Shirley Spain

Animal Lover. Fitness Instructor. Author of dark and chilling thrillers.

Shirley strives for what she calls, "plausible realism" in her books and garners critical details from her "police ride along" experiences as well as educating herself by attending and graduating from the West Jordan Citizen's Police Academy and receiving training as a CERT member (Community Emergency Response Team). She is currently a West Jordan Police Department VIPS (Volunteer In Police Service).

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Furthermore, when one of her bad guys was building a bomb and consequently blowing up a house, she met with the fire chief and a SWAT arson investigator who helped her "build a better bomb" for her story!

"Thinking up and plotting the dastardly deeds of demented killers is a challenge," Shirley says. "However the real fun begins when figuring out how my heroine--and her studly hero, of course--will turn the tables, outsmart the twisted murderer, and survive."

In real life, Shirley has been a victim of human predators more than once, yet lives by the motto: No matter what horrible circumstance life hurls at you, choose to survive and become stronger because of it. She uses that maxim as a guide when writing her novels.

Wrangling friends and family into assisting, Shirley often "role plays" when researching scenes, and admits she "experiments" on herself and has done so with some of the tools her bad guys use, including duct tape, a variety of rope, and handcuffs. Even locked herself in the trunk of her car and attempted to escape. Hmmm. Knowing this, you may wonder how many of the stunts described in her books she tried on herself ... but she'll never tell!