This week, Olalla author Gregg Olsen is making what many in the publishing industry consider a long and risky career leap - from writing true-crime books to fictional crime thrillers.

The Olalla writer has made a name for himself over nearly two decades with the publication of seven non-fiction books, including six in the true-crime genre.

Five of those are what might be called good-girls-gone-bad books. His subjects include Auburn poison-killer Stella Nickell, Burien teacher-turned-teen-seductress May Kay Letourneau and Olalla’s own homicidal health guru, "Starvation Heights" proprietor Linda Hazzard.

But now the 47-year-old Olsen is leaping across a literary divide with the March 6 debut of his first novel, the set-in-the-Northwest paperback thriller "A Wicked Snow."

"I do believe women will kill, and they’ll do it for money, sex and power," Olsen said in an interview at his Olalla home. "I’ve been close to it for 20 years, and I don’t think it’s a big leap bring that forward in a fictional context."

And Olsen’s fiction publisher, Kensington Books, is putting its full faith and credit behind that belief with by far the biggest first printing of the author’s career - well over 100,000 books.

It’s already been listed with most of the nation’s major book clubs, he said, and gotten positive critical "blurbs" from many notable authors in both the true-crime and thriller genres, including Bainbridge Island novelist Suzannah Sloan and Port Orchard romance novelist Linda Lael Miller.

And Kensington has committed to a three-book deal with Olsen (the second novel, "A Cold, Dark Place," is coming out in the spring of 2008). And in doing so, it’s given him another career first - what’s known as "lead author" status, which ensures that Olsen will get the publisher’s best possible marketing push.

"I think many of Gregg’s true-crime readers will be curious enough to pick up ‘A Wicked Snow,’" said Michaela Hamilton, Kensington’s executive editor. "They will not be disappointed in it.

"We also worked hard to create a cover that would draw in new fiction readers for Gregg. The combination of new and old readers is the key to our vision for him as a continuing author."

Yes, believe it or not, getting a publishing deal and finishing a book is hardly where the work ends for most writers, no matter how established they are. Many see promoting themselves independent of their publisher’s marketing push as essential.

"No one cares about your book more than you do," Olsen said. "Think about it this way: a publishing company has hundreds of books dropping in a given year - you only have one. You can put all your energy into your book - quotes, reviews, blog entries, publicity - but a publisher can only give you so much attention. They have other titles coming down the pike.

"Many fiction readers do not read non-fiction, and vice versa," said the New-York-based editor. "We needed a way to convince them that the book would deliver the kind of satisfaction that fiction readers seek. The quotes gave us a way to do this."

But some of Olsen’s contemporaries say there’s more to making the leap from non-fiction to fiction is longer and harder than it looks.

"I wish Gregg luck, because I think it’s one of the most difficult things to do, crossing between genres," said Jess Walter, a Spokane-based author who has published four literary novels since his first book, a non-fiction account of the Ruby Ridge shootout in Idaho.

"Unfortunately, the publishing world really wants to ‘brand’ authors, which requires that authors write the same book over and over," Walter added.

"My non-fiction books were so successful that my publishers didn’t want me to vary my genre. It’s kind of that ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’ theory," she said. "My readers are mostly non-fiction readers, and frankly, there were some sweet ladies, mostly down South, who were absolutely shocked by the steamy sex scenes in ‘Possession.’"

And even the late Jack Olsen, the Bainbridge Island dean of true crime in his day, took a stab at writing novels. He published six of them in the early 1970s and 80s while the couple concentrated on raising their first child.

He liked the books, and they sold moderately well, with one - "Have You Seen My Son?" - being made into a TV movie. But his genre-hopping wasn’t destined to last, his widow said.

"He realized that his biggest strengths were in investigative reporting, and he felt he could make a better living in this arena," Su Olsen said of her husband, who died in 2002 at age 77 after publishing more than 30 books in a career of 40-plus years.

"Instead of jumping all over the map with any book ideas that interested him, as he had always done," she said, "he decided to spend the rest of his career focusing on one subject."

And whatever readers may make of "A Wicked Snow," that’s undeniably true. The book, set in a fictitious area of western Oregon, follows protagonist Hannah Griffin as she struggles against the memory of 20-year-old serial killings that literally happened in her own back yard as a young teenager.

And it follows Hannah’s present-day struggles as she resurfaces to help an FBI agent track the escaped killer - her own mother. It’s a cop procedural and courtroom primer with plenty of character development, characteristics common to most of Olsen’s true-crime work.

"What’s great about it is Gregg’s knowledge of the female perpetrator from his true-crime books," said M. William Phelps, a Connecticut-based true-crime writer who runs an online blog called "Crime Rant" with Olsen. "He took that with him into his fiction. He’s just a great storyteller, and great storytelling sells itself.

"Everything around me, and everyone I’ve met, seems like they’ve been auditioning to be in these books," Olsen said of his fiction work.

For that reason, Olsen thinks he can exist comfortably in both genres for as far ahead as he can see in his career. He’s already putting the finishing touches on his next true-crime book, which will likely hit bookstore shelves sometime in early 2008 (see sidebar).

Why wouldn’t he want to keep doing both? he reasons. He’s almost embarrassed to admit that writing fiction - for him, anyway - is easier and faster work.

"I can write a true-crime book in three months, and I can write a novel in three months," Olsen said. "The difference is that I start a true-crime book with three years of research, while I start a fiction book by just looking at the page and writing whatever I feel like writing."

"I could never do it," said Phelps, who’s struggling with his own change of pace as he works on a non-fiction book about the Revolutionary War. "And I believe it’s very hard to break into a market that’s as crowded as the thriller market. But I believe Gregg’s done it better than most."

"And then when I am writing a true-crime book with thousands of details that have to be accurate and so much research, I always tend to wish I were writing a novel so I could just make stuff up!"

"Everybody thinks about the second act of their lives," Olsen said. "When I think about it, I think: ‘What s this experiment going to yield? Is it an experiment?

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