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Maggie Estep's acclaim as an author has come to her in a roundabout way. Armed with wit and edginess, Ms. Estep enjoyed a stint as a stand-up poet when poetry slams were all the rage. She parlayed that into frequent MTV appearances, then became a rock performer, even touring with Lollapalooza.
The inevitable publishing deal followed, leading to six books - including her first Ruby Murphy mystery, the critically hosanna'd "Hex" in 2003. Back with her slightly hapless amateur sleuth for a third installment, "Flamethrower," Estep also co-edits "Bloodlines," a collection of writing on horseracing.
Take us through your education as a horsewoman.
My father was a rider-for-hire in the show-jumping world; my mom trained [thoroughbreds] in Colorado.
One day hanging out with my mom, I watched a race. There was a huge longshot and he looked on his toes, so I bet on him and he won. I made something like 120 bucks off two. That made the wagering thing interesting to me.
How do you reconcile your affection for horses with your icy gambler's heart?
If I want to have a winning day, I stay away from the paddock, where I'll be swayed by affection for the individual horses. That's how I do best. But my spectacular long shot hits have come from gazing at a horse in the paddock and feeling utterly compelled to bet that horse.
Where did your sleuth, Ruby Murphy, spring from?
Ruby Murphy was a fluke. I was working on a novel about 18th-century gangster chicks - great idea, hard novel to write. I got so frustrated I started trying to write a little crime novel as an exercise to relieve pressure. It just kept going. Ruby came out, fully formed and kicking and screaming.
How natural was it for you to set her against the backdrop of thoroughbred racing?
Totally unavoidable. I'd been spending a little time on the Belmont backside, just lurking and observing. Didn't even know why. Then, when the Ruby character was born, she just seemed the kind of girl who'd end up somewhere like that.
Ruby seems to inhabit some long-gone New York, where a marginal life was not only plausible and desirable, but viable.
Ah, yes. That New York we loved. It barely has a pulse now, but what does remain is definitely in the outer reaches of the outer boroughs. That's why I love places like Coney Island or East New York or weird parts of Queens.
Have you considered writing a non-Ruby mystery, or fiction outside the genre?
I'm working on a rather insane literary novel called "Girls and Horses," about three women and one cranky black horse.
I'm also writing a bleak little crime novel called "The Rabbit," based on a horrible incident I witnessed in real life of a man beating his dog in Prospect Park. The dog lived and the scumbag got a felony charge, but I still couldn't shake the image of that poor felled beast. So I had to write a novel over it.
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