Publication Date: September 9, 2025
In the peaceful California coast city of Playa Maria, CRIME WRITER ZOEY KOZINSKI joins a local police officer for a ride-along in hopes of breaking through her writer’s block. But during a routine traffic stop, the cop is shot, the victim of a brutal homicide.
Zoey realizes she is the only witness and the number one target on the killer’s hit list. PTSD kicks in, sending her into a tailspin. It doesn’t help that she lives on an illegal cannabis farm and that her estranged mother has just arrived. Even the police officer’s widow points a finger at the writer, claiming she was a distraction, and the police department knew it.
Lurking on the fringes is a man who stopped briefly at the crime. Good Samaritan or sinister suspect? For her safety, Zoey needs to find out.
All fiction writer Zoey Kozinski wants is to observe a police officer in action so she can build the character in her book.
Instead, she’s a witness to his brutal homicide after a traffic stop goes bad. Author Vinnie Hansen builds Crime Writer around the aftermath.
What ensues is a nightmare for Zoey as she not only battles being labeled a suspect but also has to be the only witness. Couple that with some other challenges in her life, and she is pretty much a mess.
The author uses alternating points of view to build the storyline. Will Zoey put the pieces together, or will she also become a victim?
Crime Writer puts an author in the hot seat, forcing her to deal with much more than a “day in the life” experience.
A Claymore and Silver Falchion finalist, Vinnie Hansen is the author of the Carol Sabala mystery series, the novels LOSTART STREET, ONE GUN, and CRIME WRITER, as well as over seventy published short works.
She is a member of Mystery Writers of American, Sisters in Crime, and the Short Mystery Fiction Society. A retired high-school English teacher, she lives with her husband and the requisite cat in Santa Cruz, CA.
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Thanks for the review! This sounds like such a good read to me!
Hi Amy,
Thank you for choosing to read and review Crime Writer. –Vinnie