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.
