Wednesday, December 6, 2017

Why and How I Made the Transition from Law Enforcement to Authorship by Anita Dickason, Author of Sentinels of the Night

I LOVE books that feature strong female characters, so when I heard about Sentinels of the Night by Dallas police officer turned crime author Anita Dickason I knew I had to highlight this awesome woman! 

I reached out to Anita to ask her how she made the transition from law enforcement to book series author and she kindly obliged with an author guest post. Anita has lots to share about her journey - it's certainly a fascinating one - so read on!



After retiring from the Dallas Police Department, I started an accident reconstruction business. I received a phone call from a California film company. They were looking for an accident investigator and had found my website. A new reality TV series was being filmed about unsolved mysteries. One episode dealt with the death of a witness to the Kennedy assassination. Lee Bowers was killed in a car accident in 1966.

The date to film was set, and the company had obtained permits from the Texas Department of Transportation to shut down the southbound lanes of a highway outside of Midlothian, a small town south of Dallas.

At first, I wasn’t receptive to their offer. I knew nothing about the accident and had little time to research. The company representative asked if I would at least look at the documents and I agreed.

The packet I received included the location of the shoot and a video of a Geraldo Rivera show that had aired in the middle 90s on the same topic. In the video, a man stood on the highway pointing to the bridge that Bowers vehicle had hit. It only took a few seconds to realize everyone had the wrong location. The bridge and highway didn’t even exist in 1966.

That got my attention. Could I find the actual accident site? By the time I had researched documents at the county courthouse and located the right bridge, I was hooked. I decided to attempt a reconstruction of the accident.


I wrote a book that detailed my research and conclusions, JFK Assassination Eyewitness: Rush to Conspiracy. The project became the springboard to a new career as an author and publisher. I closed the accident reconstruction business and started Mystic Circle Books & Designs, LLC, providing manuscript and cover design services to help other authors publish their books.


As for my books, I have published two fiction novels, Sentinels of the Night and Going Gone! The stories are suspense/thrillers with a touch of paranormal and light romance. I set up a new FBI unit, code name—Trackers. Each of the agents has a unique gift drawn from Native American myths or Irish and Scottish folklore. I am on my third Tracker novel and hope to have it published by the first of the year.



For more information on Sentinels of the Night and the second Tracker novel, Going Gone!, please see my website, Amazon author page or the book trailers: 






1 comment:

  1. What a great concept for a blog site. I love it. Thank you for hosting my books and highlighting each one. That is great motivation to keep working on my next novel.

    Anita Dickason

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