The Social Worker, Serial Killers, and a Spicy Romance by Irene Fantopoulos

The year was 1989. While the Berlin Wall was being chipped away, an even more profound, yet subtly dramatic, shift was occurring, masterminded by moi. I finished my Masters in Social Work, said goodbye to my patients and embarked on a career in the civil service, believing that change must come from within. Before long, administrivia and research — a recipe for boredom — left me needing more and, in my spare time, I assembled a chaotic body of notes, short stories, manuscripts, and post its, spanning crime fiction, memoir, and poetry. 

That same year I penned my first full length romance novel. Crime writing came later, despite my love of true crime, cozy mysteries, and serial killers. I put away my spicy manuscript, so ahead of its time, it had to wait until 2022. Imagine the sheer, frustrating energy it spent sitting in a box for 30 years, panting from its smouldering content, waiting to be unleashed. All the while I was drafting policy papers, press releases, and Cabinet submissions. 

In 2019, I accepted a package and turned seriously to writing fiction and memoir, including work about my mother’s battle with dementia. Then, came COVID, a darkness that consumed all of us. So, I completed my first book, All the Evil Scatters, in 2021 — a dark story about a serial killer unleashed in the streets of Toronto. Like COVID, perhaps?

What next? Like many others, I turned to decluttering. Amid cobwebs and stacks of paper, I rediscovered my long-forgotten romance manuscript — a hidden treasure of half-typed pages on my Selectric typewriter and half-handwritten pages — waiting to be rescued from purgatory. I updated it to contemporary times; it didn’t qualify as historical fiction. Shoulder pads that made women resemble linebackers were eliminated, permed hair disappeared, and the serpentine, corded telephone — limiting conversations to a five-foot radius — was replaced with cordless freedom. Smoking on airplanes was cut, and other relics quietly retired. I kept the original title, Burden of Proof, though after publication, I discovered it competed with Scott Turow’s courtroom drama.

Today, I consider myself a multi-genre writer — not just a crime writer — shaped by social work, public service, and a manuscript that refused to stay buried.