News

Tara Moss is turning heads. Nearly disjointing some, it seems. As the statuesque blond author and former fashion model confidently strides into the lobby bar at Vancouver's Pan Pacific Hotel, men (and several women) swivel to take a second look at this mysterious, long-legged creature. Sexily attired in skin-tight jeans, pointy stiletto boots and a short-cut Burberry trench coat cinched around a willowy waist, she exudes the air of a dangerous gun-toting dame in a modern-day film-noir thriller.

The Canadian-born writer has the same impact in Australia, where she has lived for the last 10 years. But when Moss walks into a room Down Under, sometimes on a red carpet with flashbulbs popping, she is immediately recognized as the country's bestselling crime writer and television host of the documentary series Tara Moss Investigates.

Moss has crossed continents to promote Split, her second novel in a series starring Makedde Vanderwall, a ballsy blond magnet for psychopathic killers who is paying her way through a PhD in forensic psychology by modelling. Moss's novels (the fourth is about to be released in Australia and New Zealand) have been published in nine countries and five languages. In Australia, they have been nominated for the prestigious Davitt and Ned Kelly awards. In the United States, Publishers Weekly has lauded her as "a bold new female voice for American crime-fiction fans."

Yet here at home on the West Coast of Canada where her family lives, she is still just another exceptionally pretty face.

"It almost feels as if I've gone back in time for a moment, to introduce myself to people," says Moss, who hopes her Canadian readership will spike with this sophomore novel (first published in Australia in 2002).

Split's distinctly Canadian setting shouldn't hurt sales. The fast-paced novel takes place in Victoria and Vancouver, pivoting around the University of British Columbia campus, where a serial killer is stalking female students. The heroine lives in Kitsilano and visits several familiar landmarks, including Sophie's Cosmic Café, Caper's organic food market and Tojo's Japanese restaurant. Fashion Television host and Globe Style columnist Jeanne Beker is mentioned. And Dr. Robert Hare, a professor emeritus at the University of British Columbia and international expert on psychopathy, turns up in a cameo.

Moss, who says she finds Vancouver just as exotic as Sydney, Melbourne, Hong Kong and the other story locales, was never encouraged to set it anywhere else.

At least not until recently now that several U.S. producers have expressed interest in optioning the film rights.

"They want to set it in New York or Ohio -- anywhere, basically, except Canada or Australia. At the moment, I'm hanging on. But if they give me enough money, I'm sure I'll sell out," she says with a wicked laugh that causes her cheeks to dimple.

Moss grew up in Victoria with a fascination for all things morbid, which she attributes to an early immersion in Edward Gorey's Gothic books for children. By the age of 10, Moss was writing gruesome Stephen King-inspired stories that cast her classmates as murder victims.

"I was a bit strange," she confesses.

At 16, shortly after her mother died of complications caused by multiple myeloma, a form of cancer, Moss left home to pursue a career in modelling. She lived in London, Milan, Hamburg and Barcelona. Her photos graced the covers of more than 40 magazines. In 1996, she went to Australia for a work assignment and fell in love with television actor Peter Mochrie. The relationship didn't work out (she is now married to film producer Mark Pennell), but she decided to stay and pursue her first passion, writing.

While studying for a diploma from the Australian College of Journalism, Moss won a short-story fiction award, which attracted the attention of an agent. Eight months later, she produced the manuscript for her first novel Fetish, the story of a young Canadian model who stumbles into the path of serial killer when she goes to Sydney to come to grips with the recent death of her mother.

The superficial similarities between author and character initially raised eyebrows. One journalist, obviously unaccustomed to bombshells with brains, even accused her of having the first novel ghost-written.

"I used the writing of Fetish as a cathartic experience for the loss of my mother," Moss explains. "But that doesn't mean Mak is me. I suppose she's like a fictional sister."

Moss's real sister, who arrives during the interview, is nothing like the whiney, preppy sister in the novel. And their father, a former appliance salesman at Eaton's, never worked as a detective.

"I'll often find myself on a live program where the interviewer will say, 'What was it like growing up in a house where your dad was talking about crime every day?' " says Moss. "I have to go, 'Um, I'm really sorry to do this to you on air, but you're confusing me with the character. It's not a memoir.' "

Although Moss integrates her own experiences into her writing, she also does extensive research. Among her many adventurous pursuits, she has toured the FBI Academy at Quantico, Va., tagged along in squad cars, visited morgues, prisons and criminology conferences, taken polygraph tests, learned how to shoot a rifle, ride a motorcycle, race cars and is now only three months away from obtaining a private investigator's licence.

"I like to collect licences," says Moss, who also has an Australian Wildlife licence for her two non-venomous pet snakes. Gomez, a 2.3-metre Diamond python, and Thing, a baby Black Headed python, apparently spend a lot of time with Moss at her desk.

"They're the perfect writing companions," Moss says. "They kind of slink around you and hug you and hang out. I highly recommend them. They're even better than a cat. They never scratch."

Gomez, unfortunately, has a mischievous tendency of knocking books off her shelves. "It's hysterical," she says. "He'll turn around and look at me, like he knows what he's done, and then quietly go back into the bookcase. They have real personalities. They just mask it better because they don't have many expressions.

"Seriously," she continues. "Gomez is very shy. If I pick him up when someone is around, he'll stick his head in my armpit and try to hide. I find it very ironic, because the other person in the room is usually a lot more fearful of him. I suppose I like that about snakes. They're very misunderstood."

As was Moss. When making the crossover from modelling to writing, some well-meaning people suggested she cut her hair short and start wearing glasses.

"It's not something I really expected, although in hindsight, I don't know why I didn't think about it. It just seemed to me that we were past all those old stereotypes, but there are still a lot people out there who think that a young woman, particularly one with a modelling background, probably doesn't have very much to say."

Moss never did cut her hair, play down her natural good looks or buy into the stereotype of a dowdy writer. And now that she has established herself as a credible author, she says a sexy, strong image probably works to her advantage, at least with her female readers.

There are some men, however, who are still dumbfounded when they find out she's an author. "They look at me and say, 'You write novels?' There's often this total confusion. I guess they find it a bit confronting. That's a massive generalization, but no woman has ever said that to me. Women seem to understand that a dress is just a dress."