Mystery and Mayhem With Author Christine Husom

by Mollee Francisco | Apr 2024

Christine Husom. Photo: Chris Emeott

Wright County provides inspiration for local novelist.

Christine Husom was born a storyteller. “I was creating stories before I could write or read,” she says. Husom remembers seeing the alphabet on the walls of her first grade classroom and realizing those letters were the key to unlocking her future. “I told myself, ‘I’m going to learn to read, so I can write those stories,’” And she did.

The Buffalo resident is the author of 14 books, including her prolific Winnebago County Mystery Series. Husom specializes in mystery novels, many of which take place in central Minnesota. She says Winnebago County is a thinly veiled version of Wright County, where she currently lives and once worked as a member of the Wright County Sheriff’s Department. (Wright County is part of the Lake Minnetonka Magazine readership area.)

Husom’s background in law enforcement serves her well when writing mystery novels, but she says it was the suspicious circumstances surrounding her father’s death that got the proverbial ball rolling on her writing career. Husom says her father was in the hospital when, one night, he left his room, exited the hospital and was later found dead after he drowned in a nearby holding pond. His death was ruled an accident, Husom says, but she couldn’t stop thinking about it. “I obsessed about it for a year,” she says. “What if it wasn’t an accident? Who would have done it?”

Husom sat down and began to write Murder in Winnebago County. It was published in 2008. “Halfway through the book, I fell in love with the characters and had ideas for a second and a third book,” she says.

Characters are at the heart of Husom’s books. “One of my favorite things are creating characters,” she says. “When I’m writing, I feel like I’m with my characters. I hear their voices and see their expressions.”

Husom’s Winnebago County Mystery series follows Sgt. Corinne “Corky” Aleckson and detective Elton “Smoke” Dawes as they work cases for the Winnebago County Sheriff’s Department. She draws from her experience with the Wright County Sheriff’s Department, as well as news stories to generate ideas for her books. “One time, my brother asked if I’d heard about the couple found in a car at the bottom of a lake,” she says. “He said they figured they’d been there for 20 years. I said I hadn’t heard about it and thanked him.” That news story became the premise for Secret in Whitetail Lake, the fifth book in the Winnebago County Mystery Series.

When Husom is working on a book, she says she can write for 12 to 16 hours a day. “The writing process is intense,” she says. “I don’t outline. I know who the bad guys are, and I know the start and end and some key points along the way. The whole creative process is about discovery,” Husom says.

Husom, who once thought she didn’t have the patience to sit down and write a book, now takes about six months from start to finish to pen a book. (The editing process can take up to a year.) Along the way, she’s ever mindful of her next story. “I’m always thinking ahead of what to write,” she says.

Husom isn’t worried about running out of material. “There are 300 lakes, three rivers and a swamp in Wright County,” she says. “Lots of places for a body to turn up.”