Mr Rick H Drew

Writing was never my strong suit. Early in my career, while still on probation with the police department, my sergeant pulled me aside and delivered a blunt warning: if my reports didn't improve, I might not survive my probationary period.

Fast forward to 1984. In the immediate aftermath of the homicide that would one day inspire Is He Dead?, I found myself at a bachelor's party — still processing what I'd seen — telling the story to a small gathering of guests. Among them, unbeknownst to me, was a well-known author. He listened quietly for a moment, then interrupted.

"Are you going to write a book about this?"

I laughed. "I can't write a book. I have trouble getting my police reports approved."

He didn't laugh back. Instead, he suggested that if a book felt too ambitious, I should at least write a screenplay. It was good advice — advice I promptly didn't take.

Nearly two decades passed. In 2002, I stumbled across my copy of the murder book buried somewhere in my belongings, and something shifted. I finally put pen to paper.

Is He Dead? was published in 2014.

Writing it sent shivers down my spine. Reliving that investigation — one that followed a murder committed by two children who, after years of abuse at the hands of their father and years of neglect at the hands of society, had finally decided to take justice into their own hands — was something I wasn't fully prepared for, even after all that time.