Former job inspires novel

Sorting through Coeur d’Alene’s crimes and observing its police officers at work for 31 years provided one local author with so much material she’s already contemplating a sequel to her just-released debut novel.

Though not based on fact, Faye Higbee’s novel “Night Games” was inspired in part by the people she worked with and the cases she saw during her tenure as a records clerk for the Coeur d’Alene Police Department.

Higbee wrote the novel under the pen name C.J. Ravenscroft, a combination of “Tomb Raider” heroine Lara Croft and the name of Higbee’s religious work called Raven Ministries. And Ravenscroft has that mystery ring to it, Higbee said.

The novel follows Blue Lakes Police Lt. Jacob Tanner as he works to solve a string of bloody murders that appears to be linked to devil worship and role-playing games. Police records employee Dawn Korakis uses the power of prayer to tackle the murderer or murderers from another angle.

Higbee said Dawn is her alter ego … to a point.

“Dawn’s completely different in that she’s much nicer than I am. I’m a little harder. I’m more of an alligator-wrestler type,” Higbee said. “How she’s like me is that she’s always sticking her nose into things to make sure people are alright.”

Now retired, the 54-year-old Post Falls resident graduated from Post Falls High School and has a degree in ministry. She is married and has two grown stepchildren and two grandchildren.

“Night Games’ ” blend of crime thriller, the supernatural and Christian novel defies easy categorization, Higbee said, calling it a “crossover book.”

“This is not your grandmother’s Christian book,” she said of the violence in its pages.

One local case in particular prompted Higbee’s interest in writing about the games and the occult’s possible effects on people. That 1992 case involved a young “Dungeons and Dragons” player who shot himself.

“It broke my heart,” she said. “Some of the people get so involved in the games that it controls them and can destroy their life.”

In addition to what she saw while working for the Coeur d’Alene Police Department, Higbee also drew upon a file of stories about strange crimes across the country during her creative writing process.

That file just keeps getting thicker.

“I’d like to do a sequel,” she said. “There’s all sorts of weird stuff out there.”