An Interview With Charlie Stella, Author of Rapino/Amato

 Charlie Stella is unique, and not just like everyone else. Charlie is much more comfortable talking about his past than I am – it’s his past, after all – but, as you’ll able to divine from his answers here, he knows what he’s talking about when it comes to organized crime. Lucky for us – and probably him as well – Charlie is a talented writer and was able to move into a straight life.

No one has been more encouraging and helpful to me as a writer than Charlie. He’s largely responsible for my first contract and, to give you an idea of what kind of friend he is, he and his lovely wife AnnMarie drove all night from New Jersey to Pittsburgh to attend my first book launch at 9:00 on a Saturday morning. (He did forget the cannoli, though.)

Ladies and gentlemen, a man I’m proud to call a friend of mine, Charlie Stella.

One Bite at a Time: Welcome back to the blog, Charlie. It’s been too long.

Your new book, Rapino/Amato, is a contemporary organized crime story, though half of it revolves around the drug trade in Montana, which is not generally thought of as a hotbed of illicit drug trafficking. What prompted you to go there?

Charlie Stella: We visited Yellowstone a few years back and stayed in a condo a lawyer friend owned in Big Sky. We landed in Bozeman where I bought a few local newspapers with articles about the influx of drug trafficking in Bozeman (Montana in general). It was significant then and more so now. I took a bit of artistic license in making it a distribution center for drugs. I started the novel while we were there during down time (when my legs and back couldn’t handle all the uphill climbing). Montana is really very gorgeous and Yellowstone magnificent. We played a few games in Montana back in college and I can still remember the snow-covered Rockies. Stunning and my kind of weather.

OBAAT: The other half of the book is set in New York and deals with a mafia that is clearly in decline, though no less ruthless in its ways. Was it harder to keep the story together, now that the mob has such frayed edges? (Not that I’d want to fool with them.)

CS: I thought I should have something mob-related since the protagonist came from that background. It is pretty funny when you think about those who flipped and what they are doing these days. They are all over the internet with their own podcasts. They argue with one another through their podcasts. One of them calls it the mob soap opera. That is a perfect description and a testament to how weak the mob has become. There are those who stood their ground and did ten, twenty, twenty-five, and/or life. Now, tell someone facing those kinds of numbers while they’re in their twenties or thirties and it takes a very strong mind (some might say stupidity) to stay the course and do the time. As long as they can allow someone to kill nineteen people (I “think” that’s the high watermark set by Gravano) to do a short bid, then get himself in trouble with drug charges, then let him out again to do a podcast … it’s even worse than pardoning the violent offenders of January 6. It is abominable, but extremely effective. The ruthlessness in the book is from desperation and a touch (or more) of paranoia. I often wonder if those kinds of pardons softened the average American for the kind of pardons we’re seeing from Presidents. Despicable, really, and something that needs to be overseen and never will be overseen.

OBAAT: You have always been a master at describing the lives of what I think of as ‘minimum wage’ mobsters, the entry-level people, knockaround guys, and wanna-bes who do a lot of the dirty work for the captains and bosses. What is it about these guys that appeals to you as a storyteller?

CS: The associates have different classifications (to my mind) and some earn quite a bit of coin, but most are involved for what little money they can make to improve their lives, pay their bills, etc. Once an associate is spoken for, their standing is more legitimized by mob standards, but there are those on the outer fringes (guys hustling football tickets, selling swag, etc.) who might be associates to “[speak] for” associates, if that makes sense. Essentially, they are guys who were not spoken for but are still earning and connected through a friend who is spoken for. I was spoken for with the stuff I did and within a few years very anxious to exit. The money allowed me to provide for three households, but the closer one gets, if he still has functioning brain cells and most importantly, other options, the quicker one will retire and either write about it or find something better to do with themselves. I met my wife at a turning point for me. Getting too close via someone else. She wasn’t going for it, so I wrote a book to impress her, found an agent, was published and I was done. Listen to me, the pay cut was serious and I’m still working today.

OBAAT: This may seem like it’s out of left field, but when I read your stuff I often think of Joseph Wanbaugh’s police procedurals. He writes about cops of varying levels of competence and character who are routinely beset by idiotic or manipulative bosses. Substitute ‘mobsters’ for ‘cops’, and your books are similar. Who are the primary influences of your writing, whether authors, TV, or movies?

CS: George V. Higgins characters across the board. He did the same thing with the Boston underworld, and nobody ever did it better. A few personal experiences occasionally sneak in my works but those are mostly comical things that to this day make me smile when I think back to them.

OBAAT: The other author who comes to mind when I read you is George V. Higgins, which most readers already know means I’m going to ask about dialog. Like Higgins, no one writes dialog that sounds more like people talking than you, and, also like Higgins, sometimes what’s important in a conversation is concealed in what may seem like two guys bullshitting. How do you go about crafting effective dialog?

CS: Your dialogue is also Higgins worthy, so never dodge that compliment. The western, Dead Shot, is masterful dialogue and from a different era. I guess (and don’t know) it has to do with listening or hearing (maybe subconsciously) the patterns of speech around us. That audio I sent you of Lefty Ruggiero and Joe Pistone (Donnie Brasco) tells you how much effort Pacino put into the Lefty role. And those are always funny when they’re not terrifying (Left vs. Gotti from prison, say). They were filming Donnie Brasco while I lived in Little Italy. Usually, I start with what is straight, normal dialogue and then reread it as the character should sound. Rewriting is much of the deal.

OBAAT: Your attitude toward federal law enforcement agencies can safely be described as less than charitable. Leaving aside whatever is going on in Washington as we’re talking today, what would you change about how the feds go about their business, notably as it concerns organized crime?

CS: I read a book about the Dulles brothers last year. Their influence continues to shape our insane foreign policy on both sides of the political aisle to this day (regime changes, overt or clandestine). What the Dulles boys did around the globe makes going after drug runners pale by comparison. It’s the old power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely, thing. It’s very hard, I think, to change that when a badge on any level holds so much power. Cops are no different than any mob. They stick together, have fragile egos, are very patriotic (believe it or not), and sometimes that combination leads to stupid shit. It has to be the hardest job in the world to remain clean and not yield to peer pressure, and just like the mob, when they get in trouble, the backflip is usually fast. I don’t know how to change what comes natural to people in general, especially in local law enforcement, but at the CIA/FBI/SS level, it might not be a bad idea to have term limits on their careers. The Secret Service clowns in the car with President Bozo on January 6, 2020, the lying that ensued still sticks in my craw.

OBAAT: Just when a lot of people think the vein of stories about Italian organized crime has been tapped out, you come up with a new angle, as in Rapino/Amato. Knowing you as well as I do, I see no reason this will stop. What are you working on now?

CS: A novel about a young woman who decides to enter a life of pornography. The research has been fascinating (not watching porn videos but reading and listening to interviews with the male and female talent, producers, et al), learning how they get into the business, the struggle it actually is, and that some of the stars literally went into it after careers as nurses, real estate agents, a military sergeant, etc., but for the new kids on the block, it appears to be very competitive and that’s what the new book (without a title, which is an anomaly for me) is about. The lowest of the low associates are involved until a critical point and then a made guy steps into it. Stark House has another book they bought of mine that isn’t mob related. That one, Raskin’s World, is about lawyers having affairs and ending with a tragic event. We moved it back because Rapino-Amato is a sequel to Joey Piss Pot. The last two years have been my most productive ever. I really can’t wait to retire like you but being so much younger, I’ll have to wait another six or seven months. (Editor’s Note: I am 137 days older than Master Stella.) Thanks for this, as always.

PS: Rapino/Amato releases today, April 4.)

 

Ken Bruen (1951 - 2025)

 In December 2009 I was fortunate enough to be able to interview the late Ken Bruen for the New Mystery Reader website. here is that interview.

Irish crime fiction has assumed an importance out of all proportion to the size of the island in recent years. No one has been more responsible for this than Ken Bruen. He’s written series (Jack Taylor, Inspector Brant, Fisher and Petrakos), standalone novels (including the newly re-released London Boulevard), and has collaborated with other well-known writers (Reed Farrel Coleman, Jason Starr), as well as contributing to more than a few anthologies, and editing one (Dublin Noir). Television and movies are lining up to bring his work to screens of various sizes.

 

He’s won two Shamus awards (for The Guards and The Dramatist), a Macavity (The Killing of the Tinkers), and a Barry (Priest); he’s been a finalist for two Edgars, two Anthonys, a Macavity, and a Barry. He still took time for questions from New Mystery Reader’s Dana King.

 

NMR: Ken, thanks for taking the time to answer some questions. London Boulevard has been re-issued to coincide with the release of the movie, starring Colin Farrell and Keira Knightley. The story itself is a twist on the classic film, Sunset Boulevard, with the Joe Gillis character re-worked into someone more likely to be found in a Richard Stark novel. What gave you the idea of adapting it as you did?

 

KB: I love the movie and I wondered if it would be possible to update it and when I was told it was a crazy idea, then I knew I had to do it and it was a challenge to move it to London and set in modern era..........it was one of the books that was a joy to write.

  

NMR: In Sunset Boulevard, Norma Desmond is a hag, but London Boulevard’s Lillian Palmer arouses Mitchell when he first meets her. Is this a reflection of changing attitudes toward older woman, your personal attitudes toward older women, or was it just to make the plot more credible?

 

KB: Purely a plot device but that is not to say that older women aren't amazing, though I think the term Cougar is pretty demeaning.

  

NMR: Is there anything you can tell us about the movie? IMDB cast information implies at least one pretty major change, which I won’t go into, lest I create a spoiler.

 

KB: It looks absolutely stunning and yes, there are 2 major plot changes but it would be indeed a spoiler to say.............the London locations are amazing and I think it's going to do terrific...............I sure as hell hope so.

  

NMR: In addition to London Boulevard, you currently have several books under consideration for movies or TV shows. How involved are you in the productions? Would you like to be involved more? Less? Overall, is it an enjoyable experience?

 

KB: Blitz and The Guards are both finished and I was in both.........played a priest in Blitz!!!!! Loved it and they did ask me about various script points and it was fun to be so involved in both productions.

  

NMR: You’ve written several series, as well as standalones. Do you have a preference? Do you write a book knowing in advance whether it will be a standalone, or the first in a series, from the time you start? 

 

KB: Jack Taylor and Brant were always meant to be series..............American Skin and Once Were Cops are still unclear in my head as to whether they are better left as standalones. I like the series as it's like re-visiting family, though highly screwed families.

 

NMR: Are there topics or types of plots you prefer to do as part of a series rather than standalones, or vice versa?

 

KB: It's interchangeable but in standalones, you can go for broke, kill everybody and not have to worry about the next book, no boundaries and I love that.

 

NMR: You’ve written several collaborations with two different authors and have gone on record as enjoying the experience. What drew you to work with someone else? What was it about Jason Starr and Reed Farrel Coleman that attracted you?

 

KB: Very simple, they are me best mates and what could be better than working with your buddies.............would you believe Dana, never one fight or argument on any of the projects, I always wanted to do collaborations as the general feeling is they don't work and I found the opposite to be true, if writers have huge egos?............then they sure weren't in evidence on any of the books, it was just a blast, and I relish the challenge of finding a new voice.

 

NMR: Few writers have a more easily recognizable style; your pages even look different from most. The net effect is to keep the reader’s eye moving down the page, and, as a result, your books read like water over a dam. How much of this comes from conscious decisions you’ve made, and how much is just how things come out naturally when you write?

 

KB: I used to write a lot of poetry, most of it crap but it taught me brevity and outline, I see a page in my mind and I write it exactly as I see it, it has caused murder with editors alas but when I see the books, and the pages as they are in my mind, it was worth the struggle 

 

NMR: You’re an admirer of the late Ed McBain, who seems relatively forgotten since his death. When discussing the greats, Chandler, Hammett, the two Macdonalds, Elmore Leonard, and James Lee Burke always come up; when someone asks, “What about McBain?” the answer is, “Oh, of course, McBain,” but he’s no longer among the first listed. Why do you think that is, and do you think the pendulum will swing back for him?

 

KB: I was blessed to know him and even do a reading with him. He will always be mega and every few years there will be a huge upsurge of interest in him, I'm always amazed that so little is made of his wondrous humour, Fat Ollie Weeks is one of the great comic creations in mystery

 

NMR: Who are your major influences as a writer?

 

KB: James M. Cain, Harold Mc Coy, Beckett

 

NMR: I understand you try to read a book a day. Who and what do you like to read?

 

KB: Jason Starr, Daniel Woodrell, James Sallis, RJ. Ellory, Craig McDonald, Donna Moore, Reed Coleman and I do a lot of reading on Philosophy as my Doctorate is in Metaphysics

 

NMR: Some of our readers may be unfamiliar with your work. Which of your books do you think gives the best flavor of your writing while being most accessible to those who may not know what to expect?

 

KB: The Guards.............I think it's the best intro to the whole way I write.

 

Many thanks to Ken Bruen for his generosity of time and spirit; this interview has truly been a pleasure. So we can’t be accused as teases about the movies, London Boulevard is scheduled for UK release in April of 2010; Blitz for a less definite 2010 date. The Guards is too recently completed to have a release date, and Once Were Cops  is currently in development.

 

Winter's Favorite Reads

 Within Plain Sight, Bruce Robert Coffin. The fourth in the outstanding Detective John Byron series shows Coffin’s skill at weaving an intriguing story around the lives of police officers is undiminished. The procedure is tight but never steps on the story’s momentum or the interplay between the characters, which exists on multiple levels.

The Two-Bear Mambo, Joe R. Lansdale. Hap and Leonard Number 3 was used as the third, and, alas, final season of the Hap and Leonard TV series. No one describes serious, sometimes tragic, situations with more inherent humor than Lansdale, which makes even the most fraught sequences bearable. (No pun intended.) Some of the philosophical digressions go on a bit long, but Hap and Leonard are always worth a read.

Ocean Drive, Sam Wiebe. Wiebe set PI Dave Wakeland aside for a bit to write this multi-POV cop and crook novel and pulls it off with such aplomb you’d think this was all he wrote. As always, the plot is tight and believable, the characters are three-dimensional in ways that support the flow of the story, and the dialog falls on the ear like you’re eavesdropping. Weibe started off very good and keeps getting better.

Blind to Midnight, Reed Farrel Coleman. Book 2 of the Nick Ryan series delves a little more into character and the world is a better place because of it. The problem I have with high-octane thrillers- books or movies - is the incessant quest to raise the stakes, makes them too unbelievable. Coleman tethers his book to how individuals will be affected, and for them this is life and death. Let’s hope this series continues.

The Devil Raises His Own, Scott Phillips. Like all his books, only Scott Phillips could have written this. Raunchy, violent, and laugh out loud funny, Phillips weaves multiple characters and storyline into what becomes a unified whole by books end. Not for those easily offended by foul language, but that’s your loss.

The Other, Jeff Markowitz. I’d been waiting for this one since I learned Markowitz was working on it; he didn’t disappoint me. Parallel stories that take place ninety years apart and focus on two Nazi youth camps in New Jersey built on the same site. Things weren’t as bad when Markowitz started the book as they are now, which makes his writing eerily prescient.

Liar’s Dice, Gabriel Valjan. The Shamus winner for Best Paperback original last year and a worthy recipient. Valjan sets his stories in Boston of the late 70s and early 80s; I went to grad school in Beantown 1983 – 1986 and lived in the area for an extra year, so much of what he writes hits a sweet spot with me. meticulously researched, Valjan pulls together several stories. Some relate to each other; some don’t. All effectively show what few stories od, which is that even private eyes are often pulled in multiple, and sometimes conflicting, directions.

Rapino/Amato, Charlie Stella. The Godfather is back and in good form. A sort-of-sequel to last year’s excellent Joey Piss Pot, Rapino/Amato spreads the new York mob’s reach to Montana, where a convicted mobster is working for an unnamed federal agency. Meanwhile, tensions are running high in New York as the creaking mob hierarchy tries to adapt to life in the 21^st Century. Stella’s keen ear for dialog is unsurpassed and he weaves two disparate stories together with the skill of a master.

A Rented Grave, Charles Philipp Martin. This book stands as evidence why you should make yourself available to moderate panels at conferences (in this case left Coast Crime), and read at least one book by each author. I’ll confess to not having been aware of Martin until I started prepping for the police procedural panel at this year’s conference. I’ll keep my eyes open for more. Think 87^th precinct in Hong Kong. Outstanding work by a writer who knows how to stay out of the way and still contributes the great lines.

The Menace of the Years, Frank Zafiro. Outstanding police procedural that not only handle procedure with aplomb but also police policy, politics, and personal lives. The dialog flows and is appropriate to each character, with humor used as it should be. An all-around enjoyable and enlightening book the late Joe Wambaugh would approve of.

Et tu, Editor?

 “The world is a hellish place, and bad writing is destroying the quality of our suffering.” ― Tom Waits

Contemporary editing doesn’t kick any ass, either.

I have long said the Internet needs editors. Without the space restrictions imposed by newsprint or magazine pages, even professional journalists tend to yammer on well past the point where anyone cares what they’re saying. This is why I make every effort to keep these posts to between 600 – 800 words, the standard length of a traditional newspaper column. (Interviews tend to run longer depending on the subject’s responses.)

As for the quality of what editing takes place, even venues with professional editors are guilty. To use a trivial example that most clearly shows the point, ledes are routinely buried these days. I first noticed this when reading the sports pages, where one can sometimes go several paragraphs before learning the score of the game, which is the first thing people look for when they read a recap.

It's in novels where this really irritates me. The last several books I’ve read are rife with the kinds of errors writers may make through having too tight a deadline, or simple copy and paste errors that, frankly, are the sole reasons copy editors exist. While I do not excuse the writer altogether – after all, it’s our name on the cover – editors might want to do a better job, considering how much we hear about their importance.

A few examples from my recent reading:

·       “Anything under .50 is small caliber.” Really? A .50 caliber machine gun is what they used in World War II to shoot down fighter planes. Currently, the Desert Eagle, often considered the most powerful handgun in the world (Dirty Harry notwithstanding) is a .50 cal. Correct me if I’m wrong, but “small” caliber handguns are .22s and .25s; maybe a .32. A .38 or a 9 mm is not a small caliber weapon.

·       Speaking of 9 mm, it’s ‘nine,’ not ‘point nine,’ which is how one has to read the ever popular ‘.9 mm.’ A .9 mm bullet would have a diameter of 0.035 inches, which is about 3/64 of an inch, or about the size of the tip of a dart. It had better hit you someplace critical if it’s going to do much damage.

·       Using the same word or phrase too close together and/or too often. I confess to being prone to this one myself and spend much of my editing and rewriting time seeking them out for correction. They happen most often during revisions when the author cuts, copies, or rewrites a sentence or paragraph and loses track of what exactly is where. Again, the author should catch that, but authors are focused on creating; the editor’s sole purpose is to catch these things.

·       Scenes or conversations that cover the same information multiple times. Again, I often do this in first drafts, as I’m not sure which I like better and know I’ll be by here again. Once again, this is the author’s responsibility, but pointing out such things is what the editor is paid to do.

·       Last, and maybe most egregious, I recently read a book where the tenses changed erratically throughout. I understand this in dialog; some people talk that way. The narrative tense needs to be consistent, certainly within a paragraph.

I was lucky when working with a publisher. Most of my books were edited by Chris Rhatigan and are better because of his efforts. Over time he came to recognize my stylistic choices and either stopped ‘correcting’ them or made suggestions as to the passage could be improved.

Publishers do less for authors all the time. The least we should be able to expect is a professional editing job. I could guess why it’s not that way, but I would be guessing, and my guesses would not be flattering.

Oh, yeah. This one came in at 663 words, including this sentence. Down from 798, thanks to judicious editing.

A Case for the Legitimate Uses of AI

It’s safe to say I’ve been harsh in my denunciations of writers who use artificial intelligence in their work. Nothing I’ll say here contradicts that. Artificial intelligence (AI) is, and will continue to be, useful in too many aspects of life to mention; I welcome many of them. It’s in the creative arena where I have my primary issues with its use.

Let’s get the vitriol out of the way: I have no time for ‘writers’ who use AI to ‘create’ anything, or even to generate ideas. If you feel the need for AI to write ad copy or marketing materials or a news or journal article, you be you. Just don’t call yourself a writer, as you’re a notch below plagiarist on the food chain. At least the copycat looked up what to steal.

That said, AI can be of legitimate value to writers. I’ll use myself as an example.

I used to print my final drafts a chapter at a time and read them aloud, marking the printed page as I found things that needed improvement. This became a difficult process when I developed macular degeneration, as I had to devote too much concentration to reading accurately to have any left over for listening to how it fell on the ear.

Enter Microsoft Word’s Read Aloud feature, which allows me to listen to a disembodied voice read what I see on the screen, which I magnify and reverse the image to accommodate my eyesight. I then go back and make the necessary changes right there on the screen.

How do I remember what needs to be changed? I never do more than a chapter at a time, and I always have Word display the document’s line numbers. I then make note of which lines need an adjustment and go directly there to make them.

A piece of advice: When making corrections in this manner, work backward. That way the line numbers you’re looking for won’t have changed as you make edits to the document.

When that draft is complete, I use the Check Document tool to look for spelling, grammar, and a few other potential errors. Many – maybe even most – of the suggestions will be ignored in a work of fiction. Names, places, and bits of dialog may not be in Word’s dictionary until I add them. (‘Jagov’ comes to mind in the Penns River stories, as well as names such as Napierkowski, Neuschwander, and Wierzbicki.) I may want some grammar to remain incorrect, especially in dialog. (As Chandler once famously wrote, “When I split an infinitive, God damn it, I split it so it will remain split.”) The clarity check typically calls out passive voice, which my years of writing documents for the government make me particularly prone to.

That’s what I use AI for: proofreading. It makes up for my deficiencies in vision and lack of training in proper grammar. Creating and driving the story forward are my job and always will be. AI’s only function is to clean up the horse shit after my parade has passed. 

An Interview With Eric Beetner, Author of Real Bad, Real Soon

 Among the joys of being a writer is getting to know people like Eric Beetner. As nice a person as I know, Eric is, in addition to being a gifted author, a musician, an artist, and a telented video editor with seven Emmy nominations to his credit.

It’s been way too long since he’s been here, so the occasion of hois newest book, Real Bad, Real Soon, the sequel to last year’s outstanding The Last Few Miles of Road.

One Bite at a Time: Your books read as though they’re passing directly into the reader’smind with little or no authorial intrusion. As a writer myself, I know that’s a lot harder todo than it might sound. How do you manage it?

Eric Beetner: As much as I love a well-crafted sentence that makes you pause and marvel over the word choice, the simile, the metaphor I’d have never thought of – they also risk taking a reader out of the story. The scenario I just described means I’ve stopped reading and am now thinking of the author. I don’t want people to think about me at all when they read my books. I should be invisible.

In a way, I think my day job as a TV/Film editor may influence that. My craft, when done right, is invisible to the viewer. You should never come out of a movie and think, “Man, that was so well cut.” If you notice it, then it’s not really well cut except in instances of music montage or specifically designed editorial moments, but even those are there as showpieces and outliers when it comes to telling the story. You have your moment (think of the many music montages in Goodfella, let’s say) then the song fades, and you go back to being invisible.

 approach writing the same way. My favorite books to read are ones where the story moves along as if by an unseen hand. There is craft in that. It’s not dumbing down language so the reader doesn’t have to “think” about it. Rather, it’s being aware that language is there to be understood easily and in most cases, simplicity is best to communicate your story.

 

OBAAT: You always have a unique take on hit men. First there were Lars and Shaine inthe Devil books. Now it’s Carter McCoy, Breanna, and a third person I won’t namebecause it will spoil the ending of The Last Few Miles Of Road. I’m not asking youwhere you get your ideas – well, sort of, maybe – but what inspired these twists on agenre that has been done to death?

EB: If I’m starting to write a crime novel I assume going in there will be death, so I think how can I make it something you might not have seen before? I like exploring the consequences of violence. I don’t ever want to take it lightly. I want there to be a cost to any death on the page. If I’m thinking in those terms, then the characters have to adjust and they sort of automatically get this extra layer on top you don’t get if someone is just a cold-blooded killer.

If you look at the best books and films where there is a cypher of a person whose only job is to be the best killer out there with zero emotion, then the true center of the story is usually someone else who the audience can connect with because there’s no empathizing with an emotionless killing machine.

OBAAT: This is mostly for the fledgling writers out there, but how has your experienceas an author differed from what you expected?

EB: You are catching me on a day where my only answer is that is has been SO MUCH HARDER than I wanted it to be. I’ve been kicked in the crotch by this business more times than I can count and I often wonder why I persist. I could run down the list of all the indignities and bad breaks I’ve gotten, but we don’t have the space and nobody wants to hear me complain.

When I started publishing in 2009, I had a Freshman class of other writers who I knew and was close with and others who I was aware of and have followed their careers. I’d say easily 75% of them have fallen away. Cancelled contracts, dropped by agents, lost the fire – whatever the cause, I’m still hanging around where so many have quit. Others of the peer group are still going because they’ve achieved a measure of success which is great to see.

I’m sure I’ve made some poor choices, trusted some wrong people, which has contributed to my frustration and my lack of sales. But every time I think of writing my big send-off letter on my way out the door and detailing the crushing lows of what I’ve endured, I’m reminded of how many kind people I’ve met, how many hands up, favors, kindnesses small and large I’ve been on the receiving end of over my time and I realize it’s not at all bad. Not in the least.

So yeah, I’ve never been a best seller. Can’t seem to make a foreign sales deal, never had a movie made. I’ve had MULTIPLE publishers go out of business while publishing my stuff. Had books I delivered in full end up never coming out. Had to pivot and adjust and re-think everything at every turn. But what makes it worth it are the friends I’ve made. Many are the same names on my shelf who I love to read year after year. And the experiences I’ve had, even in the relatively small-time world of my publishing career.

It is NOT for the weak or the thin skinned. It’s a brutal, heartbreaking, commerce-driven business that will chew you up and spit you out. But if you need to tell stories, if you love other book people, if you want to meet your heroes up close and see how down-to-earth they really are, then come on in. Even if you only last a short time, once you write and publish a book, it’s something nobody can take away from you and something relatively few people actually do (though on most days it feels like everyone and their mother has written a book)

OBAAT: When we chatted in 2017, you said, “I’m always fighting my instinct to write acharacter who is fifty as the ‘older’ guy.” Carter McCoy is well past fifty, so you clearlygot over it. What changed in your outlook, and not just that you got older. A lot of writersget older and never get past that hurdle.

EB: I like writing characters with a history and some life experience. For Carter, I needed someone with nothing to lose. Literally. You can’t take his life from him because he’s only got weeks, maybe months to live. I could have given a young guy his disease, but I also liked the idea of a man who has reached his 70s and lived a good life and now has to struggle with himself to see if he can become someone else, and if killing someone who he thinks deserves it will fundamentally change who he is. These were all interesting ideas to me that carried more weight when he had a few more years in him. Everyone changes in their 20s in a thousand different ways. Far fewer people reinvent themselves in their 70s.

But hey, I’m smart enough to give him a younger person to interact with and readers to react to. The Carter McCoy books aren’t written for a geriatric crowd, even as I quickly approach that stage myself.

OBAAT: When you were here in 2015 I asked, “If you could have written any book of thepast hundred years, what would it be, and what is it about that book you admire most?”Your reply: “I’ll say Wild at Heart. I’m a huge Barry Gifford fan and this is ground zero formost people on his work and the start of his most famous creation, the Sailor and Lulabooks.”

It’s been ten years. Would your answer be the same?

EB: I’m not sure. Maybe the cynical answer would be to pick something that has sold much better. I honestly think that the satisfaction for me lies in the fact that I have written books and created now a body of work of which I am enormously proud. I’d hate to think of writing someone else’s book. That’s their story to tell just as I think my books could only have been written by me. When I think about quitting or the inevitable day when I’ll be done by choice or by circumstance, I know that I did what I set out to do creatively. Commercially, there are many goals still left to attain. I have ambitions and goals both big and small. But I can rest easy knowing I have created more in the fiction world than I ever thought possible. I’ve told stories that are different and while I know I’ve recycled themes that are interesting to me, I’ve written mostly vastly different books. I’ve taken chances, experimented, stretched beyond my comfort zone. I have books I’d put up against most of my favorite authors and can think, “Yeah, that belongs on the same shelf.”

It’s gratifying to think that and it took a while, but I’m at a sort of peace with what I’ve done for myself, even if I haven’t cracked a wide readership. Knowing I connected at all with even a small audience is amazing and beyond my expectations when I began.

OBAAT: You are a master of the short series, two or three books. Have you ever been tempted to go back and revisit an old series, say, for instance, Lars and Shaine, or the McGraws from the Rumrunners books?

EB: Three seems right to me. I don’t know that I could write a ten- or twenty-book series. Hats off to those who do. It’s a challenge.

When Wolfpack picked up the Rumrunners books there were only two. A trilogy seems better, especially in a book bundle the way they are packaged now, so I wrote a third book many years after the last stab at that series. It’s called Sideswipe and it’s only in that ebook bundle and because of that it may be my least read novel, but I still like it.

Going back after so long was easier than I expected.

I co-wrote a trilogy with Frank Zafiro, The ‘List’ Series (The Backlist, The Short List, The Getaway List) and he floated the idea that we revisit that one. I hesitated, then he suggested two novellas we could pair into one volume and that sparked an idea (because the end of Book Three felt fairly final). So I did write that and Frank is going to write his half when he has time in his very busy writing schedule. That’ll technically be four books in that series, which will make it the longest I’ve done.

Lars and Shaine for sure is done. I can’t see another story with them. The McGraws as well. After Carter I may be done with series entirely, even trilogies. But I know myself enough to know that if an idea comes or if someone wants more books with characters I created in any of the unsold books I’ve written, then I doubt I’d say no. If someone challenged me (and gave me contracts) for a ten-book series, I’d take the challenge and try to push myself because that’s just what I do, ill-advised or not.

Joseph Wambaugh 1937 - 2025

Joe Wambaugh died yesterday at his home in California of esophageal cancer. He was 88.

 

I discovered his writing when I was in high school, a paperback copy of The New Centurions. Afte that the Blue Knight and the Police Story TV shows he created and co-produced. More than anyone, it was he who put the bug in my ear about cops.

 

I didn’t read him for a long time after. I went to college, got deeply involved in music, and read virtually all non-fiction for many years after. I came back to him with The Choirboys about ten years ago, then The Onion Field. Read all the ‘Hollywood Station” books. Right now I’m about halfway through reading, or re-reading, all his books in order.

 

No one had a greater influence on me as a writer of police procedurals; only three are roughly equivalent. (Alphabetically, Connie Fletcher, Ed McBain, David Simon.) His willingness to deviate from the main story line to show some of what cops have to face, either from the bosses or weird calls from citizens, allowed me to greatly loosen up how I told the Penns River stories, and for the better. His use of dark, sometimes even inappropriate humor also served as permission for me to more fully express myself.

 

No one I know who interacted with him ever had anything other than good things to say about him as a person. My personal story is, after coming across his web site in 2016, I dropped a line in the Contact page to tell him how much his books had meant to me. He wrote back to get my address, and a few days later two elegant bookmarks arrived in the mail. Silver on blue, they had an image of his LAPD badge and a listing of his books in order. He signed both on the back. On one he wrote,

“To Dana King,

That was a lovely message. Made my day

Warmest regards,

Joe Wambaugh”

Those are still my go-to bookmarks for whatever I’m currently reading. They never leave the house, lest I lose them.