The line between justice and vengeance is often as thin as it is subjective.
It’s this murky idea that serves as the underpinning of Tracy Clark’s third Detective Harriet (“Harri”) Foster thriller, Echo (December 3, 2024; Thomas & Mercer). On a cold winter’s morning, Harri is called to the scene of a suspicious death near prestigious Belverton College. Legacy student Brice Collier has been found unresponsive in a field outside his family-owned home, Hardwicke House. The son of billionaire Sebastian Collier—one of the school’s alumni donors, whose name graces several buildings around campus—Brice’s untimely passing mirrors a similar death from thirty years ago. But power and privilege threaten to derail the investigation before past and present can come into focus.
Meanwhile, Harri—whose teenage son was the victim of an act of gun violence—is still reeling from the recent death of her partner, who is said to have committed suicide in a moment of desperation that Harri simply can’t fathom. Her suspicions are further heightened by continuing harassment from a man known only as “the voice,” whose taunting communications hint at a more sinister truth. Despite having provided evidence, albeit scant, to the Chicago PD’s Internal Affairs Division, she is told to stand down by her sergeant when they decline to pursue the matter. Yet turning a blind eye to malfeasance simply isn’t in Harri’s nature, consequences be damned.
This complex, character driven narrative is just the kind of story Clark—a native Chicagoan who works as an editor in the newspaper business by day—likes to explore, where her imagination is only tempered by the realities of the criminal justice system, which remains formidable if inherently flawed.
John B. Valeri: Echo is your third Det. Harriet Foster thriller – which can be a place of great promise or peril in a continuing series. What was your approach to balancing a standalone storyline with backstory now that you’ve established a canvas and begun expanding it?
Tracy Clark: It’s always a delicate balance in a series, isn’t it, to give readers the characters they look forward to revisiting, but then adding enough forward momentum to keep the series going? We’re all a sum of our past experiences, and the same holds for book people. For my team of homicide cops, the focus for each book is the case at hand. The remnants of the previous case, however, or the human toll from whatever I’ve put my characters through in the book before still linger. Characters were changed in some way the last time out, and that change has to be reflected in the new story. Lightly, though, like a ghost standing just over their shoulders. That way readers can dive into the series at any point and not feel as though they’re out of the loop or can’t catch up, if they choose to.
JBV: Here, “Harri” finds herself investigating the murder of a wealthy legacy student Brice Collier – a scenario that poses some unique complications. Tell us about the ways in which power and privilege threaten to derail justice. How does the insular setting of academia play into this?
TC: Lady Justice stands resolute with her scales and sword, a symbol of our judicial system, offering the promise and pledge of fairness, objectivity, equality under the law. Her blindfold has come to signify the impartiality of judgments, an assurance that laws and judicial decisions will be evenly applied regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, culture, et al. That’s the ideal, the promise. That is not the reality. Echo looks at justice when wealth and power tip the scales, when Lady Justice peeks beneath the blindfold. It asks the question, what IS justice? What looks like justice for you might not be the same as others see it. What is vengeance? What I might consider vengeance might look an awful lot like justice to someone else. So, in Echo, I’ve tipped the scales of justice and then set the book on an elite college campus where money talks and the Collier family sets the rules; then, I let the characters go.
JBV: Harri has suffered some profound losses, including her son and her (work) partner. How does this grief imbue her character with shades of strength and vulnerability – and in what ways can this depth of feeling be both a help and a hindrance in her work?
TC: Harri has a lot to come to terms with. When we met her in Hide, the first book in the series, she had lost the life and the world she had before everything hit. She’s lost her only child to gun violence, she’s lost her longtime partner to a suspected suicide. She’s lost a marriage and her sense of equilibrium. Many of us will at some time find ourselves in this situation or one close to it. We will all lose people and things and have to find a way to pick ourselves up and move forward. That’s life. That’s what being human requires. We meet Harri at a crossroads. She has to make a decision to dig herself out of the hole she’s in. Oh, she’s brilliant on the job; she knows how to be a cop, off the job she’s living only a half-life. She pushes people away. She keeps herself to herself. No emotional entanglements, please. Harri has lost her light, but her heart still beats. Is this a strength or a hinderance? I guess it can be both. What it does is make for a complex, multilayered, interesting character to write. Harri has to move, she has to regain herself. She has to accept her losses and deal with grief and guilt. SHE has to do that, no one can do that for her. Meanwhile, she’s got a job to do and murderers to catch. Her vulnerabilities and inertia won’t work out on the streets. Compartmentalization. That’s how Harri does it.
JBV: While Harri is now partnered with Det. Vera Li, we also get to see her in action and engagement with other members of the Chicago PD who represent attitudes and experiences that differ from her own. What does this show about the inherent clash between progressiveness and tradition – and how is the “blue wall of silence” a further source of conflict for Harri?
TC: Harriet and Vera work in a department not set up for them, and so, in essence, it does not work with their interests or issues in mind. I looked it up before starting the series, I wanted to know how female sworn officers in the Chicago Police Department stacked up. There are about 12,000 sworn officers in the CPD. Twenty three percent are female officers, only 21 percent are African American. Det. Vera Li is Asian, Asian officers make up only 3 percent of the CPD sworn officer population. So, I’ve partnered two outsiders in a department not set up for them, and then compounded their “outsiderness” by teaming them with old-timers, white guys, old-schoolers who are not that comfortable with all the newness walking through the doors. I like the conflict and the tension that gives me. I like the constant clash of age and outlook. I like that there are old-timers who still refer to Harri and Vera as lady cops or girl cops. Conflict is story fuel. Neither Harri or Vera are shrinking violets, either, so they give as good as they get, and I like that too. The blue wall of silence is interesting, complicated. From the outside looking in, I get the impression that there are expectations that are written down and those that are not. I believe cops rely on trust and respect and teamwork. They need to know the person who has their back HAS their back. But I’m also thinking, for most, for good police, that expectation stops at tarnishing their badge and their integrity and that the blue line of silence stops at the threshold of illegality. But playing with the line, pushing it this way or that, putting your characters in a position where they might have to decide what kind of cop they are and what kind they are not, is a fun exercise. Harri and Vera cannot abide dirty cops. They’re in the job for the right reasons. How they face opposing forces, however, is a compelling road to skip down.
JBV: In addition to the story’s singular villain(s), Harri is also up against a recurring nemesis known as “the voice.” What are the challenges of maintaining an overarching thread that satisfies from story to story despite remaining unresolved? Also, how much of the eventual resolution do you need to know before continuing such a storyline forward?
TC: It’s like juggling balls or spinning plates in the circus. You’ve got to keep pulling the threads through so that you don’t lose sight of where your characters are going or where your story’s going. “The Voice” poses a pretty explicit threat to Harri in Hide, book one; that threat becomes more ominous in book two, Fall. When I pick things up in Echo, Harri gets the answers she’s been seeking, but the story then ends with a mystery. That mystery is resolved in Edge, book four, but Harri will find that the resolution is unsatisfying and ultimately does not change her situation. SHE will have to change her situation. Still, each book raises the stakes, each one resolves a question and then poses another. Everything has to move, change, challenge. Characters who don’t move don’t impress. I need the emotional churn. I don’t know anything beforehand. I don’t write by outline, I just write. I know what I know when I know it, and that works for me.
JBV: You are a lifelong Chicagoan, and your books are set in the city. How do you see place and plot working together to elevate narrative – and in what ways does Echo’s wintery backdrop reflect the story’s themes?
TC: Chicago is definitely a character in this series. The city has a distinctive vibe and feel that adds a lot of propulsion to the stories and the characters. Setting Echo in the middle of a Chicago winter (which builds character, if you can survive it) adds a little more vigor. Harri and Vera have a tough enough job, but I make it tougher by having them do it in snow and sleet and cold. Chicago weather is just another hurdle and irritant, just another element to add tension and obstruction. You’ve always got to confound your characters, give them something to work against. There’s nothing more brutal than a Chicago winter. I don’t consciously write themes. I don’t even think about them. I write characters. I put characters on the page and see where they take me. I write the city of Chicago as it is, warts and all. It’s a vibrant city, a large city, an urban city, it’s also a dangerous city, a corrupt city, and a harsh city. Melding the two Chicagos together is fun.
JBV: In addition to writing novels, you work as an editor in the newspaper business (talk about two notoriously volatile industries!). How does that background inform the critical eye you bring to your own work – and the spirit in which you receive feedback from your own editors?
TC: For one thing, I edit as I go along. You’re not supposed to, according to the prevailing wisdom, but I can’t help myself. This means, that when I get to the end of that first draft there aren’t a lot of dangling bits left in my wake to have to clean up. As a result, I write very slowly, deliberately. I worry scenes to death, and really drill down on characters. Everything has to make sense, it has to be plausible, characters have to resonate and above all else they have to be human. I don’t stop writing or revising until all that’s taken care of. I’m an editor by profession, so I know firsthand that no editor can catch everything. I have no problem getting feedback from my editors. They will invariably catch something that I’ve missed. I’d rather catch all the bugaboos before the book is published than after. Story edits are a bit different. Sometimes you have to sit on those a bit. If you trust your editor, and I do, then I go back over my story and see if the suggested edit works for me. If it does, if my editor saw something I failed to see, then I make the change. If I go back over it and the edit doesn’t sit well, then we have a little back and forth. There’s always a compromise to be made, one where the story and the characters don’t suffer. You can’t be too precious with the words you’ve written. You ultimately have to serve the story and the characters, not yourself.
JBV: Leave us with a teaser: What comes next?
TC: I’m working on the next Det. Harriet book. Entitled Edge, it’s due to my publishers on the Ides of March. In this outing, Harri, Vera and the team are up against a tainted party drug that has hit the streets and is taking people out. With the clock ticking, they must find the source and cut it off before more bodies fall. Who’s the killer? Lips are sealed. PD James said once that there were only four motivations for murder — love, lust, lucre and loathing. I think she’s right on that. I hit at least a couple of those Ls in Edge. I might even hit all four by the end. Time will tell, I’m still writing it.
