This week’s episode of the Crime Cafe podcast features my interview with crime writer Charles Salzberg.

Check out our final regular episode of Season Nine!

Before I bring on my guest, I’ll just remind you that the Crime Cafe has two eBooks for sale: the nine book box set and the short story anthology. You can find the buy inks for both on my website, debbimack.com under the Crime Cafe link. You can also get a free copy of either book if you become a Patreon supporter. You’ll get that and much more if you support the podcast on Patreon, along with our eternal gratitude for doing so.

We also have a shop now. Check it out!

Check us out on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/crimecafe

The transcript can be downloaded here.

Debbi: Hi everyone. This is the last regular episode of the ninth season of the Crime Café. I cannot believe that I’ve been doing this for nine years, honest to God. So, in any case, our guest tonight is a person who has worked as a journalist and he is a novelist, who has written for a variety of magazines, including Esquire, GQ, Elle and others. He’s also written book reviews. He gets paid to do that. I have to find out about that.

Charles: Not much. Not much.

Debbi: Not much?

Charles: Not much.

Debbi: Well, you get paid something. That’s nice. His series though is the Henry Swann Detective series, which is really cool, I think, at least based on what I’ve read. He has written true crime and a variety of nonfiction books, including a book about Soupy Sales, which I have to ask about. He’s a writing teacher and mentor, as well as the founding member of the New York Writers’ Workshop. It’s my pleasure to have with me, Charles Salzberg.

Charles: Thank you so much for having me.

Debbi: Oh, sure. It is my pleasure, believe me. I just started actually your latest Man on the Run. Wow. What a great opening. You already have me hooked. I love your style. It has a kind of a chatty feel to it. Is this the way you write generally?

Charles: Yes. Almost all the stuff I write is in first person from different people, and I just like that conversational style.

Debbi: Yeah. Yeah. I’m with you there. Yeah. I like that. What inspired you to write the Henry Swann Series?

Charles: It was inspired in the beginning by spite. I was in an MFA program at Columbia, and I had to have a manuscript to get in, and I chose this teacher who said he read the manuscript – I’m not sure he did. It got me into the program and he said to me, do you know how to tell a story? And I said, yes, I know how to tell a story. He said, well, you don’t tell stories. This book is written like Nabokov and Philip Roth, in a style like that. You should read Chekhov. I was an English major. I had read Chekhov. Anyway, I quit after two weeks and I thought, well, this guy doesn’t think I can write plot. I’m going to write a book that’s very plotted, and those would be detective novels.

So the first Swann book was called Swann’s Last Song because I had no intention of writing crime novels after that, or revisit Swann. It had a very interesting history because I wrote it and I sent it to agents and editors, and they all said we love this, but we can’t publish it with this ending. The problem with the ending for them was the detective follows all the clues, and in the end, the murder has nothing to do with any of the clues he followed. It was totally random. So the reader finds out what happened, but the detective who’s really a skip tracer had nothing to do with solving the crime. And they said you’re going to disappoint detective/crime lovers because they need the detective to solve the crime. And so I said, well, that’s not what this book is about. I was much younger then, and so I said if you’re not going to publish it this way, I’m going to put it away and forget about it and go onto the next thing.

About 20 years later, I happened to stumble across the manuscript and I read it and I thought, this is pretty good. Maybe things have changed. I had been published much more in those 20 years in nonfiction, and I gave it to an editor and he said, I love this book but we can’t publish it with this ending. I said, well, what if I change the ending? And they said yes. So in 20 years, I learned how to sell out essentially, and again, I had no intention of writing another crime novel, but it was nominated for a Shamus Award for Best First PI Novel. I didn’t even know what a Shamus Award was, and when I lost, I got really pissed off and I said, I’m going to keep writing these things until I win something. So that’s how it happened.

It was really inspired by a magazine article I wrote about a fellow by the name of Sidney Weinstein, who was what was called a skip tracer. Skip tracers are, to me, even lower than the private detectives. They’re the ones that repo cars and they find husbands who have run away from their wives and lost people, and I kind of patterned it after this guy that I interviewed.

Debbi: That’s fascinating. It’s fascinating how much spite played into your decision to write crime.

Charles: Then I found that I liked it. After I got started and did a couple of books, I found this is pretty good. This is fun.

Debbi: It’s awesome. What do you enjoy most about crime writing?

Charles: The character. I’m really big into character. I don’t write typical murder mysteries.

Debbi: I love that.

Charles: Occasionally there are murders in the books, but only one did I write, Canary in the Coal Mine. That was kind of like a murder mystery. I’m much more interested in other crimes, smaller crimes, crimes that I think that we can identify with a little bit more.

I don’t write typical murder mysteries. … I’m much more interested in other crimes, smaller crimes, crimes that I think that we can identify with a little bit more.

Debbi: I was going to say you can do all sorts of things with a crime novel. They don’t have to involve murder, but do you plan to write more crime novels?

Charles: I do. I’m working on one now.

Debbi: I was going to say, what are you working on?

Charles: I’m working on one with a little bit of a different twist, because the main character has a touch of ESP and no one in the world knows he has it. He’s embarrassed by it; he doesn’t use it. The only person who knows he has it is his best friend, and his best friend comes to him one day and says my college-age daughter is missing, and I’d like you to help me find her, if you have this power, using it. And so reluctantly to help his friend, he has to tap into this ability he has. Very reluctantly though.

I’m working on one with a little bit of a different twist, because the main character has a touch of ESP and no one in the world knows he has it. He’s embarrassed by it; he doesn’t use it.

Debbi: Reluctant why?

Charles: It scares him a little. It makes him different. He’s afraid of it. He wants to be just like everyone else, and so he’s shunned it over the years.

Debbi: Yeah. Yeah. That’s interesting. You wouldn’t want to over-rely on that, but at the same time, it adds an interesting twist to the whole detective genre.

Charles: Yes. Well, that actually comes also from a book I was going to do with a woman who had that ability out in California, and she worked with police departments. I went out there and interviewed her, and I found out how she does it and how it works for her, and this stuck in my mind for years, and I thought one day, maybe I’ll use that, so I decided to.

Debbi: That’s really cool. You’ve also written a lot of nonfiction, including a book about Soupy Sales? How did that come about?

Charles: Well, that’s quite a story too. I was approached by an agent friend of mine, and Soupy was a client. They already had the book deal, and they needed someone to work on it with him, to write it with him, really to write it. I had always been a fan growing up, so it was kind of exciting, but I said yes before I met him. And then when I met him, very nice man, but I think he was suffering from Parkinson’s and maybe he had had a stroke and he could hardly speak. Try writing a memoir with someone who can’t speak. I should have met him before. I would’ve found that out, but I just trusted the agent, so I had to rethink the entire book. So instead of just interviewing him and getting stories from him, I had to deal with it as I would a magazine article, and I found people that worked with him over the years, worked on the shows with him, and got stories from them about him. The book was really fun to do, and I spent time with him, but unfortunately I didn’t get him in his best years.

I was approached by an agent friend of mine, and Soupy [Sales] was a client. They already had the book deal, and they needed someone to work on it with him, to write it with him, really to write it. I had always been a fan growing up, so it was kind of exciting …

Debbi: Oh, that’s such a shame.

Charles: A very nice man though, and never made a lot of money doing what he did, too.

Debbi: Huh, interesting. because I remember him well. I remember he did the whole pie-in-the-face thing, didn’t he?

Charles: Yes, he did, and it became a big thing. People like Frank Sinatra would go on the show to get hit in the face with a pie.

Debbi: Right, right. He was something. How much research do you do for novels?

Charles: Well, I’m really lazy and I do as little as possible, but sometimes I do have to do research. It can be fun, depending what it’s for. Research for me is something that happens often before I even decide to write a book. So, for instance, Man on the Run, the character in that book, which he’s actually a character in Second Story Man. That’s the first time he appears. That book was inspired by an essay I read in the New Yorker years and years ago about a master thief, a master burglar. I think all writers have this. It kind of sticks in your mind, certain stories. I didn’t know that I would eventually use it in a book of mine, but I was looking for something to write about, and I thought maybe it’s time to do a book with a master burglar, and then I did have to do research.

I’m really lazy and I do as little as possible, but sometimes I do have to do research. It can be fun, depending what it’s for. Research for me is something that happens often before I even decide to write a book.

Every crime writer, if you look at their browsing history, Debbi, we’re all scared to death that one day someone’s going to look at our browsing history and see all the stuff we’ve had to read, had to research.

Debbi: Oh, yeah. I think about that a lot. I type something and it’s like, does anybody else know I’m doing this? What would they think?

Charles: It’ll keep us on the straight and narrow.

Debbi: There you go. Yeah. We won’t really get on their radar unless we act on it in a weird way.

Charles: Right, exactly.

Debbi: The thing you’re working on now, is that a continuation of that character?

Charles: No. No. These are totally new characters, the one I’m working on now.

Debbi: Totally new characters. Okay. So do you think you’ll extend the series that you have now?

Charles: You know, I never thought of it as a series in the first place. Second Story Man was written as a one-off. I don’t want to spoil the ending, but it ended and then I wrote another book called Canary in the Coal Mine, which had nothing to do with it. And then when I was kind of thinking about what I wanted to work on next, I started to think, well, what happens to that character, Francis Hoyt, after Second Story Man ends? And so I started Man on the Run really to find out what happens to him afterwards, because I don’t plot anything. I don’t know what’s going to happen on the next page, much less the next chapter, so it’s kind of a revelation for me writing novels. I find out what’s happening not much before the reader will find out, and so it was really just a matter of curiosity. I wanted to know what happened to Francis Hoyt.

I don’t plot anything. I don’t know what’s going to happen on the next page, much less the next chapter, so it’s kind of a revelation for me writing novels.

Debbi: Wow. I’m always amazed by people who can just sit down and write without plotting it out with any kind of outline at all, not knowing where they’re going.

Charles: Yeah. I don’t know where it comes from. It’s worked. It has always worked for me.

Debbi: I think that’s fantastic. That’s great. I wish I could do that. I should probably try it just to see if I could do it.

Charles: I think you can, and for me, what it does, it keeps it fresh. You know, there’s Jeffery Deaver, the writer, Jeffery Deaver. I interviewed him once.

Debbi: He’s great.

Charles: He does an outline of like 120 pages.

Debbi: I can’t do that.

Charles: No. Not only wouldn’t I do it, Debbi, but I don’t think I’d write the book if I did the outline, because I would know everything that was going to happen, and it wouldn’t be fresh for me, and I’d be afraid that it wouldn’t be fresh to the reader. So I admire someone who can do that, but it would inhibit me from writing the book as opposed to helping me.

Debbi: Yeah. Yeah. You can get a little too confining with one’s outline. For me anyway, because I need to have that room, that wiggle room to consider another option.

Charles: Exactly. Exactly.

Debbi: As long as I’m reaching certain emotional touch points here and there, in terms of solving the mystery, then I feel like I’ve done my job.

Charles: Exactly.

Debbi: I don’t know. How would you describe in terms of genre, what you write? What sub-genre is it?

Charles: You know, it’s a good question because people ask me. I consider myself a crime writer, not a mystery writer, not a detective writer. A crime writer, and it allows me to explore anything that has a crime in it. One of the Swann books, the second one Swann Dives In, you don’t know what the crime is till halfway through the book, and by the end of the book, you’re not even sure there was a crime. Those are the kind of things that sort of challenge me and make it fun to write.

Debbi: That’s fantastic. You are really making it intriguing in terms of what you write that now I really want to read all your books.

Charles: That would be nice.

Debbi: I hope everybody listening is feeling the same way, because that just sounds wonderful. I mean, to not be stuck with certain preconceptions about what it is you’re supposed to be writing, sounds like, to me, sounds like your approach.

Charles: It works for me. I mean, when I was a kid, I always wanted to be a novelist. I thought of myself as a literary novelist, and so now I’ve sort of melded the two because I consider them to be literary novels. Some of the best crime writing is very literary. There are some writers now who are writing crime, who are just really fine writers.

Debbi: Yes, absolutely. That is so true. So is there anything you’d like to add before we finish up?

Charles: No, I think you pretty much covered it. I teach writing and I really enjoy that, and I think it makes me a better writer too, teaching, and I’ve had some really successful students too, and it’s fun for me to do. It’s even more fun now that we have Zoom, because I don’t have to leave the apartment to teach.

I teach writing and I really enjoy that, and I think it makes me a better writer too, teaching, and I’ve had some really successful students too, and it’s fun for me to do.

Debbi: Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Isn’t it great? I mean, working on stuff like that, teaching other people. When I’ve done mentorships with people from my college, I always feel like that’s some of the best stuff I’ve ever done, just relating with them and so forth.

Charles: I’ll tell you a quick story. This was years ago, a friend of mine who was a magazine editor called me up and he said, I have an assistant and she’s really smart, and she could use some writing lessons. Can she take your class? And I said, sure. She comes in the first class – very pretty, blonde, tall, maybe 23, 24. The second class she brings in a piece to the workshop, and it’s an essay about her first day at work. And she called the essay “The Devil Wears Prada.” That was Lauren Weisberger. She had no sense of writing a book, and she kept bringing in these essays about her working for Vogue, for Anna Wintour. I kept telling her she had a book, she had a book. Finally after a year, she had about a hundred pages, and she called me up and said, what do I do? I said, find an agent – which she did – and we know the rest. If you get a copy of her book, The Devil Wears Prada, you’ll see in the acknowledgements she wrote, if you don’t like this book, blame Charles Salzberg.

And after that, it’s really interesting. I still do. I get calls or emails from young women – because she always mentions me on her website or whatever – wanting to get into classes with me, thinking that somehow I can make them into the next Lauren Weisberger, which I cannot.

Debbi: No, that’s up to the writer.

Charles: Yes, absolutely.

Debbi: Nonetheless, having a good teacher is a wonderful way to start. I really admire what you’re doing, so thank you so much for being here today and talking to us. This has been a real pleasure.

Charles: Thank you. A pleasure for me too.

Debbi: Thank you. And with that, let’s see if I can replace myself. Hey, I did it without any problems. What do you know? On that note, I would like to thank everyone from the bottom of my heart. Everyone who has supported this podcast on Patreon. Everyone who has listened; everyone who has left a review. Thank you so much.

The next time you hear this voice, unless you watch my YouTube channel, it will be the first episode of the 10th season of the Crime Cafe. It’ll be the next time you hear me on the Crime Cafe anyway, because I actually have another podcast. It’s a podcast about film noir, but that’s another subject. Anyhow, in the meantime, until the next episode, take care and happy reading.

*****

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This week’s episode of the Crime Cafe podcast features my interview with crime writer Len Joy.

Get to know Len and his books, as well as his interest in athletics and how it has inspired his writing.

Before I bring on my guest, I’ll just remind you that the Crime Cafe has two eBooks for sale: the nine book box set and the short story anthology. You can find the buy inks for both on my website, debbimack.com under the Crime Cafe link. You can also get a free copy of either book if you become a Patreon supporter. You’ll get that and much more if you support the podcast on Patreon, along with our eternal gratitude for doing so.

We also have a shop now. Check it out!

Check us out on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/crimecafe

The transcript can be downloaded here.

Debbi: Hi everyone. My guest this week is the award-winning author of several novels, including one that I read called Dry Heat, which I really liked a lot. Like many authors, he started off in another career before he started writing. It’s my pleasure to introduce my guest Len Joy. Len, hi.

Len: Hi. Thank you very much for having me. I never thought of myself as a crime writer, but as I look at my work, I do have a lot of crime in there, so happy to be part of this.

Debbi: Absolutely. Well, I am glad to have you on, that’s for sure. Now I finally have you . Okay. I wanted to ask you particularly about Dry Heat, because I loved it so much. What was it that inspired you to write this novel?

Len: Well, this was one of the few novels I think I wrote that was inspired by a specific incident. In my earlier career, I had an engine remanufacturing company in Phoenix with my brother-in-Law. We ran that for almost 20 years. It was a down and dirty, gritty, manufacturing operation. We had about 200 employees at any given time, and I had a very trusted employee, a woman and her husband that worked for me in the office. Their son, who I knew, I think he had just turned 18 and he was out hot rodding on the interstate on a Friday night, and not sure whatever happened, but they basically were dueling with another car and somebody in the vehicle he was in shot at the other car.

Didn’t hit anybody, but it turned out that the other vehicle was driven by an off-duty policeman, and he was arrested. He was the only adult -18 years old – and the other three were underage, and he was charged with attempted murder of a police officer, which is a serious crime. I mean, it’s more serious penalties, and even though nobody was hurt, I don’t believe he was the one shooting, but nevertheless, he was arrested. I followed this with obviously the parents as a father, and I had a kid about the same age as Tim, and instead of going to college, he’s going to trial, and they have this lawyer, and they’re going to a pretrial conference. They’re going to fight this. I think they have a good case. They come back in the afternoon and they tell me that they basically presented him with the alternative of if you lose at trial, you could go to jail for 20 years, or you can take a deal and you go to prison for three, and they took the deal.

But that just stuck with me, not just for the kid, but for the parents to have to make that decision in an instant, and it just changes the whole direction of your life. That was 20 years ago, and I started writing after that, and it was just something. I followed their story and he went to prison. He came out. I stayed in touch with his mother. My business ended in 2003, so I was no longer in Phoenix, but it was a story that interested me. And after I’d written a couple other novels, I decided not to use that story, per se. I mean, his story is his story, but that incident inspired me, I guess, in a way, to try to write about that kind of event where you’re heading in one direction and something happens and your whole life changes.

And I like sports, so I always make it somehow an athlete involved. But that was the inciting incident, I guess, that got me to write up the book. The story is totally different, but I have shared it with my employee and with Tim who was the inspiration for it, and they liked the book so I’m satisfied and happy.

Debbi: That’s great. Yeah. That’s great. Wow, it all just seems so unfair and circumstantial, and yet this person just dealt with it.

Len: Yeah. I mean, you shouldn’t be playing with guns, but cops shouldn’t probably be driving up and down harassing people either. So it was …

Debbi: Did he know there was a gun there? I mean, all those things.

Len: Yeah.

Debbi: Well. So tell me about your other books. How would you describe them generally? What genre?

Len: That’s a good question on genre. Whenever I try to find it, I can’t. It’s like commercial, literary fiction, something, but there’s the basic premise if I find a theme. Mostly I’m writing about people, mostly former athletes, just because that’s something I can write about that I know, but it’s their life after the cheering stops. In Better Days as an example, a high school basketball star Darwin Burr wins his state championship for a small town in Illinois. And when the story opens 20 years later, he’s been coasting on that glory, if you will, for all those years, not really taking charge of his life, and the incidents in the story that forced him to get back in the game and take action.

Mostly I’m writing about people, mostly former athletes, just because that’s something I can write about that I know, but it’s their life after the cheering stops.

In American Past Time, the first book I wrote, that was in some degree inspired by I watch baseball a lot, and they had a pitcher for the Chicago Cubs who had a perfect game going right to the last pitch, literally, and the umpire on a close call called it a ball, so he lost his perfect game. He walked the runner, and I was like, all right, I’m going to use that somehow. I wrote a story about a minor league baseball player who does pitch a perfect game, but it injures his arm and he never makes it. He’s going to make it to the majors, and then that causes him not to make it, and he goes to work in this factory in a small town. And it’s the life lived after that, near almost making it. I always watch the Olympics and you see all these stories of glory and stuff. There’s a lot of people who are really good athletes that don’t make it that far but they work really hard and then they have to have another life afterwards. That interested me so I use that as fodder for the stories.

Debbi: That’s fascinating. That’s really interesting. How much research do you do when you’re writing your books?

Len: Well, I’m very grateful for Wikipedia and Google.

Debbi: Aren’t we all?

Len: I am. I do write about … Being a little older than a lot of writers, I have a lot of experience like manufacturing experience, so I use that. I don’t branch off into something that I don’t know anything about, because I don’t have enough time, but using those years I wasn’t writing as my experience base. A lot of them, I set in certain time periods, like the book I’m writing now. It’s taking place in 1981. It’s taking place over 30, 40 years, but I always go on to Wikipedia and see like, okay, we’re in 1984 now. What happened in 1984? I want to make an incident so I can anchor the readers. It’s going to be like June or July, and then I look and I say that was when OJ had his slow speed police chase so that’s an event I can have him watching with his buddies on the bar because I was doing that, and people can relate to that if they were around at that time.

Debbi: Very interesting. I like the idea of writing about the past because then I don’t have to worry about technology as much.

Len: Yeah. I mean, cell phones changed everything, like for writing scenes. If you look at a Law & Order in the pre-cell phone age, it’s a different timing of the scene because they have to, they have to call into the office or the dispatch and, and now everything is zoom, zoom, zoom like, it’s just …

Debbi: Exactly. Yeah, it’s wild. What kind of writing schedule do you keep?

Len: Well, I work out every morning. I’m a triathlete and I have sort of a very scheduled swim or bike or run, and I walk my dog in the morning early. I always say I start about 10 o’clock, but I thought about that and really from about 10 to noon, it seems like I’m doing other stuff, like checking the email and reviewing. I look at the books and how they’re doing on Amazon, but usually start by noon. I try to get a couple, two, three hours in, and I’m generous in what I do. I also spend a lot of time reviewing other people, which I think is part of my reviewing or my writing process because it helps to see what other people are doing and what works and doesn’t work.

I work out every morning. I’m a triathlete and I have sort of a very scheduled swim or bike or run, and I walk my dog in the morning early.

I try to get two or three hours in every day, maybe not on Sunday or something, doing something else. But I think as a triathlete and someone training, there’s sort of a good complimentary discipline. I mean, they’re both things where you’re doing it every day. You’re not showing up on race day and expecting to run in a marathon or whatever. I wrote a lot of short stories and I like flash fiction and even some poems, but I think novels have worked the best for me because it’s just something I can plot out and take a day at a time and just keep working at it. It takes about a year and a half, two years, it seems like to get it finished.

I wrote a lot of short stories and I like flash fiction and even some poems, but I think novels have worked the best for me because it’s just something I can plot out and take a day at a time and just keep working at it.

Debbi: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. You take your time with it. You build it out, just bit by bit. Stick with it.

Len: I like to go back and forth. Some people write the whole thing and then revise. I like to revise, so I just write one day and then I’ll revise what I wrote the next day. Usually when I finish my draft, it’s a pretty clean draft. The story might not work and I need to fix that, but it’s not rough. It’s readable anyway, so I can find someone to make them read it.

Debbi: Yeah. That’s good. That’s a good way to do it. What advice would you give to anyone who’s interested in a writing career?

Len: I think the advice I would give someone like me that’s come out of school … I wanted to be a writer when I was in school, and I got sort of crushed by an English professor when I was like 18 and impressionable and decided I didn’t have the skills to write. So I just changed my major. It was probably better for me. I went into business, but I would say a couple things. It’s good to get feedback. Don’t take it to heart, which is easy to say. It’s tougher when you’re young. Now, I look back at the critiques and they weren’t that bad. I mean, I shouldn’t have been so sensitive about it.

But most importantly, when I went back to 2003, I got this flyer from the University of Chicago’s Graham School offering a creative writing course, and just on a whim I took it. But learning, thinking you can write, it’s just like training. I mean, you need to be trained. You need to take classes, I think, most people. Some people are just gifted natural writers, but there’s just a lot of building blocks. How to set scenes, how to write dialogue, punctuation and simple things like that. You just need to learn that.

Some people are just gifted natural writers, but there’s just a lot of building blocks. How to set scenes, how to write dialogue, punctuation and simple things like that. You just need to learn that.

I felt fortunate I went to Iowa School of the Festival, not the MBA or the MFA program, but they had great classes and building blocks, try to write a story in 300 words, which is a great discipline to have and just because then you learn not to get bloated, long novels like a lot that I read.

Debbi: Yes, yes. There’s a lot of that out there, unfortunately. What authors have inspired you most, your own writing? What authors do you look to for inspiration?

Len: Well, I like Elmore Leonard. Earlier I think Hemingway, because I write purely spare writing. Not a lot of rumination, not a lot of introspection. Maybe not enough, but I like to read those writers like that and Richard Price, just for how they do something, construct scenes and tell stories through dialogue, which is how I mostly convey my stories. But I have to say before I was writing, I was trying to read everything Joyce Carol Oates wrote, which is almost impossible. I don’t know how anyone can write that much. I don’t even know how to pigeon hole or typecast her. I mean, she just writes about so many different subjects and it’s just impressive. That’s one of my favorite authors, I guess.

Debbi: Very cool. And what are you working on now?

Len: Well, the first novel I wrote was called American Past Time, and it was about Dancer Stonemason, a young Minor League pitcher, and his career unravels when he can’t make it to the majors. It’s a story that really covers the post-war era from the early ’50s through the Vietnam War. He’s got two sons and a wife and had lots of difficulties. Originally what I had when I tried to get it published was a 50 year saga that went through like 2000. I got someone at Grove Atlantic to read it. I had some contact there, and they weren’t discouraging, but they said it’s too long, especially for a debut novelist. You need to cut it in half, which is tough. It was helpful advice and I did.

I stopped it. I cut out a whole storyline and characters and generations and finished it, and it was a good first novel, I think. But I had all this material, and after I wrote Better Days, which was my second novel about the basketball player, I thought, no, I’ll use that somehow and I ended up after a lot of permutations writing, taking the same character who was a young man in the ’50s and making him, I would call him an old man, but he is probably about my age now. But he’s at the end of his life or getting closer to it.

The whole novel, it’s in the same small town in Missouri, and it takes place. It’s really a road trip story between him and a young soldier, but a tornado is descending on the town, and the whole novel takes place in a single day. So it was a nice change, a nice framework. I went from 30 years to one day.

Debbi: Wow.

Len: It’s a different kind of writing challenge. So to answer your question though, then I’m writing now the story that will make this a trilogy, because it’s going to bridge the estranged son of Dancer Stonemason from his boyhood up through 2003. So it’ll end just before Everyone Dies Famous, my third novel, begins.

Debbi: Wow.

Len: People like series I’ve been told, so now I’ll have a series, but it is a standalone novel, but hopefully all the people that read the other two novels will also buy that one and be entertained.

Debbi: So it’s kind of a quasi-series, sort of a series that you’ve cobbled together almost accidentally

Len: Right.

Debbi: Wow. That’s pretty cool. I was going to ask you …

Len: I could have a box set.

Debbi: I was going to ask you if you were thinking about doing a series at any point, and apparently you are.

Len: In a way, yes.

Debbi: In a way, kind of a series. Interesting! Linked standalones called maybe. Yes, you can call that a series as far as I’m concerned. Is there anything else you’d like to add before we finish up?

Len: No, I appreciate this opportunity. I love to talk about my books and writing, and I like to meet other writers, so I hope people are interested in what I’m doing. I have a nice email newsletter I send out, so I’d love to get people to sign up for that at some point. I’m not too harassing. I just send something out about once a month. I try to promote other indie writers and do reviews, make some use out of the reviews I’ve written and share them with other readers.

Debbi: That’s a laudable thing, promoting others.

Len: Yeah. I think you have to do that.

Debbi: I think we all should just all get together and promote each other, frankly, because we can all use the help . I think that’s it then if you feel like you’ve said everything you want to say.

Len: Yeah. I think so. Thank you.

Debbi: Okay. Well, it’s been a pleasure having you on. Thank you so much for being with us.

Len: My pleasure.

Debbi: And, on that note, I’ll just say to everyone, thanks for listening. If you enjoyed the episode, please leave a review, and if you would, subscribe to the YouTube video or give us a like there, both hopefully and check us out on Patreon. I have a Patreon page where I have bonus episodes, ad-free episodes, and all sorts of other perks for Patreon supporters. So until next time, when my guest will be Charles Salzberg, take care and happy reading.

This week’s episode of the Crime Cafe podcast features another great story from The Adventures of Philip Marlowe.

Feel free to check out the video version, too.

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Where ad-free episodes are a bi-weekly event!

Here’s a copy of the transcript in PDF.

Marlowe (01:17): Somewhere in the cold, persistent rain that made the city itself seem a thing of evil, a girl had disappeared and it was my job to find her, but before I did, I found death and a devil.

Narrator (01:31): From the pen of Raymond Chandler, outstanding author of crime fiction, comes his most famous character as CBS presents The Adventures of Philip Marlowe, and now with Gerald Mohr starred as Philip Marlowe, we bring you tonight’s exciting story, “The Black Halo”.

Marlowe (02:10): For three days, an ugly storm had lashed at the west coast from northern Oregon to the tip of lower California, and although it was only noon when I drove up to the sprawling red brick house just south of Santa Barbara to meet a new client of mine, the black that was in the sky and the driving rain that was everywhere left the day bleak and wet and cold. Left it the kind of day that made you feel that logs blazing in a fireplace and a warm dry robe were the only things that could matter to anyone. But when I got inside the house, Felix Drum, 350 uncomfortable pounds of executive in a wheelchair, who made his living importing perfumes, was very worried and not about the weather outside.

Felix Drum (02:52): Marlowe. Julia Perry is gone. I want you to find her and bring her back, and the sooner you do that, the better.

Marlowe (02:58): And the more I know, Mr. Drum, the easier it’ll be. Exactly who is Julia Perry?

Felix Drum (03:02): My assistant, very capable girl who in the past six months has practically taken over my entire business. She handles most of the work from her cottage here on the grounds where she lives. She also has some little cubbyhole in Los Angeles where she keeps her files and some sample stock.

Marlowe (03:19): Do you have the address of that cubbyhole?

Felix Drum (03:20): If I knew the answer to everything, I wouldn’t have hired you and anyway, it isn’t important. Hand me that little bottle.

Marlowe (03:29): This one?

Felix Drum (03:31): Yes. Thank you.

Marlowe (03:43): When did you last see Julia, Mr. Drum?

Felix Drum (03:45): Three days ago. It was three days ago when she left on one of her regular weekly trips down to Los Angeles to bid on perfumes. Usually she stayed away overnight at the Beachwood Plaza Hotel most of the time, and she was back here by noon the next day.

Marlowe (04:02): I suppose you’ve already checked the Beachwood Plaza?

Felix Drum (04:04): Yes, of course. My man, Ruby, the one who showed you in has called the place a dozen times, but they only know that Julia registered there three days ago and hasn’t been seen since.

Marlowe (04:14): Well, what about the girl herself, Mr. Drum? I mean her background, friends, family, that sort of thing?

Felix Drum (04:18): Yeah, as far as I know Marlowe, Julia has no friends, no family either. She’s just a sweet but smart little girl from someplace in Kansas.

Marlowe (04:26): No beaus, not even nice ones, huh?

Felix Drum (04:28): I don’t think she had the time. You see, when Julia first came to work for me, she wanted to get ahead and I gave her the chance. She made good. Today, she’s as much my right arm as Ruby is my leg.

Marlowe (04:39): Mr. Drum, did you notice anything unusual about Julia’s behavior lately?

Felix Drum (04:42): Yes, and that’s the reason I’m worried. About two weeks ago I saw changes in the girl, Marlowe. She seemed less spry, more preoccupied. I figured it was overwork myself. Since the end of the year always means detailed annual reports, so I made no comment at the time.

Marlowe (05:00): I see. Tell me, Mr. Drum, what does she look like?

Felix Drum (05:03): Well, I have no pictures, but she’s a blonde of medium height and was wearing a plaid raincoat and little circle of a hat when she left. Altogether, she’s sweet and simple, if that’s what you mean.

Marlowe (05:14): Yeah. Do you mind if I stop into the cottage on my way out?

Felix Drum (05:18): Marlowe, you turn the place inside out if it’ll help any. Only since I’m certain that Julia’s in some kind of bad trouble, you be quick and find her.

Marlowe (05:37): Julia Perry’s cottage was strictly the 50-50 arrangement the Drum had mentioned with one room office and the other living quarters. In the office. I found everything in its proper place, so I moved to the other room. The moment I stepped over the threshold, the white fluff, the trim, the quilted bedspread, and the splash of color in the drapes said that Julia Perry had to be something soft and warm, and the half a dozen quietly tailored suits that were lined up in the closet like a squat of soldiers facing right, told me that she was also simple and neat. I ran through the pockets of her clothes and all the drawers and closets in the room trying to find something that would give me a lead that I was sure I had to have. After 20 minutes, I had found only a leather cigarette case, a package of peppermint lifesavers and a maroon and gold monogrammed book of matches, the cover of which was half torn off so that I could only be certain that the middle initial was a V and that an E or an F were on either end. But since the name and address of an LA novelty company was on the inside, I bought the matches as a starting point, dropped them in my pocket and headed for the door. When I opened it, I was surprised to find Ruby, Drum’s right-hand man, purple scar and all standing in the rain. He was staring at me like my ears were spinning.

Ruby (06:49): You seemed to be a very thorough man, Mr. Private Detective,

Marlowe (06:52): And you seem to be a very nosy one. What do you want?

Ruby (06:54): To help Julia? Nothing else. Here’s a postcard that came for her this morning. It was mailed in LA yesterday.

Marlowe (07:01): Yeah? Dear Julia, tried to reach you at Santa Barbara-1-1-8-1 both yesterday and today, but got no answer. I’m leaving. I’m leaving town tomorrow. As one little girl who fled life in Haven, Kansas to another, I would’ve enjoyed seeing you again for a bit before I moved on to who knows where. Anne. Santa Barbara-1-1-8-1. That the number here?

Ruby (07:28): Yeah, it’s Julia’s private business phone. What do you think of the postcard? Any help?

Marlowe (07:34): Possibly. Tell me, Ruby. Why didn’t you show this to Mr. Drum?

Ruby (07:38): I forgot about it until just now.

Marlowe (07:40): You’re a liar.

Ruby (07:42): Well, it’s on account of the postcard was delivered here to the cottage.

Marlowe (07:45): Which is no man’s land for you?

Ruby (07:47): Yeah, sort of. Mr. Drum doesn’t like people who work for him mixing socially with each other.

Marlowe (07:53): Or maybe a sweet kid like Julia hasn’t got any use for the passes you’ve been making at her.

Ruby (07:57): Hold it. I like Julia and even if she don’t go for me, anything I can do to help her, I still do. Understand?

Marlowe (08:01): Yeah, I understand. I’m not so sure I believe. Goodbye, Ruby.

(08:11): It was pushing five o’clock and still raining by the time I got back to LA and over to the novelty company. Once there I presented the torn book of matches that I had found in Julia’s cottage to a bald man with horizontal question marks for eyebrows and who at the crinkle of a $5 bill tore himself away from his racing form long enough to check the files for a set of maroon and gold initials that had a V in the middle and it was six o’clock before I had the answer, which was EVE and they weren’t initials, but the front name of Mrs. Eve Bentley, who lived in a villa at the swank Sunset Terrace apartments. And according to the gentleman who said he knew his oats was a very classy filly. An hour later I was at Mrs. Bentley’s front door, and while I made with the chimes and waited, I wondered just how much a guy who loves the ponies could know about women. But when the door opened, I had my answer.

Eve Bentley (09:00): Yes. What is it?

Marlowe (09:02): Mrs. Eve Bentley wasn’t beautiful, but she was everything else, including a shimmering yard of gold hair piled high on her head and held in place by a knot of pearls that no Boy Scout ever tied. Her face was wide blue eyes and open red lips on a backdrop of soft, bare skin. She wore a black silk jersey dress that must have been sprayed on. She smiled when I said my name was Philip Marlowe and that I wanted to talk.

Eve Bentley (09:31): About what Mr. Marlowe?

Marlowe (09:33): Julia Perry. Ever hear of her?

Eve Bentley (09:35): No, I haven’t.

Marlowe (09:37): So I’ll try again. What do you know about Anne Somebody from Haven, Kansas.

Eve Bentley (09:41): Absolutely nothing.

Marlowe (09:43): This torn book of matches says otherwise. I found them in Julia Perry’s cottage. Julia Perry is missing. I’m a private detective who was hired to find her and the matches turned out to be yours. Now, may I come in?

Eve Bentley (09:56): Why, yes.

Marlowe (09:56): Thank you. Well, Mrs. Bentley, maybe we ought to start all over.

Eve Bentley (10:00): No, wait just a minute. Mr. Marlowe. I may be able to help you. Did this Julia Perry deal in perfumes?

Marlowe (10:08): That’s right. Now how did you know that?

Eve Bentley (10:10): Because I just remembered something and now I’m sure I can explain why my matches showed up where they did.

Marlowe (10:15): Just a minute. Just a minute. You know, whenever I’m talking to a beautiful woman, somebody’s always creeping around in the kitchen. Who is it this time?

Eve Bentley (10:24): Really? Mr. Marlowe. There’s a storm outside and there are windows and trees. If you put those three things together, that noise could have been a branch scratching on a glass pane.

Marlowe (10:34): Or somebody with squeaky shoes and a lot of curiosity. Somebody like Mr. Bentley, for instance.

Eve Bentley (10:39): I doubt that Mr. Marlowe. You see, Mr. Bentley’s been dead now for three long years.

Marlowe (10:46): Oh yes. Well, you were saying something about the matches.

Eve Bentley (10:50): Oh yes. Julia Perry must somehow or other have gotten hold of them through my fiance, Marvin Whitaker.

Marlowe (10:57): How does that figure?

Eve Bentley (10:58): Like two and two. Marvin is in the perfume business. Ditto Julia. Also, I think he mentioned her name once, said she was very clever for a girl who looked like somebody’s kid sister.

Marlowe (11:09): That fits, all right. Where will I find said fiance?

Eve Bentley (11:12): At his favorite bar and grill. But won’t you have a drink first, Mr. Marlowe?

Marlowe (11:18): No thanks Eve. There … there isn’t time. Now the bar and grill.

Eve Bentley (11:23): The Blue Boar.

Marlowe (11:25): Blue which?

Eve Bentley (11:26): Boar, Mr. Marlowe. It’s a very English spot over on Wilshire opposite Arthur Murray studio. But before you dash, do you at least have a match?

Marlowe (11:37): Yeah. A whole book of them honey, torn cover and all, and I want you to keep them. After all, they brought us together, didn’t they?

(11:54): When I got outside, I postponed my run between the raindrops over to Wilshire Boulevard long enough to take a look behind the villa and there in a newly planted strip of clover lawn below Mrs. Bentley’s kitchen window, I found something which was no surprise. Two clear prints of a man’s shoe. But from there on out, I got nothing more than a lot of rain down the back of my neck. So 10 minutes later I dripped into my car and headed for The Blue Boar and Eve Bentley’s gentleman friend. I located Marvin Whitaker, handsome hale fellow well met, in a white turtleneck sweater and riding britches behind a hot rum toddy in a corner booth that was pictures of steeplechase mounts against newly antique mahogany. And when I told him that I was looking for Julia Perry, he flashed a lot of glistening teeth at me, insisted that I join him in a warming glass of spirits and started to talk gesturing all the time with a riding crop.

Marvin Whitaker (12:48): Why, yes, old man. I know Julia Perry. In fact, almost did some business with her today.

Marlowe (12:53): You mean you were supposed to meet Julia someplace?

Marvin Whitaker (12:55): That’s right. At 1881 Selma Avenue to be precise. But she called me this morning and postponed the whole transaction indefinitely.

Marlowe (13:03): Could you stop projecting long enough to tell me why?

Marvin Whitaker (13:06): She didn’t say? Of course. It’s of no bother to me on a day like this. No sane man should be any father away from a toddy than we are right now. So drink up all boy. It’ll do you a world of good.

Marlowe (13:18): Yeah. Yeah, I bet it will. Look Mr. Whitaker. One more question. Did Julia ever speak of a girlfriend named Anne, someone she knew years ago in Kansas?

Marvin Whitaker (13:26): No, I don’t believe she did. Marlowe. Matter of fact, Julia never talked if anything, but perfumes. Now, drink your drink fellow before it’s chilled through.

Marlowe (13:34): Thanks, but no thanks, old bean. I do have to run. Really!

(13:43): It was a 20 minute drive to the address on Selma and the rain had stopped by the time I got there. The place was one of those once upon a time rooming houses that had been partitioned off into a couple of dozen, two by four cubbyholes, just big enough for a very small businessman to fill his fountain pen in. When I got to the door and asked the scrubwoman, who was a lot of wild red hair around two pop eyes for Julia Perry, I knew I was moving in the right direction because the lady standing in front of me was anything but calm and more important, she had just heard a pistol shot from the back of the house.

Scrubwoman (14:12): Yes, that’s right. A pistol shot. Not over two minutes ago. I’m sure that Perry girl had something to do with it because when I come from inside, I saw her rush out down these steps.

Marlowe (14:21): Did she say anything?

Scrubwoman (14:22): I don’t know. She was gone out of sight before I could open my mouth, but I know it was her on account of that plaid coat and little hat she wears.

Marlowe (14:28): Yeah, yeah. Now which room is hers? Come on.

Scrubwoman (14:30): That one there with the light showing under the door, but it’s locked. You won’t be able to get in. I just tried.

Marlowe (14:34): We’ll try again for luck. It’s not the best lumber, believe me.

Scrubwoman (14:40): This is terrible. Nothing like this has ever happened to me before. [pause] [gasp] It’s a man.

Marlowe (14:49): Yeah, a dead one at that, granny.

Scrubwoman (14:54): You know who did it?

Marlowe (14:56): On the mud and clove of grass on the bottom of his shoes, I tag him as a guy who was looking in a lady’s kitchen window about an hour ago. From that purple scar in his chin, I can do even better than that. The name granny is Ruby. A guy I thought was still in Santa Barbara.

Narrator (15:23): In just a moment, we will return to the second act of the adventures of Philip Marlowe. But first … a brief advert …

Sam McRae (15:36): I’ve never been a morning person and the last thing I need before my first cup of coffee is a visit from the cops. But at 8 45 on Friday morning, two cops were waiting for me outside my office. It was about one of my clients, Melanie Hayes.

Detective Derry (15:53): She seems to have disappeared and her ex-boyfriend was found shot to death. The FBI will have an interest in this.

FBI Special Agent Carl Jergins (16:01): It’s extremely important that we get in touch with Ms. Hayes as soon as possible. The life may be at risk.

Sam McRae (16:07): So I tried to find a client who didn’t want to be found. She wasn’t home. I asked questions but got no answers. Then I discovered she might’ve tried to steal my identity. Things took a really ugly turn when the mob caught up with me.

Stavos (16:25): Where’s Melanie Hayes?

Sam McRae (16:26): I don’t know, I swear, I don’t know.

Sam McRae (16:28): They let me go, but not before putting the fear of God in me. So I went looking for the client, finally found her. And what do you know? She says she’s running from the mob too. And as for identity theft, she hasn’t got a clue.

Melanie Hayes (16:44): Do you think I tried to rip you off? I dunno anything.

Sam McRae (16:50): Trying to find out what’s going on has taken me to some strange places. So what do you do when you think your client has tried to steal your identity and the mob comes after you trying to find her and more people start dying? Do your best to find the answers and stay alive.

Debbi (17:16): Identity Crisis. A novel by Debbi Mack.

Narrator (17:22): And now with our star Gerald Mohr, we return to the second act of Philip Marlowe and tonight’s story, “The Black Halo”.

Marlowe (17:37): Ruby’s body sprawled on the floor and the girl in the plaid raincoat running away from it meant one thing, Julia Perry’s trouble was important like life, but more like death. A half sneer was congealed on Ruby’s face and his eyes, turned waxy, still held a look of mild surprise. I wasted some breath telling the scrub woman not to touch anything. And then I put in a call to my overweight client in Santa Barbara. He was glad to hear from me at first,

Felix Drum (18:04): Marlowe. Well, now, I didn’t expect a call from you this soon. You sure work fast, don’t you, lad? Have you found her? Have you located Julia?

Marlowe (18:11): Not quite. She’s about five minutes ahead of me. Incidentally, Mr. Drum, she works fast, too.

Felix Drum (18:16): What do you mean by that?

Marlowe (18:16): Let me ask the questions, huh? Number one, what was your leg man, Ruby doing in LA tonight?

Felix Drum (18:22): Ruby? Why, I sent him in to pick up some medicine for me. Why?

Marlowe (18:26): Come on, Drum. You can talk straighter than that and you better. I just found Ruby dead.

Felix Drum (18:30): Dead? Ruby’s dead? What happened to him, Marlowe?

Marlowe (18:34): He was shot. So forget the gags and tell me why he was snooping around.

Felix Drum (18:38): All right. I didn’t trust you. It’s my policy to trust nobody until he proves himself. I sent Ruby in to follow you and check on your progress.

Marlowe (18:46): That was brilliant. You only made three mistakes. First. I don’t need to be checked on. Second, you got your man killed. And third, you forced Julia’s hand because it was Miss Perry herself who pulled the trigger on Ruby.

Felix Drum (18:57): Julia. Marlo. I don’t believe that,

Marlowe (19:00): Which proves nothing, Mr. Drum, but skip it. Tell me, do you know a man named Marvin Whitaker?

Felix Drum (19:04): Whitaker?

Marlowe (19:05): Yeah.

Felix Drum (19:05): No, should I?

Marlowe (19:06): Well, he says he’s in the perfume business.

Felix Drum (19:08): Well, I know everybody on the coast who bought more than two bottles of perfume at one time in the last 40 years, and I don’t recall that name. I think the man must be a liar.

Marlowe (19:18): So do I. Thanks for the help and Drum, if you’ve got any more expendable flunkies around, keep ’em out of my hair. I’ll call you when I’ve got something.

(19:30): I called homicide next and told detective Lieutenant Ybarra where to find the body and who was responsible for it being in that dead condition. When the question of why came up, I admitted I was still shooting blanks. I told him about the razzle dazzle. Whitaker had handed me and named The Blue Boar on Wilshire as my next stop. Ybarra said he’d call me there. And when I got to the entrance of the place, I saw Whitaker draped in a trench coat that involved enough cloth to rig a four-masted schooner standing in the anteroom, impatiently smacking his leg with that riding crop. He looked positively. dashing. Question was, which way?

Marvin Whitaker (20:02): Hi there, Marlo. Hey, old boy. You look upset. Anything wrong?

Marlowe (20:07): I maybe upset, Whitaker, but you’re the one that’s going to spill. First, are you leaving or coming back?

Marvin Whitaker (20:11): I’m just leaving.

Marlowe (20:12): Been here all the time since I talked to you?

Marvin Whitaker (20:14): That’s right. You see my coat is perfectly dry.

Marlowe (20:17): It stopped raining half an hour ago.

Marvin Whitaker (20:19): Well, well you see, if I’d been outside, I would’ve known that. But why this third degree, Marlowe? What’s up?

Marlowe (20:25): It’s a long story. Maybe we better sit down and talk it all over from the beginning.

Marvin Whitaker (20:29): Oh, I’m afraid I can’t, not just now. I’ve got a date.

Marlowe (20:32): She’ll keep

Marvin Whitaker (20:33): Not this one. It’s something rather special.

Marlowe (20:37): Special, huh? Like Eve Bentley?

Marvin Whitaker (20:40): Now look here, old boy. You’re prying into my personal affairs.

Marlowe (20:42): Whitaker, I’ll rip the lid clear off your personal affairs if necessary to get a clean answer out of you. What do you really know about Julia Perry?

Marvin Whitaker (20:49): I told you once. Are you implying that I’m a liar?

Marlowe (20:52): At least that. For instance, who puts out Amir? Come on, Whitacker. It’s a well-known fragrance.

Marvin Whitaker (20:59): I … I don’t recall offhand.

Marlowe (21:01): That’s strange because any woman knows Amir is a Dana perfume.

Marvin Whitaker (21:04): Just what are you trying to prove by all this?

Marlowe (21:05): That as a perfume dealer, you stink. And try this for size. When I got to that address you gave me, I found a fresh corpse there with a bullet hole in it.

Marvin Whitaker (21:13): A murder?

Marlowe (21:14): Yeah. And your routine was pat, brother. So before homicide starts combing out the snags in your story, you better untangle it yourself right now. You lied to me and why’d you do it, Whitacker? Why the double talk?

Marvin Whitaker (21:25): All right, Marlowe. I’ll tell you. I’ll tell you this.

(21:28): [quick fistfight]

Marlowe (21:33): He was as quick as a wounded cat. The riding crop slashed across my face even before I’d realized it moved. And by the time the red light stopped dancing in my eyes, Marvin Whitaker was gone. I turned as the head waiter walked up to me. He studied the hot red welt rising on my face for a moment, and then murmured discreetly that if my name was Marlowe, I was wanted on the phone. It was Lieutenant Ybarra.

Lieutenant Ybarra (21:59): Marlowe, you can stop beating the brush for Julia Perry. We found her.

Marlowe (22:03): You did? Where is she, Ybarra?.

Lieutenant Ybarra (22:04): She’s out in the alley here behind the Beachwood Plaza Hotel, Marlowe. Exactly eight floors down from the window of her room. She fell through the glass roof above the rear entrance.

Marlowe (22:14): Oh,

Lieutenant Ybarra (22:15): It’s not pretty. She explained the whole thing, including that Ruby guy’s murder in a note we found in our room.

Marlowe (22:23): I’ll be right over, Ybarra.

Lieutenant Ybarra (22:24): Okay? Don’t hurry.

(22:37): The old story, Marlowe. When Drum finally got around to trusting her, he practically gave her his business. It was too much temptation. She’d been stealing from him in a big way for almost a year. Her note says.

Marlowe (22:49): And she decided to run for it when she knew she couldn’t hide the thefts any longer, huh?

Lieutenant Ybarra (22:52): That’s right. That Ruby caught on some way and she killed him. But I guess murder was too rich for her blood. So she came back here, thought it over and checked out.

Marlowe (23:02): Yeah. All she left behind was a little plaid raincoat and a purse over there. And she was wearing a dinky hat, too, Ybarra. Did you find that?

Lieutenant Ybarra (23:12): Mmm-hmm. Come over here to the window, Phil. See down there on that canopy, that little black circle? That’s her hat. I sent Mooney down to get it. Can’t leave any loose ends around, you know?

Marlowe (23:22): Yeah. Got a light, lieutenant?

Lieutenant Ybarra (23:25): Oh sure. Here you are.

Marlowe (23:25): Thanks.

Lieutenant Ybarra (23:27): Hey, what happened to you? That welt on your face, Phil.

Marlowe (23:32): I backed that horsey liar named Whitaker into a corner, and he slapped his way out with a riding crap. And speaking of loose ends, if I ever catch up with that—mmm—Ybarra, where did that stuff on the dresser come from?

Lieutenant Ybarra (23:43): Well, this, out of the pockets of Julia’s plaid coat. Why?

Marlowe (23:47): That’s impossible unless … holy smoke. That’s why Whitaker lied to me.

Lieutenant Ybarra (23:52): Hey, where are you going with that, Phil? Come back here.

Marlowe (23:54): I got to check on something, Ybarra, and keep your notebook handy.If I’m right, this deal is still wide open

(24:05): All the way from the suicide’s room in the Beachwood Plaza out to the widow’s villa in the Sunset Terrace, my mind juggled a jumble of facts, trying to beat them into a brand new pattern. A pattern that had to include an object Ybarra had found in the pocket of that plaid raincoat. It almost made sense. I needed just a little more. When I turned into the parking lot at the Sunset Terrace, rain began to fall again. Thin, cold rain. I walked to Eve Bentley’s door and pressed the bell. Just as I expected, it was Marvin Whitaker, unsmiling and nervous, who answered the door. I didn’t give him a chance to think I just swung high.

(24:39): [brief altercation]

(24:42): Okay, horseman. That squares us up. Come on, heavy. Roll over. Let’s see if you’re carrying a gun. Okay, no gun. Now, be a good boy, Whitacker, and you’ll make out all right. But one funny wiggle out of you, and I’ll crack your skull. It’s a promise. Do you hear me?

Marvin Whitaker (24:56): Yeah. Yeah, I heard you.

Marlowe (24:57): All right. Where’s Eve? Is she here?

Marvin Whitaker (25:01): Find out for yourself, Marlowe. I’m through.

Marlowe (25:04): Fair enough. Just so I’m not talking through my hat, I’ll take a look in her closet first.

Marvin Whitaker (25:08): She won’t be in there, I guarantee.

Marlowe (25:09): No, but her future might be. Let’s see, it’s got to be in here someplace. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. This is probably it. Brown cloth coat as chic is a pair of hob nail boots and still damp. And the label says the BH Company, Haven, Kansas. That does it. I’ve got it all now and my chivalry just died. Where is she, Whitaker? Where’s Eve?

Eve Bentley (25:29): Right here, Marlowe. Oh, don’t try that. I guess you really do have it figured out, haven’t you?

Marlowe (25:34): Yes. Eve, I have. Sorry, it turned out this way because you had your points as Eve and as Julia.

Eve Bentley (25:41): Don’t put it in the past tense. Marlowe. As Eve Bentley, my life is just beginning and now I’ve got everything I ever wanted as Julia Perry.

Marvin Whitaker (25:48): Then you’re Julia Perry.

Eve Bentley (25:50): I was Marvin.

Marlowe (25:51): She still is Whitaker. At least that’s what the bailiff will call it in court.

Eve Bentley (25:55): There won’t be any court. Marlowe.

Marlowe (25:56): Well, I’m afraid there will, baby. You’re twice a killer now. And both for the same reason. Remember? First, Ruby, because he saw you as Eve and the girl you pushed out of the hotel window, who was no doubt. Anne, your old chum from the hometown. She must’ve seen you posing as Eve too.

Eve Bentley (26:11): Alright, Marlowe. Anne ran into me by accident and ruined everything. I had no choice. I promised her money and then told her to go to my room at the Beachwood Plaza and wait for me.

Marvin Whitaker (26:20): I can’t believe this. It can’t be true.

Eve Bentley (26:21): Yes, Marvin. It is true. Darling, I didn’t want this mess. I’d have left town this morning as I intended if sweet sly little Anne hadn’t seen me. I tried to get rid of you the easy way, Marlowe. When I sent you to Marvin, the Selma Street address he gave you should have led you to the end of Julia Perry.

Marvin Whitaker (26:38): Is that why you phoned me and told me to lie to Marlowe?

Eve Bentley (26:39): Yes, Marvin. I was going there to write my suicide note and use the stock room for my disappearing act. But Ruby caught me. And after that I had to work fast. But it’s all right now. It all worked out perfectly. They were the only two who knew besides you, Marlowe,

Marlowe (26:59): Aren’t you forgetting little Marvin here?

Eve Bentley (27:01): Forgetting him? Oh no, Mr. Marlowe. Marvin’s the one person I can count on.

Marvin Whitaker (27:07): That’s what you think. You don’t get me mixed up in this.

Eve Bentley (27:10): Marvin!

Marvin Whitaker (27:10):I bargained for an heiress, not a murderess.

Eve Bentley (27:13): Why you dirty little! Alright then, I’ll use this gun on you too, because I’m getting out of here and no one’s going to stop me.

Marvin Whitaker (27:20): But you’re right between us, see? You can’t get us both.

Marlowe (27:22): He’s right, baby. You’re not good enough to get us both. And killing just one of us isn’t going to solve anything. What do you say?

(27:26): [He socks her in the jaw.]

(27:30): It’s been a long night, baby. You just couldn’t tell when you were licked.

(27:34): [Eve sobs uncontrollably.]

Lieutenant Ybarra (27:47): Do you want any more of this coffee, Marlowe?

Marlowe (27:49): No. It’s sludge, Lieutenant. I wonder what Julia Perry uses for a heart.

Lieutenant Ybarra (27:54): You know, she planned to think for six months when she first set herself up as Eve Bentley, and it probably would’ve—

Server (27:59): You want your check now?

Marlowe (27:59): Oh, oh yes.

Lieutenant Ybarra (28:02): Probably would’ve worked if everything hadn’t closed in on her.

Marlowe (28:05): Yeah. A friend Anne from Kansas. Ruby, the leg man.

Lieutenant Ybarra (28:08): And you with that torn book of matches. Incidentally, that was pretty fast figuring up in the hotel room there, Marlowe.

Marlowe (28:14): Oh, not so fast, Ybarra. I knew Eve had those matches because I left them with her. So when you found the same matches in the pocket of Julia’s plaid coat, it figured. Julia almost had to be Eve.

Lieutenant Ybarra (28:24): And that left Anne to furnish the body for the suicide.

Marlowe (28:27): Yeah, I wasn’t so sure about that until I found the brown coat with a Haven Kansas label in Eve’s apartment.

Lieutenant Ybarra (28:33): Yeah. Well, I’d better wade on back to the office, Phil. Look at that rain come down. Think it’ll ever stop.

Marlowe (28:40): I dunno. I doubt it.

Lieutenant Ybarra (28:42): Oh, by the way, here. It’s her hat. Mooney finally got it down off that hotel canopy. Maybe you’d like it for a souvenir.

Marlowe (28:49): Yeah.

Lieutenant Ybarra (28:50): The military people call a halo hat. Goodnight. Marlowe.

Marlowe (29:07): I sat there a while after Ybarra left looking at the rain in the street and the cold coffee in front of me and Julia’s little round halo on the table. And finally I got up and went outside. Dirty waters, scattered along the gutter and gurgled thickly into the sewer drain at the corner. For a minute, I caught a glimpse again of the girl I’d figured Julia Perry to be when I went through a cottage in Santa Barbara. Yeah, that girl was an angel. When I finally caught up with her, a halo turned out to be black, jet black inside and out. I dropped the little hat into the gutter and watched it go as far as the drain at the corner. And then I went home.

Narrator (30:18): The Adventures of Philip Marlowe, created by Raymond Chandler stars Gerald Mohr, and is produced and directed by Norman Macdonnell. Script is by Mel Dinelli, Robert Mitchell, and Gene Levitt. Featured in the cast were Joan Banks, Paul Frees, Peter Leeds, Jack Kruschen, and Lois Corbett. Lieutenant Detective Ybarra is played by Jeff Corey. The special music was by Richard Aurandt. Be sure and be with us again next week when Philip Marlowe says,

Marlowe (30:50): A startled corpse, a blue-eyed woman, and a cryptic message scrawled by a dingy man with the pieces of a Chinese puzzle that wouldn’t fit together until I found out what was deadly about the orange dog.

*****

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Our guest for this episode of the Crime Cafe podcast is crime fiction and true crime writer Amanda Lamb.

Join us as we discuss her career in journalism and how close she came to going to law school! Yikes! 🙂 Good call, BTW.

Before I bring on my guest, I’ll just remind you that the Crime Cafe has two eBooks for sale: the nine book box set and the short story anthology. You can find the buy inks for both on my website, debbimack.com under the Crime Cafe link. You can also get a free copy of either book if you become a Patreon supporter. You’ll get that and much more if you support the podcast on Patreon, along with our eternal gratitude for doing so.

We also have a shop now. Check it out!

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The transcript can be downloaded here.

Debbi: Hi everyone. My guest today has worked for more than 30 years as a television news reporter. She now has four podcasts, has authored three books of crime fiction and three of true crime. She’s also written family and children’s books. She owns a company called Stage Might Communications. I am very pleased to have with me today the multi-talented Amanda Lamb. Hi Amanda. How are you doing?

Amanda: Good, Debbi. Thanks for having me. I appreciate it.

Debbi: Well, I really appreciate your being here, and I am just amazed with the work you’re doing. I love that you create podcasts the way I create blogs. You seem to not be satisfied with just one.

Amanda: Yes, I developed an interest in podcasting when I was working for my television station a couple years ago, and I really didn’t have any idea what it was about. I had done a little bit of listening to podcasts, but I hadn’t really ever worked on a podcast, and writing a narrative podcast is like writing a book, or it’s like writing multiple documentaries because of the length of a True Crime podcast, for example. But I just really loved it and I really developed an interest in it, and now I’m doing more interview-based podcasts like yours, and I love that as well, because I’m curious about people. I’m interested in people, and it just really fits kind of where I am in my career.

Debbi: That is really cool, because I can really appreciate that, because I’ve often thought of doing other interview-type podcasts because actually I have a journalism background

Amanda: There you go. Well, you can try.

Debbi: It all started with that, you know. That’s where really my writing in a sense, professionally started kind of.

Amanda: Yes

Debbi: It started with journalism school, let’s say.

Amanda: Okay. Okay.

Debbi: And I didn’t go quite the route you did. I went to law school instead.

Amanda: Well, you know, one of the things I’m learning – my podcast is called Ageless, and it’s about women transforming personally and professionally – and I’m learning that nobody’s life is linear. Everybody’s life seems to kind of go in many different directions, sometimes to arrive at the same place, but there’s nothing about life that’s linear.

Debbi: Yes, I agree with you completely there. What was it that prompted you to start writing crime fiction and true crime?

Amanda: I became a focused crime reporter. Most people in TV don’t specialize early on in their careers. You’re a general assignment reporter, which means you cover a little bit of everything, but I was always interested, especially in the courtroom process and the criminal justice process. My parents were attorneys. My father was a district attorney, and so growing up, I actually went to several murder trials and I got an opportunity to see how the process worked. I always thought I’d be an attorney. That just seemed like the thing that I was going to do, given my family background.

I really loved writing, so in college I started to think more about how could I combine this love of writing with kind of this interest in criminal justice, specifically in the puzzles, because a case, a criminal case involves a puzzle, trying to put these different pieces together to try to understand how it happened, why it happened, who’s involved, who’s responsible. And so I really just became a crime reporter a couple years into my TV reporting career because by default, I was the one that was interested. I wanted to go to these trials that a lot of people thought were boring, and I just fell in love with it.

I think the thing that ended up keeping me involved in it was the fact that I could cover the incident, the crime, then the investigation, then the arrest, and then follow it all the way through to the trial, sometimes the retrial, and it really was fascinating to me. I was a crime reporter, so obviously writing true crime was a natural extension of that, and true crime books are tedious. I mean, you have to cross your t’s and dot your i’s. I enjoyed the process, but then at the same time, it felt like an extension of my work and not really something that was super creative to me. So I said, you know, I’ve got all these stories that I’ve never been able to tell.

I always say a TV reporter probably reveals five to ten percent of what they know in a story, and I had all these other stories that I wanted to share, but I had to do so in a way that was fiction. So that’s how I started writing mysteries. I started taking a grain of something that really happened and then developing it into a story with my imagination.

Debbi: Totally. You get so much out of your own life experience in creating fiction.

Amanda: Absolutely.

Debbi: That’s the funny part.

Amanda: I’ve got like … a tickle in my throat. Excuse me.

Debbi: No worries. I was just thinking, it’s fiction and yet so much of it can be inspired by real life.

Amanda: Absolutely. And it’s funny, it’s to the point where my editors over the years of my fiction have said to me, some of their notes have been like, well, I don’t think this could really happen, so maybe we need to change it. And I’m like, it kind of did happen. I’m very careful to take things out of the actual story that I was involved in, to change the characters so that we’re talking about a compilation of a couple of different people, not necessarily one person in one case. I have that background, and so when I write crime fiction, I don’t have to research. I don’t have to ask police officers or medical examiners or lawyers or judges much at all. I mean, very occasionally I might reach out to somebody, but I’ve been doing it for 35 years, so I have a lot of experience. So I’ve enjoyed taking what I know and then putting it into fiction.

Debbi: That is awesome. That is really awesome. How would you categorize your crime fiction? Is it more mystery or thriller oriented?

Amanda: Oh, definitely more mystery. When I started writing the fiction a couple years ago – really before the pandemic but then kind of ramped it up during the pandemic – I knew as a TV reporter that I wanted to make my books clean because I had a reputation in the community and I had a responsibility to my company to make sure that whatever I did didn’t reflect poorly on them, so I really decided I was going to write books that you could read on the beach, you could read on an airplane. They’re fun and yes, I get into a little bit of things that you might get into in a book like that, an autopsy or there’s some violence or whatever, but overall, they’re really just supposed to be entertaining. I spent so many years mired in the darkness that I really actually think it’s important to have humor in your books, and so I put a lot of humor into my fiction.

Debbi: Yes, I think humor is essential, really in a sense to almost all fiction. Even the darkest needs a little bit of light touch to give a little relief.

Amanda: Yes, and no criticism of anybody that wants to be very dark and macabre. I mean, that’s fine. It’s just I’ve actually seen all that stuff, and I don’t necessarily want that to be part of my fiction, so I try to just make a good story and I try to have some suspense. My first three mysteries are a series, so you can read them alone, but if you are able to read them from the beginning, which is Dead Last, Lies That Bind and No Wake Zone, there’s a backstory.

The main character, she’s a TV reporter, and she is the adult survivor of a murder in her family, and so I’ve always been curious about that because I’ve covered so many cases with children who have had one parent murdered, and the other parent goes to prison for that murder, and I always wondered what that was like for them growing up, especially now when they can Google everything and find out everything. So I just thought that that would be a really interesting premise. So you learn more about her background, Maddie’s background throughout the three books. I do revisit a lot of things so that you can easily catch up if you don’t read them in order.

I have a new book coming out in the fall, with a totally new cast of characters. It is not actually titled yet , so I can’t really … I have a title. My editor doesn’t love it, the publisher doesn’t love it, so we’re still working on that, but I just decided I wanted to do something new. This book is from four different points of view, and it has my main character who is a newspaper reporter in this book. It has my investigator, it has the husband of a missing woman, and it has the manager of this hotel where everything takes place. So I just said I want to try that. I want to see what that’s like, and then each character dovetails into the next, so one person interacts with the next person, and then their point of view takes over.

Debbi: Ooh. I like when books do that. I like when stories go that way.

Amanda: Yes. It’s just interesting. It’s a little bit more interesting to write, to be honest. I was kind of getting tired of just being in one character’s head, and I think that’s why I took a break. I will definitely go back to that series because I left a lot of things hanging, so I need to go back to that. But I just wanted to try it, and I’m really proud of it. It really worked out well, and I’m excited for people to read it.

Debbi: When’s it going to come out?

Amanda: Right now I think we’re looking around September, so that’ll be great.

Debbi: That’s great. I’ll have to look for it.

Amanda: Yes. Hopefully I’ll have a title by then.

Debbi: I would hope so.

Amanda: I named it … well, it’s funny … I can tell you because it won’t be the title. I was in the mountains when I wrote the book, and I love using the environment almost as another character. So No Wake Zone, which was my third mystery, I wrote that at the beach because I think that the ocean has so much beauty, but also so much kind of danger and the unknown, and I wanted to use that as the backdrop. So in the mountains during the pandemic, I was really inspired to use that as a backdrop, and I decided to call the book Crag and Tail, which is a rock formation on a mountain. But again, a little bit vague, doesn’t really tell you what the book’s about. So yes, it will be something a lot more approachable when it is finally published

Debbi: Cool. Something a little that says a little more mystery or suspense.

Amanda: Yes, exactly. A little more about what the book is about. Exactly.

Debbi: Exactly. Yes. You said that you haven’t worked on the series, but you want to. Do you have any idea where you’d like to go with the series ultimately?

Amanda: Yes, I think I’d like to bring her story to a conclusion. I’ve alluded to what’s happening, and it’s funny because I’ve taken notes from my readers. They really wanted her to have a love interest, so she got a love interest in Book 3, and they really wanted to know more about her background and whether this case was going to be solved. So she’s solving a case in real time, but then she has her personal backstory that she’s also kind of working through and trying to figure out. So yes, I’d like to bring that to a conclusion, because I know where it ends, but the readers don’t and so I want to get there.

Debbi: Yes. Indeed. So how much research do you do when you’re writing fiction? There’s a lot that you know.

Amanda: I research just the things I don’t know. So for example, if I am in the mountains and there’s something about the topography or how you would go about searching for a missing person, I will look that up. And again, a lot of what I do is ripped from the headlines, so it’s easy to find articles and things about that. I’m a water person, I’m a beach person, I’m a paddle boarder, so in my third book, I do a lot, and I’m a boater, so I do a lot about paddle boarding and boating, and I know a lot about those topics. But of course, I had to look things up. Things about the tide and things about the weather, and things that I wanted to make sure I got right. I teach journalism, introduction to journalism at a local college, and I just tell my students when I see careless errors in their stories, that could have been solved by Googling. All you have to do is look something up.

Back in the day, we had Encyclopedia Britannica, and you had to physically look it up, and if you didn’t have it at home, you had to go to the library. Now it’s all at our fingertips. Obviously, you have to make sure you have a credible source, but it really is all at our fingertips. So, really I don’t have to do a whole lot of research when I write my fiction, unless I’m setting it in a place I’m unfamiliar with, but I don’t think I would do that. The first two books that I wrote were set in the city where I live, which is Raleigh, North Carolina, hence my backdrop .

Debbi: I love it. Great backdrop.

Amanda: So I really don’t have to do too much, which is nice. Now, when I have done the true crime nonfiction, I have to really do a lot of research because even though those are my stories, I have to make sure every, every single fact is vetted, and that’s what I do on our true crime podcast. Every single fact has to be vetted so it has to be connected. You know, think of a research paper when you were a kid or in college or high school, you have to put footnotes for every single fact, and that is exactly what we do in a podcast.

I have to make sure every, every single fact is vetted, and that’s what I do on our true crime podcast. Every single fact has to be vetted so it has to be connected.

Debbi: Yes. It’s almost like a legal brief. Everything you allege has to have a footnote or a reference to a transcript

Amanda: Something to prove that it’s credible. My last podcast that I did, my last true crime for my company, was called The Killing Month: August 1978, and it was about a band of brothers who were outlaws in Pennsylvania back in late 1970s. They were eventually arrested. They stole big farm equipment, so they would go into farms in the middle of the night, back a truck up and roll the farm equipment onto the truck. Then some of the younger members of the gang – nephews, sons, relatives – started getting caught, and when they got caught, they started talking to police. And when they started talking to police, they started dying because the head of the gang was putting them in the ground, literally in the ground. They were killed and some of them were buried alive, and it was very, very dramatic.

My connection to that story was that my father was the district attorney who prosecuted them, so I remember the case, and then I remember going to the trial when I was 13 and 14. He was downsizing, and he had all of this memorabilia from the trial, including some of his personal notes, but more importantly, every single article that was ever written about it in the local newspapers, the Philadelphia Inquirer and The Daily Local News, and I had those. He gave them to me and that’s where I got the idea for the podcast, because there had already been a book, there had already been a movie, and I said, you know what? I’m going to try to do a podcast on this.

So talk about research. I spent about three months at my dining room table collating everything, and then going through every single article, typing out the facts I wanted, and then referencing it from the date and the year and everything that it was written and the publication. So it was a tremendous amount of research.

Debbi: Wow. And what an archive of information your dad gave you!

Amanda: Oh, absolutely. Although, it’s funny … Well, first of all, it was 45 years later, and I did interview many, many other people that he connected me with – FBI agents, local police, state police, witnesses, victims’ family members, all sorts of people. But I really needed that foundation, and I would call him or email him and say, well, what about this or what about this? He’s like, it was 45 years ago, and he was a big picture guy. He was the head, the lead District Attorney, and his second chair, who happened to be a woman, which was really unusual at that time in 1978, she was the one who did the yeoman’s job of pulling so much of the facts together. So it was important for me to have the facts from the media, but then also get them from different people involved in the case, and then continually double check when there was a conflict with those facts.

So it was important for me to have the facts from the media, but then also get them from different people involved in the case, and then continually double check when there was a conflict with those facts.

Debbi: Wow. I can just imagine the work you put into that. It must have been fascinating too.

Amanda: Oh, it really was, because I’d always been fascinated by the case since I was … I mean, I knew about it. I was 12 when it happened. I heard my dad and my mom talking about it. Back in the day, district attorneys actually went out to crime scenes. We were in a kind of a rural suburban area in Pennsylvania, outside of Philadelphia, so my dad would go in the middle of the night to a crime scene, and then I would overhear him talking about it, and he was pretty straightforward with me when I asked him questions. So even at that young age, I knew that people had been shot, they had been buried alive. These guys were dangerous. The youngest victim was actually a 15-year-old girl, and I was not that much younger. I was 12 , so there was a lot of intrigue for me at a very young age about this case.

Debbi: I can imagine. I’m picturing Atticus Finch and Scout at this point, but in Pennsylvania.

Amanda: I remember my dad in the courtroom. He had a booming voice, and I remember him pointing at the defendant, like something out of a Perry Mason moment where he’s pointing at the defendant and says, ‘in God we trust. This man must be convicted of murder in the first degree. Thank you, your Honor’ and sat down. And so it made a big impression on me. I didn’t realize how much of an impression until I started researching it and remembering a lot of the moments.

Debbi: Yes. Wow. What authors have most inspired your writing?

Amanda: That’s a really great question. I read a lot when I was younger, and then as most people do, they get busy with life and they have children and have jobs, and they don’t have as much time to do reading. So I would say early on, I read a lot of Patricia Cornwell, I read a lot of James Patterson. I never read true crime. I watched true crime, and I listen to it, but I don’t read it. So most of my fiction experiences were really the bestsellers. I will say in recent years, I’m really, really into British authors. I find that British crime authors, thriller mysteries are so just … I don’t know what it is about their voice. It’s just so interesting, and I wish I could look at or recite the names. I would have to go to my book list. I am in a book club now, and actually I’m in two, and so we mix it up a lot, but my favorite genre would be really any British female author who writes thrillers.

Debbi: I’m with you on that. I mean, I’ve been reading some lately that are just so good.

Amanda: They are.

Debbi: Those protagonists are so dark and yet they’re so funny.

Amanda: I think what I really like about what they do is just how they spin the story, that there’s so much implied. They’re not necessarily showing you something really scary; they’re just implying it, and I think the scariest things in life are things that you think could actually happen. I just recently read one – and I think a lot of them are like this – where they rent the country house for the weekend and then something bad happens. But I really like those because I think, well, how many of us rent the Airbnb and always wonder is somebody watching you, and who has stayed in this house and who lives here? And so I think there’s a lot of intrigue in things that are scary that could actually happen.

Debbi: Indeed. I was going to ask you, was it difficult to switch from journalism to fiction writing? Did you find any difficulty adjusting, to letting yourself go, kind of?

Amanda: Yes. I think if I’m being 100 percent honest, I am a nonfiction writer. I write a blog. It used to be about parenting. I write it for the TV station I just retired from, WRAL and for years it was called Go Ask Mom. They’ve just changed it to WRAL Family. And so for 14 years, I wrote about my kids and being a mom, and I really think that’s probably some of the best writing I’ve ever done. I’ve written several memoirs about my kids and about parenting and working and all that. I do think that’s probably some of my best writing. So it’s interesting to say, okay, now I’m a fiction writer. I’m sorry. I don’t know why I keep having these. I think it’s the pollen. It’s horrible here. Where are you, Debbi?

Debbi: I’m in Maryland, so the pollen hasn’t come out quite yet here, but it’s going to get there.

Amanda: It’s bad here. It’s all over my car. So I think that I am definitely more angled in nonfiction writing. So when I write fiction, I have to really give myself license to let go and not be so controlled by how did it really happen? Could this happen? I’m getting better at that. I really believe that every single book I write, I get better at it. Let’s hope that we all get better at something the more we do it.

One funny story in my third book, in my series, No Wake Zone, during the pandemic, I was writing a lot and rewriting a lot, and I was sitting on the couch one day and I went, it would be so cool if this happened right here. I was convinced that was going to be the best thing, and then I realized I had written myself into a hole, and I still really wanted that thing to happen, but now I had to go back and change a hundred other things to make that happen because they didn’t make sense anymore. And so that’s where I think fiction writing gets a little complicated. You have to know your characters. You have to know what they look like. You have to know their backstory. You have to make sure that if they have brown eyes in this scene, they have brown eyes in this scene. And if you’re just doing one point of view, the main character, she can’t know what other characters know or what they’re thinking. So there’s a lot to keep track of. I do keep a glossary for all of my characters, for every name, every location. I have descriptions, and I have it in alphabetical order, and then I keep really detailed chapter summaries so I can go back and fix inconsistencies.

But I think that’s the hardest thing about fiction writing, is that you’re creating something that’s not real, so therefore, if there is a disconnect it’s your world, you created it. So if there’s a disconnect, it’s your fault. I also had an age issue from one of my books to the next, so once I got into the second book, I realized that I had already established certain ages, and I thought, well, okay, that’s it. I can’t change that now, because these are characters in real time. I have not written anything about the pandemic yet, so everything I’ve written has been set in 2019 or prior, and I think I’m just going to skip it.

Debbi: I can’t blame you.

Amanda: I haven’t decided, but I know that that’s a big thing that authors really get concerned about. I also have friends that don’t even want to use social media or texting or write about any of that, so everything they write or cell phones is mid-nineties or prior. . But I incorporate all that because that’s the world that we live in.

Debbi: Yes. Yes. Well, if you want to write historical fiction, that’s fine.

Amanda: Right, exactly.

Debbi: If you want to write contemporary, that works too.

Amanda: I would have to research to write historical fiction, so I’m glad to write right now as things are and I think for me, I would have no problem setting something later and referencing the pandemic, but I don’t want the pandemic to be the whole story, so I’m going to have to figure that out, because if I go into Book 4 of that series, I’m either going to have to jump way ahead, or I am going to be smack dab in the middle of it and have to figure out how to make that a thing.

Debbi: What advice would you give to anyone who would like to make a career in writing?

Amanda: That’s a great question. I’m also an athlete. I’m a runner. I do yoga, and I believe that everything that we do, we get better at if we continue the discipline. Writing is a discipline, and there was no better preparation for me than being a TV reporter, so I would say get a job where you have to write all the time as much as possible. As a journalism professor, I am definitely seeing how a lot of the skill set for writing has just fallen by the wayside, and I don’t know if that’s related to the pandemic. I don’t know if that’s related to the fact that everything is shorthand now in texting and even email and social media, but writing is an art and good writing – and I don’t mean just writing a book or writing a screenplay or writing a podcast, I mean writing a letter. I mean writing a paragraph.

I believe that everything that we do, we get better at if we continue the discipline. Writing is a discipline, and there was no better preparation for me than being a TV reporter, so I would say get a job where you have to write all the time as much as possible.

If you want to engage people and share a message, whether it’s nonfiction or fiction, you have to be a good writer. I just think that it is a constant thing in my life of always trying to improve my skill set. And you know when you write something and it’s just spot on and you feel great, and you know when you write something and it’s not great. I think we all know that. So my advice would be to write, and obviously we all have to make a living. I know when I graduated from college, I told my parents I was just going to go be a writer and write books, and they said respectfully, no, you’re not. You’re going to get a job. So I put all these things that I enjoyed together. I was always involved in theater and writing, and I thought, wow, TV reporting! That might be fun. That was 35 years ago, so it worked out for me. But I would just say, encourage them no matter what kind of writing it is. Just if you want to be a writer, get a job that involves writing, and then work on your personal stuff on the side.

Debbi: Great advice. Thank you very much. Is there anything else you would like to add before we finish up?

Amanda: No. I think that I love the fact that you’re doing a podcast about writing and about authors because I feel like so many people don’t read anymore. I will tell you that I did go for a long period of time where I didn’t read much, but now I’m getting back into it and it’s just such a joy and it’s the most relaxing thing. I think the fact that we live in a world where everything is going so fast, if you could just take a little bit of time every day to read, I think it’s so good for your brain. It’s so good for anxiety. It’s so good for your imagination, and I just love it. I did just remember one of the British authors, Ruth Ware.

Debbi: Oh yeah.

Amanda: She’s one of the ones I really enjoy. I always have a book going now. Always. Never go anywhere without a book.

Debbi: Amen to that.

Amanda: Yeah, I’ve moved away. I do audio books as well, but I’ve moved away from the electronic book. I just like having the book and so I’m always reading a book.

Debbi: I’m the same. I can put an eBook out there. I’ll read an eBook, but there’s nothing like that print book in your hands somehow.

Amanda: Exactly. And I do know people who don’t read. I have people in my life who don’t read, and I just think about what they’re missing. If everything were to go down, if our electrical grid went down, if the internet went down, the readers, we know we’re going to be okay.

Debbi: Exactly. That’s right.

Amanda: Because we have something to do to occupy our minds, and there would never be enough time to read all the books I want to read.

Debbi: Yes, exactly. Well, I want to thank you for being here today. Thank you so much.

Amanda: Oh gosh. It’s been a joy. Thank you for having me.

Debbi: It was my pleasure. Before we go, I will just put in a quick plug for my new podcast or the one I’m doing in cooperation with F. R. Jameson. We discuss film noir every month at Dark and Twisted Alleys, a Film Noir podcast. And next up on that is going to be the movie Out of the Past, which is a fantastic movie, so don’t miss our discussion. Also, if you enjoyed this episode, please leave a review. If you would like to become a supporter of the podcast, please check out the Patreon page for our podcast, where you can get bonus episodes, ad-free episodes and other things. In the meantime, our next guest will be Steffanie Moyers. Until then, take care and happy reading.

*****

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Our guest for this episode of the Crime Cafe podcast is Southern Gothic mystery writer Faye Snowden.

Check out our discussion of her Killing Series and what inspires her to write.

Before I bring on my guest, I’ll just remind you that the Crime Cafe has two eBooks for sale: the nine book box set and the short story anthology. You can find the buy inks for both on my website, debbimack.com under the Crime Cafe link. You can also get a free copy of either book if you become a Patreon supporter. You’ll get that and much more if you support the podcast on Patreon, along with our eternal gratitude for doing so.

We also have a shop now. Check it out!

Check us out on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/crimecafe

The transcript can be downloaded here.

Debbi: Hi everyone. Today I’m pleased to have with me the author of a series of dark Southern Gothic mysteries with strong and flawed female characters. She’s going to give away a copy of her first book, A Killing Fire, and her second book A Killing Rain was named by CrimeReads as one of the best Southern Gothic mysteries of 2022. She also won and has been long-listed for various writing awards. So it is my great pleasure to have with me today Faye Snowden. Hi Faye, how are you doing?

Faye: Hi there. Fine, Debbi. How are you?

Debbi: Good, thank you. And I need to put you in the spotlight if I can manage to do that. I am just a technological mess today. There we go. That’s much better. So, tell us about Raven Burns and the Killing Series, and what inspired you to write it?

Faye: Oh my. Certainly. This series was actually not my first. I had a mystery suspense series back in the day. But the Raven Burns series is, like you said, southern noir, complete mystery, dark mystery, and it is about a woman whose father was a serial killer. So in order to atone for his sins and to prove that she’s a good citizen, she decides to become a homicide detective to right his wrongs in that small town, made up fictional town. She lives in Byrd’s Landing, Louisiana that seems for some reason have a lot of serial killers and she has to spend an inordinate amount of time chasing them. So the series is actually based on – what is it, the four? Is it the four? Oh, I’m kind of drawing a blank there. But it’s based on fire, water, soil, and then air.

She lives in Byrd’s Landing, Louisiana that seems for some reason have a lot of serial killers and she has to spend an inordinate amount of time chasing them.

So the first book in the series is A Killing Fire, and then the second book is A Killing Rain, which is out now. I’m working on A Killing Breath as we speak, and then the last book is A Killing Soil. And in each book, Raven is going to learn something about herself that’s either going to push her to be a good citizen of Byrd’s Landing, Louisiana, or become more like her father.

And in each book, Raven is going to learn something about herself that’s either going to push her to be a good citizen of Byrd’s Landing, Louisiana, or become more like her father.

Debbi: Oh, wow. I’m really hearing some interesting themes that people are basing their series on lately. I’ve heard the Seven Deadly Sins, now the Four Elements.

Faye: The Elements, right.

Debbi: Earth, wind, fire, water.

Faye: Yes. Yeah. Yeah.

Debbi: Wow.

Faye: I got the idea for the book because – I tell this story all the time, my poor dad – but I am a child of divorce. My mom, who’s since passed away – she died in 2015 – but she did not have a fondness for my dad after the divorce, and she would disparage him in front of us. I looked a lot like my dad. I favored him a lot, and I used to look in the mirror and say, well, if my dad’s a something and something, what does that make me? What kind of person does that make me? And you know, a writer’s mind just takes off sometimes, the imagination. I said, oh, you know, that would be a neat character to write, but you have to up the stakes. So it’s like, what if her dad’s a serial killer? And so it just kind of snowballed from there and then I had an idea and a book and so forth.

Debbi: Wow. That is intriguing though, the premise there. The idea of a detective who’s motivated by the fact that her father was a serial killer.

Faye: Yes.

Debbi: I thought that was very intriguing. So what are you working on now?

Faye: What I’m working on now is short stories, and I just think the short story form just really helps you hone the craft. I have a short story now that’s out in the Best American Mystery and Suspense called “The Obsession of Abel Tangier”. I just try to do them in my spare time, but what I’m working on now as far as this series is concerned, I’m working on the third book in the series. It’s going to be called A Killing Breath. I am almost ready to submit the first 50 pages to my agent and my editor to see if it’s a go. Let’s hope that it is. But it’s been just a joy to work on.

What I’m working on now is short stories, and I just think the short story form just really helps you hone the craft.

Debbi: That’s great. That’s wonderful. Is there kind of an overarching journey that you see Raven going on throughout the series? Does she reach a kind of closure at some point?

Faye: I do, and I’d like to think that it mirrors the journey that we go on through life, I mean, my journey. I can only speak from my perspective, but you know when you’re young and you have all these doubts about who you are and you don’t know who you are, I constantly ask myself, am I a good person? Am I kind of a good person? I think I’m a good person. I’m not sure. And then as you get older, you become more sure about that, more sure about who you are, more sure about your values until you reach a point. And I’d like to think I reached that point where you are okay in your skin. So the journey that Raven’s going on is to determine, to get to that place where she’s okay in her skin. However, what’s going to be different from Raven is that, like I said at the end of the series, her moral compass may be way off from the moral compass of us law-abiding citizens. I mean, you may still want to go have a beer with her, but you may not want to trust her with your bank account.

I’d like to think that it mirrors the journey that we go on through life, I mean, my journey. I can only speak from my perspective,

Debbi: Wow.

Faye: So that’s the arc, but I don’t know how it’s going to end because she is influenced by her father, and then by people constantly telling her that she’s evil and her thinking that she’s evil, and so she’s got all of that to sort out. She’s wrestling with that dark place inside her and trying to figure out how to kind of incorporate that into something useful.

Debbi: Interesting.

Faye: Yeah.

Debbi: So along with writing fiction, I see that you teach. You’ve been a guest lecturer for writing courses as well as teaching information technology. I thought that was intriguing.

Faye: Yes, my day job. I say it’s the only job I know aside from writing is I’ve been in information technology my entire career. The last maybe 10 years or so, I’ve been in project management, so sometimes I’ll teach a university course on project management. And then, because I’m still really in contact with my professors, they will ask me to come in and do a lecture on writing courses, on writing or the business of writing or just readings and those types of things.

Debbi: That’s really interesting. I went to library school. I have a library science degree.

Faye: Oh wow!

Debbi: It’s an old library science degree at this point, but nonetheless, so I am a fan of librarians, I have to tell you. And I am in awe of people who do good jobs on information technology, so well done, you.

Faye: Thank you.

Debbi: I was looking around for information about Southern Gothic mysteries, so I did a little Google search and this article pops up from CrimeReads, and I’m reading through it and it’s like, whoa, this is so good. And I’m reading through it, and I get to the bottom and guess who wrote it? It was you. I have to say that was a nice article you wrote.

Faye: Oh, thank you. Yeah.

Debbi: Can you talk a little bit about what you said about Southern Gothic mystery in that article?

Faye: Oh, I certainly can. The origins of Southern Gothic of course has its origins in the Gothic stories that were told in England way back when, and it has certain elements. What I said in the article is that the genre traveled across the pond and of course, you know the Americans. We put our own little spin on it. So what the Gothic or the Gothic genre, the Southern Gothic genre does, usually stories that are set in the south, but it’s really heavy on the subtext. So it’s the kind of stories that will kind of make the reader feel uneasy because of what it is saying and what it’s not saying, so there’s an element of corruption in it, especially religious corruption. Like in Gothic stories, the action happening in some old haunted mansion, the whole south becomes that haunted place or that dark place where the stories happen. It’s about the return of the repressed, things that as a society we don’t like to think about or talk about, but it’s there in the undertones of the story.

The origins of Southern Gothic of course has its origins in the Gothic stories that were told in England way back when, and it has certain elements. … We put our own little spin on it. So what the Gothic or the Gothic genre, the Southern Gothic genre does, usually stories that are set in the south, but it’s really heavy on the subtext.

For example, in the book A Killing Fire, the parish that the town is set in, the imaginary town, if somebody said, okay, Faye, what parish in Louisiana, because Louisiana has parishes, I would say in Caddo parish. And I read once – I don’t know how true this is – but that area of the country had more lynchings than any other country. And yet we build a town on top of that. We build all our societal structures without ever dealing with that, so this bubbles up. In Gothic fiction, these things that we don’t like to think about or talk about kind of bubbles up in the stories that you read. You may see things like incest or talk about incest or the damsel in distress, that kind of thing. There may be elements of the supernatural. So in the second book A Killing Rain, it’s a mystery, no paranormal elements, but there are things in there that happen that can’t be explained. If I were to sum it up in a nutshell, it’s about stories that we as a society tell about ourselves. However, with that dark undertone that surfaces things that we don’t like to think about.

If I were to sum it up in a nutshell, it’s about stories that we as a society tell about ourselves. However, with that dark undertone that surfaces things that we don’t like to think about.

Debbi: Yeah. It’s interesting how much crossover there is between that kind of crime writing and hardboiled mystery and film noir.

Faye: Yes. Oh yes, yes.

Debbi: They all seem to kind of come together at some point in this big Venn diagram. There’s a part where they all kind of intersect. How much research do you do when you’re writing a book?

Faye: A lot. For A Killing Fire, I did a lot of research about the town that I wanted to model my fictional town on, about Louisiana, and I grew up in Louisiana, so it was kind of learning a little bit about where I grew up. I do just enough research that helps me drive my storyline when I’m doing it in a healthy way. When I start doing the research and I’m saying, oh my goodness, I can do this in the story, it goes to my plot and then I pretty much stop at that point. But sometimes I’m a procrastinator, so sometimes I do so much research to keep from writing, and I get paralysis analysis of that and that’s when I know that I need to stop.

For A Killing Fire, I did a lot of research about the town that I wanted to model my fictional town on, about Louisiana, and I grew up in Louisiana, so it was kind of learning a little bit about where I grew up.

Debbi: Yeah. It’s easy, too easy for you to get sucked down that old rabbithole of research online. Boy, I tell you.

Faye: It goes and goes.

Debbi: It does indeed. What authors have most inspired you to write and who do you love to read?

Faye: Oh my goodness. The authors that have inspired me to write. I would just say the classics, because I am an English major. My favorite book in the world if somebody said, lay It down, let us know, would be Ralph Ellison, the Invisible Man. Invisible Man, Ralph Ellison. And then Toni Morrison, of course. Was a big fan of Alice Walker, and then another one. She wrote The Street, and I can’t – oh my God. I can’t believe I’m forgetting her name – I think it starts with Ann, but The Street is a really, really good book. Zora Neale Hurston also and then Faulkner. Love William Faulkner. So when you say the classics, that’s it. But contemporary writers, Tracy Clark is a great writer. Right now I think she has a book out that’s called Hide. Another one who is knocking my socks off these days, S. A. Cosby.

The authors that have inspired me to write. I would just say the classics, because I am an English major. My favorite book in the world if somebody said, lay It down, let us know, would be Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man.

Debbi: Oh boy. Yeah.

Faye: Really, really good. I don’t know if you interviewed him, and he’s such a nice person, so it’s good to see all that wrapped up together.

Debbi: Oh my gosh. Yeah. I have to say, I read Blacktop, uh …

Faye: Wasteland.

Debbi: Wasteland, thank you, way back when it first came out. It was submitted as part of the Hammett submissions. And to me, that was one of the ones that really stood out for me. And I thought, wow, this book could be made into a movie.

Faye: Yeah. And it is being, as I understand, yeah.

Debbi: I’m not surprised. I’m not at all surprised. Wow! Great book. If someone adopted your books, say The Killing Series, into a television show or film, who could you picture playing Raven?

Faye: Oh my goodness. Do you know the woman who’s in The Big Sky? I don’t know her name.

Debbi: I don’t know The Big Sky.

Faye: Big Sky, CJ Box’s series. It got adapted to television. The Big Sky. It’s set in Wyoming, I believe, or in the Plains states, but she would be to me a great person that could play Raven. I just love that actor. She’s really good.

Debbi: Cool. What advice would you give to anyone who is interested in a writing career?

Faye: Yeah, that’s a tough one. I get asked that question all the time, but that’s a really tough question because it has a really tough answer. The first advice I would give is that they need to read, read not only the stuff that they want to write, but they need to read widely in all different genres, all different – fiction, nonfiction – just read. Kind of learn how sentences are put together, how stories are told, the elements of story, and you can get a lot of that through reading. The other thing is that when you’re writing, know that your first and second and maybe not even your third draft, may be ready for prime time. So you have to write the best story that you can write and just focus on that and not focus on oh my goodness, I can’t wait till the fan letters come in because I wrote. You have to be that. And then the other one is that – I hesitate to say this because it is hard. Writing – and I just said it in the blog post I think.

The first advice I would give is that they need to read, read not only the stuff that they want to write, but they need to read widely in all different genres, all different – fiction, nonfiction – just read.

Debbi: I saw it. Yeah.

Faye: I think it’s hard so you have to make time for it and make time. You have to miss out on some things, so you really have to get over that fear of missing out, that FOMO.

Debbi: Yeah. I think that is so true. I don’t know about you, but when it comes to writing, I need to kind of shut out everything else and just do it. I can’t be checking my email, I can’t be looking online all the time. I can’t be doing Instagram or anything else. I have to be writing. People I don’t think really quite appreciate just how much your life gets consumed by all this.

Faye: It does, it does.

Debbi: It really, really does.

Faye: Yeah, and especially when you have a day job, because I have a really intense day job and having to go into your office or wherever you write after you’ve been doing a lot of heavy brain work all day is tough.

Debbi: Oh my gosh. I really admire people who have a day job and can write. How do you manage your time? What kind of writing schedule do you keep?

Faye: When I’m being really good, which I’m just starting being really good, because I really want to finish this Killing Breath, I make appointments with myself. For example, I used to take a lot of classes, extra classes. I’m like, Hey, if you can go to basket weaving class every Tuesday and Thursday from six to nine o’clock, you can write every Tuesday and Thursday from six to nine o’clock. So I just set those appointments and I keep those appointments, and even if I go in the office and stare at my computer, I do that. And then eventually I’ll get bored of doing that because I don’t let myself go online, then I’ll start working on what I need to work on. And then usually I have a schedule maybe like seven in the morning till twelve or one on the weekends, and that’s because that’s when all the kiddos and my grandkids who live with me start getting up and then I’m not missing out on spending any time with them. So basically making a schedule and keeping to that schedule.

I’m like, Hey, if you can go to basket weaving class every Tuesday and Thursday from six to nine o’clock, you can write every Tuesday and Thursday from six to nine o’clock.

Debbi: Yeah. That’s really kind of what you have to do, isn’t it?

Faye: Yes, most definitely.

Debbi: Very, very important. Is there anything else you’d like to add before we finish up?

Faye: I think the one thing I add is writing is serious business, but don’t take it too seriously. Remember you are writing to tell a good story, to have fun, write what you like to read and give yourself some grace while you’re doing it. So that’s probably what I would want to finish up with.

I think the one thing I add is writing is serious business, but don’t take it too seriously.

Debbi: That is excellent advice, I have to say. The best. Really give yourself a break there. It’s not brain science.

Faye: Right.

Debbi: It’s not brain surgery or rocket science.

Faye: Right.

Debbi: Nobody’s going to die, Literally if you write the wrong word. It all works out somehow

Faye: It does. It does. Yeah.

Debbi: Awesome. Well, this has been great. Thank you so much for being on the show.

Faye: Oh, you’re welcome. And thank you for inviting me. It’s been a great time.

Debbi: Well, it was a pleasure having you here, and thank you so much for everything you’ve said because it’s so true. Writing is hard and it’s important to have a schedule and all of those things. So for everyone listening just so you know, I have launched another podcast, if you can believe that. This one is a podcast on film noir that I’m co-hosting with crime writer F. R. Jameson. We discuss one film noir a month, and for our first episode, we’re discussing Double Indemnity, a real classic, so we’re giving you the good stuff.

The next episode is going to be on Out of the Past, which is really a wild movie, so stay tuned for that. Anyway, just thought I would mention that. And if you enjoyed this episode, please leave a review and consider supporting us on Patreon. We are a Patreon-supported podcast. In the meantime, I’ll just say thanks for listening and next time our guest will be Amanda Lamb. In the meantime, take care and happy reading.

*****

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Our guest for this episode is thriller author Leanne Kale Sparks.

Check out the podcast to hear more about her Kendall Beck series and the authors who inspire her, amongst other things.

Before I bring on my guest, I’ll just remind you that the Crime Cafe has two eBooks for sale: the nine book box set and the short story anthology. You can find the buy inks for both on my website, debbimack.com under the Crime Cafe link. You can also get a free copy of either book if you become a Patreon supporter. You’ll get that and much more if you support the podcast on Patreon, along with our eternal gratitude for doing so.

We also have a shop now. Check it out!

Check us out on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/crimecafe

The transcript can be downloaded here.

Debbi: Hi everyone. Our guest today had a short career in law before turning to writing a series of thrillers featuring FBI agent Kendall Beck. Her books are set in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado, which is a really cool place. I love that. She currently resides in Texas with her husband and two dogs – a German shepherd named Zoe and her Corgi named Wynn. It’s my pleasure to welcome today Leanne Kale Sparks. Hi, Leanne.

Leanne: Hi.

Debbi: I’m so glad you could be with us today.

Leanne: Me too. This is exciting.

Debbi: Excellent. Wonderful. I, too, had a career in law before I started writing full-time.

Leanne: I think there’s a lot of us.

Debbi: I think there are quite a few of us who left the profession in a kind of “we gotta do something else” feeling. You were fortunate in making yours a short career though, as you’ve described it. How long were you practicing law, and what kind of law did you practice?

Leanne: Well, I did a little bit of everything in that short amount of time. I did a little bit of family law and …

Debbi: Oh, God!

Leanne: I did a little bit of estates, but that was short-term. Mostly, it was criminal defense.

Debbi: Ah. I’m telling you, family law right there will turn you off to the idea of doing more.

Leanne: It’s the most dangerous profession. Everybody thinks it’s the criminal lawyers that get it. It’s family law.

Debbi: Not at all, because at least the clients understand you’re dealing with a certain type of system. People going through divorce, acrimonious ones just go temporarily insane. That’s my theory. It’s temporary insanity.

Leanne: And you’re taking away kids and money, two of the things that people value the most. In criminal defense, most of your clients, they know they’re guilty. They have probably been in the system before, and so they know what’s going on.

Debbi: Their expectations are well managed right from the start. Oh my. What inspired you to write the Kendall Beck series?

Leanne: I lived in Maryland at the time, and I had a friend who had retired from the FBI, and he used to be the person that was in charge of the criminal part of the FBI, the investigations. I had gone online and looked, and there was this really interesting department or group within it, a unit, and they did Crimes Against Children. And so I talked to this guy and I’m like, Hey, can you get me in to see them or talk to them, or have somebody just answer some questions? He pulled some strings and I was able to meet up with some actual agents that work in the unit.

It was a while ago and it just always stuck with me, and I thought, I need to have a character. The Wrong Woman started out as a short story just to see if I could actually write a crime thriller, and get all of the red herrings. The first versions of this, it was just like this person died and then we investigated, and yay, I figured it out, so I had to learn a lot about red herrings and things like that, so it kind of evolved. But I really did want Kendall to be involved in the Crimes Against Children, because I really think it’s important now. My books don’t focus on that. I don’t talk about any of the icky, really icky. I don’t go in depth with any of it, but it’s there and it’s an important part. I loved the idea of Kendall and the more I got to write her and everything, the more she kind of just really blossomed and became the sarcastic FBI agent that she is.

The Wrong Woman started out as a short story just to see if I could actually write a crime thriller, and get all of the red herrings.

Debbi: Cool. So it’s more about her being an FBI agent than necessarily the children angle.

Leanne: Yes. Well, it’s usually a backstory. I say that in Book One, it’s a backstory. It’s like a subplot about her finding this girl and figuring out what’s happened to her, and how that kind of all evolves, and it crossed paths with the murder of her best friend. And so we get this kind of unofficial partnership between Kendall Beck, who’s the FBI agent, and then the homicide detective in Denver, Adam Taylor. They start working together to figure out who killed her best friend, Gwen. Then in Book Two, it is all about the kids and they’re trying to find a missing child.

Debbi: Okay. So you’ve got two books so far out?

Leanne: There’s two books in the series, yes.

Debbi: Excellent. And how many books do you plan to write? Do you have a plan for the series in terms of the number of books and where you want to go with it?

Leanne: When I started out, it was four, so when I get to that point, then I’ll reconsider and see if people are still interested in hearing from Kendall and seeing what her and Adam can get up to, then I’ll definitely keep writing it as long as people want to read it. But I did have a four-book series planned out, and a lot of that is because there’s not a cliffhanger, but there’s a dangler in one of the books that I finally take care of at the end.

I did have a four-book series planned out, and a lot of that is because there’s not a cliffhanger, but there’s a dangler in one of the books that I finally take care of at the end.

Debbi: Okay. So you have kind of a plan in terms of story arc for the four books.

Leanne: For the four books, yeah.

Debbi: Have you considered writing another series at any point?

Leanne: I have actually. I’ve started writing another series in the meantime. I guess, why not?

Debbi: Why not? Yes.

Leanne: There’s still daylight. I can write another series, and it, of course, is also based in Colorado. It’s a fictitious town in the mountains, so it’s a small town, and of course you know how small towns are. They’re apparently magnets for murders. So I’m working on that, so I think that is cool. She’s a lot of fun too. She’s not like Kendall, but I can’t not write a sarcastic character, so she’s got a little bit of sarcasm in her too, but she’s a little bit more quirky in different ways than Kendall is.

Debbi: Well, I love sarcasm. It’s great, great stuff in a protagonist.

Leanne: It’s my second language.

Debbi: Awesome! Does the environment play a significant part in your stories, because you’re sitting in this fabulous natural setting, the Rockies?

Leanne: I grew up in Colorado, so I’ve always loved it. I moved away when I got married. I was younger – in my twenties – and haven’t lived back there since, so this is kind of my touchstone, plus it gets me to go back there for writing retreats and stuff like that, so it’s really important to me. I really do love the setting. There’s so much to do. I set Kendall Beck in Denver, and I did that because of what she does. There are two major interstates that go through Denver, and so a lot of trafficking can happen that way, so I thought that that was a really good place that I could do some things there. It’s big enough that I could get away with faking things a little bit and playing around with them but yeah, it’s definitely … I love the mountains. There’s a reason they call it Colorful Colorado. It’s gorgeous and so I’m still learning to pull it in more as a character. Book One, it was more about the characters, developing the characters and stuff. In Book Two, I think I pull in the scenery and the setting more, and trying to make that more its own character, a hard thing to do.

Debbi: And your idea for a mystery or whatever set in a small Colorado town in the mountains, I can easily picture that because my brother lived in a very small town on Peak to Peak Highway. I don’t know if you are familiar.

Leanne: Oh, wow.

Debbi: Yeah. It was a tiny little place. He used to talk about mountain lions appearing in front of his house or whatever. It was like, what??

Leanne: Yeah. I grew up in Colorado Springs, and it’s a big city now, but even now you can still get wildlife. When I was growing up, there were a lot of times where you would see wildlife and stuff, especially when you got outside of the city, if you lived outside of the city a little bit. So it’s a lot of fun.

Debbi: Oh wow! Yeah. It’s a cool place. I really love Colorado. How much research do you do when writing your books, and what kind?

Leanne: I do a lot. A lot of it is, unless it’s something specific, I usually try to do Google searches, or I have a bunch of reference books that I use. I go to conferences. My favorite one is Writers’ Police Academy because you get just so much information from there on real-life law enforcement and crime scenes and all sorts of things. I usually start with a Google search, and see what I can find from there. I have got a bunch of Facebook groups that I’m involved with, that you can ask a doctor or ask a law enforcement agent and if they don’t know, they know how to get the information. Sometimes I reach out directly to someone that I know.

I do have a couple of law enforcement agents in Colorado that I can contact for Colorado law specific things. Sometimes you’re like, hey, how would you do this? Would it be like this? And they’re like, no, we would never do that or something like that. So, I think a lot of research, I’m a plotter. I’m a big plotter, so I tend to do a lot of research while I’m plotting out the book, and not as much when I’m writing it. I mean, there’s still the odd time where you’re like, oh, I want to put this in and you get up and you look for it or you ask somebody. But most of it’s done upfront. I think in law enforcement, there’s so many people now with the … everybody’s into true crime and thrillers are just huge, and the CSI and everything.

I’m a big plotter, so I tend to do a lot of research while I’m plotting out the book, and not as much when I’m writing it.

People are very knowledgeable. Readers are really knowledgeable about things that happen in law enforcement and DNA and stuff, and so they will call you out on it if you don’t have it pretty much correct. I’m not writing a textbook about police procedures and investigations, so there are some times that you have to skirt the line of – well, for the story, I have to do this for the story, and just hope that people will go along for the ride.

Debbi: Yeah. You’re allowed a certain amount of artistic license there.

Leanne: Yeah.

Debbi: I think people expect it.

Leanne: Yeah.

Debbi: How would you describe your writing to someone who has never read your work?

Leanne: I really love dialogue. I love banter between characters, so I tend to have a lot of dialogue in it. I love really creating characters that stick with you, that you feel like you can go out and have a cup of coffee with or you want to hang out with, so I love the character part of the stories. And of course, I’m always into crime and stuff, but it’s really trying to figure out how to make these relationships and these characters work together and so you can carry that on throughout.

I really love dialogue. I love banter between characters, so I tend to have a lot of dialogue in it.

Debbi: And the thriller aspect of your writing. What kinds of thrillers are you writing? How would you describe them?

Leanne: Mostly, I do murder mysteries. Those are probably my favorite things to write about murder, and then kidnapping secondary. So the great part about it is that you try and find something new that doesn’t cross the line into something that’s just too gross, that’s just too far, so it’s really kind of a fun job that we have, just trying to figure out where that line is and pushing up against it. It’s interesting to go and see. There’s so much interesting information out there with real crimes. I think that most of the crime that is committed is way stranger than anything we could write and people don’t believe it.

I was watching this thing today while I was sitting there and I was just flabbergasted. I was like, how do people do this? It’s kind of fun to delve into the minds of killers or something, and I think for readers it’s the same way, because we would never in a million years think about why would somebody do that? Why? What drives somebody to be that cruel? Like, for instance, serial killers who have a plan and have a reason and things like that, and what drives that person, because it’s not anything that we would ever consider doing. So you really want to get into the mind and see what it’s like. I do like writing from the killer’s point of view a lot. I’ve had a few people say that I do that really well, which is kind of scary but also cool. Couple of times they’re just like, yeah, you write that a little too well.

Debbi: Oh my gosh. Well, that’s interesting. An interesting thought. Yeah, I have had those moments where I thought, do I really show this to somebody? Do they really want to see this? I don’t know, man. What authors have most inspired your writing?

Leanne: Harlan Coben is one of my favorites, and I think I read him and thought, well, he kind of has sarcastic and funny characters. They have funny lines. And so when you’re thinking of a thriller, you’re thinking oh, it’s all serious and stuff, but I learned there that it’s okay to have those funny moments, the humor because you have to, because especially the darker that you’re going to get, you have to have those moments where even the reader can have a release valve on the tension and the suspense. I really like him for that. I love Karin Slaughter for psychological thrillers. I love Loreth Anne White, and she’s just amazing. I love her work. So those are probably my favorites right there.

Debbi: And you have a protagonist who works with a local police officer, correct?

Leanne: Yes.

Debbi: So that’s the FBI and local police working together. Do they have contention in their relationship, or do they tend to get along well?

Leanne: I made Kendall very strong. She’s very strong. She doesn’t really fit the mold of most women. She’s in this business where she sees horrible things that happen every day, so she’s very strong, she’s independent. I like that about her. She doesn’t take anything from anyone, and she gets in fights all the time with people so she’s always kind of one step away from getting fired, so she’s that kind. Adam, he’s very good at what he does. He’s very empathetic, so he’s kind of on the opposite side. In the beginning, they do, and especially in Book Two, they really do, because it is his niece that goes missing. And so she’s like, this is my job. This is what I do so you back off, and he can’t, because it’s his niece and he’s in law enforcement. So that book, they really have a lot of contention.

I made Kendall very strong. She’s very strong. She doesn’t really fit the mold of most women. She’s in this business where she sees horrible things that happen every day, so she’s very strong, she’s independent.

But yeah, in the first book too, they get along well. They become friends, but there’s also this crossing of lines that they each are like, back off. You’re in my area and this is my area and the other one’s like, no, I know what I’m doing. I thought I needed to do that. I hope I didn’t overplay it because I don’t think that’s how it really is. I think they do work together a lot, especially in the Crimes Against Children unit, they work closely with local law enforcement because they know what’s going on in the communities better than the FBI. They have their confidential informants and things, and they’re just in the community more so you have to have that working relationship, that good working relationship. But you have to create tension and you don’t always want it to be about the crime. I think that that’s a good way to kind of create some tension, but they also have a lot of humor between them. They’re both very sarcastic.

I sometimes go overboard with the law enforcement humor because I did do criminal prosecution or criminal defense work. You kind of get to know what … you have jokes that you say that you would never say outside the office, or to anybody outside of law enforcement or in that world. But I do like it. I think it really kind of shows, and it’s true. That’s their release valve. So I try to be true to that without going overboard.

Debbi: Exactly. Yeah. There’s a lot of that kind of gallows humor.

Leanne: Yes, definitely.

Debbi: In police work, in lawyering, in emergency services, things of that nature. All those things. Probably medicine.

Leanne: Yeah, I would think so.

Debbi: Yeah, I would think so. What advice would you give to anyone who’s interested in pursuing a writing career?

Leanne: Try to write a book. Sit down and try and write it, because it seems really easy when you’re sitting there and you’re like, well, it’s like a movie in my head but it’s hard when you get to the point where I don’t know where to go from here. So if you can get through those humps and actually get through it, I would do that. It has to be something that you love to do, because you don’t write a book and then it becomes a bestseller. It’s just not the way it works. Especially now with all the indie and self-publishing, there’s a ton of stuff on the market, so you really have to work. And if you’re going to go indie, you better be able to do a lot of the work yourself, because you’re doing your whole business, which is why I like traditional publishing. Even though you still have to do a lot yourself, there are some things that they take on and so that’s helpful.

Try to write a book. Sit down and try and write it, because it seems really easy when you’re sitting there and you’re like, well, it’s like a movie in my head but it’s hard when you get to the point where I don’t know where to go from here.

I think I would say that you really have to … I remember when I decided I wanted to write and didn’t want to do law anymore, and I would stay up until two or three in the morning writing the story. It was just burning in me. I will never publish that story. It’s awful. But I had to write it. I had to write it, and I think that’s what you have to have, and it is hard to maintain that, because especially when it does start to become a business. If you’re going to make it a business, fine. If you just want to be a writer, then write. And if you don’t want to ever publish, do that, because that’s when you still have fun writing. It’s when it becomes a business and you have contracts and you have deadlines that you have to meet, that you really have to want to get that story out.

So if you can get through those humps and actually get through it, I would do that. It has to be something that you love to do, because you don’t write a book and then it becomes a bestseller. It’s just not the way it works.

It really has to be burning in you to get out, because to get through those humps – I hate to say writer’s block – but those walls that you hit up against and you’re like, I don’t know. I don’t know where to go, and I can’t think of anything. You sit there and you’re like, what are words? I don’t even, I can’t even come up with anything to actually say, and so it can be very frustrating. It’s lonely. You better want to be alone, because you don’t write with people. We go to writers’ retreats and that’s nice. You get that camaraderie. But most writers are kind of like, oh, yeah, let’s go, let’s hang out, and we’re together for about five hours and we’re like, okay, get away from me. I’m done being social, and I want to go in my room and sit and just be alone.

So, you have your communities and you have your friends. It’s very important to have writer friends that you can talk to, because nobody understands this business. I mean, you get into it. My husband is still trying to figure it out. I’ll be talking about stuff, and he’s just like, well, just do this or do that. And I’m like, just let me talk. He doesn’t get it, but you need that. You need that support system. But it is a very solitary existence when you’re writing, because you’re in your head. You’re in your head the whole time.

It’s very important to have writer friends that you can talk to, because nobody understands this business. … You need that support system.

Debbi: That’s so true. That is absolutely true. We make it look much easier than it is, and that is kind of a problem in a sense. People need to know that there’s a lot of work involved in creating a book, creating fiction or nonfiction. There’s a whole lot of work.

Leanne: I think it’s also a lot of trying to figure out your writing style, your writing process. For me, that’s been kind of the hardest part because I always thought I need to do it one way and just keep doing it, and that’s the way I always do it. And so I finally figured out that’s not how I write. So sometimes I’m writing all over whiteboards. Sometimes I’m using sticky notes. Sometimes I have legal pads, tons and tons and tons of legal pads. And then the area that I’m sitting in. Sometimes I want to sit here. So for this book, I’m doing it all at the kitchen table, which drives my husband crazy, because then I have sticky notes all over the place and we can’t use the kitchen table till I’m done. That’s also part of it too, and it’s realizing when it’s okay to not be like everybody else and figure it out. So I think that’s pretty important too.

Debbi: Yeah. Yeah. Is there anything else you’d like to add before we finish up?

Leanne: Well, I have a big giveaway that we’re doing. I’m going to give away a signed copy of The Wrong Woman and an FBI mug, and of course, coffee that Kendall loves, and some other little goodies. So if you want to go to my socials on Facebook, my author page, TikTok or Instagram, and follow me and let me know, and we’ll get you registered. Really, I think what I’d love for people to do is everybody loves the big names.I mentioned I love Harlan Coben, I love Karin Slaughter. I challenge readers to find somebody that they have never heard of. Find a book that sounds interesting from an author that you don’t know and give it a try because you might find your next favorite. You may not. You may decide that that’s not the writing style that you like. That’s where I think it is because there are a lot of us that can’t pump a lot of money into marketing and things, and so we’re trying to get our name out there as much as we can with social media and stuff, but there’s a lot of us authors out there.

I challenge readers to find somebody that they have never heard of. Find a book that sounds interesting from an author that you don’t know and give it a try because you might find your next favorite.

Debbi: There sure are.

Leanne: And if you just go in with the big names, I think you’re missing out on some stories that really would blow your mind. So that’s my challenge. Find an author and read them and then let them know.

Debbi: Yes. Boy, you’ve nailed it. I think that is so true. Part of what I want to do here is to shine a spotlight on people that you might not have otherwise heard of, so I’m really glad you said that. That is a great point. Thank you.

Leanne: You’re welcome.

Debbi: Thank you again for being here today. I really appreciate your time.

Leanne: Thank you for having me. I really enjoyed it.

Debbi: It was a pleasure. Oh, thank you. It was my pleasure, believe me. On that note, I just want to remind everyone to please either like our YouTube channel or leave a review for the podcast. It would be greatly appreciated. You can also access my novels in chapter by chapter form, as well as bonus episodes and more when you support the podcast on Patreon. Check out our Patreon page today. I even have a weekly newsletter – no, I’m sorry – a monthly newsletter that I’m working up and have been doing for the last few months. So check that out as well. Until next time, when our guest will be Faye Snowden, I just want to say take care and happy reading.

*****

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This episode of the Crime Cafe features my interview with crime writer Melissa Yi.

Don’t miss our discussion of her Dr. Hope Sze series and the Seven Deadly Sins!

And the play Terminally Ill!

Before I bring on my guest, I’ll just remind you that the Crime Cafe has two eBooks for sale: the nine book box set and the short story anthology. You can find the buy inks for both on my website, debbimack.com under the Crime Cafe link. You can also get a free copy of either book if you become a Patreon supporter. You’ll get that and much more if you support the podcast on Patreon, along with our eternal gratitude for doing so.

We also have a shop now. Check it out!

Check us out on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/crimecafe

The transcript can be downloaded here.

Debbi: Hi everyone. My guest today is a doctor who studied emergency medicine and works in emergency rooms, I presume. She has received many accolades for her work, including a Derringer Award for best short story of 2023, and finalist for the Silver Falchion for best thriller. She also writes medical humor – which I find fascinating and want to know more about – and has won speculative fiction awards as well. It’s my pleasure to have with me today Melissa Yi. Hi, Melissa. Thanks so much for being with us today.

Melissa: Oh my goodness. Thank you so much for having me.

Debbi: Well, it’s my pleasure to have you on, believe me, and your background just fascinates me. I used to be an EMT and my husband was a firefighter. He’s retired now, so I can thoroughly appreciate the whole hectic thing involving emergency rooms, what that must be like. Do you still practice medicine?

Melissa: I do. Not as much as I did, but I still like to keep my hand in.

Debbi: Excellent.

Melissa: I just have to say good for you guys, because now you can sleep. The nights are so hard.

Debbi: Yeah, yeah, for sure. Yeah. I remember getting up in the middle of the night to go on calls and it was like, whoa! I mean, sometimes those five in the morning ones were the worst, right before the dawn. I would get into the back of the ambulance and would just feel nauseous. I couldn’t explain that.

Melissa: Oh, that’s because that’s a very physical job also. For me, I would say 3:00, 4:00 AM is tough because you’ve been working so long, but there’s still so much to go. To me, 5:00, 6:00 people are starting to wake up. Normal people are alive at this time, it’s not so bad. You might start to get some sort of backup, but the middle of the night, really, you are it, and I just find that very tough and very bad for circadian rhythms.

Debbi: Oh, yeah. Yeah, really. I was much younger then, so I could adjust to it a little more easily, I suppose. But I’ve always been sort of in awe of people who go to medical school, because I went to law school and the med school was right down the street from me. And I was like, wow, I’m so overwhelmed with work, but what if I were in med school? Oh my God! You guys have to study all these bones, all these muscles, all these nerves. It just amazes me.

Melissa: I think law school is very cognitively taxing, though. I think there’s so much involved, so that it’s a different kind of stress.

Debbi: Very much so.

Melissa: Medicine is really holding people’s lives in your hands. That’s the stressful part of medicine.

Debbi: Yes, yes. That to me has always been … you guys are really in there, doing stuff, fixing people’s medical problems, things like that. What is it that inspired you to create Dr. Hope Sze?

Melissa: Very good.

Debbi: Thank you.

Melissa: You know, for me, honestly, there were a few things. I’m from Ontario in Canada, and the medical system was relatively good when I went to medical school. People probably don’t know this, but in Canada, the federal government has the money and then they give the money to the different provinces, and when you finish medical school, you get matched anywhere in the country. You don’t have to apply everywhere, but a lot of people apply across the board so you could end up in Newfoundland to BC sort of thing. I ended up in Montreal, Quebec, which is actually not far from Ottawa, my hometown. It’s only a two hour drive away. But for me, the medical system was mind-blowingly different because it’s a different province.

First of all, the nurses had been on strike because they were amongst the lowest paid, so the morale was not good. They also had to draw all their own blood; there was no phlebotomist to do that. And I was like, wow, that’s strange. Then they started coming onto me, okay, well you do the electrocardiogram. I’m like, oh, okay. I didn’t realize that. I thought you were a nurse, sorry. She said, well, I am a nurse, and I said, oh, okay, but you don’t do electrocardiograms? She said, not on this floor. So there were all these regulations that ended up … Everything was being dumped on everybody, basically and it was really tough and for patients to just be waiting in the emergency room, and even if you’re admitted, you still have to wait for days, maybe.

Everything was so stressful that subconsciously, I think it made me think of murder. I think also that, for me, I just wanted to be able to battle something that wasn’t disease, that wasn’t bacteria or viruses, to have some sort of thing that you could physically fight and find justice. So in my head, I was like, wouldn’t it be great if there was a physician, a resident doctor like myself, who saves lives but also fights crime? And so that’s when Dr. Hope Sze was born.

I just wanted to be able to battle something that wasn’t disease, that wasn’t bacteria or viruses, to have some sort of thing that you could physically fight and find justice.

Debbi: Oh, that is so cool. I see you have a kind of a separate subseries perhaps in – what is it called – the Hope Sze Seven Deadly Sins? Is that an offshoot?

Melissa: Yes, yes, yes. The first series is finished. Those are nine novels, and the difference is – and these ones obviously are about the Seven Deadly Sins – and they also have a supernatural element. Again, I just don’t know how my mind works, but one of the main characters, Hope’s best friend, basically just turned around and said, I can talk to ghosts. And I was like, what? You never mentioned this before, but Tori, she doesn’t talk to people a lot. She keeps things very close to her chest, and so it took like seven or nine months before she told Hope that she could do this. So the last book, White Lightning, there are ghosts in it. This next series will just unleash the supernatural as well as medicine and thrillers, so just mashing everything up.

Debbi: That sounds fascinating to me. I love the idea of mixing these kinds of different genre elements in – supernatural, paranormal, mystery, medical thriller. Fantastic. I think that’s great.

Melissa: Well, I’m glad that you’re so flexible. I think for some people it would just be a big no, but for me, that’s what makes it exciting, to be able to incorporate that.

Debbi: Exactly. I love that actually. I just think it’s fantastic. Really, I love when people mix genres up. I mean, there are other books out there that I am wild about because they bring in other elements from other genres for that very reason. You obviously have a lot of professional experience working in the ER and so forth and in medicine, but are there areas that you still need to research when you write a novel?

Melissa: All the time! Oh my goodness, yes, for sure. The first book in the Seven Deadly Sin Series is Wrath. It’s called The Shapes of Wrath, and it’s set in the operating room. I was like, hey, everybody. It’s been a long time since I have been on surgery or anesthesia. Can you help me? And so there are a group of women physicians who are wonderful, wonderful, and so they stepped forward to talk to me. And I’m just like, thank God there are all these people who are smarter than me, can just fact check me the whole time, and in fact, each other. Everybody has their own area of expertise, and one of them would be say well, if it were a patent peramenovali (sp?), and then I’m saying, no, no, that would cause this instead, and it will be a whole discussion, and I would just say the final answer is …?

Debbi: Oh goodness. So where is it that you would ultimately see your series of books going? This latest one?

Melissa: Are you asking me which …?

Debbi: What’s your plan? Do you have a number?

Melissa: It’s actually interesting to me because with my previous series, I would just let my subconscious go and somehow tie things together, which was pretty interesting. But now the Seven Deadly Sins so that’s very helpful to give me something more concrete. And from the very beginning actually, I was really attracted to the idea of doing forensic psychiatry, again which I don’t have a lot of knowledge of, and a doctor in North Bay asked if I would want to visit? I’m a forensic psychiatrist and you can stay at my house. Yes, I would like that very much.

Debbi: Wow.

Melissa: So I thought about it a lot, and you probably have heard of National Novel Writing Month, where you try before write a book in a month. And so last year what I did was I tried to write a little bit of all the sins, or of the ones that I hadn’t done yet, to figure out what I was going to do for each book. I ended up deciding that I was going to do Pride last and that it was going to be forensic psychiatry. So the difference with this series is I know that some of the players from the previous novels in the series will come out and be involved in the final book,

Debbi: And what are you working on now?

Melissa: Sloth.

Debbi: Sloth. Yes.

Melissa: February 1st, I have Gluttony, which is Sugar and Vice, and that one was so much fun because I love to eat. It’s one of my big passions in life. I am somebody who, like strangers have commented on my eating. So for example, Montreal is French and has a very strong French culture. I was at a French restaurant there, and a woman came over and said, oh, I just wanted to tell you that my husband and I bake, and we were watching you eat the bread, and I told him, if everybody ate bread like that woman, we would never go out of business. Someone has offered to share a dessert with me, because I was just like, what do I choose in the restaurant? Well, do you want to try mine and then you’ll know? And I was like, yes. I would absolutely love to do that. My husband, who’s an introvert is just like, this is so strange, whereas I’m like, this is good. Thank you so much for sharing your dessert with me.

I really love meeting people and having adventures, even mini adventures, so Gluttony was great. It was actually a little bit more work for me because I’m like, well, what am I going to do? If I could tell a little story, Debbi?

Debbi: Sure. Absolutely.

Melissa: I always wanted to go to this restaurant called Onoir with the letter O, where there’s no light. Noir is black in French, and it’s in complete darkness so you don’t see your food, you don’t see your companions, you don’t see the servers. The people who work there, their sight is limited, so whether they’re completely legally blind or close to, and it’s a big adjustment to go in there. So I was just like, well, I’m doing Gluttony now is my chance to go to Onoir so I did. I didn’t end up incorporating that one in my book, but that was a very interesting experience. Just how anxious I was to step behind the curtain where I couldn’t see was very strange. So the server was totally fine calling out and whistling and using echolocation to walk, and of course knew the layout, no problem, whereas I was lingering behind. Where am I going in this black room? You can pick surprise dishes if you want. They’ll just surprise you and you don’t know what you’re going to be eating that night. I’m a bit of a control freak, so I did choose my food, but to tell you the truth, when I finished eating, I was like, well, I don’t know if I got it all. No one can see me, so I just used my fingers to finish it off. It’s all good.

Debbi: Well that’s a very interesting story and a very interesting restaurant, it sounds like. Boy!

Melissa: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. That’s the best thing is that you can research cool stuff when you’re writing.

Debbi: They should call you the Extroverted Omnivore

Melissa: Oh, I love it. Thank you.

Debbi: That’ll be my nickname for you now

Melissa: Thank you. Yeah. I love it.

Debbi: Awesome. Who are your favorite authors? Who inspires you as a writer?

Melissa: Oh, you know, I have a ton of favorite authors. I do have a YA that’s going to be coming out, so I have been reading a little bit more. So at ThrillerFest, which is one of the awards that I have won with the BIPOC Scholarship to ThrillerFest, I met Maureen Johnson and I am just re-listening to her books now and she makes me laugh all the time. So right now I’m on The Box in the Woods. Dragons were in Sugar and Vice, so I picked up Robin Hobb and I love her so much. She writes sets of trilogies basically, and her world is so complex, it made me understand the world as well as the characters and everything like her description of gentrification, for example. Yes, that is what happens to artists who get pushed out and everything, but in her case it was people who live in the trees and stuff like that. It was beautifully, beautifully done.

And then for mysteries, because this is a crime, Maureen Johnson is a mystery author, but I’ll just say I always love Kris Nelscott, Jim Dresden and Dana Stabenow. You cannot go wrong with those three for me.

Debbi: Awesome. Sounds good. If someone made a movie or TV show based on your books, who would you imagine playing Hope? Who would you want to play Hope?

Melissa: Okay. Okay. I just have to tell you. We have a play.

Debbi: Yeah, I was going to say. What’s the play about? I want to know about that play.

Melissa: Okay. So I do have somebody playing Hope and her name is Stefanie Hitgano and she is lovely. Just seeing the emotion play across her face is very moving, and it’s so interesting to see somebody else personify the person who’s basically me in residency. So I love that very much. So I know that the vast majority of people have not seen her act, but if you want to, you could come to Ottawa February 8th to 10th, and then you would be able to get a glimpse of her talent.

Debbi: Wow.

Melissa: So, we did have another actor play her as well, who was very talented. So I’ve been so lucky to have had people bring Hope to life. Oh, and I also have audiobooks and so couple of people read The Shapes of Wrath.

Debbi: Oh, that’s fantastic. That’s great. Isn’t it something amazing when you hear other people say the lines of the characters you create, and maybe it’s a little bit different, but it’s more awesome than you imagined it? That’s the way it’s been for me anyhow.

Melissa: Yes. Congratulations to you. Yeah, absolutely. I have to say before this, I did not understand the role of the director as well in it. So, I find it just interesting because I don’t think as visually as I could, so it’s also humbling to see the just physical shape that it can take, which is very beautiful. So hats off to Micah.

Debbi: All right. Excellent. What sort of humor books do you write? You write medical humor books? I’m intrigued by that.

Melissa: Okay. Yes. Cool. So I write for The Medical Post and that ends up being essays that are less than a thousand words, mostly quite often funny and quite often just odd things that happened to me in the emergency department. And then I just gathered them together into books. So a book called The Most Unfeeling Doctor in the World and Other True Tales from the Emergency Room was an Amazon bestseller when it came out. People really enjoyed hearing about it. But actually just as an aside, there are also people who read it who didn’t enjoy it of course, but in general, people just thought it was interesting.

So I write for The Medical Post and that ends up being essays that are less than a thousand words, mostly quite often funny and quite often just odd things that happened to me in the emergency department. And then I just gathered them together into books.

Debbi: Well it sounds really interesting. Yeah. Sounds great. Somebody should do that for lawyers

Melissa: Yes. Oh, did you end up practicing law then?

Debbi: Oh yeah, I did for 10 years, yeah.

Melissa: Oh, good for you.

Debbi: Yeah, I even had my own office for a while.

Melissa: Awesome.

Debbi: The stories I could tell! The stories other people could tell. It’s amazing. It’s really amazing.

Melissa: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well I’m going to tell you two things. So a bestseller sort of side by side with me was an EMT. And of course, you know, Scott Turow and John Grisham and everybody, so go crazy with your lawyer and EMT and whatever else stories. There’s a market for them. People want to know.

Debbi: Oh boy. Well I really have to get in touch with some of my husband’s friends then, because I’m sure that they have lots of stories. I was going to ask you something. Oh, advice. What advice would you give to anybody who would like to write for a living?

Melissa: This is a question I ask everybody who makes a life in the creative arts. I find it fascinating because for me, I feel like I took the correct way, which was that I wanted to be able to support myself and I didn’t trust that writing or the arts could do that for me. So that’s why honestly I went into medicine that I just was like, I’m going to be my own patron of the arts. I am going to be able to always put a roof over my own head and over my children’s head. It was very important to me. Even though my boyfriend who became my husband had said he would support me, I just wanted that independence. and it also gave me a lot of stories so it ended up working out.

The advice I would give to other people would be, one of the things that nobody told me that I wish they had told me was that it’s very important to make friends. You know, people always tell you, write a good book. Yes, write a good book. Market your book, market your book, but also other people lift you up and I do it too. It’s not that you’re trying to exclude anybody because I love to include people, but if you’ve worked with somebody and you know them and they’re a good writer and they’re easy to deal with, it’s just so much easier to reach out and be like, Hey, I know this project. Do you want to join me, or do you want to be on my podcast or on my YouTube channel? Whatever it is, it’s just a lot easier.

The advice I would give to other people would be, one of the things that nobody told me that I wish they had told me was that it’s very important to make friends.

So if you are at home and you’re an introvert and you’re writing, that’s good because you’re honing your craft, but it’s also good if you can join an organization, go to a conference. I know people moving away from Twitter, Blue Sky, whatever, if you can make friends, that is key. You will help rise together.

Debbi: Absolutely. I agree with you 100%. Is there anything else you’d like to add before we finish up?

Melissa: I will, I guess I’ll just plug one more time that the book that’s coming out is called Sugar and Vice, and the play that’s coming out is called Terminally Ill.

Debbi: Boy, I want to go to Ottawa now and see this thing.

Melissa: Yes, please. We’d love to have you

Debbi: You guys have to record it and put it up on YouTube or something, maybe. Or Vimeo somewhere?

Melissa: We need the money.

Debbi: Yeah, yeah. Ask for money on admission. Yeah, no problem with that. You can do that. Somebody can. I really appreciate your being here today. Melissa, thanks so much.

Melissa: Thank you so much for having me, Debbi. I really appreciate it. And keep reading and writing, everybody.

Debbi: Alrighty. Well on that note, thank you everyone for listening. And just want to say if you’re watching this on YouTube, please hit like. If you’re listening to it in the podcast, please leave a review. They help! And take a look at our Patreon page. We are a Patreon-supported podcast and I’m very grateful to my patrons, believe me. And so on that note, our next guest will be Leanne Sparks. Until then, take care and happy reading.

*****

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This episode of the Crime Cafe features my interview with crime writer Laurie Buchanan.

Among other things, we talk about her (planned) nine-book Sean McPherson series.

Before I bring on my guest, I’ll just remind you that the Crime Cafe has two eBooks for sale: the nine book box set and the short story anthology. You can find the buy inks for both on my website, debbimack.com under the Crime Cafe link. You can also get a free copy of either book if you become a Patreon supporter. You’ll get that and much more if you support the podcast on Patreon, along with our eternal gratitude for doing so.

We also have a shop now. Check it out!

Check us out on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/crimecafe

Download a copy of the transcript here.

Debbi: Hi everyone. My guest today is the author of the Sean McPherson series, and while Sue Grafton had her alphabet series, this author has picked one letter and stuck with it—the letter I. All the books in the series have one-word titles that start with I, which I think is really kind of cool. The latest one released is Impervious, and the next one will be called Iniquity. It’s my pleasure to have with me today Laurie Buchanan. Hi, Laurie. How are you doing today?

Laurie: Hi, Debbi. I’m fine. Thank you for having me. I’m looking forward to talking with you.

Debbi: Awesome. Well, I’m glad to have you here. The last time you were here, your first book was out, right? Indelible?

Laurie: Yes. Yes.

Debbi: And that established the story of Sean McPherson, who works at this kind of place where writers’ retreats are held.

Laurie: Exactly. Pines & Quill is a writing retreat in the Pacific Northwest, and now by Iniquity, which comes out this April—it’s a premier now. It has had so many people, and now there’s this huge waiting list and you need to be background checked and so on and so forth, because some murders have taken place there. Some from without and some from within. So they’re being more than cautious. And the neighbors can see when first responders come, oh, what’s going on there? There’s paramedics, there’s police, there’s whatever it is. And then the news crews come over. So we’ve gotten now pretty far into the story, so Book Four Iniquity comes out in April, and Book Five is with the publisher. I just finished writing Book Six. It went to the beta readers, and I’m now starting Insidious, Book Seven.

Debbi: Oh my goodness.

Laurie: Yes. I’m on a nine-book contract right now. It went from one to three to five to seven to nine, and I suspect it will grow.

Debbi: Good heavens, nine books! Well, this is very interesting, because you have anticipated a few of my questions already. Well, we can talk about that, though. Boy. Nine books! How has the story of Sean McPherson developed over time so far?

Laurie: So we’ve gotten now where there’s three very close friends—a private investigator, Sean McPherson, one of his two best friends, homicide Detective Joe Bingham, and then his other best friend, Sean Rafferty. Because there are two Seans, they go by their last name. Sean McPherson goes by Mick, Sean Rafferty goes by Rafferty, and he’s an FBI special agent, and the three of them work together very well. Two of them, the homicide detective and the FBI special agent, have constraints, bureaucratic constraints. There are some things they cannot do because they are law enforcement agents. And because Sean is a PI in the state of Washington, he carries a gun. He doesn’t have bureaucracy to answer to. He doesn’t break the law, but he doesn’t have the same constraints. So the three of them can get places and accomplish things that they wouldn’t be able to do if they were all just police or all just FBI. So they’ve got this three thing going on.

Now where I’m at in the story, Sean McPherson in Impervious, which is the one that we’re talking about today, Sean and Emma get married. They go to New Orleans, which is a destination location for weddings and horrific things happen there. Somebody who is near and dear to the readers’ hearts while they’re there dies in San Francisco, which stops the honeymoon and Sean leaves. Emma, his brand-new bride, stays for a different reason and things happen. And you can see the front cover here is a swamp and it’s an alligator-infested swamp and things take place.

Debbi: It does have a very New Orleans vibe to it, or a Louisiana vibe.

Laurie: Louisiana. Absolutely!

Debbi: I can practically picture … What is that movie? The one with… The one that takes place in the swamps of Louisiana. It’s really scary at parts.

Laurie: I’m thinking of Dueling Banjos, and I know that’s not it.

Debbi: Not that one. It’s the other one with Powers Boothe.

Laurie: Oh, I don’t know.

Debbi: And it’s just eluding me. Well, it’s great. It’s a great movie. That’s all I know. I’ll think of the name eventually, probably after this is over. Anybody who loves movies probably is saying the name and saying, “Debbi, Debbi, it’s this one.”

Laurie: They’re shouting it out.

Debbi: Yes. Your book descriptions always seem to mention the occupations of various characters who are at the retreat to write. How do you decide what your ensemble characters are going to do for a living?

Laurie: That’s a great question, and in fact, for Book Seven, I had to create, I had to give birth to the four writers in residence that will be there. And I always want them to be something interesting, somebody who would actually be writing a book. So I just created, one of them is a standup comedian. Her book is—I always get to come up with their titles too. That’s hard. You know how hard it is to come up for your own title. It’s equally hard. Hers is called Unzipping My Genes In Public: A Humorous Look at Genealogy and Genetics. One is a former nun and hers is called Out of Habit, a memoir. One is Sarah Tedesco. She’s an advocate for human rights, and she’s a well-known author. She’s in a wheelchair and she’s continuing a series called In Cahoots for children, so that kids in a wheelchair with prosthetics don’t succumb to bullying and they feel proud of themselves. And the final one is Jane Allen. She’s a New York Times bestselling author who you will find out doesn’t write her own books. She goes to writing retreats and murders someone there and steals their manuscripts and pawns them off as her own.

So we’ve got those. So it’s fun for me to be able to come up with these characters and the titles of their books, making sure that they don’t already exist on Amazon or anywhere. Who are they? Where could they be coming from? How can I use them in the book? And so every time I write a book, I have to write the entire book around that one I word that’s four syllables long. So we have Indelible, Iconoclast, Impervious, Iniquity, Illusionist—I just turned it in. Hold on, let me, I’m cheating here—Illusionist, Innocuous, and now I’m writing Insidious.

So a lot of thought has to go around writing around one word, writing around the meaning of that word. What negative thing can take place around that word? And of course, when you write crime thrillers as you know, what does the protagonist have to lose you? You have to have that—what does the protagonist have to lose. And so as I write my character bible for each of these things, also for them—and it may not ever appear in the story—what is their secret that they don’t want anybody to find out, because that’s how they approach life. That’s the set of lenses they look through. And it may again never be something that the reader finds out, but I write around that secret and that I word.

Debbi: That’s fantastic. That’s absolutely fantastic. You’re kind of a natural for adaptation to television, frankly .

Laurie: Wouldn’t that be fun? Wouldn’t that be fun?

Debbi: Wouldn’t that be fun? She said with a smile. Hmm. Well, you have a plan for how the stories are going to go obviously, because you’re all the way up to book what … Seven?

Laurie: Seven, yes.

Debbi: Lord! Do you have an idea of where you’re going to go with Eight and Nine?

Laurie: Well, I won’t write this one—I would love to—Indigenous. In the Pacific Northwest, there are reservations and so forth, but because I’m not Native American, I wouldn’t want to step … somebody else can write that book. But I am going to write Iditarod, which takes place in the month of March up in Alaska. Going to go do a lot of research for that. I’m also going to write Imitation. That’s one of them that’s coming down the line. That’s going to involve Sean McPherson’s mom, who’s in her seventies and she’s retired FBI so she knows exactly what she’s doing and something horrific will be happening.

Now, as you know, writing the mystery series that you do, the McRae Mysteries, you have to be able to drop breadcrumbs previously and follow them up. I’m not a huge fan of red herrings. I don’t trick the readers. I don’t want to say, well a-ha! I want to have viable breadcrumbs that if they’ve been reading the series, they’re like, oh my gosh. That’s right. That happened. They saw this in the morgue when they opened that drawer, and there was the diver in that suit, and he had this Russian blade. And so it’s something I can build on, but you have to have enough of an idea. I never know how any of the books is going to end. Haven’t a clue. I just know the direction I’m going, and I use my character bible as my compass. That’s my true north and I just follow it, but I know enough that if I’m going to be writing this, I better be dropping these hints now. I better do this.

I never know how any of the books is going to end. Haven’t a clue. I just know the direction I’m going, and I use my character bible as my compass.

Debbi: Yeah. Yeah. Because if you want something to happen, say in Book Eight, and plant a seed for it in Book Three, you need that bible to kind of create that link.

Laurie: Exactly, and I do have a guy in a drawer that they took the wetsuit off of, and there was a particular tattoo, and fastened to him with a belt was this particular knife. Someone had died from a knife with the same jiggy-jag kind of a thing with a Russian blade, with the manufacturer. You’ve got to be able to speak authentically with whatever weapons you’re using, whatever fight scenes, and you have to plot it out, and that’s half the fun.

I don’t know if you’re like me. I don’t sleep well. because my mind is busy. I lay there with my eyes closed and I’m not wiggling around, but I’m busy. And if I think of something, I always keep my phone on the nightstand and I’ll pick it up and I’ll say Laurie, don’t forget this. Remember that. Hey, this is a good idea, or check this. What about that? Remember those spies in World War II. What was that thing that they called? They had a fake tooth. Their upper left back quadrant, they would remove the tooth, put in there a pill that if they got caught, they could knock that tooth out with their tongue, bite into it and die. What was that really called and what was in it? Would the morgue pick that up if they weren’t looking? Would the M.E. be able to pick that up if they weren’t looking for it? You have to be able to do this.

I have talked with M.E.s, with psychologists, with psychiatrists, with the SWAT team here in Boise, Idaho. I’ve gotten to … let me see here where I thank people. I’ve gotten to talk to a detective in the Major Crime unit. I’ve gotten to go to the crime lab here, forensic pathologist. I’ve talked with a private investigator, Dickie Floyd. He writes detective novels, a forensic psychologist, and a chief public defender. I mean, I go and I ask for their time, and they’re happy. No one has ever told me no, because they are going to get thanked back here, and they give me the lowdown. How would you do this? How could that happen? I ask, and I ask and I ask. They’re so gracious and they step up to the plate and they say, this is what would happen. This is most likely the weapon that they would use, and in response, this is what we would do. And it’s really fun.

Debbi: Sounds like you do a lot of primary research.

Laurie: I do.

Debbi: How much time do you spend on research and how do you organize your research?

Laurie: I’m very organized. Almost everything for me, I keep on my laptop. I’m not a messy person. I dot my i’s, I cross my t’s. I don’t have a bunch of stuff. I work with an almost blank desk. I get my research done in advance, so when I get on my laptop, all of the tabs are closed. I don’t have Google open, I don’t have Facebook open. My phone is in a drawer in airplane mode. I just power through it. At three o’clock, I stop. Doesn’t matter what’s going on, what’s happening. I get up at four. I walk six miles a day, three two-mile increments so I get my walking done. I put a headlamp on. I’m in the Pacific Northwest. It’s very dark at that time of morning. I take my dog and we go and come back.

Butt in Chair. I use the BIC method—Butt in Chair—and I write, write, write, write, write, stop. Two more miles, come back, Butt in Chair. Write, write, write, write, write, and I end my day at three o’clock. Two more miles. I’m done. I’m done. My brain is mush.

Debbi: Wow! Well, that’s very diligent and an excellent routine, I have to say. Walking is a great thing to do.

Laurie: It is, because your pot is simmering on the back burner of your brain, and it helps you drop things off that you don’t need, think of things that you need. I have, like I said, a nine-book contract. My publisher, Spark Press could let me go at any time, just like our contracts are written where I could let them go. If I don’t hit certain bars, they can let me go. Effective August 1st of this year, I no longer have Pacific Group West as my distributor. It’s Simon & Schuster. That raised the bar like you can’t believe. So the book that’s coming out, I went out and studied their catalog. What we had had, we have these blueprints that we work with, and this is what I envisioned for my cover. This is how I want my pages laid out. Well, I had to Simon & Schuster-ize from Iniquity on. I thought I was done, and I still needed to write because I have to hit a target of a book release every April. And it’s not easy.

It sounds like I just sit down and it flows out of my head. No, that’s not true. That doesn’t happen. I bang it out of my head.

It sounds like I just sit down and it flows out of my head. No, that’s not true. That doesn’t happen. I bang it out of my head. So I had to back up and Simon & Schuster-ize all of this stuff that takes place. You know on the back of a book, you’ve got what we’ve always called the hook in the past; they call it a keynote. It has to be 250 characters—not words—including spaces and periods and commas and everything. No longer, no more. And this is what it must contain. It cannot recreate anything down here. And then this is this many words with this many spaces, and it must contain…. And that was an amazing feat. Now moving forward, it won’t be hard, but I had to re-up several books for that, but it’s an exciting thing. What a great reason. I have to do this because of Simon & Schuster. Well, I like having that problem.

Debbi: Can’t say I blame you. I can see the benefits. How would you describe your writing in terms of sub-genre? Is it thriller, suspense, mystery?

Laurie: It is a little of each, but it’s mostly thriller. On my bookmarks, it’s the Sean McPherson crime thrillers, but it does contain mystery, it does contain suspense, almost from the get-go in any book. It’s very Alfred Hitchcockian in that. Remember, he puts the bomb under the table and the people in the audience get to see that, but the characters don’t know. The movie stars on the screen don’t know. So that’s where the suspense comes in. Right from the get-go in my books, almost within the first chapter, you know who the bad guy or gal is. You know but the other characters in the book don’t. That’s what makes it suspenseful. So the reader is going, “Don’t go into the forest. No, don’t go into the garage. Don’t go in the kitchen no matter what you do,” because the reader knows what’s going on, but the characters in the book don’t. And that’s an Alfred Hitchcock method, and that’s what makes it suspenseful.

Debbi: Yes, very much so. What do you think has been the most effective way that you connect with your readers?

Laurie: Two ways for me. I am very interactive with readers on Facebook and Instagram. I just recently left Twitter. I left 12,000 people behind, but I wasn’t excited to stay there anymore. So I get a lot done there. I live very close to Boise State University. I get invited to speak there a lot. When I speak, then I get readers. I belong to the Blackbird Writers. I get to do stuff with them. I get readers, then I get to interact with them. I do book signings. I get to go to where my stories take place. They pivot from the Fairhaven Historic District in Bellingham, Washington. I go there, I do a book launch at Village Books, and I get to meet people and talk with people, so connecting. So for me, social media is social. If somebody says something, I respond. I would never not respond.

I have a newsletter and I have a blog and that type of thing. So it is responding to people who reach out and say, will you talk with my book club? Will you Zoom in? We’re in Maryland. Would you Zoom? Sure, I will. Sure I will. So for me, social media, I get to talk with people there. I see you all the time out on Instagram. I think you see me back. I’m out there quite often. I like to take pictures. I take my own pictures, and then I get them out there, and that spurs conversation.

Debbi: Yes. I like taking pictures too, actually. I’ve really gotten into photography lately. It’s enjoyable. If your books were adapted into a series for television say, who could you picture playing the lead characters?

Laurie: Henry Cavill for Sean McPherson for sure. And I’m going to not think of her name. She’s just lovely. She was in Superman and she was the sidekick gal. She has red hair and I cannot think of her name, but that is who I would pick for Sean and Emma. I can’t think of her name. I’ll think of it later, like when you think of the Powers Booth movie.

Debbi: Yeah, that Powers Boothe movie is still eluding me.

Laurie: And I can’t think of this person’s name either.

Debbi: Oh gosh. I hate when that happens.

Laurie: I know.

Debbi: What insights or advice would you offer to anyone who’s interested in writing for a living?

Laurie: The most important thing is to show up. The second most important thing is to be concise, and the third most important thing is to be consistent. You don’t show up every other day or every other week. You show up every day. You’re concise. We live in that time now, our place in the world now, our time in history is sound bites. You have to pare it down. You can write it blah-blah-blah and then just get it down to blah. And then consistency. Those are the three. Show up, be concise, be consistent.

The most important thing is to show up. The second most important thing is to be concise, and the third most important thing is to be consistent.

Debbi: And what are you actually writing right now? What are you working on? Because I know you’ve got plans for books in the future, but what book are you actually working on right now?

Laurie: I’m actually writing Book Number Seven. I just wrote the first paragraph of the prologue for it. Sean Rafferty walks through the doors of Maine State Prison—I won’t tell you why—and how has that made him feel? What is he seeing? What is he smelling? What is that doing to his breathing? I won’t tell you why he’s there, but he’s there for a really darn good reason. And literally before I got on with you, I wrote that first paragraph and it took me a long time. You know, out of the gate, that first sentence better be extraordinary and that first paragraph better support it. And then I went and I said to my husband, Len, what do you think about this as an opener? He said, I would only change one word. Instead of thud, I would say clang. Other than that …

Debbi: Very good. Well, it sounds like you have your work cut out for you in between Simon & Schuster-izing and just coming up with all of these plots. I really have to say well done. Way to go! Is there anything else you’d like to add before we finish up?

Laurie: Just a reminder to the listeners that I’m doing a giveaway if they get on your blog site on the Crime Cafe, and they go to the little piece that I put out there where they get to read a chapter of Impervious. There’s 1, 2, 3 instructions. I can’t remember what they are, but if they go there, they’ll see 1, 2, 3 instructions to enter the giveaway, and then I will sign a copy, put a bookmark in it and mail it to them and it’s for US residents.

Debbi: Well, that’s a deal and a half right there.

Laurie: Right there.

Debbi: Well, thank you so much for spending time with us today. Thank you.

Laurie: Thank you for having me. I enjoyed talking with you.

Debbi: It was great to see you again.

Laurie: You too. Thank you.

Debbi: Sure thing. If you enjoyed the episode everybody, please leave a review. And if you’re watching this on YouTube, please like the video. If you would like to enter the contest for that giveaway that Laurie just described for a copy of Impervious signed by the author. Just follow her instructions after you like the video. And check us out on Patreon also, where I have book reviews, excerpts from my work and bonus episodes that are just pure fun, basically. On that note, I’ll see you next time when our guest will be Ted Flanagan. Thanks for listening. Take care and happy reading.

****

Laurie and I both remembered the names that eluded us. I posted the answers on Patreon.

Check it out here! No charge. 🙂

This episode of the Crime Cafe features my interview with crime writer Jason Kapcala.

Check our discussion about his novel, Hungry Town, along with his other writing.

Before I bring on my guest, I’ll just remind you that the Crime Cafe has two eBooks for sale: the nine book box set and the short story anthology. You can find the buy inks for both on my website, debbimack.com under the Crime Cafe link. You can also get a free copy of either book if you become a Patreon supporter. You’ll get that and much more if you support the podcast on Patreon, along with our eternal gratitude for doing so.

We also have a shop now. Check it out!

Check us out on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/crimecafe

Download a copy of the transcript here.

Debbi: Hi, everyone. Today I have with me the author of two novels and numerous short stories that have been published in many magazines and literary journals. His latest book is Hungry Town. It’s my pleasure to have with me, Jason Kapcala. Did I say that right?

Jason: Kapcala

Debbi: Kapcala. Jason Kapcala. Well, hello Jason. Thanks for being here. Thanks for spending time with me.

Jason: Thanks for having me, Debbi.

Debbi: It’s my pleasure. Now, you have two novels, but you have many short stories. Did you start off writing short stories?

Jason: Yeah, I did. I kind of went the academic track. Went through an MFA program, and when I was there, started out learning to write stories, short stories, and actually my first book was a short story collection, but it was a linked collection so they all kind of tie in with one another, and it was all based around the town where I grew up, that area in Northern Pennsylvania where I was from. And then after that, I started moving into writing longer things, working on novels, and wrote my first novel, Hungry Town, and kind of got into that mode of writing about crime and police.

Debbi: Does your work tend to focus on small towns?

Jason: It does, yeah. I always write about a fictional place, but there’s always elements of real life places that influence those towns. I just do that because I think I like the freedom of being able to put things where I need them, as the story demands it. So if I need to have a river here, I can put a river here, nobody’s going to say, Hey, I’m from that town. There’s no river there, but I’ll go ahead and really base these towns on places where…. The first one was the place where I was from, but in other cases, places I know. So the town of Lodi in the novel Hungry Town, it’s kind of an amalgamation of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, which was very close to where I grew up, and it was a steel town, of course, and had a large steel mill there.

Jason: It was really non-functional by the time that I was old enough to pay attention to it, but I still passed the ruins of it a lot. So it’s sort of part that, and then part Athens, Ohio, where I did my Masters which was also formerly an industrial town turned college town. It had a brick factory and brick streets and everything. I don’t know that there’s really a town in existence that’s quite like the one in my novel that would have a mill the size of the mill in the novel, but also a town as small as Athens. But I kind of went with that and ended up naming it Lodi, but it doesn’t have any connection to the actual Lodi, Ohio. If anybody’s from there, it’s not your Lodi. It’s a fictional one.

Debbi: That’s interesting, because I kept thinking of Lodi, California.

Jason: Well, that’s why I picked that name. Someone had said to me once they think there must be a Lodi in every state of the country. And so I was like, yeah, that does seem like a kind of an every town name, and so that’s why I ended up going with it. Plus I like the Creedence Clearwater Revival song.

Debbi: Gotta love the Creedence. Do you have a preference for writing short versus long?

Jason: Oh, definitely long. I enjoyed writing short stories when I first started it, but I definitely liked the space to branch out and work longer forms and really tell my story, kind of, and take my time.

Debbi: It really allows you to set the scene, too.

Jason: Yeah, absolutely.

Debbi: Yes. So what is your latest novel about?

Jason: The one I just released, you mean?

Debbi: Yes, the one you just released.

Jason: It’s actually a year now, but …

Debbi: Well, yeah, the one that I know of.

Jason: Right, right, right, because I’m working on one, so I didn’t … So Hungry Town, it’s really about … well, there’s sort of two storylines that go through it. One is the story of two police officers Rieux and Mulqueen, and it sort of starts out with an accident that happens when they’re investigating a silent alarm that goes off at the local abandoned steel mill. And they find some kids inside up to things they shouldn’t be. They’re joined by another police officer who gets a little too rough with the kids, kind of unnecessarily for no reason at all. He overreacts to the situation, and as a result one of the kids is hurt. I won’t say too much more plot-wise, but it ends up having ramifications for the two characters, Rieux and Mulqueen, who weren’t directly involved in that, but who were present and forces them to really question law enforcement, their jobs in law enforcement and what they’re doing. They both end up taking different paths as they deal with the fallout of this.

And then running parallel to that is a story about a young woman named Darla who is on the run from her abusive ex-boyfriend. He has hired a couple of local guys to track her down, and those two stories, eventually by the end of the novel, they intersect with one another.

Debbi: Yeah. How would you describe your writing in terms of sub-genre? Is it more police procedural? Is it more noir-ish?

Jason: Yeah, I kind of would call it like country noir or I’ve heard people say Southern gothic. I don’t really think it’s southern per se, but it’s the same notion, that sort of Rust Belt gothic or Rust Belt noir, sort of my interest. Appalachian noir or something along those lines—small towns, economically depressed, industrial towns, and taking a look at the darker aspects of that.

Debbi: Yeah. Yeah. Elmore Leonard, that’s the name that comes to mind.

Jason: Yes, that’s a perfect example.

Debbi: Yes, absolutely. He was great. How much research did you need to do before you started writing your novels?

Jason: I did quite a bit of research. I don’t have a law enforcement background or anything like that, so I did do some research into that. I try not to do so much research where fidelity to detail and things like that become so persnickety and stuff that it gets in the way ,of the story. Where it feels like every page, you’re just reading a laundry list of factoids that you knew the author researched or something, and it felt like they had to get in there. But I did do a lot of research into that. In a strange way, I did a lot of research into horse training, because Darla, the character of Darla, who I had mentioned is a horse trainer, and so kind of had to learn some things about that profession.

And then also, one of the characters, Mulqueen, he owns a hotdog stand, a hotdog shop, and so I always joke I did a lot of research into hot dogs. Ate at a lot of hotdog stands in the name of research, and that is something that was part of going to Bethlehem, Pa. They have a big food culture there, kind of a unique food culture there, and I used to go there with my dad and my brother, and we would go to some of our favorite hot dog stands—Yocco’s, Potts’ and other places like that. And so that kind of found its way into the book in an unusual way too.

Debbi: Cool. Very nice. I love when local color works its way into writing. What authors have most inspired you?

Jason: Well, it is a laundry list of authors probably who I could say have inspired me, but in terms of this book in particular, probably the most inspiration came actually not a crime writer, but a writer by the name of Kent Haruf who wrote the book Plainsong, which was, I think, a National Book Award finalist maybe. I couldn’t say I remember the year, but it’s a book about ordinary people really who live in a fictional town of Holt, Colorado. They are school teachers, they are farmers, they are elementary school kids. They are women who work as waitresses in diners, and just sort of a novel about their lives and how they intersect with each other. Each chapter starts with a different character name and follows that character in that kind of William Faulkner style. That was a book that was really influential on me when I was writing this.

There was another book called Anything You Say Can and Will Be Used Against You by Laurie Lynn Drummond, and it was a collection of short stories actually. She was a police officer in Louisiana, I believe, and wrote a collection of short stories. That was one where, I think probably the idea to write this book and to write it from the perspective of the police officers, I probably owe a bit of that to reading that book. If I were gonna say one more, I guess I would say at the time, I probably had written a draft of the book already by the time this came out, but there was a book American Rust by Philipp Meyer. I know he’s written some other books. I know he has written The Son, which was turned into … I want to say a television series, but I don’t know what station.

American Rust kind of got a lot of attention. It came out, it was doing very similar in the sense that it’s a book that also opens with an accident in an abandoned steel mill, so when it came out that was one where I was like, oh, I have to read this book. This is kind of similar plot-wise to what I’m doing, and he writes very differently than I do. But it was a book that I loved. I think I felt connected to, and in whatever way that has influenced my writing, I’m sure it’s only for the better.

Debbi: They all sound interesting. What are you working on now?

Jason: I’m working on a completely different kind of project now. My goal was to kind of not do the same thing twice, although I do think I will. I’m toying with the idea of returning to, particularly the character of Rieux in this book Hungry Town, potentially visiting her some years down the road again in another book to see where she ends up and things. But right now what I’m working on is kind of a long novel, sort of a novel in stories.

It’s sort of self-contained chapters, but really is a novel about a small town rock band, and it’s set again in a fictional town, and that town’s based on Centralia, Pennsylvania. The backstory of centrality is really interesting. There’s a trash fire that was set there, I want to say sometime in the 80s maybe, and it seeped into an underground coal vein, and now there’s a fire that burns underneath this town of Centralia. It’s, of course, a condemned town now. Not many people live there, if anybody, but this fire has been burning underneath this town for many years and will continue to burn for many years more. I thought that was kind of a neat setting to explore. I’ve always been kind of fascinated with the story of that town, and so, I have this town of Stillwater in this book that I’m working on, and I have this small town rock band. This novel really sort of follows the lead singer of that band who, right when they were on the verge of their first break, he took their kind of golden ticket and took off for California to make it solo.

And, now it’s eight years later, and he’s coming back home for the funeral of one of his old bandmates, and he has to face these people he hasn’t seen in quite some time. The drummer, who was his girlfriend at the time, she has a daughter, who is the right age that she could be his daughter, so he’s not sure about that. He’s kind of now being put back in the orbit of these individuals who he’s wronged, and has to figure out how to make things right. It all sounds kind of serious the way I describe it, but it’s actually a comic book, a comedy book. It’s basically following him as he gets himself into one ridiculous, stupid situation after another and does dumb things.

Debbi: That sounds pretty cool.

Jason: I’m still working on it. Hopefully, it’ll be successful, but if not … I mean, there’s multiple ways it could be successful, I suppose, and it’s been really helpful to me to be working on it and to be writing something a little less grim and a little less hardboiled than the last book.

Debbi: I can thoroughly appreciate that. When you work on this stuff after a while, it’s kind of like, I really need to lighten up.

Jason: Yeah. I just wanted to do something different.

Debbi: I can appreciate that. What advice would you give to anyone who would like to have a writing career?

Jason: Oh, boy. Yeah, that’s a good question. Well, I have some of the old cliché ones I can give, which is to read a lot. That is of course, it’s cliched, but it’s still really good advice, I think. Read a lot and read not just whatever it is that you want to write. Don’t just limit yourself to reading. If you want to write crime novels, don’t just limit yourself to reading crime novels. Read broadly, read everything you can get your hands on, and you’ll be surprised how things can kind of make their way into what you’re doing. And then I think the thing that’s always worked well for me as a practice, and I don’t know if it works for everybody, but pass it along anyway.

I always just try to write. Sit down, write, be dedicated to it, be serious about it, commit yourself to it, put forth the effort and time. Writing I think is something that I’ve never been able to think my way through. I just have to write and let all of the associations and things that are within me come out and come out onto the page, at least in that first drafting session of things. I think if you write with blinders on, if you know exactly where you’re going all the time and exactly what’s going to happen, you’ve got it all figured out, and then you sit down to do it, then you run the risk of missing out on some pretty unexpected, better ideas that may come along through the act of doing the writing.

And sometimes that’s the most enjoyable part, I think for me is like where did this idea come from? This is great, and the story starts writing itself, and you’re just sort of there trying to keep up. Then I think when I go to revision, I take the opposite approach. I try to figure out what it’s about or what I thought it was going to be about, and then try to make it about anything else. I just try to write against the grain of my intentions, again, in order to just view it fresh, and to not get trapped into just seeing it one way. I think sometimes you’re so close to things. This is probably true for people working in a lot of different areas. You become so close to something that you can’t really see it for what it is, and so one of the ways I try to do that is just try to make it about something else, and again, sometimes you go in some really interesting directions that you didn’t expect.

Debbi: Yeah.

Jason: Just try not to be too precious about it. I mean, it’s a living thing and it’s okay to kind of mess with it.

Debbi: I don’t know if you’re in a writer’s group or anything, but I’ve always found that helpful, getting comments from other people.

Jason: It is. I’m not in a writer’s group currently. I was in the past. Now I’m in a book group. We sort of have transitioned into, just based on need and time and things like that, a reading group. We read books and discuss them. But I do have one very good friend, Renée K. Nicholson, who’s also a writer. She’s actually a nonfiction writer, a memoirist, but we had met during graduate school and we were readers for one another, and I can always trust her to give me honest feedback and good feedback and helpful feedback and feedback that comes from a good place. I try to do the same for her. So having your reader or readers I do think is really important.

Debbi: Yeah. Absolutely. Is there anything else you would like to add before we finish up?

Jason: No. Just really happy to have had the opportunity to share a little bit about the book. Really proud to see it out there on West Virginia University Press, and I am hosting a giveaway, which I think the information will be on your blog shortly. So if folks are interested in reading it or putting in for a copy, the information on that will be there. Otherwise, I hope that folks read it and enjoy it. They’ll drop a line, and if you read it and you don’t enjoy it, I suppose you could drop a line too. That’s okay, but maybe not, I don’t know, but hopefully it finds its readership out there.

Debbi: I’m sure it will. Well, I just want to thank you for being here. I appreciate your time and also I have to ask you. You’re from northern Pennsylvania. Anywhere close to Pittsburgh?

Jason: Interestingly enough, I’m from Northeast Pa. originally, up in the Poconos, but not very far from the Allentown/Bethlehem area. I now live in northern West Virginia, so I’m really only an hour south of Pittsburgh now, so it’s not hard for me to get to Pittsburgh. I get to Pittsburgh quite a bit.

Debbi: Yeah. I used to live in Monroeville actually, for a very short period.

Jason: Very cool.

Debbi: There are so many fond memories I have of Monroeville. We can talk about that later.

Jason: Yeah, well, it’s a nice area. I mean, honestly, both sides of Pa. are nice areas.

Debbi: Yeah, they are. I like Pennsylvania.

Jason: They are historic areas, yeah.

Debbi: Oh yeah. Lots of history there. Indeed. Well, thank you so much again. I appreciate your being here, and with that, I will just say thank you to all my listeners. Thank you. If you enjoyed this episode, please leave a review. They help. Also check out our Patreon page. You’ll see I’ve been adding lots of bonus episodes, if you take a look there. So my patrons will have plenty to enjoy, plenty of content. So until next time, when my guest will be Lori Buchanan, I would like to wish you happy reading, happy New Year, and just take care and have a nice time. Be seeing you.

*****

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This episode of the Crime Cafe features my interview with crime writer Kim Hays.

Learn all about her Linder and Donatelli mysteries here.

Before I bring on my guest, I’ll just remind you that the Crime Cafe has two eBooks for sale: the nine book box set and the short story anthology. You can find the buy inks for both on my website, debbimack.com under the Crime Cafe link. You can also get a free copy of either book if you become a Patreon supporter. You’ll get that and much more if you support the podcast on Patreon, along with our eternal gratitude for doing so.

We also have a shop now. Check it out!

Check us out on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/crimecafe

Download a copy of the transcript here.

Debbi: Hi everyone. Today’s guest is a dual citizen of the US and Switzerland. She’s also the author of the Polizei Bern Series, featuring two detectives Giuliana Linder and Renzo Donatelli. Her work has been shortlisted for many awards and she has two books out in this series with a third coming next year, which is coming very quickly. It’s my pleasure to have with me today, Kim Hays. Kim, hi. How are you doing?

Kim: I’m great, and thanks for having me.

Debbi: Well, it’s my pleasure, believe me. It must be late there where you are. Switzerland, right?

Kim: Yes. Here in Bern, it’s nine o’clock, but not too late. My eyes are wide awake.

Debbi: Still functional at nine. Very good.

Kim: Exactly.

Debbi: Good. You have a great website, by the way. I really love all the descriptions of Switzerland you have under the information tab about Bern in Switzerland.

Kim: Oh, thank you. I try to put in a lot of sort of strange and interesting facts, like that the Swiss flag is the only square flag besides the Vatican’s flag. Every other flag in the world is rectangular. This is the sort of thing that nobody knows and why should they, but it’s fun.

Debbi: Wow! I didn’t know that. That’s very interesting. So what was it that inspired you to write about the subjects that you picked, which are very topical subjects by the way. Pesticides and child labor?

Kim: Yes, and in the third book, I have homophobia as a topic too, so that’s certainly … I have a lesbian activist who’s killed in a hit-and-run, but I realize you haven’t read that one. I have, of course, so I won’t go into that. You know, I love to research and I like to learn, as you know most writers do, as most people do. So I guess I’m lucky that things turn out to be topical, but often I decide to put something in a book that I want to learn more about. I used to write articles here for a Swiss language magazine, and so I had done a short article on organic farmers, and when I started thinking about writing a mystery, I already started thinking about what background do I want to give it? And immediately I thought, well, what do I want to research? I knew that I would like to do more research on organic farming, and then of course, I had to think of a reason for an organic farmer to get murdered.

The second book, which involves a really terrible scandal in Switzerland—child labor—where children were supposedly fostered out, but really placed on farms almost as slaves from a very young age, into the late 1960s, early 70s. This was something I saw a museum exhibition on because it was just starting. The scandal was just starting. As late as the early 21st century, people were starting to be aware of it. And once I saw that, I thought it would be something very interesting to talk about. And certainly, one could easily imagine how murders or violence might occur as a result of something like that.

Debbi: Yes, absolutely. That’s astonishing, I have to say. Linder is a really interesting character because she’s always automatically picking up clues as she goes, and kind of filing them into her head, which is something I don’t see a lot in mystery writing, the way she picks up these little details and kind of narrates them to you. I thought that it’s an interesting approach to bringing the reader into the mystery solving part of it.

Kim: Well, thank you. I’m glad. I mean, obviously I don’t want her to be a psychic, you know? So the clues have to be there for us readers. I mean, I’m also a reader as well as a writer, so a mystery reader. Readers want to get the clues, see where the clue is coming from, but it sounds like you’re saying that it works. They are police procedurals, and I think that procedure and process is really interesting to me. In that sense, I think I’m more Swiss than the Swiss, or as Swiss as the Swiss since I’ve lived here 35 years. I think I really want to understand myself. I mean, I want to know how the crime gets solved, and I think that’s what people who read police procedurals want to know. They want to see the process. I hope, anyway.

Debbi: I think the police are very attentive to that sort of thing. I think that’s the thing. You really are creating sort of the experience of being a police officer or a detective, rather than a reader of something that is being solved, if that makes any sense.

Kim: Well, good. No, I’m very glad that you felt as a reader, that you were able to put yourself into that. I think something that’s also important to me, because I’m interested in moral dilemmas. It’s in part what I did my dissertation in sociology on, was to do with moral dilemmas. I’m not a police woman or a police person, but I think you must constantly have moral dilemmas unless you’re really not a very thoughtful person. And so I think I want to show how the detectives also have to think, and worry even that they might have made a mistake.

Debbi: Exactly. Yeah. There’s a lot of thought that goes into it because the consequences are so great, potentially.

Kim: Exactly. Yeah.

Debbi: How did you become so familiar with police procedure? Did you contact the police, talk to police officers, do other types of research?

Kim: I did contact the police, and I have gone to the police station here. The very one. I give the real address, the real one that I talk about in my books. But I’m incredibly lucky that I live in a little, sort of a horseshoe cul-de-sac, and I have a very high-ranking police woman, who’s higher up than a homicide detective by now, as a neighbor, just across the playground from me.

Debbi: How convenient!

Kim: It’s incredibly convenient. So she reads my manuscripts, and I trust her in that she tells me, look, if there are some small things in here that aren’t exactly what we do, it’s artistic license. You know, it is fiction. But if you write something that would make any Swiss police person fall over laughing or that’s egregious, that’s really wrong, she fixes it for me.

Debbi: That’s awesome.

Kim: I mean, I make them have a much bigger cafeteria in the building than they really have. So in that kind of thing, she doesn’t correct me. It doesn’t have to be accurate, but she doesn’t let me make mistakes. And, also, I ask her constant questions.

Debbi: Wow. Well, that’s good. That’s great that you have somebody there.

Kim: So lucky.

Debbi: That is fantastic.

Kim: And a very nice person.

Debbi: Oh, that’s cool. That’s always good.

Kim: Yes.

Debbi: What are your plans for the series? Do you anticipate writing a lot more books, or do you have plans just to continue writing them as they come to you?

Kim: You know, it’s interesting you should ask me that. The fourth one is already written. The third one is, and of course that sounds impressive, but in fact, you have to be ahead. People who try to bring out a book a year, and an incredible number of very good mystery writers do, this takes a lot of work and I’m going to have four, and then I’m going to take a break. So people will get through number four, and I’m not sure that number five will come out a year later. I shouldn’t confess this, but I haven’t confessed it to my publisher yet, but I need a little break.

Debbi: That’s understandable.

Kim: But I do think there’s a lot more that can be said about this couple of detectives. They aren’t a couple, but as you know, this is a meta story over the series, which is that the older woman police detective and her assistant, who’s about 12 years younger—she’s in her forties and he’s in his thirties—they are very attracted to each other through working together, and they’re both married with kids. So this is a big struggle for them.

Debbi: I was going to say this is a really interesting aspect of the books also that I wanted to get into. What made you choose that particular relationship for them?

Kim: Well, it’s funny because what I first most wanted to do was give them both families. I love many police series with a loner detective, and of course, there are a lot of them, or detectives with alcohol problems or whose partners have left them, and because it’s so difficult to live with a police man or woman, which I can imagine. But I wanted, like Donna Leon’s Guido Brunetti, I don’t know if you know her series set in Venice.

Debbi: Yes.

Kim: You know he has a lovely family and they’re very important to him in his life and even in his conversations and when he is solving mysteries. I wanted both of my detectives to have families, but you know sometimes things just develop themselves. I didn’t know at the beginning that I was going to do this, but as I had them working together, and it’s what happens in real life. Two people who work very closely together, whose partners can’t quite … in the case of police, you’re not even allowed to really necessarily talk to your partner about exactly what you’re doing, they become attracted to each other. So, of course, I had great fun having this younger, and as you know, very attractive man, become attracted to his 12 years older boss, I thought, you know what they say? What’s sauce for the gander is sauce for the goose, or something like that. I figured, this happens with younger women, so hey!

Debbi: I found it very believable and very interesting. I like the relationship. I think it’s great, part of what keeps me reading the series along with just the fantastic storytelling.

Kim: Thank you. I’m so pleased that you enjoyed them.

Debbi: I do. I do. You are both a Swiss and US citizen. I thought that was interesting. But you’ve also lived in Canada and Sweden?

Kim: Yes, and the fact that I started in Sweden and I live in Switzerland, two SW countries is a complete coincidence. I didn’t just decide I needed to get the set. I did a year after I graduated from college where I actually went and worked for a while in a factory in Sweden and lived there and traveled there. I still have good Swedish friends, but that had nothing to do with later meeting my husband who’s Swiss, and is actually four years younger than I am—not 12, thank goodness. But, anyway, as you may know because I wrote about it on my blog, we met on a park bench in France.

Debbi: That’s so cool.

Kim: So nothing to do.

Debbi: But you’re not going to Swahili.

Kim: No.

Debbi: I noticed your bio said that you’ve held a wide variety of jobs. I have also held a wide variety of jobs. I have a theory about that. I get the feeling that holding a wide variety of jobs tends to inform your writing in various ways, due to the sheer diversity of people you deal with when you take different types of jobs. What are your thoughts on that? Has the background informed your writing?

Kim: Yes, that’s interesting. I would say absolutely. I think that living in lots of different countries … I also grew up in Puerto Rico, although my parents were outsiders. I think the experience of being a foreigner, both in Puerto Rico, even in Canada, because it was during the Vietnam War, and here it does make you observe in a certain way, and it does also give you a certain distance, which then makes you into an observer, hopefully not too much of an observer. I’ve lived here for 35 years. I feel very Swiss, but as far as the jobs go, I think also when you change jobs, if you have to do it too often, it’s nerve wracking, but you have to observe to adapt. So I think a lot of it has to do with learning to feel comfortable in different situations, and I somehow think that that informs writing too. That you have a distance and yet you can be close as well, hopefully.

Debbi: Yes. Learning to become part of a new community, so to speak.

Kim: And yet often never quite belonging, which is difficult, but at the same time, makes you more of an observer, I think.

Debbi: Yes, because I’ve done quite a bit of moving around myself when I was younger, and it does definitely create a distance of sorts from people. But at the same time, it’s not like you don’t want to be there or be part of it, but at the same time, you’re just sort of looking at it and going, okay, that’s what happens here. I should be doing these things, or something like that.

Kim: Yes. And sometimes let’s face it, we’re talking about it like it’s so educational, but sometimes, especially when you’re 13, 14, depending on when you move, it can be extremely difficult. And at some ages, it can teach you something about bullying, which as you know is a topic in one of my books, so you learn a lot of interesting things that could become part of, because being the outsider isn’t always easy.

Debbi: It is not, but sometimes we need somebody’s point of view as an outsider to wake us up to certain things. Who are your favorite authors?

Kim: Well, I do read other things besides mysteries, very happily. I like science fiction, I like fantasy. I like what gets called literary fiction, although I think plenty of mysteries are literary. I like some romances, so I read a lot of things, but I’ll talk about my favorite mystery. I guess I’d rather talk about my favorite mystery writers.

Debbi: Cool.

Kim: One of my favorite mystery writers is Josephine Tey, who goes back to the thirties, forties, fifties. She was Scottish, but British, and to me, she’s somebody who writes about people. Her books are novels. They are not thrillers, and I don’t think my books are thrillers. I think they have suspense, but they’re not thrillers. She focuses very much on the personalities of her characters, the baddies and the goodies, and I think she’s great.

Another person I like, as I mentioned, is Donna Leon. I think I like her very much and she’s influenced me because she writes about a detective with a family living in a country where Venice in her case and in my case, Bern, they’re almost characters in the book. The setting is so important. The setting shapes what happens. And I love Michael Connolly. To me, if you write police procedurals, Michael Connolly is your God, because he’s just so brilliant.

Debbi: He is good. He is excellent. And Donna Leon, I love her books. I love the Venice setting. Having been to Venice, it’s like I’m revisiting when I read it.

Kim: Yes. I mean, I’m no expert, but she seems to describe it so, so brilliantly.

Debbi: She does, and the stories are great. Let’s see. What advice would you give to anyone who’s interested in writing for a living?

Kim: I guess I should preface that by talking about myself, because I was just phenomenally lucky. I did not start trying to write novels. I have written articles freelance, but I could never have supported myself doing that. I did a lot of research for them, and I once figured out that I was probably making about $5 an hour for the time it took me to research and write my freelance articles. Not money you can live on, especially not in Switzerland, the most expensive country in the world. I would say in my case, I didn’t start writing till my 50s and I basically phased out of my job and my husband supported me. It’s that simple. I mean, why would I pretend? I couldn’t have done it. I ended up writing full-time and I couldn’t have done it without someone to support me. But I guess most people don’t have that.

So I guess what I would say, though, is I would recommend to people if they wanted to have a career as a writer to get a part-time job that they—and hopefully this is dreaming—but that they really enjoy, because it doesn’t do you any good to be miserable and bored. Try to find a part-time job, hopefully doing some other kind of writing like proposal writing. I wrote proposals a lot. That I did make money. Funding proposals for nonprofits, and then just do the best you can. When you aren’t at your job, write as much as you can. So few people can support themselves with writing and certainly not with writing fiction or poetry. I mean, I would never discourage someone from trying.

When I think about this, I just want to mention that I knew he’s dead, but I knew well a poet C. K. Williams. He was a good friend of my uncle. He was a Pulitzer Prize winner and he won a National Book Award and he wrote poetry, and I know from my uncle that until he was about at 60, he got a job teaching writing at Princeton. I bet that he was able, and he was very successful. But in the early days, first his father supported him and then his brother. They both worked for companies; they were in industry. They just happily supported him. You know, it was like the days of the Renaissance when you had a patron. I think it’s a very touching story that instead of saying, get off your butt and go get a job, and what is this poetry garbage, they both accepted—first the father and then his little brother—that Charlie was gonna be a great poet, which he turned out to be, and that they were going to support him.

Debbi: I think that’s wonderful.

Kim: Isn’t that touching now? How many people are that lucky? But you know, it’s nothing to be ashamed of. Think of all the famous Renaissance painters, who had their Medicis to support them.

Debbi: That’s right. Yeah. It’s a tough business, that’s for sure.

Kim: A tough business

Debbi: In terms of making money, no matter what anybody out there says. It is a tough business. Is there anything you’d like to add before we finish up?

Kim: Well I guess I’d like to mention the names of the three books.

Debbi: Please do.

Kim: Although I think you did, but I realize that some people are listening to this on a podcast, but I thought for the people who were watching it, I could hold up the books. Can I do that?

Debbi: Excellent. Please do.

Kim: Okay. So the first book, which is about the organic farmers, is called Pesticide because obviously organic farmers do not use pesticides. And that is the first one. It’s the one with the cabbage on it.

Debbi: I love that cover.

Kim: And the second one … I do too. I think it’s great. I have to say Jennifer Dow is the name of the person who designs my covers, and I think she’s brilliant. The second book, Sons and Brothers is very much about a father, a man in his seventies who is beaten up and drowned at the beginning, and his son is suspected, his estranged son. So it is very much about sons and fathers and brothers, some sisters too.

And the third book, which hasn’t come out yet, has a bicycle on it because a woman is killed right at the beginning. It’s not a spoiler in a hit and run when she’s on her bicycle. So that is how the murder occurs, and at first they don’t know it is a murder, so I have given that away but you find that out. You figure with my two detectives involved, it’s probably going to become a murder.

Debbi: Yeah. Yeah.

Kim: So there they are.

Debbi: A bit of a hint there, a bit of a spoiler. I mean, you’re reading a mystery, right?

Kim: Yes, exactly.

Debbi: Well, I just want to thank you so much for being here and talking with us about this, because your books really are great and I hope that everyone will check them out.

Kim: Thank you. I’m so pleased that you enjoyed them, and of course, I hope people do. That’s why you write books when you’re a writer. You want people to be entertained by them.

Debbi: That’s it. Amen to that. So, on that note, I’ll just say, if you’re listening, please leave a review if you enjoyed this episode, and tell all your friends about the podcast, and your family and the guy next door and his family … and I’ll stop there. So next time, my guest will be Jason Kapcala. Until then, happy reading and Happy New Year. Hello, 2024! Be seeing you!

*****

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Listen to the podcast on Substack. This episode of the Crime Cafe features my interview with crime writer and cinephile F.R. Jameson. Plans are afoot for you to see more of us here and here! Before I bring on my guest, I’ll just remind you that the Crime Cafe has two eBooks for sale: the nine book box set and the short story anthology. You can find the buy inks for both on my website, debbimack.com under the Crime Cafe link. You can also get a free copy of either book if you become a Patreon supporter. You’ll get that and much more if you support the podcast on Patreon, along with our eternal gratitude for doing so. We also have a shop now. Check it out! Check us out on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/crimecafe Download a copy of the transcript here. Debbi: Hi everyone. My guest today is the author of two book series. One is the Screen Siren Noir series featuring British film stars that get caught up in noir tales of blackmail, obsession, scandal, and death. Ooh! His latest release, Vivian Fontaine is the fourth in that series, and he's working on a fifth. He also writes a horror series under the moniker Ghostly Shadows Anthology. I'd be interested in hearing more about that, too. There are six volumes in that series. Originally from Wales, he now lives with his wife and daughter in London. It's my pleasure to introduce my guest F. R. Jameson. Hi, F. R. How are you doing today? F. R.: Hello Debbi. How are you? I'm fine, thanks. Debbi: Oh, wonderful. And what a wonderful backdrop you've got there. Just delightful! Regal Theater. Ooh. It's just ... F. R.: I think it looks more American than it does British, but I might be wrong. Debbi: That's very interesting. Yeah, it looks very Broadway-ish or something like that. Grand! It is nice to finally see you after getting your newsletters where you talk about movies a lot. I love that. I really do enjoy your newsletters more than most authors because of that, I think. You talk about television shows, you talk about movies, you talk about things other than your books, but you do talk about your books, too. F. R.: I do. I do talk about my books. I feel like you could do, but then I send it out every fortnight, and to send it out every fortnight only talking about that, I would be bored, because you know what it's like when you are writing a book, it's great when it's finished, but the actual incremental stages of it, it's not that fascinating. Debbi: Yes. F. R.: Another two weeks, I've done another 60 pages. They seem quite good. Debbi: Yes, yes. I can't wait for you to see them. I've been sitting here at my desk and it is so exciting writing these 60 pages. F. R.: You want things like you're reflecting that kind of accidental, existential dread when you're about two thirds through when you're thinking, “Is any of this good? Is this just terrible?” I don't know anymore. Debbi: I have had those thoughts, believe me. F. R.: I think all authors have those thoughts where you do get to the point where you think you have other ideas in your head and you just think I'll just write one of those, because that compared to this is brilliant. You are experienced enough to know you get two-thirds into that, you would be thinking, I want to do something else now, and you'll never, ever finish anything. Debbi: Yes, you really have to kind of hone in on those things that really interest you and really excite you, I think, and go with those and set aside other things for other times, so to speak. What inspired you to write about British film stars? F. R.: Well, I'm sort of a massive noir fan as I've read earlier some Megan Abbott novels, which is very much in that milieu in Los Angeles, and also read James Ellroy, Raymond Chandler, James Cain and Dashiell Hammett and Jim Thompson. I'd love to do a book like that, but not being American and not knowing the locales, I felt it would be starting out with imposter syndrome. I didn't want to be in the situation where I'm sweat...