Interview: February 11, 2025
Camille Delaney returns with another investigation --- and this time it’s personal --- in UNSHACKLED, Amanda DuBois' third mystery/thriller featuring the quick-witted Seattle attorney. In this interview, DuBois talks about her inspiration for the series, points out the one statistic about incarcerated women that surprised her the most as she was writing this latest installment, and explains what she would like readers to take away from the book after they’ve turned the last page.
Question: Do you remember the moment you thought of creating the Camille Delaney character? What were you doing? Why did you see a need for this type of character on the bookshelves?
Amanda DuBois: I wrote THE COMPLICATION, the first book in the Camille Delaney series, over 20 years ago. I was a medical malpractice trial lawyer at the time, and I was so fed up with how the insurance companies jerked injured people around. I was outraged at how the legal system valued human lives. I had come from a nursing background where every person has equal value. But in the legal system, a person’s value lies in how much money they can make. So, for example, a bank president who died would have a higher value than a barista. I wanted to write something that would expose this inequity and educate people about how messed up our justice system is. I considered writing a magazine article or something similar, and then it hit me. Why not write fiction with a message?
So Camille Delaney was born, and her first case, the story in THE COMPLICATION, is about a retired man who dies as a result of medical malpractice. It explores how unjust it is that his widow’s compensation would be lower than if he had been a much younger wage earner. Next, I wrote DELIVER THEM FROM EVIL, which is about a baby who dies because of malpractice and how wrong it is that the settlement offered was insultingly low because the baby was not a wage earner. As the insurance companies always say, “The family can just have another baby.”
Camile’s purpose is to educate readers as they accompany her through a twisting and turning story with a message.
Q: Thanks to your background as a lawyer and former medical professional, you know a lot of “strange but true” cases and details. But what’s one thing you learned when you were writing UNSHACKLED that you didn’t know before?
AD: I write what I know. I was a nurse. And now I’m a lawyer. I have argued cases in hundreds of courtrooms, and I am intimately familiar with what goes into a legal case. It’s easy to write about it. I just close my eyes, and I’m back in the courthouse. And as a nurse, I’ve attended hundreds of deliveries and countless operations. So I know all the details experienced by nurses. I think that’s why I get such positive feedback about my descriptive writing. I write what I’ve lived. I also should mention that the opening scenes in the first two books were taken from actual cases I had. Of course, I had to add in a little fiction to kick off the stories, but the guts of the scenes are very true to life.
It’s been a little bittersweet writing some of the book scenes. I haven’t been in a delivery room or operating room for decades, but writing those scenes, I could feel the chill and the unique smell of the hospital. And the descriptions of the courtrooms brought back so many fond memories of advocating for clients who were faced with unimaginable adversity, whether in a hotly contested divorce or a medical malpractice case where a serious injury or even a death was at issue. And in UNSHACKLED, I just fictionalized the stories I heard over and over from my girlfriends who served time in prison.
What did I learn when writing UNSHACKLED? It’s stunning to take in the reality of mothers in prison. According to The Sentencing Project, the number of incarcerated women increased by more than 585% between 1980 and 2022.
Q: What do you hope people are feeling (or thinking) when they turn the last page of UNSHACKLED?
AD: I hope, from the bottom of my heart, that readers will close the book and say to themselves, “I had no idea.” And then, “What can I do to help these moms and kids?” That’s why, when I wrote the last page of UNSHACKLED, I decided to start a foundation to help moms and kids impacted by the criminal legal system. This is a huge issue of public safety, not to mention the tragedy of taking a mother away from her children.
Q: Sometimes it feels as though Seattle is another character in the book. You mention many Seattle landmarks and smaller outlying towns. What’s your favorite Seattle-area destination?
AD: Well, I’ve lived here almost all my life, so it’s hard to pick a favorite. But I think I’d have to say that you can’t beat the magic of the San Juan Islands, and our place on Decatur Island is very special. Decatur is one of the San Juans that is not served by the public ferry system. We have no stores, no law enforcement, no trash pickup, no medical. It’s pretty remote, and a very special community. And breathtakingly gorgeous. There’s a poem by Rachel Lyman Field that describes my experience on Decatur Island. It starts like this: “If once you’ve slept on an island, you’ll never be quite the same….”
Q: What can readers expect next from the Camille Delaney series?
AD: Camille Delaney has only touched the tip of the iceberg that is the prison system. You’ll find her back there working for justice once again.
