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Editor: Kevin Flynn
Profession: Author - Relentless Pursuit

Category: About the Book

In its March 6, 2007 issue, the Washington Post featured a lengthy profile of Relentless Pursuit author Kevin Flynn. The article begins:

It took Kevin Flynn just over a year to put away the man who killed Diane Hawkins and her 13-year-old daughter, Katrina Harris.

It has taken him almost 14 years to put to paper the story of that night in 1993 when Norman Harrell took the lives -- and the hearts -- of Hawkins, who was his ex-girlfriend, and her daughter.

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The writer goes on to describe the long path that Relentless Pursuit took before achieving publication:

"Relentless Pursuit" did not start out as a book built around himself, Flynn said. He intended to write about Hawkins and her family, ordinary people caught up in something terrible. In his early drafts, in fact, Flynn did not appear, he said, for more than 100 pages.

But a first manuscript found no takers when it circulated in 1997 and 1998. He was told the book, at about 450 pages, was too long. He cut it down and shopped it around again. By 2001, he still had found no takers.

A writer and a lawyer who does a lot of work in publishing were asked to look at the manuscript, and they suggested a change, Flynn said. "They said, 'You need to put yourself more up front. The reader needs to see this case through your eyes.' "

Flynn was reluctant. "Philosophically, that was not the book that I had set out to write," he said. He wanted it to remain the family's story. They had embraced him as one of their own. They had prayed with him at the courthouse for his father, who died later that year. Day after day, they had touched Flynn.

But he also wanted the book published, and he knew this would be his best and almost certainly his last chance. "We pretty much thought that was going to be it," he said. So he agreed to make himself a central figure. "It made me sit down and see how I was changed, for the good, by this," Flynn said.

An only child, he had grown into something of a loner when it came to his job. The Harrell case changed that, he said. Since then he's been more inclined to team with other prosecutors. "I got a sense of community that I hadn't necessarily been exposed to, not in my professional life," he said.

Click here to read the full-length article describing the book's main themes and the author's long road to publication