A Geologist Taken Literally

By TERRI FLEMING
guest writer

From an early age, Sarah Andrews '73 has embraced adventure and the unfamiliar.   She has overcome obstacles and made intriguing decisions.  It’s not surprising that this way of life has transformed her from a dedicated geologist to a successful mystery novelist.  

Andrews' arrival at Colorado College was a key step in her adventure.  CC helped her create “emotional distance” between her and her thriving, scholarly family in New England. Surrounded by professors and teachers, she felt out of place among her "English lit" relatives. 

At CC, Andrews found her niche in geology. "Suddenly there were people who were like me.  I've discovered that visual-spatial thinkers need to find other visual-spatial thinkers to teach them," she said. "I aced it, and it was fun." 

But Andrews still felt a need to express herself. That itch compelled her to try creative writing during her senior year. "I took James Yaffe’s two-block creative writing class, and it was wonderful," she says. "It gave me a lot of courage." 

Andrews graduated from CC with a bachelor's degree in geology and quickly found success in the corporate world. She worked in Denver for a handful of firms and, along the way, earned a master's in earth resources at Colorado State University in 1981. During these corporate years, Andrews' urge to write lay all but dormant. There were all kinds of interesting things happening, she said, and "I came out of all of that with a file full of anecdotes."

When the price of oil plummeted in 1984, Andrews decided to take a break. "I wasn’t the corporate type, and I had more miles to go with what I wanted to learn about life," she said. 

Her break lasted three-and-a-half years and resulted in the first draft of her first book.  "Tensleep," published in 1994, introduced mystery fans to protagonist Em Hansen, a crime-solving forensic geologist who just happens to be a CC geology grad. Today, Andrews has created a series of six Em Hansen novels to great acclaim. Number seven, "Fault Line," is due out January 2002.

Publisher’s Weekly wrote about the 1999 "Bone Hunter," her fifth novel, "Science and detective work should go together naturally...not many writers nowadays embark upon the scientific mystery. Of those who do, Andrews...has become a leading light." 

"The first three books are a venting of my spleen, and the battle between good and evil is what I had in mind," Andrews explains.  But now, as she embarks on writing Em Hansen's eighth adventure -- an eerily well-timed mystery about bioterrorism that took hold in her thinking well before September 11 -- Andrews has another agenda. "The series has become a way of delivering up an understanding of the complexity of doing science," she says.   

In some ways, Andrews' adventuresome spirit has spun her full circle.  She is an instructor at Sonoma State University, and she's a writer enjoying far more success than her "English lit" relatives.  And she's forging new territories all the time.  A licensed pilot living in California, Andrews braves the wilds of family life with husband Damon Brown, president and chief geologist of EBA Engineering, and son Duncan, age seven.

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The Em Hansen series:

  "Tensleep," 1994, Otto Penzler Books, New York 

"A Fall in Denver," 1995, Scribner, New York 

"Mother Nature," 1997, St. Martin’s Press, New York 

"Only Flesh and Bones," 1998, St. Martin’s Press, New York 

"Bone Hunter," 1999, St. Martin’s Minotaur, New York 

"An Eye for Gold," 2000, St. Martin’s Minotaur, New York 

"Fault Line," January 2002, St. Martin’s Minotaur, New York

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