Morningside Connect

Bill Zahren, class of 1986, is the author of the newly released book Officer Involved, a book that is set in Sioux City, Iowa, and features a main character that is a Morningside College graduate.

Zahren started writing the book in 1998 but took a break after he got discouraged by the number of hoops he had to jump through to get it published.

“Writing a book is a lot of work,” said Zahren. “Drafting 89,000 words is just a small part of it. Editing over and over and over is the real challenge.”

The book was revived in 2014 when Zahren started working towards self-publication. It was released by Mill City Press in Minneapolis on Oct. 6 and is currently available in paperback and eBook through Zahren’s website, billzahren.com. It can also be found at Barnes & Noble and Amazon.

The fictional novel is set in Sioux City primarily because of Zahren’s fondness for the area.

“As in every novel, the characters are amalgams of characteristics and mannerisms of a lot of people,” said Zahren. “There’s definitely bits of people I knew in the county attorney’s office in Hillary Reed. Tom Kingman is the reporter I always fantasized about being but never was. Some of the stuff he does, real reporters probably wouldn’t or couldn’t do for various reasons.”

Office Involved is the first of four books in the series. The second book, Paper Trail, is tentatively planned to be published in the fall of 2016. The series continues on with the story of Tom and Hillary as they dig to discover the truth of crimes.

Zahren majored in mass communication with a double minor in English and history. After college he worked as a newspaper reporter for the Le Mars Daily Sentinel and the Sioux City Journal for nine years. He and his wife, Rhonda, now live in West Des Moines, Iowa. Rhonda is a registered nurse, and Bill works as a self-employed freelance marketing writer when he is not writing novels.