebago County series was created with that thought in mind.
As she began writing Murder in Winnebago County ,Husom wasn’t planning on creating a series, but halfway through she thought, “I really like these characters, I wonder what their next adventure could be?”
The idea for her second book, Buried in Wolf Lake, came from a true crime that happened in the Silver Creek area near Clearwater when a dog came home with a dismembered arm.
“As writers we carry our characters with us,” Husom said. “He [the murderer] was tough for me because he does some really terrible things in that book.”
Husom’s third book, An Alter by the River, is the most chilling in the series, and was patterned after another true crime, this one dealing with abuse victims. She spent six months researching before she even started writing.
“After that book I needed to pull back and not be quite so dark,” Husom said.
Book four, The Noding Field Mystery, takes place in an area somewhere between Maple Lake and Buffalo where a naked man is found in a field with no apparent cause of death. Book five, A Death in Lionel’s Woods, deals with human smuggling and trafficking, and was created after Husom heard of a human trafficking ring that was brought down after a neighbor became suspicious.
“As authors we tend to think ahead, and I thought I’d do hostile action at the nuclear power plant for my sixth book,” Husom said.
The idea didn’t pan out, so when her brother asked her if she’d heard about the car that had been found at the bottom of a lake after 20 years with two people inside it, she knew she had the idea for her next book. Secret in Whitetail Lake was the result.
Around the time she was developing Secret in Whitetail Lake, a book agent was looking for a Minnesota author to write a murder series and contacted her. Husom’s Snow Globe Shop mysteries were born, and to date there are two in the series.
“It’s been a fun new cast of characters,” she said.
Husom’s journey to being published wasn’t easy. She started writing Murder in Winnebago County in 1998, set it aside for a time, and then picked it back up in 2003. She sent it to a number of different agents but none were interested.
Her daughter suggested she enter it in a crime writer book contest. Husom did, and although she didn’t win, through the course of the contest she met her publisher, and the book was finally published in 2008.
“I feel like I’m walking around besides my characters when I’m writing,” Husom explained. “I’m a shadow just following along watching what they’re doing and listening to what they’re saying. Sometimes I have to ask, ‘Why did you do that!’”
Husom’s books can be found at local bookstores, libraries and on Amazon.com.
