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.
