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Kim Wozencraft

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Kim Wozencraft is a former undercover narcotics agent. She and her partner's exploits while employed by the Tyler, Texas Police Department are the inspiration behind her book, "Rush". Both Kim and her partner were eventually convicted of Federal civil rights crimes for making false drug cases against a number of people in Tyler. Both spent time in federal prison. Prior to going to prison in 1982, she and her partner (Craig Matthews) were married.

Kim Wozencraft is the author of Rush, The Devil's Backbone, Wanted, Notes from the Country Club and The Catch: A Novel.

Publishers Weekly said of Rush, “With an unquestionably authoritative narrative voice, first novelist Wozencraft commands readers into her harrowing story of a young narcotics agent's descent into a hell of chemical dependency and moral ambiguity. While a part-time college student, 21-year-old Kristen Cates is recruited to work in an undercover drug operation with the Pasadena, Tex., police. She's "a natural," insists her partner Jim Raynor, a captain who assures her that she, like him and others before her, can stay "cool" even though she must learn to smoke, swallow or shoot up dope in order to make the buys that will convict the dealers. She and Jim become lovers and move to another operation in Beaumont in an effort to bring in a drug charge against a well-known, well-protected local pornographer, an attempt that will backfire and bring them to trial instead. This action proceeds with suspense and smooth complexity; the real conflict, however, occurs within Kristen as, watching Jim deny the extent of his addiction, she acknowledges her dependency even while compiling evidence against the people about whom she realizes: "The difference between them and me was that I understood there was no difference." In total command of her material, its language and procedures, and without resort to sensationalism, Wozencraft, a former undercover cop, writes of a world in which pain--physical, emotional and spiritual--is nearly palpable.”

Publishers Weekly said of Wanted, “At New York's Sundown prison, two cell mates, convicted political activist Gail Rubin and former Bolton, Tex., police officer Diane Wellman, discover a mutual interest in absolution and escape. In this nimbly written nail-biter, Wozencraft (Rush) explores the boundaries separating—and the bonds uniting—those who break the law and those who enforce it. Gail has spent 18 years in the can for being a member of Free Now, a fringe group whose Philadelphia bank robbery resulted in several deaths. After her request for parole is denied, 44-year-old Gail faces 12 more years behind bars. Diane, a 24-year-old police officer, was framed for drug possession after objecting to the bogus murder conviction of a local drug addict, now sitting on death row. A former undercover narcotics officer, Wozencraft is known for her gritty characters and razor-sharp prose. She's a champ at suspense, too: tensions run high after a daring jailbreak, as fleet-footed fugitives Gail and Diane test the boundaries of trust. With the help of folks from Gail's revolutionary days, the pair manages to remain one step ahead of the law. While Gail sets her mind to the straight-and-narrow, Diane is determined to settle old scores in Texas. The loose ends of Wozencraft's plot may tie up a bit too easily, but her knack for nonstop action will keep readers engaged from the very first page.”

Kirkus reviews said of The Devil's Backbone, “Victimized exotic dancer seeks payback through stripping. In Kit Metcalf's mind, it goes like this: When she writhes, wriggles and wraps herself erotically around a pole, tantalizing the covey of slavering males safely caged in their reinforced-glass spectator booths, it's a form of vengeance, the stuff of power. "She could make them feel, if not exactly as she had that night-the night that would not go away-at least something of the way she had felt. . . . She could make them helpless." Kit can certainly do drama queen with the best of them, but her occasional scenery-chewing here seems justified by the explosive subject matter. It's not just the brutality of that long-ago rape that has Kit smoldering. Something even more hurtful lurks relentlessly among her memories of childhood. What's most insidiously disturbing and traumatizing about it is that it's something she can't be sure actually happened; Kit's subconscious is first-rate at keeping secrets. Real or chimerical, a pervasive ugliness has poisoned her mind, jaundiced the way she views her family and the world around her and sent her in desperation to psychiatrist Emily Wolfe's couch-a place somebody obviously doesn't want her to be. Wolfe's office is ransacked, Kit's file stolen, the psychiatrist herself is attacked and seriously hurt. Is it a ruthless intent to end this particular doctor-patient relationship? Why? What is it that must remain buried? What does the murder of Kit's sister have to do with it? These questions, disturbing enough, are nothing to the answers that, when they come, will leave Kit shattered and perhaps permanently scarred. A deftly plotted, briskly paced psychological thriller: solid storytelling in the dependable Wozencraft manner.”

The Library Journal said of The Catch: A Novel, “Focusing on territory she knows best from her days as an undercover narcotics cop, Wozencraft (Rush, LJ 4/1/90) again engulfs readers in the dangerous world of drugs. The plot clings to one family's involvement in marijuana smuggling. The former coke-addict wife needs her husband to come clean for their children's sake but secretly misses the days when she worked with him, the husband continues to promise his family and himself he will get out but seems obsessed with the thrill, and the DEA agent on the case has conflicting motives that create most of the suspense. As a thriller, The Catch holds its own, but the story works better as a character study, specifically of a woman dealing with her past addiction, her menacing present, and her intolerable future. She runs the gamut from supporter to observer to survivor, and her painful emotions bleed onto the page.”


Rush
Kim Wozencraft  More Info

The Devil's Backbone
Kim Wozencraft  More Info

Wanted
Kim Wozencraft  More Info

Slam
Grove Press  More Info

Notes from the Country Club
Kim Wozencraft  More Info

The Catch: A Novel
Kim Wozencraft  More Info

Kirkus reviews said of Notes from the Country Club, “Wozencraft's stint as a narc inspired her raggedly vital Rush (1990)--and, like Rush's heroine, she wound up her cop-career by perjuring herself into a federal pen. Behind bars, withdrawing from Valium addiction, Wozencraft was sent to a women's psychiatric unit: the bleak setting for this second novel--more controlled than Rush but far less daring--about a woman awaiting trial for killing her abusive husband. Narrator Cynthia Mitchell, 39, is undergoing evaluation in the Fort Worth federal prison to see whether she's competent to stand trial for fatally stabbing her pilot husband Daniel. But we don't learn that for a while, as Cynthia concentrates first on describing her prison life: her job threading handles into mailbags; her sessions with a male prison psychiatrist; her exchanges with a crew of properly picturesque inmates--a wise Cuban, a tough Jew, a poetry-loving African-American, and a woman who dances with scarves. Slowly, amid dramas that include a suicide attempt and Cynthia's own nervous breakdown--leading to three weeks in isolation in ``the white room''--Cynthia's past seeps in: Child of an abusive dad and passive mom, she repeated her mother's mistake by marrying a white knight with tarnished armor. Daniel began smacking Cynthia soon after the marriage--abuse that escalated until she cut him as he slept: ``His skin needed the blade. I let him go. I survived.'' Cynthia survives again when, after she's found competent and is put on trial, she perjures herself by claiming that she killed Daniel as he choked her--a statement followed immediately by an expert witness's long explanation of why battered women stay with abusive men. The jury deliberates; justice triumphs. Cynthia and her plight ring true, but this is p.c. fiction- -polemic disguised as story--and, however compassionate and carefully drawn, about as subtle as Uncle Tom's Cabin.”

About the Tyler Police Department

The Tyler Police Department consists of 187 sworn officers and 62 civilian employees who are organized into three divisions: Patrol, Investigative and Support.  Additionally, the department has a number of specialized units within those divisions such as: the Crime Analysis Unit and Crisis Negotiations Unit.

According to the Tyler Police Department, “Crime Analysis is a systematic, analytical process directed at providing timely and pertinent information relative to crime patterns and trend correlations to assist the operational and administrative personnel in planning the deployment of resources for the prevention and suppression of criminal activities.

The Crime Analysis Unit supports the operational elements and the administration of the Police Department by collecting, analyzing, and disseminating information on crime pattern detection, crime-suspect correlation, target profile analysis, and forecasting crime potential, trends, and patterns.

The Crime Analysis Unit integrates service calls into the department’s geographical information system.  The Crime Analysis Unit completes monthly crime and traffic reports for the Department.

The Crisis Negotiations Unit is a six person team led by a Sergeant. It responds, in a specially equipped van, and in conjunction with the Special Operations Team, to instances of barricaded subjects and hostage situations. The team, which is on 24 hour call, is very experienced, well trained, and equipped, and has been recognized statewide for its expertise.”

According to the Tyler Police Department, “Crime Analysis is a systematic, analytical process directed at providing timely and pertinent information relative to crime patterns and trend correlations to assist the operational and administrative personnel in planning the deployment of resources for the prevention and suppression of criminal activities.

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