Local Author Writes About PSP, Floatplane Incident, and Murder

Robin Barefield. Via robinbarefield.com

Kayla Desroches/KMXT
   
A local author has used real dangers on Kodiak Island to turn her work of fiction into a plausible who-done-it. When Robin Barefield isn’t guiding tourists to bear-viewing locales or leading hunting expeditions, she finds time to write.

Barefield just released her second novel, “Murder over Kodiak,” which follows a biologist researching paralytic shellfish poisoning after she learns that her research assistant died in a floatplane explosion. Barefield found some time before the beginning of one tour to call into KMXT and talk with us over satellite phone.

She says the scariest aspect of the research assistant’s death is that it’s not caused by weather or an equipment malfunction.

“To think of something happening to an airplane, a small floatplane, on a beautiful, sunny day, there’s no reason to have an accident, and then to find out it was a man-made cause. I mean, we live in a place that has a lot of threatening conditions, but to me the scariest thing that could happen is for something man-made to come in from the outside world and affect our little island,” says Barefield.

Barefield says she’s been a Kodiak resident for over thirty years and has a master’s degree in fish and wildlife biology. Both traits helped her in her research. For instance, PSP seemed like good subject for her main character’s scientific studies.

“That part of it to me was very easy because it’s so interesting and I think it’s something that anyone on Kodiak can relate to because it’s a problem that we think about often,” says Barefield. “We’d love to eat all the clams and muscles that we have here, but paralytic shellfish poisoning is a serious problem. And so that part of it seemed like a real job that someone would have, learning more about it and finding an easier way to test for it.”

Barefield self-published her book through a service called Book Baby, and while many self-published writers go from first drafts directly to final drafts without a middle man to edit out errors and inconsistencies, Barefield says she turned to a professional.

“I had a very tight outline for this novel, so when I sat down to write it, the writing went fairly quickly, but then editing, I edited, and re-edited, and re-edited it,” says Barefield. “I had to hire an editor to look at it and work with an editor for a while, so that was a very good process. That was very helpful.”

She says the entire project took a couple of years and mostly progressed during the slower winter months.

“Murder over Kodiak” is her second novel with the same protagonist and Barefield explains that one of her first techniques was about persistence. She remembers hearing a piece of advice from a well-known author.

“Even if you just write for ten or fifteen minutes a day, make yourself sit down and write every single day. And that’s what I did when I first started writing,” says Barefield. “And at first it was like exercising. It was torture. To sit down and make myself do that every day, but pretty soon the fifteen minutes turned into a half an hour and then an hour, and then I looked forward to it.”

Barefield says you can purchase “Murder Over Kodiak” on Amazon or Barnes & Noble .