Meghan Holloway's "Killing Field"

Meghan Holloway found her first Nancy Drew mystery in a sun-dappled attic at the age of eight and subsequently fell in love with the grip and tautness of a well-told mystery. She flew an airplane before she learned how to drive a car, did her undergrad work in Creative Writing in the sweltering south, and finished a Masters of Library and Information Science in the blustery north. She spent a summer and fall in Maine picking peaches and apples, traveled the world for a few years, and did a stint fighting crime in the records section of a police department. She now lives on the Atlantic coast with her standard poodle and spends her days as a scientist with the requisite glasses but minus the lab coat.

Here Holloway dreamcasts an adaptation of her new novel, Killing Field:

I never have a model or actor in mind for a character as I am writing. The characters reveal themselves to me as fully evolved, entirely unique individuals, not based on any specific person. It is not simply a matter of looks that captures a character. The strength of the actor, the range of emotions they are able to portray, the actors’ presence on the screen balancing the parallel of the character on the page…I gave the subject of starring roles for Killing Field some consideration before I came up with my answer.

I wrote Hector more in the vein of an antihero than a hero. He lived a hard life from the time he was a boy, and he is a cold, driven man. The only gentling influences in his life are Frank, his dog, and Maggie, his wife’s closest friend. Hector has chased his missing wife’s trail of secrets to the end. He has no answers, no job, and no patience for the girl who has been following him. Her claim to be his lost daughter sets the town ablaze and forges an unexpected alliance with his most bitter enemy, his wife’s family. Although he is a bit younger than the character, I think Josh Brolin could pull off the stern, weathered, distant character of Hector.

Annie Between Lodges knows who murdered her sister and why. She has proof. She also knows that if she comes forward with the evidence she has stolen, she will not survive long enough to tell the truth. She needs an ally, someone unflinching and unafraid, someone who knows how to make enemies and remain unscathed. But one lie catapults her into deeper danger. Annie is such a strong character. The vulnerability of youth still clings to her, but she has immense courage and tenacity. Her lies force Hector to confront the past. Blu Hunt would make an excellent Annie.

As you read Killing Field, tell me what you think of my choices for these leading roles. Who would you cast to portray Hector and Annie and the rest of the key characters in Raven’s Gap?

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--Marshal Zeringue