McKinney mystery ‘Slipknot’ infuses love of Grateful Dead

Gary McKinney, Bellingham author and founder of Kearney Street Books, a local publishing company, reads from his latest book that integrates lyrics and themes from the Grateful Dead into a mystery set in a small, fictitious logging town in the Pacific Northwest. The event will begin with acoustic music featuring the Chryslers singers, plus members of Fritz & the Freeloaders playing songs by the Dead.

Question: What’s with your fascination with the Grateful Dead and how were you inspired to weave some of their lyrics and philosophy into a work of fiction?

Answer: I was a Grateful Dead fan even before I heard their music. In the late ’60s, while I was in high school, national magazines were reporting on the San Francisco music scene and one of them had a photo of Jerry “Captain Trips” Garcia. Whoa! Who was this, and what was he about? I wore grooves in that first Dead album. I finally got to see them live at Springer’s Inn, Portland, Ore., Jan. 16, 1970. It was inspiring. They were the anti-rock stars. They weren’t doing it for fame or fortune — even though, almost in spite of themselves, they did became famous and rich — they were doing it because they believed in this new way of thinking they’d found.

Eventually, as an artist, I needed to bring all that into my own work. I’d had a version of the book written with the sheriff as an ex-hippie, but then realized that was not focused enough. When I made the character a Deadhead — not once was a Deadhead, but still is a Deadhead — then the thematic focus got clear and I could begin to say what was in my heart.

Q: Did you do some fact-checking into the lyrics, concerts, bio stuff for the band members?

A: Yes, I did lot of research. “The Complete Annotated Grateful Dead Lyrics” by David Dodd became invaluable. I’ve read just about every biography, autobiography, essay, interview, book, and memoir ever written about the Dead. I reread all the literature tangential to the band’s philosophies: Kerouac, Kesey, “The Electric Kool Aid Acid Test,” “Divine Right’s Trip” by Gurney Norman, etc. The official Grateful Dead Web site also has a wealth of information, all the venues, the dates, etc. No band as been more studied and archived than the Dead.

Q: All the shenanigans /murders/loggers vs. tree-huggers stuff — is that peculiar to a small, insular, Pacific Northwest town?

A: Well, the whole murder thing is a necessity of the genre. In real life, one murder in a small town like “Elkhorn” would keep the local newspaper in copy for years. But as a writer, you just have to include what readers expect there to be in a mystery. Although you use realistic descriptions of nature and people to ground your story in place and time, in real life a small town like Elkhorn would probably never see this much mayhem. It was my job, however, to make it seem as this much mayhem could exist in this setting. And that’s good enough for a mystery reader. After all, if there’s no murder, there’s no murder mystery to solve.

As far as the loggers/tree-huggers content, that I know from experience, growing up in a small logging and fishing town — which was more than a little rough-and-tumble. I was one of those kids who tried to avoid physical confrontation at all cost, but I had good friends who were totally comfortable settling “issues” man-to-man in the Dairy Queen parking lot. On the other hand, there was plenty of intellect and thoughtfulness where I grew up, and gentleness and true caring among friends and neighbors.

Physically, Whatcom County is not terribly different from “Willapa County,” so I took plenty of liberties. Most importantly, it’s a very Northwest setting — specifically a west side of the Cascades setting. Salt and fresh water, beaches, mountains, and hills, trees and clearcuts, logging and fishing — the landscape defines and grounds the characters, and therefore the reader.

Q: How did you learn so much about police work, investigative procedure, and how autopsies are performed?

A: I read a lot, of course, and did interviews. I also took a couple of “Citizen’s Academy” courses through the Bellingham Police Department and the Whatcom County Sheriff’s Office. I’ve got a friend on the BPD who read the manuscript and helped me get the law enforcement angle right. (Although if there are any mistakes, they’re mine, not his!) There is so much out there on television now, too, about forensics and the technical side of crime investigation. But because the setting is 1994, I had to be careful not to use techniques that weren’t available. Essentially, Sheriff Pruitt solves this crime through old-fashioned gum-shoe police work.

Q: Why did you set this in 1994?

A: Actually, I set the book in 1994 because I was thinking ahead to the follow-up. In the next book I’m going to have Sheriff Pruitt attend the last Grateful Dead concert in Chicago, at Soldier Field, July 9, 1995. In “Slipknot” there is a short bit where Pruitt mentions that his friend Biscuit gets them tickets for a Dead concert every year. I think it will be great fun, and probably very emotional for myself and fans of Pruitt and the Dead, to revisit this gig, knowing that it’s the last time the Grateful Dead would ever play with Jerry — and thusly closing their most momentous chapter — but seeing it fresh through Pruitt’s eyes, who, of course, does not know how momentous the moment is. (Or maybe he will, cosmically, sense something momentous. We’ll see when we get there!)

Q: Between your job at Western Washington University, rehearsing and playing with The Chryslers and Fritz & the Freeloaders, and just enjoying life, when do you have time to write, and also tend to Kearney Street Books?

A: Everything is done is small bits. A half-hour of writing a day, four-five days a week. Two or three rehearsals a month for the two bands (and try to stay organized via e-mails), one book a year from Kearney Street Books (often with somebody else writing the books or stories), and read a lot on the bus to and from work!

Q: In your first novel, “Choosing,” I remember that Sami’s dad, I think was the sheriff. Any connection between the characters in that novel and this one?

A: Absolutely. The place is the same, too: Elkhorn. In fact, with any luck, Elkhorn and the surrounding Willapa County will become for me what Yoknapatawpha county was for Faulkner, and Bayou Teche is for James Lee Burke: a place where stories can both start and live. It’s a touchstone, a place I understand right down to my bones.