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Writer hopes novels are merely her opening chapter
By ROBERT FARLEY © St. Petersburg Times, published January 21, 2001 PALM HARBOR -- The payoff came in a bookstore in London. Theresa Sandberg-Arnston of Palm Harbor looked up and there was her book, under her pen name, Catherine Arnold, sitting next to one of her husband's thrillers. It was her late husband, novelist Harrison Arnston, who inspired her to become an author at age 54. When she was published, he worried that with the same last name people might mistake who had written which book. So she came up with a pen name. The first name she took from her granddaughter, Catherine. The last name, Arnold, she fashioned by using the first three letters of her husband's last name. They hoped one day their books might end up side-by-side on the library shelf. To her delight, they did. Harrison Arnston died five years ago, but it was his encouragement and example that persuaded Theresa to abandon her legal career -- though not her job as a pharmacist at Albertson's -- to become a novelist. Sandberg-Arnston, 61, has had four books published, all featuring a heroine named Karen Perry-Mondori, a feisty Pinellas County defense attorney. Area residents will notice extensive local references, including scenes at the protagonist's Palm Harbor home, trips on U.S. 19 and getaways to Lake Tarpon. "I was taught to write what you know," Sandberg-Arnston said. Her four books -- Wrongful Death, Imperfect Justice, Due Process and Class Action -- have all sold well, about 150,000 copies worldwide, though she's nowhere near the league of other lawyers-turned-authors such as Scott Turow. She jokes that if she were to live off her book earnings, she'd be pitching a tent rather than living in her town house in the Gleneagles development. "They have done nicely," said Sandberg-Arnston's New York agent, Jean Naggar. "They are very entertaining and cleverly plotted novels." Born in Brooklyn, Sandberg-Arnston followed her parents' footsteps into the legal profession. She attended St. John's University for an undergraduate pharmacy degree and also obtained her law degree from the New York school. After a divorce, she met Harrison Arnston at a dinner party held by a Palm Harbor lawyer with whom she worked. Arnston had sold his auto-accessory company in California and at age 48 moved to Florida to pursue his dream of becoming a novelist. The two hit it off and married in 1988. Shortly after they began dating, Arnston finally got a book published. It was called The Warning, a political-intrigue thriller that included a plane crash in Palm Harbor. Arnston went on to publish nine books in 10 years. At the time, Sandberg-Arnston was a full-time pharmacist who also practiced law, mostly real estate law, wills and trusts. "To tell the truth, I don't enjoy the law that much," Sandberg-Arnston said. "It's a dog-eat-dog business," she said. "And clients don't always want to pay." Outside work, she critiqued her husband's writing daily. The two sometimes drew stares when they dined out and discussed whether to stab or shoot a character. Arnston, who taught creative writing on the Internet and gave writing lectures, encouraged his wife to take on a novel of her own. She made several key decisions. She knew she wanted to keep the setting local to eliminate research time. And she decided to write from a woman's point of view. And then she developed her main character, Karen Perry-Mondori, a well-grounded and aggressive defense attorney. Although the two share hyphenated last names and a petite stature (Sandberg-Arnston is 4 feet 8), that's where the similarities end, she said. She notes that unlike her heroine, she has never practiced criminal law. Luckily, she has friends who do. She also sat through several criminal cases in Pinellas County courts to get a feel for things. Practicing law often is the art of performance, she said. "Whoever performs the best, if you have the law on your side, you can win," she said. Drawing from people and places she knew, Sandberg-Arnston began writing a few pages a day. Her husband edited and prodded her on. During her first year of writing, however, he became ill with cancer and died in February 1996. Sandberg-Arnston pressed on and took three months off her job as a pharmacist to do a final rewrite of the novel, Due Process. She wrote to 10 agents with the first chapter and a description of what the story was about. One decided to take her on, marketing her book to publishers. It took her agent, Naggar, a year to sell the book after three or four rejections. "It's such a subjective thing," Sandberg-Arnston said. Signet ended up giving her a two-book deal, then a second two-book deal. Most are paperbacks, or as Sandberg-Arnston calls them, "rack-jobbers" sold in drug stores and airports. They only last on the rack two weeks. If they don't sell, they're pulled. In England, the book was marketed in a hardback version. Several Catherine Arnold novels can be found in the Palm Harbor library. They also can be purchased through online book dealers such as Amazon.com and Borders.com. Sandberg-Arnston is trying to market a book called American Terrorist. It is a deviation from her series. The protagonist was taken from a bit character in one of her husband's books. "It's a very, very tough business," she said. "I really don't know if I'm going to get published again. I'm trying." And she is writing again, a return to her series starring Karen Perry-Mondori. It's about a serial killer and travel agent who picks his victims based on knowing when their husbands will be out of town on travel. Sometimes customers who know her as a pharmacist at Albertson's take time to talk to her about her novels and different characters. Some writers might find that an annoyance, but Sandberg-Arnston enjoys the interplay. "I'm getting feedback most writers don't get because I'm out there," she said. - Staff writer Robert Farley can be reached at (727) 445-4185 or farley@sptimes.com.
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