Overturned follows a NY City detective through his two-decade-long career and the questionable decisions he had to make resulting in an investigation of police misconduct. What was the inspiration for the setup to your story?

I wanted to write about miscarriages of justice. Back in 2016, the New York Times and Village Voice published a story about a Brooklyn homicide detective, now retired, who had done a bunch of dodgy, unconstitutional things to secure murder convictions back in the 1990s. Five or six of these people had been exonerated by DNA evidence after serving long sentences. The detective bribed witnesses into saying they saw something when they didn’t; he coerced confessions, manipulated line-ups. Basically the stuff Vito does in Overturned. However, in real life, nothing happened to this guy beyond some accusatory newspaper articles. But for the sake of storytelling, I needed the stakes to be higher for my cop characters. A few articles in the Times isn’t really an existential threat to their lives or livelihoods. It took me a little while to work out what that could be, and I felt that a wrongfully convicted defendant coming back for revenge was a tired trope and not very realistic. Then I was rewatching The West Wing, and it got to that arc where Toby is investigated by a federal grand jury for sharing classified information. Aha! I thought; a federal grand jury was the perfect vehicle for getting my characters into a tight spot.

Boswell starts off believing he is doing the right thing in life, that the police are always right, he slowly learns that is not always the case but is too deep into everything. What were some driving ideals behind your character’s development?

Alex first came to life in my first novel, In the Canyons of Shadows and Light. Although he has his issues, he’s a mensch. A genuinely nice guy and a cop who cares about the people he is policing. There are a lot of people in police departments like this — despite the systemic racism and all the issues with police departments. It’s an exploration of how Good People Do Bad Things.

What were some themes that were important for you to explore in this book?

Institutional complacency and corruption. The psychological effects of dealing with brutality and inhumanity every day. The toxic masculinity embedded in certain subcultures. But also the life and vibrancy of New York City and resiliency.

What is the next book that you are working on and when will it be available?

I am changing focus completely and working on a novel about wild horses in Scotland, and it will be available sometime next year.

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