Frequently Asked Questions

Over the last few years, we’ve listened to a lot of crime investigation podcasts, hosted by a new generation of audio journalists. Many of these podcasters stand independent from traditional news organizations, but share that timeless reporter’s zeal to go forth, find the truth, and put it out into the world.

Our podcasting crime journalist, Ryanna Raines, was born out of these fresh voices bringing to the culture a new style of crime narrative. Creating The Raines Report and the team behind it seemed like a novelistically opportune way to explore the true crime phenomenon while utilizing it as a framework through which to tell a shocker of a
crime story.

The crime story we wanted to explore and dramatize had its roots in a real-life murder case. What happened inside the Virginia home of Derek and Nancy Haysom that spring night in 1985 may never be completely known.

What is known is that this affluent middle-aged couple died from a hyper-violent knife attack. Eventually their twenty-one-year-old daughter, Elizabeth, and her boyfriend, Jens Soering, were arrested, charged, and convicted of the murders.

Since first hearing of this baffling crime, by way of an investigative podcast, we couldn’t get it out of our heads.

Yes, that’s why we challenged ourselves to come up with a new kind of crime sleuth. We asked ourselves, “Who are today’s most popular voices in crime detection and criminal characterization?” The lights went on for us at the same moment: “Sarah Koenig!” (host of Serial). The podcasting crime journalist felt fresh as a sleuthing profession.

Criminal, Canary, CounterClock (those are just the ones starting with C) have become the digital media equivalent of The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. They are investigative podcast series with active Instagram pages and Twitter accounts, their hosts write bestselling books, give morning show interviews, and appear on panels at public events like the phenomenally popular CrimeCon.

We had written four or five novels in the traditional prose form, and while they received praise from editors, we weren’t getting any offers to publish them. The Anatomy of Desire was our first novel written in transcript style, and it sold to the first editor our agent submitted it to.

A bigger role since we began writing The Anatomy of Desire. This has been a fascinating journey into seeing the role social media plays in our lives. More and more people are connecting with others through developing their social media identities. We’ve discovered many influencers who are producing amazing content and baring their souls to their followers. We don’t consider ourselves influencers, but we’re so glad to have opened this door to such a wealth of human stories.

L. is the first initial of Suzanne’s middle name and R. is the first initial of Matt’s middle name. Dorn is an anagram of Dorff/Dunn. Arriving at a name we both agreed upon involved a fair bit of searching.