“O” is for Gregg Olsen

In looking at my list of “O” mystery authors read in the past 12 years my total was 1 – Gregg Olsen. For this week’s entry at “O” in the Alphabet in Crime Fiction meme hosted by Kerrie Smith at her blog, Mysteries in Paradise, he becomes my entry.

His website provides the following description of Olsen:

Olsen, a Seattle native, lives in Olalla, Washington with his wife, twin daughters, three chickens, Milo (an obedience school dropout cocker spaniel) and Suri (a mini dachshund so spoiled she wears a sweater).

Wikipedia adds:

Gregg Olsen (born March 5, 1959, in Seattle, Wash.) is a New York Times and a USA Today bestselling author of eight nonfiction books and six novels, most of which are crime-related. The subjects of his true books include convicted child rapist and school teacher Mary Kay Letourneau, product tampering killer Stella Nickell, fasting specialist Linda Burfield Hazzard, and former Amishman and convicted murderer Eli Stutzman.

I found intriguing the number of non-fiction crime biographies he has written.

While I have not read the book Starvation Heights, his book on Hazzard must have been of particular interest to Olsen as Hazzard had a "sanitarium” in Olalla called Wilderness Heights but Starvation Heights by local residents. His website note on the book says:

In 1911, Claire and Dora Williamson traveled to Dr. Linda Hazzard's Institute of Natural Therapeutics near Seattle, Washington. There, instead of receiving medical attention, the wealthy sisters were tortured, starved, and robbed of their inheritance. Dora escaped, but Claire was not so lucky. In detail, the author recreates the shocking 1912 trial of Dr. Hazzard for the murder of the beloved sister.

I found a question and answer with the author at the sandrablabber blog very interesting:

If a notorious criminal was going to write your biography, who would you want to write about you and why?
Gregg: This is an interesting question, Sandra. Living or dead’ I suppose if I wanted to have it be well written, I’d choose Jean Harris, after all she was a headmistress before she shot Dr. Herman Tarnower of Scarsdale Diet fame. She probably knew her way around words and I’ll bet she was a very neat typist. If I wanted to disappear into the text I’d have a narcissist like Scott Peterson write the book because I’d be merely a footnote in my own story. Yet, if the goal is a bestseller, I’d like to suggest Ted Bundy. Everyone loves a sexy author with a killer smile. He’d be booked on every show. I’d be famous for a book I didn’t have to write.

In 2007 I read his mystery, A Wicked Snow. In my review I said:

It is a fascinating portrayal of the life of the child of a serial killer. How do you understand why your parent is a killer? It is truly a journey into the heart of darkness.

It was a chilling book.