Image credit: Kate Eshelby

A newspaper columnist in Portland, Ore., Chelsea Cain, 35, is also the author of Heartsick — a well-wrought thriller starring a deliciously creepy female serial killer. Leah Greenblatt talked to the novelist about her inspirations and the creation of one of literature's most memorable psychopaths since Hannibal Lecter.

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: What made you take on a female serial killer? There are so many strong women in your book, but they're also flawed and human, as are the men. Is it hard to avoid those sort of hard-boiled victim-and-bad-guy archetypes when you're writing a book like this?
CHELSEA CAIN: Laziness. I couldn't think of anything new to bring to a male serial killer. And they just didn't interest me as much. I think there's something intrinsically scary about a woman who kills. We're supposed to nurture, not carve someone up with an X-Acto knife. But I don't mind archetypes. And as damaged as Archie, my detective protagonist, is, he is just your classic Byronic hero, and that's certainly an archetype. Susan, the screwed-up yet ambitious journalist, is an archetype. I allowed myself to embrace every cliché and trope from every TV show and movie and book I'd ever read, and then I tried to throw them a little bit on their ear, by pushing them further than usual. I'm not trying to write The Lovely Bones. I'm trying to write a good, old-fashioned pulp thriller page-turner, with some compelling characters and very few irritating bits.

You incorporate Portland so thoroughly into your story, which is interesting, partly because the Northwest has such a specific, spooky mood (or at least, by reputation), and also because it seems to reflect the darker state of so many of its characters. Does that seem true to you?
Yes, we are crawling with serial killers out here. I think they come here for the quality of life. And the coffee. Serial killers love coffee. I do think that the Northwest can be eerie. Our natural state is gloom. That's why the sun is out so much in Heartsick. We're used to rain. It's the sun that makes us feel off-kilter. Put 10 Portlanders in a park on a sunny day and eight of us will just curl up on the grass and start to cry. The other two will start a game of hackey-sack.

It's great how you have Gretchen call Susan ''Clarice'' in an off-hand manner while they're visiting. Did the specter of Hannibal Lecter loom pretty large over you while you were writing?
Funnily enough, no. I guess I'm thick-headed. But then I got to that scene, in the middle of the book, where Susan visits Gretchen in jail, and I suddenly thought, ''Man, everyone's going to think I'm ripping off Silence of the Lambs.'' Which is demonstrably not true. I'm ripping off Harris' earlier book, Red Dragon. So I added the ''Clarice'' line to at least acknowledge the elephant in the room.

What's up next for you? Are you thinking of a prequel, or something that picks up with one or more of Heartsick's main characters? Or are you thinking of an entirely different genre altogether?
I have a three-book deal, so I will write at least two more books that pick up on the further adventures of Gretchen, her ardent pursuer Det. Archie Sheridan, and journalist Susan Ward. I want to write a bunch of these. But if I ever get around to the story of Gretchen Lowell's childhood, I hope someone takes the pen from my hand and uses it to stab me in the throat.