Writing crime stories is a new departure for me. If I were asked, this is what I might say about my new female detective character, Detective Constable Alexandra Bertolissio of the Queensland Police Service.

On Alexandra:

“She’s a quiet person, thoughtful and sensitive, surrounded by jocks and big egos. She’s physically small too. Delicate. Yes, she’s pretty, beautiful even, but most people don’t see that unless they take a close look. I wanted to create a character who isn’t a two-fisted hero, who isn’t well-liked, who doesn’t get their way by sheer force of personality or physical presence. I didn’t want to create a detective who was flamboyant and eccentric. Sometimes the main feature distinguishing one fictional detective from another is what kind of unusual car they drive! Alexandra doesn’t even own a car. I wanted someone who was ordinary in almost every way except for her keen, even brilliant, mind.

“Alexandra’s career with the police is going nowhere. She’s not the kind who would succeed in any corporate environment. She doesn’t push herself forward, she doesn’t have the urge to gain advancement at any cost, she has almost nothing in common with her colleagues and will not pretend to be like them, she just wants to do her job and catch criminals. And she does that extremely well. So well, in fact, that she outshines everyone around her – for all the good that does her. Without the social skills to get along with the system, she is destined to remain a detective constable while far less deserving colleagues are promoted above her.”

On Brisbane:

“Why set the Bertolissio stories in Brisbane? Why not put them in London or New York? I’ve been asked this by publishers who tell me, for example, that Americans – the biggest single market for readers – don’t want to read stories set outside their own country.

“Well, partly its as simple as this: I like Brisbane and I know it well. It’s a big city – two million people – and it’s not a lot different from some US West Coast cities – San Francisco in particular. It’s sunny and laid back on the surface but it has its underbelly, like any other city. It’s got the bush out west and beaches to the east. It even has its own smaller version of Miami along the Gold Coast. I think it’s time people elsewhere got to know Brisbane and I think they’d like it too.”

On Mel, Alexandra’s sister:

“Mel is gorgeous and spoilt and a major source of complications for Alexandra. Tall, blonde, and a carefree daddy’s girl, Mel is attracted to the worst kind of men, most of them the kind Alexandra tends to meet professionally. Mel is much younger than Alexandra and, after their mother died, Alexandra raised her little sister while their father became increasingly distant and unresponsive. So Mel treats Alexandra like her mother, turning to her to solve all her problems, looking to her for emotional support, barely noticing that Alexandra’s life is hard and stressful enough without the burden of minding her too.

“Yet there is a strong bond between them and Alexandra, however much she grumbles, is fiercely protective of her sister. I wanted this relationship to be a major feature of the Bertolissio stories. Most detectives in novels are reclusive loners. Alexandra would be too but I won’t let her be. Her sister Mel ties her to the world and creates a social dimension for her that she would otherwise cut herself off from.”