While life on a southern Minnesota farm ran four generations deep in her soul, there were childhood days when Julie Kramer needed a chance to explore a world that stretched farther than her Midwestern roots. Her opportunity arrived in a bookmobile, where the smells of cattle and corn were replaced by the welcomed biblio-bouquet released from a freshly opened book.
As a child, Kramer loved all things Phyllis A. Whitney, especially The Mystery of the Haunted Pool. She dove into any Whitney title she could, thanks to biweekly visits from the library on wheels. “I read whatever was on the bookmobile,” she recalls.
While many bookmobiles have long since pulled away, Kramer’s devotion to a good mystery remains. She not only relishes a good title, but she turned her childhood passion for books and her experience in local and national news into a solid career as an author of six mystery novels. The series features Riley Spartz, a television journalist with an investigative snout eager to sniff out the truth, which can take her top to bottom through Minnesota, from Duluth to Austin.
Before she began writing the series, Kramer reread the premiere novels of her favorite authors, including Janet Evanovich, Kathy Reichs and John Sandford. Kramer was curious, naturally, to know where the bar rested for rookie suspense authors. Her research didn’t end there. One field trip to investigate ideas for Delivering Death found her at a local funeral home in a casket. “I like to live my research,” Kramer says. “I learned I wasn’t claustrophobic. It was more comfortable than I expected. Fluffy pillow. Good legroom. And I could breathe, even with the lid shut.”
Another book’s research led her to an auction for the belongings of one of Minnesota’s most notorious white-collar criminals. “I ended up accidentally buying a large, ugly piece of artwork,” Kramer says. The unfortunate piece, dinner party fodder, is hidden away somewhere in her house.
While Kramer builds a research foundation for her novels, her writing process is anything but linear. She doesn’t follow a “recipe” for writing, explaining that she doesn’t always write chronologically, sometimes jumping ahead to another element within a storyline. A killer’s identity can evolve in the writer’s mind after she’s embarked on a plotline. Work on her first novel didn’t follow an expected path. For Stalking Susan (2008), the author first developed Spartz. “I needed to wrap a story around that,” Kramer explains.
And so began the journey. “I wrote what I read, and I wrote what I knew: suspense in the desperate world of TV news,” she says.
For 20 years, Kramer worked at WCCO-TV, and part of that time was spent running the I-Team, the station’s award-winning investigative arm. She still takes on the occasional freelance producing gig for CBS and NBC.
Sometimes that “desperate world” includes stories without a satisfying ending. Kramer remembers reporting about the unsolved murders of two women found in St. Paul’s Highland Park neighborhood. Both victims were named Susan and were strangled on the same date, two years apart (1983 and 1985). “It’s a case I’ve never forgotten. It’s still unsolved, and I continue to hope justice is served,” Kramer says.
Writing from the White Bear Lake home that she shares with husband Joe Kimball, who is also a journalist and author, Kramer is experienced in a professional world where truth can be stranger than fiction. As a newswoman, there were times she’d think, “If it weren’t for the facts, I could write a heck of a story.”
Making the transition from steadfastly seeking the truth to fiction writing wasn’t always easy. “Making things up felt like cheating,” Kramer says. In order to make that transition, she had to remember that “nothing you can write is going to be crazier than what’s on the news,” she says. She refrains from asking herself if readers will believe her scenarios. “If I do my job right,” she says, “they will believe everything.”
Kramer purposely created her Riley Spartz series as stand-alone books. While reading the series in order enables readers to appreciate character arcs, they can pull any Kramer book off the shelf and dive in.
“People love her,” says Faith Basten, co-owner of Lake Country Booksellers. “She writes an intriguing mystery that is based on reality.” Basten adds that customers seem to relish an inside peek into the world of a television news reporter. “I think when you’re reading [Kramer’s books], you can picture the newsroom, and it’s more visual,” she says.
“Her characters seem real,” reader Kurt Hegland says, adding that he sees Riley as a “little spitfire … confident. You can’t wait for the next book to come out and see what’s going to happen.”
With such an intriguing main character, will Kramer’s books hit the silver or small screens anytime soon? No telling, but listen up, casting directors, Kramer knows who she’d like in the title role. “Tina Fey or Sandra Bullock,” she says. “My books have humor.”
Where is Riley now? Is she off in another Minnesota burg, checking out criminal antics and felonious mischief? Kramer isn’t revealing the answer—yet. “I have six books published with a major publisher,” she says. “I’ve had a good run. Whatever happens, I’ll always have that.” But readers, stay tuned. “I believe in reinventing yourself,” Kramer says.
The Scoop on Kramer’s Books
Stalking Susan, Kramer’s debut book, introduces television newswoman Riley Sparks, who investigates a serial killer who is targeting women named Susan and killing one of them on the same date each year. It received the Minnesota Book Award and the RT Reviewers’ Choice Award for Best First Mystery.
Missing Mark was a finalist for the 2010 Daphne du Maurier Award for excellence in mystery/suspense by the RWA Kiss of Death Chapter. When a bride is left at the altar, Riley Spartz steps in to discover if this is a case of cold feet or a cold case if the groom-to-be isn’t found.
Silencing Sam, a thriller about the murder of a gossip columnist that leads Spartz down some unexpected paths, was a finalist for the 2011 Minnesota Book Award for genre fiction.
Killing Kate won the Daphne du Maurier Award for Mainstream Mystery/Suspense and was nominated for Best Amateur Sleuth in the RT Reviewers’ Choice Award.
Shunning Sarah landed a starred review from Library Journal. It highlights the collision between the media and an Amish community when methods used to solve a homicide conflict with the deceased woman’s family’s wishes.
Delivering Death, Kramer’s latest book, reveals the results when “money, marriage and madness collide,” as Spartz examines the world of identity theft.
