Genesis of a Romantic Suspense Junkie By Deliah Lawrence

Deliah Lawrence is a Maryland-based attorney, author, blogger and workshop facilitator who writes romantic suspense novels as well as poetry and short stories. Her debut novel, Gotta Let It Go, set in Baltimore, won the 2011 Finalist Next Generation Indie Book Award in the multi-cultural fiction category.

                                      

Constantly on the go, Deliah is also an active member of the Maryland

Writers’ Association, Black Writers’ Guild of Maryland, and Sisters in Crime. And most recently, Joel Furches (reviewer, CBS Baltimore) named her as one of five Baltimore authors to put on readers 2018 summer reading list. Visit her at www.authordeelawrence.com.

I first met Dee at a Creatures, Crimes, and creativity Conference on Columbia MD (yet another reason to catch this nifty little gem of a con) and it’s always a treat to run into her, whether online or in person, though in person is better. She’s a hoot.

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My love of words started at a very early age when my mother would read me bedtime stories in an animated style. I can vividly remember her voice changing for each character and her hands moving wildly in describing the action within the stories. I would close my eyes and imagine being swept away to another world. This led me to daydream quite a bit, but I also realized later on how much it helped shape my creative thinking and writing.

As a young girl, my library card was one of my prized possessions. I looked forward to hanging out at the library after school and on the weekends with my friends who were avid readers. We would read and trade mystery books like Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys. As we got older, we would do the same with Harlequin romance novels. But sadly, the characters I was reading about didn’t look or sound like me.

Fast forward many years later as an adult and I’ve added thrillers by John Grisham, Tom Clancy, and James Patterson to my reading list. While I enjoyed reading these books because they were exciting and adrenaline driven, I still yearned for books that delivered stories that represented more diverse characters. Stories about people of color that zinged with action, romance, drama, and spicy dialogue.

So, when I stumbled upon Eric Jerome Dickey (I’ve met him twice) I fell in love with his characters: strong, vulnerable, sexy, smart people of color who are multi-dimensional and complex. They love deeply, kick ass and take no prisoners. I love the rhythm of the dialogue and the intricacies of the storylines. EJD’s books are high octane and like a junkie I was hooked on the deliciousness of reading them. Finally, I’ve found an author who delivers stories with heart-pounding action and sexual tension that would keep me on the edge of my seat.

I’m excited that my reading list has now expanded to include Eric Jerome Dickey along with Walter Mosely, Brenda Jackson, Leslie Esdaile Banks and quite a few other authors. But I’m even more excited that I’ve taken the leap to write stories that deliver a thrill ride that are anchored in Baltimore. Without a doubt my love of words has come full circle from listening to my mother read me bedtime stories to reading mystery/suspense and romance books to writing romantic suspense novels.

I currently have two novels, Gotta Let It Go and Gotta Get It Back which are part of a trilogy (Gotta Have It All is forthcoming). My protagonist, Deidre Hunter, is a sexy, sassy, and smart headstrong former prosecutor on the quest for justice who unwittingly at times gets tangled up in romantic situations between the two men in her life: her ex-husband and her lover, the detective assigned to handle the criminal cases.

Sounds like something you could get into? Well, buckle up for a roller coaster ride from this romantic suspense junkie!

The Annual Pre-Bouchercon Post

(What follows is a lightly edited post from March of 2017 when the Anthony Award nominations went out and I got to thinking about Bouchercon. With this year’s conference on the rapidly approaching horizon I realized I don’t have anything more profound to say about the conference this year, but not everyone has read this, so here you go.)

Readers are, by and large, introverts. By definition, introverts expend energy around other people and recharge when alone. That doesn’t mean introverts don’t like other people, though we may be somewhat more discerning than extroverts when it comes to who we choose to be around. It’s not that we don’t like spending time around people who share an interest, but we’d have to leave the house to meet them and that cuts into our reading time.*

Bouchercon is the perfect place for such a person. True, it’s close to two thousand people in relatively confined quarters, but it’s not just that. It’s hundreds of people who are geeked up about the same thing you are, and are often hungry for others to talk to about it. Even better, it’s not just the thousand-plus like-minded readers you’ll see: you’ll also be tripping over the people who write the books you’re so revved up about. What could be better?

They’re glad to see you, too. I’ve been to eight Bouchercons in the ten years since I discovered them. I’ve made friends there, cemented acquaintances with people I came to know online, and have created enough of a footprint myself that some people actually recognize me. I have never once been treated other than civilly, and far more often than not people have gone out of their way to be friendly.**

It can be an expense, but it’s a bargain compared to many other conferences. The conference fee itself is always reasonable and I’m constantly surprised when I see the room rate the committee gets at the host hotel. The only complaint I’ve had is the hotels rarely appreciate how much readers and writers drink and fail to put enough additional staff on the bar. Doesn’t mean I don’t socialize; I just don’t drink as much. The hotel’s loss is my liver’s gain.

So, dear readers, if you’re curious to see what over a thousand readers and several hundred crime fiction writers look like in the wild, there’s no better place to find out than Bouchercon.

* -- The Sole Heir™ was pre-teen when my tenure at Castle Voldemort ended and I was the classic single divorced father again. We used to have this conversation fairly often:

TSH: Do you ever go out?

Me: Not much.

TSH: Why not?

Me: If I go out I’m going to see a lot of people I don’t know.

TSH: What’s wrong with that?

Me: I hate people I don’t know.

After a year or so she came up with the next logical question.

TSH: Why do you hate people you don’t know?

Me: It saves time.

** -- My favorite Bouchercon story. Baltimore, 2008. My virgin appearance. Standing on the walkway between hotels with Peter Rozovsky, one of about three people I actually knew then. He asked was I having a good time.

Me: Sort of.

PR: What’s wrong?

Me: I don’t really know anyone here. (See above statement about people I don’t know.)

PR: (Looks around) Do you know Scott Phillips?

Me: I know who he is….

PR: (Waving) Scott! Come here a second! (Scott Phillips comes over.) Scott, this is Dana King. Dana, this is Scott Phillips. He wrote The Ice Harvest. (Peter does not know I am head over heels for The Ice Harvest.)

SP: (Extends hand) Hi, Dana.

(We chat for five minutes and Scott has to go to a panel.)

PR: See? Now you know Scott Phillips.

One year later. Indianapolis. I’m on the periphery of the crowd at the bar looking for anyone I know. I see Scott with a group of people, but he’s someone I’ve met for five minutes a year ago, not someone I know. Scott notices me and waves me over.

SP: Dana, we’re going to get something to eat. You want to come?

That’s what Bouchercon is like. If in doubt, go. Look me up. Mention this post and your drink is on me. I’m not paying for it. I’m just clumsy when I get excited.

I’m not paying for it. I’m just clumsy when I get excited.

(Epilog: I reposted this a couple of weeks before last year’s conference in St. Petersburg. First day in St. Pete I spy my good friend and general purpose mensch Terrence McCauley talking to someone whose back is to me and I don’t recognize. I walk up, say hello to T-Mac, who then introduces me to Frank Zafiro. What makes this story memorable is not just that Frank is a great guy and we became instant friends, but that he had read this blog post before flying to St. Pete and had me on his list of people to keep an eye out for. It was my pleasure to do what I could to make Frank feel welcome at his first Bouchercon as a way to pay it forward for the kindness Scott Phillips showed me in Indianapolis. Look me up if you see this and are in Dallas next week. I’ll do what I can to introduce you around. I’m still clumsy with drinks.

Dietrich Kalteis, Author of Call Down the Thunder

One of the blogging highlights of any year is the launch of Dietrich Kalteis’s new book, which means another chance to interview him. Dieter is someone more writers should aspire to: not only an award-winning author but a mensch, a person I have never seen the bad side of, nor do I know anyone who has. His new book, Call Down the Thunder, launches next Tuesday and is a bit of a departure for him. I could tell you about it, but it’s going to be a lot more entertaining and enlightening if he does it.

One Bite at a Time: Dietrich, welcome back. It’s always a pleasure to have you here on One Bite at a Time. Let’s get started with the quick, 100 words or less, description of your new book, Call Down the Thunder.

Dietrich Kalteis: First off, thanks very much for having me back, Dana.

Sonny and Clara Myers struggle on their Kansas farm in the late 1930s, a time the Lord gave up on. The land’s gone dry, barren and worthless. And the bankers, greedy and hungry, make life even more impossible, squeezing farmers out of their homes. The couple can wither along with the land, or surrender to the bankers and hightail it to California like most of the other farmers. But Sonny comes up with a way for them to stay on their land and prosper while giving the banks a taste of their own misery.

OBAAT: Ninety-four words; very good. You go back to the 1930s for this story. Any particular reason for that time period?

DK: I chose the period because the hardships of the time added so much to the story. And there’s this feeling of isolation as they’re in the middle of nowhere with little money, no phone, and no electricity. The couple struggles with their marriage, trying to keep the farm from the bankers, dealing with other challenges that come along, all the while trying to survive the drought and dust storms that had been happening for nearly the past decade.

OBAAT: Interesting that you mention no phone or electricity. I’m working on a Western—sporadically—and find that the absence or things we take for granted now provides both opportunities and challenges. Were there times where you had to work around something because of the lack of a modern convenience like a phone? Or the flip side, where the absence of something provided you an opportunity that would have been difficult in a more contemporary story?

DK: Well, I had to work out a few details that we take for granted nowadays. Like when Clara wants to make a phone call to her mother living across the state. She has to get to the general store ten miles away, borrow the phone there, get connected through an operator, which at the time was very expensive.

I think the absence of modern conveniences like plumbing and electricity worked to get across that feeling of isolation, and made the characters more vulnerable to everything they have to deal with. 

OBAAT: What challenges did you find in writing a period novel? Anything unexpected?

DK: There’s always a lot of research that needs to be done in an historical novel, and I found it quite interesting. I think the hardest part for me was distilling it all down. Going through archived newspapers, historical as well as personal accounts, I came up with so much that I wanted to include, but I had to leave out a great deal of it. I was afraid it would start to sound more like a history lesson than a novel.

OBAAT: Does this mean there might be another book coming that set in this period? Not a sequel necessarily, but another book that spends time with something that interested you in your research but didn’t make it into Call Down the Thunder.

DK: Interesting you should say that, Dana. When I was doing the digging for this one I came across a true story about a couple of bank robbers, lesser known than Bonnie and Clyde, but they did top the FBIs most wanted list after robbing just one bank. So, I found out everything I could about them and wrote the story. It’s now been signed with my publisher, and I can’t say too much more about it at this point other than it should be out sometime after the next one, likely in 2021.

OBAAT: Interesting you should say that, as honking about this book put me a little in mind of when Elmore Leonard stepped back into the 1930s for The Hot Kid. We’re both Leonard devotees and I see a lot of potential for that one.

As you dug into the research, did you find the period foreign to you, or did you see similarities to what you learned about the Depression to how we live today?

DK: When I researched the story I surrounded myself with newspaper articles of the time, personal as well as historical accounts, and hundreds of old black and white photos, so I became immersed in that time, and no, it didn’t feel foreign at all.

There are similarities between then and now, and I guess we all feel we struggle in our lives at times so we can relate to the story, although the hardships they faced back then hit ten on the dial.

OBAAT: I remember newspapers. Mostly I remember them as great ways to get news from places other than Washington or the state capital. Nowadays it seems that most “local” papers are virtually volunteer operations that tell about upcoming scout and PTA activities, or some club putting out flowers for Mother’s Day. Did you see a lot of differences between the papers of the period and the news as it’s covered today?

DK: I guess newspapers of today have become second tier. And while news is delivered much faster these days, it seems people had more trust in the printed word back then, as in “They wouldn’t print it if it wasn’t true.”

There sure was a difference how news was received. In major centers, people read the morning paper over breakfast, or while sitting on a bus on the way to work. The radio was becoming a staple in many households and a source for what was going on in the world. And just imagine going to the movie theatre to watch the news. A long way from catching it on your smartphone and scrolling through your social media feed.

OBAAT: This has been great fun. I look forward to your new books almost as much for these interviews as I do reading the books. We know the bank robber story is on deck. What are you working on now?

DK: Before the story of the bank-robbing couple, I’ve got one coming out sometime next year that will take readers on a wild ride through northern British Columbia and into Alaska. It’s about the girlfriend of an aging gangster who wakes in the old guy’s bed, and above his rasping snores, she hears a burglar in the hall. Getting her handgun, she confronts him, recognizes him as the wrongly dismissed chauffeur looking for some payback, knowing the gangster stashes money in the house. She hesitates, considers a couple of ways she could go. And knowing where the money’s stashed, she says, “Take me with you.”

Right now, I’m working on a new one set in present-day Vancouver involving a retiree, a runaway, a couple of casino crooks, and one killer motor home.

And I’d like to say thanks, Dana, for taking the time to put together some great questions. It’s always fun to drop in.

Robert McCaw, Author of Off the Grid

Robert McCaw grew up in a military family traveling the world. After graduating from Georgetown University, he served as a lieutenant in the US Army before earning his law degree from the University of Virginia. Thereafter he practiced as a partner in a major international law firm in Washington, DC, and New York City—and maintained a home on the Big Island of Hawai’i. McCaw brings a unique authenticity to his Koa Kāne Hawaiian mystery novels in both his law enforcement expertise and his ability to portray the richness of Hawai’i’s history, culture, and people. McCaw lives in New York City and La Jolla, California, with his wife, Calli.

One Bite at a Time: You’re a first time visitor to OBAAT so not all our readers may be as familiar with your work as they are with some others. Give us the quick and dirty one hundred words or less rundown on Off the Grid.

Robert McCaw: In Off The Grid, Koa Kāne, Hilo Hawaii’s chief police detective, confronts two bizarre scenes—a woman killed in an exploding vehicle and a charred corpse dumped in an active lava field. Koa’s efforts to identify the two reveal only off-the-grid loners with multiple aliases. When the CIA and the DIA show up, Koa becomes enmeshed in a bizarre international intrigue. When his police chief becomes a suspect, Koa’s life and career are threatened. Relentless, Koa races against time to unlock the secrets of the victims’ identities, exposing a conspiracy so shocking it topples careers far outside of Hawaii.

OBAAT: Off the Grid has a broad scope, encompassing local police, the CIA, the DIA, and the Chinese government. How did you develop the level of familiarity needed to utilize such diverse entities effectively?

RM: The simple answer is research, but that word hides considerable complexity. To begin with, I believe that all of life is research for a novelist, and I am always looking for situations and characters, big and small in my life or in the news, that might fit into my current or future projects. While historical CIA scandals fit into this category, many of the military aspects of Off The Grid come from my own experience as a soldier and a lifetime of reading military news, non-fiction books, and novels. My understanding of the interrelationship between the CIA and the Chinese government as portrayed in Off The Grid grew out of my intense curiosity and exhaustive reading of domestic and foreign news articles and government statements about the bizarre, but real, international incident at the core of Off The Grid.

Regarding police procedures, I drew on many sources. As a lawyer not infrequently involved in criminal cases, I started with a strong background in the legal constraints within which the police are supposed to operate. From there, I talked to local policemen in Hawaii, followed local crime news, studied procedural and forensic texts, and reviewed physical and online catalogs of police equipment and crime scene supplies. I also found a tremendous resource in Lee Lofland’s Writers’ Police Academy, which I attended on multiple occasions, participating in seminars on fingerprinting, firearms, ballistics, blood splatter analysis, undercover operations, traffic stops, and many other police activities. As an attendee at the Writers’ Police Academy, I also took advantage of opportunities to discuss plot points with law enforcement officers who were remarkably generous with their knowledge and insights.

OBAAT: Writer’s craft question: How did you keep all those balls in the air? Do you outline? Craft each page before moving on or work through a draft before going back for revisions? How much did you know in advance as opposed to making up on the fly?

RM: For me, writing is an iterative process. Generally speaking, I mostly know where I am going to start, have a rough idea of the ending, and may outline small sections as I write. I don’t try to outline an entire book, nor do I polish each page before turning to the next one. I work through sections of a draft and often go back to make revisions as the story develops. I find that research on the particulars of a scene often generates ideas that need to be foreshadowed or incorporated in previous chapters.

OBAAT: You spent twenty years writing Death of a Messenger around your legal career. What was it about that book that kept you coming back?

 

RM: It was Hawaii itself that repeatedly pulled me back to write Death of a Messenger. I first visited the Big Island in 1986 and fell in love with its magic. For me, the island is actually a character in my novels, and the victim in Death of a Messenger is a kind of metaphor for Hawaii’s turbulent history. Each time I returned to the Big Island over the following 32 years, I explored new places, met new people, including many of the multicultural people who make up its population, and heard new stories. I felt compelled to capture and share aspects of those experiences.

OBAAT: We both write series. To me, the setting and cast are at least as important as the stories in keeping readers coming back. Do you agree?

RM: Absolutely. Settings, characters, plots, and language are the essential ingredients of good novels. Settings have the power to transport readers to places they’ve never imagined and are often critical to character development. People generally reflect where they grew up and live, and it says something about them when they don’t. Characters allow readers to see behind facades they only rarely get to pierce in real life, opening windows into the perspectives of people they would never have the opportunity to meet. Only in a fictional world do readers discover the true thoughts that people don’t or won’t express. The writer’s task is to get readers to form an emotional attachment (or revulsion) to a character. Only then will most readers really care about what happens to that character as the plot develops.

OBAAT: Side question: how did you develop the cast you have in the Kane novels? Was it organic or did you have a good idea of who you wanted around from the start?

RM: As indicated in response to your next question, the setting and outline of the plot usually come first, and the characters follow, fitting into the slots created by the narrative. That said, I’ve been “collecting” characters for a lifetime—soldiers I met in the military; one of my commanding officers; lawyers, prosecutors, and a few shady witnesses I met in my legal practice; judges I’ve appeared before; an auctioneer for a fish market in Hilo; merchants and artists from whom I’ve made purchases; friends; and even people I’ve seen in restaurants or on the street. On occasion, a character I’ve met is so compelling that he or she shapes the plot. The victims in Off The Grid are examples. Gwendolyn, the woman killed in the staged accident, and Arthur, the man half-buried in a lava field, are modeled on an artist and her husband who invited my wife and me to their mostly off-the-grid home to commission a Hawaiian silk painting. I think of them as characters in reverse. They are dead when the reader first encounters them, but come alive as Koa Kāne investigates their identities.

OBAAT: We both write books that could be described as police procedurals. What drew you to that element of solving mysteries, as opposed to private investigators, journalists, or lawyers?

RM: The concept and structure of my first novel, Death of a Messenger, required an official protagonist. I wanted to tell the story of the mysterious disappearance of the ancient Hawaiian adze makers who mined a particularly hard stone for tools and weapons from ancient quarries atop Mauna Kea, Hawaii’s tallest volcano. Geographically, the adze makers' story had to start in the mile-high saddle lands between Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa, an area now occupied by the Army’s Pōhakuloa Training Area. Thus, my protagonist needed the ability to enlist the military’s cooperation. I also wanted to highlight the contrast between the ancient Mauna Kea adze quarries and the current astronomical facilities atop Mauna Kea. That required a protagonist with easy access to the astronomy community and the resources to operate in the hostile winter environment atop the extinct volcano. A civilian police officer met those requirements, and his need to work with a military counterpart and a local prosecutor offered opportunities to leverage both my military and legal experience. Having chosen Chief Detective Koa Kāne as the protagonist for my first novel, he naturally became the central character in Off The Grid.

OBAAT: Cultural appropriation is a hot topic. As a Caucasian writing a native Hawai’ian protagonist, did that concern you? How did you address it?

RM: Too bad Tom Wolfe is no longer alive to write a book ridiculing the current hysteria called cultural appropriation. In its worst form, it’s pure tribalism. To suggest that people should not photograph, write about, or portray people who are different can only inhibit men and women from knowing, understanding, appreciating, and respecting other human beings who happen to have one or more different characteristics. The problem is not cultural appropriation, it’s cultural disrespect; it’s the near-universal human tendency to think we’re better than those who are different from us. We should applaud, not condemn, artists who try to bridge cultural barriers. We should also honor artistic freedom of expression, not attempt to restrict it.

One of my many goals in writing the Koa Kāne series was to share my appreciation for the unique qualities of Hawaii, its history, its culture, its beauty, its diversity, its language, and yes, some of its problems. I’ve sought to do so in a respectful manner, and choosing a Hawaiian protagonist helped me to do so. Take language for example. The Hawaiian language is beautiful and like all human tongues has its own unique proverbs and ways of capturing ideas. I was drawn to that beauty and wanted to share it with readers who’ve never been to Hawaii or heard the lyrical voices of the islands. It would have been difficult to put those Hawaiian words, proverbs, and sayings in the mouth of a haole (western) protagonist. Having chosen that path, I sought out a Hawaiian editor to help me get it right. That effort was recognized when the review committee at Nā Mea Hawaiʻi—“a community resource focused on distributing the best books, music, and DVDs on Hawaiʻi and the Pacific”—accepted Death of a Messenger for distribution. In short, there is a vast difference between cultural disrespect and cultural appreciation. The two should not be confused.

Mark Bergin, Author of Apprehension

It’s a treat to have Mark Bergin on the blog today.

Mark graduated from Boston University with a degree in journalism, then worked four years as a newspaper reporter, winning the Virginia Press Association Award for general news reporting. Joining the Alexandria VA Police Department seemed the next logical choice, in 1986. Twice named Police Officer of the Year for narcotics and robbery investigations, he rose to the rank of Lieutenant. His debut novel, Apprehension, draws on many of those experiences.

Mark lives in Alexandria and Kitty Hawk, North Carolina (Bi-i-i-ig fucking house) with his wife Ruth, an attorney and former public defender. They have two children. Write him at berginwriter@gmail.com or follow his blog at markberginwriter.com

One Bite at a Time: Mark, thanks for stopping by for a chat. It’s a pleasure to have you here and I hope we can expose some readers to your new book. It’s titled Apprehension, and it drops this month from Inkshares. Tease us a little.

Mark Bergin: It’s the story of the four best and worst days of Detective

John Kelly’s life. He is prepping for a major trial of a pedophile father to protect his child victim, but the defense attorney is Kelly’s lover. She has an unexpected way to win the case but it will hurt Kelly. She also has a personal secret that will change their future. Kelly also has a secret, a terrible thing he did after his niece was murdered, and it’s about to be revealed. He may lose his career and go to jail. And he can’t stop it. But maybe his friends can.

OBAAT: The word “apprehension” can be taken more than one way. For our purposes here the two possible meanings that come to mind are “anticipation of adversity or misfortune” or “the act of arresting; seizure” come to mind. Was this ambiguousness in the title intentional?

MB: Absolutely. I’ve called it Apprehension since I began thinking about it. I actually started making notes for it thirty years ago. Police work is good and bad, terribly stressful and grinding, but fun as hell when you get going. The theme of the book is stress and police suicide, but the goal of law enforcement is stopping bad guys. So I get a double out of the title. I want folks to take it both ways. The follow-up novel is called “St. Michael’s Day,” maybe easier to grasp.

OBAAT: Not that I’m arguing your bona fides, but what’s your background in law enforcement?

MB: I joined the Alexandria, Virginia Police Department in 1986 after four years as a newspaper reporter in Virginia and in suburban Philadelphia, PA, where I grew up. I’d always liked cops and police work, but didn’t care for the cops at home. In the 60s and 70s, it seemed like you had to be a former MP who hated black people and took bribes to be a city cop. I hate to admit that, my own myopia, but it wasn’t till I got to Alexandria and began closely reporting on cops and detectives, riding along or sitting in trials with them, that I realized they were normal, decent, intelligent people. I thought I was, too, so I applied and got hired.

I spent 28 years on, as a patrol officer, street-level narcotics “jump-out,” field training officer, sergeant, and lieutenant. Twenty-seven years on the street, then I got command of the Records Section, and temporary command of Public Information. Desk jobs, heavy on administrative paperwork and computer entry. Where I had two heart attacks, died, actually, and had to retire. The desk jobs did it. But that gave me the chance to start writing, go back to the notes I’d made 30 years ago, that had a beginning and an end and some middle stuff, but that I hadn’t touched since then. Five years later, here we are.

OBAAT: As a career law enforcement officer you must be a tough audience for procedural writers. Who do you read, or do you stay away from the genre altogether, as I know many folks close to a profession tend to.

MB: Don Winslow is very good, very popular and gets it right. I like Bruce Coffin in Maine, and Brenda Buchanan, also in Maine, writes accurately about newspaper reporting. Some kind of Maine thing going, there. Michael Connelly writes cops, lawyers and reporters well and, since my wife is a lawyer I know he knows. Archer Meyer is an unappreciated police proceduralist, I enjoy his plots and he gets details right. Another strong police proceduralist is this guy Dana King – dead on in describing how cops think and work, and the details and humanity of small town Pennsylvania where I was bread and buttered. Penns River isn’t my hometown but I’ve sure spent a lot of time there. The god of this police procedural biz has to be Joseph Wambaugh, and I’ve read everything he wrote. When I knew I had to retire and I decided I wanted to write, I reread certain books by my favorite authors to stir up the creative brain. Alistair MacLean, Elmore Leonard, Adam Hall, John D. McDonald, George V. Higgins. I deliberately avoided rereading Wambaugh, because I knew my book would be similar to his and didn’t want to copy him. Alistair MacLean I’d copy till the cows come home. David Swinson, a former DC detective, has become a master of police noir, bad but redeemable cops who try to do good. Craig Johnson and C. J. Box are Western writers who make it seem effortless and clean, especially now that I’ve learned now just how hard it is to put the words down in the right order.

OBAAT: How much of your experience is in Apprehension? Not to say John Kelly stands in for you, but either direct or indirect experiences that affected the book.

MB: It’s all real but it may not be all true. I tried to write a book that my fellow officers could read and say, he got it right. That they could give to their families and say, this is how it is. I certainly took my experiences of how cops think and react to craft scenes and events. “Wart Lip” is a true story. The shotgun suicide happened. And we did have a witch doctor in Alexandria. The magnets are made up but we thought about using them. Most of the rest could have happened. I know the stress is real, and grinding and feels inescapable, so I’m giving half my book profits to programs that combat police suicide. Might be only seventy-five or eighty dollars. We’ll see.

OBAAT: Who are your greatest influences as a writer?

MB: George V. Higgins, who wrote The Friends of Eddie Coyle, is definitely my muse. He could write whole chapters of his crime stories in dialogue, and only in the last paragraph insert whatever it is that moved the plot along. Elmore Leonard puts folks in normal places but sets off explosions around them. James Lee Burke puts naked souls on the page and they bleed on you. Alistair MacLean is my favorite writer, and his The Secret Ways is my favorite book, but I don’t write adventure. Yet.

OBAAT: We ran into each other a while back at a James Ellroy event. Ellroy doesn’t provide the most flattering depictions of cops. What’s the appeal to you, or do you like him in spite of how he writes law enforcement?

MB: I’ve carried around an original copy of his first book, Brown’s Requiem since it was published in 1981. Only just reread it prepping for that event. His hero is another flawed, former cop like Swinson’s. But the clarity of voice, the constant, subtle but strong emotional tone of challenge and despair, the picture of 80s Los Angeles, stayed with me all that time. I didn’t remember the details but I always felt the impact. Ellroy was gracious and signed it, though he was there to plug his newest. He wrote, “Did this move you?” What a great, laser beam question. Yes. In this and later books he clobbers cops, and I take that as the literary tool he needs to tell the story. C. J. Box always includes inept or evil cops in his Joe Pickett novels. I asked him why, and whether he had bad experiences with police. He paused a sec, like he was trying to come up with the right answer, then said, “It’s just for dramatic tension.” Okay.

OBAAT: What are you working on now?

MB: “St. Michael’s Day.” It is another novel about police, but it’s also about faith. What if you survived a horrendous, nearly fatal machine gun attack, and the people around you decided you were blessed, protected, specifically saved and empowered by God? And what if you weren’t sure you believed in a God who did that, but tried to reckon out your feelings while investigating a case and looking for your own shooters? I have been thinking of this one, and themes of faith, almost as long as Apprehension. Apprehension started as an examination of what it was like to be a squad of white cops who arrested mostly black people, because that’s the reality of 1980s drug enforcement in big cities. It was for me, I was there, lived and worked it and wondered, was it racist or the real and unavoidable result of racial and economic splits in society? Those elements are still part of Apprehension but fell back in the examination of stress and suicide. I tried to use writing the book to come to grips with my own concerns. The next one, “St. Michael’s Day,” is my attempt to understand my own faith, or lack of strong and clear faith. It won’t be preachy. I put faithful and faithless Christians, Jews, Sikhs, Hindi, Muslims and atheists in a pot and turn the heat on. I won’t kill a cop in my books, that’s too easy a literary device, and too painful to write, though I do shoot one in book three. I hate serial killer books, but one just showed up in “St. Michael’s Day.” Popped up on the page. Funny how that happens.

(Editor’s Note: I hope you enjoyed this, as Mark will; be back. There’s lots more I have to talk with him about.)

July's Books and Movies

This month’s best reads:

The New Centurions, Joseph Wambaugh. His first, and the book that deservedly put him on the map. A little dated in spots, but much of that is because it so heavily influenced so many books that came after it. Wambaugh’s writing style loosened up as he continued but the power of some of these scenes is shown by how well I remembered many of them as I got into them after not having read the book in well over forty years.

The Dain Curse, Dashiell Hammett. Probably the weakest of Hammett’s novels, mostly because the plot is so outrageous it makes L.A. Confidential and Murder on the Orient Express look like Dr. Seuss. This could be because it first appeared as a serial in Black Mask and Hammett may have written himself into a corner. The writing, though. Crisp, clean, not a word wasted and not a word misplaced. It’s a master class in how to tell a story even if the story is a bit much.

The movies I saw in July:

Cop Land (1997) A friend mentioned this on Facebook one day and I found myself at loose ends that night and figured what the hell. Incredible cast includes Sylvester Stallone (don’t laugh, he’s very good in this), Robert DeNiro, Harvey Keitel, Ray Liotta, Janeana Garafolo, Robert Patrick, Annabella Sciorro, Edie Falco, and Michael Rapaport. (Get over it, kids. I’m okay with Rapaport.) Stallone plays the sheriff in a small New Jersey town where the mob has set up corrupt cops with sweetheart deals and houses and who knows what all so the cops let the hoods run the precinct. It’s a classic story of the well-meaning but overmatched boob forced to take too much who settles things himself, but it’s well played and paced and filmed. Reminded me of a 70s movie, and you know how I feel about my 70s movies.

Appaloosa (2008) I don’t watch this one as much as LA Confidential, but as much as any Western. Ed Harris and Viggo Mortensen bring Robert B. Parker’s traveling lawmen Virgil Cole and Everett Hitch to life with Jeremy irons as a properly greasy “rancher” who has plans other than ranching. The only thing I don’t like about this film is that they expect us to believe a man like Virgil Cole would lose his head over Renee Zellweger, who’s as pinched-face and unpleasant as ever. Classic Western done in revisionist style and well worth watching more than once. Bonus points if you can spot Lance Henriksen without knowing in advance which part he has.

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969) One of my small handful of comfort food movies. I wanted to relax and smile and this was exactly the ticket. I remember seeing this in the theater with my parents, thirteen years old, and feeling them both tighten up as Katherine Ross started taking off her clothes.

Major League (1989) Not as good a baseball movie as Bull Durham but still eminently watchable more than once. It still amazes me that the Cleveland Indians let them use the team name and logo.

Apollo 11 (2019) Wonderful documentary cut from NASA video and audio recorded during the moon flight, meticulously synched. NASA had cameras everywhere, including in stages of rockets. Crafted seamlessly into HD this is a loving and gripping travelogue of mankind’s greatest accomplishment, though when it was over my first thought was, “It’s all been downhill from here.”

Hombre (1967) One of the small handful of greatest Westerns ever, and deserving to be listed among the best films, period. Paul Newman plays John Russell, a white man kidnapped by the Apaches as a child who came to prefer living as an Apache. The supporting cast of Richard Boone, Frederic March, Martin Balsam, Diane Cilento, Barbara Rush, and Frank Silvero (who steals every scene he’s in) does a wonderful job with what might be Elmore Leonard’s best story and much of his best dialog. I’ve seen Hombre probably ten times now and if there’s a weakness I haven’t found it.

Blade Runner: Final Cut (????) I have no idea which version number this would be of Ridley Scott’s sci-fi noir masterpiece but he should have stopped messing with it at least one version sooner. It had been a while since I saw Blade Runner, was inspired to take another look on the passing of Rutger Hauer, and wasn’t as careful as I should have been when picking from the Amazon list of Blade Runners. At some point creative artists who release their work to the public should understand the public has a certain proprietary interest and limit how much they fuck with it. A bitter disappointment, the slower pacing allowing several holes in the story to stand out. Close to the most disappointing movie I’ve ever seen, though that crown remains solidly in the camp of Blade Runner 2049, a movie I’d encourage Denis Villeneuve to fuck with.

Rules of Engagement (2000) Solid military courtroom drama worthy of mention in the same breath as A Few Good Men. William Friedkin directs the usual outstanding performances from Tommy Lee Jones and Samuel L. Jackson as two best friends from the Vietnam War who reunite when Jackson faces court-martialed for ordering his Marines to open fire on a crowd of supposedly unarmed protesters outside the embassy in Yemen. Guy Pearce plays the prosecutor and Ben Kingsley the ambassador, with Bruce Greenwood his usual slimy self as the National Security Advisor. First rate all the way.

Terriers or The Nice Guys?

A discussion on Facebook last week asked if, given the choice, we’d rather see two sequels to The Nice Guys or two more seasons of Terriers. I voted for Terriers, not because I liked it better than The Nice Guys, but because I’ve become such a fan of serialized limited run television. 

I find I watch a lot fewer movies since I got into serialized limited run TV starting with The Sopranos. The Wire, Deadwood, The Shield, Justified all showed what can be done when an able showrunner has the time to really examine a universe and the characters who populate it. The best of these series also seem to get less interference from the suits and marketing people that has led to so much timidity in movies, where everything has to be a blockbuster and the entire industry’s sphincters are in knots for fear their $200 million superhero/comic book/Star Wars/Star Trek/TV show reboot is the one that lays the egg that brings down the studio and makes moviegoers everywhere wonder, “Why have we been watching so much of the same shit for so long?”

I digress.

A series has an ability to become part of your life much more than a movie, where you go to the theater (or stream it; doesn’t matter) and know you’re coming out two hours later. We spent over eighty hours with Tony Soprano. We were invested in that motherfucker, which was why so many people were so upset at how the series ended. The end of The Wire left The Beloved Spouse™ and me feeling these people’s lives would continue; we just wouldn’t get to watch them anymore. The Deadwood movie really brought that feeling home, as did Justified with its skipping ahead a few years at the end. Movies are finite. Series become too much like real people to just walk away.

Obviously that’s not true of all series. The showrunner is critical. Should he or she lose their vigor, so will the show. It’s not that the showrunner is irreplaceable, but damn near. What did all the series I mentioned above, plus Breaking Bad, Mad Men, The Americans, and others we think most highly of have in common? Consistency of vision. I thought Ray Donovan would be such a show until Ann Biderman left after Season 2. It’s still a good show but much more a soap opera where Ray’s family forces ridiculous situations on him for no good reason. (Really, Bunchie? Taking your settlement money—in cash—to a sandwich shop on the way to close a real estate deal across the street? Did you want to get robbed? And wasn’t it convenient that he bumps into hostage-taking robbers at that precise time of day? Who the fuck robs a Subway in broad daylight?)

Again, I digress.

That’s another reason I chose more Terriers over The Nice Guys, the ascendance of the showrunner. Directors don’t get that kind of independence with nine-figure budgets. (Editor’s Note: He knows not all movies have nine-figure budgets. He also knows that those who run Hollywood don’t really give a fuck about the those.) If a director hits it big enough with a movie to warrant a sequel, odds are the studio will want to be more involved, like sharks flocking to a rotting whale carcass. The tendency is always to outdo the original, to make the sequel more of what made the original in the hopes of revving up the audience more, forgetting that what made the original worthy of a sequel was that it didn’t do that. (Jaws 2, anyone? See what I did there with the sharks?) Sequels only work well if you had more material than could be used in the original (The Godfather, The Godfather Part 2) or the viewers are so invested in the franchise they’ll let it run and run and run, essentially making it a large-scale series with fewer, less directly connected episodes.

A movie can be a nice way to spend the evening but I’ll take a series like those we talked about here when I want to invest some time.

Where do You Get Your Ideas?

It is generally accepted—or may just be a truism—that the question readers most often ask writers is, “Where do you get your ideas?” Writers like to disparage this question, as anyone who has done much writing knows that we spend our days tripping over ideas hoping they don’t distract us from the task at hand. The trick is in knowing which ideas work best for your talents and which you may want to spend a year (or more) of your life on, often forsaking all others.

I am not to the point where this question disturbs me. Much of that is due to the fact that I am delighted when readers ask me anything. Another has to do with the idea of reader engagement. If this is what they most often ask, then they must be interested and people are always willing to talk about what interests them and will tend to think kindly of those who engage them on such topics, especially if some enlightenment is involved.

So let’s talk about where ideas come from, and how unique they need to be.

An idea—damn near the whole book—fell into my lap last week when an article in the “Penns River” newspaper described how one of the towns had six shootings in the past six weeks and how concerned the locals were. I live halfway between DC and Baltimore, where six shootings in six days is a slow week, but the article presents an opportunity to examine the dramatic difference in how Penns River residents view such things.

This silver platter disguised as a newspaper article handed me the premise for an entire book: Small town has six shootings in six weeks. The local police department is already stretched thin. While not all the shootings are fatal—some only result in property damage—the locals are upset. (More on this in a couple of weeks.) How this plays out is made to order for examining Joseph Wambaugh’s dictum that a good procedural doesn’t just show how the cops work the cases, it shows how the cases work the cops. Even the title sets up perfectly for a series with all two-word titles: Six Weeks.

Boom! Done. Easy, right?

Well, yeah, except for the niggling details such as actually converting a 600-word article into an 80,000-word novel that maintains reader interest and the characters, dialog, supporting events, and more satisfactory resolutions all that requires, along with a little comic relief and some examination of the ripple effects on the town and the cops that can be used in the series down the road. Not to mention the fact I currently have a book in the series about half finished, the next fairly well planned, and another pretty good idea for the book after that, which may now get pushed back thanks to this new idea.

Sure, it’s nice when the idea falls into your lap already formed. All it does is start the work.

Let’s focus on the “How am I going to create 80,000 worthwhile words out of this?” It’s not enough to have an idea, or even a good idea. Not even a great idea. It still has to be an idea that fits your talents and interests. Give the same idea to Megan Abbott, Michael Connelly, Laura Lippmann, and me and you’ll get four radically different stories, even leaving aside the chutzpah it took to mention myself in the same sentence as the others. Giving four writers, even in the same general genre, an idea is not unlike handing four fashion designers identical bolts of cloth. What comes out will still be unique.

Doubt me? Stick around.

Premise: A mob boss has some issues and goes to see a shrink.

Results: The Sopranos. Premiere January 10, 1999

Analyze This. Premier March 5, 1999.

Both were in development at the same time; I doubt either creator know what the other was working on until the trades started talking about them. The two end results share little except for the mob boss and the shrink.

Premise: An outlaw gang with a charismatic boss in the American West sees their times are ending as the 20^th Century dawns and moneyed interests create permanent posses to hunt them down. Both gangs heads south where they meet grisly demises.

Results: The Wild Bunch. Premier August 7, 1999.

Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid. Premier October 24, 1999

The thought of a mob boss seeing a shrink inspired different ideas in David Chase vs. what Kenneth Lonergan and Peter Tolan came up with. Walon Green and William Goldman took even more commonality and went their own ways with it. Ideas are great. Nothing good can come without them. All they are is the gas in the car. You still have to know how to drive.

First, Do No Harm

The Sole Heir™ recently graduated from medical school. (“We know!” shout the masses of readers. “Congratulations to her but it’s not like you haven’t mentioned it every day since.”) Part of the graduation ceremony is the taking of the Hippocratic Oath. While this phrase never actually appears in the oath’s current iteration, most of us know it as the source material for the exhortation to “First, do no harm.” This is good advice for way more people than just doctors. Since this blog exists to discuss writing, I’ll stick to that avenue today, though the lessons apply to all walks of life.

I’m one of those who believes a writer’s real work comes in editing and rewriting. To me, the real function of the first draft is to provide the ore from which the final product will be refined. That said, nuggets are sometimes recovered in final form directly from the stream. The trick of editing is to recognize those while improving everything else. In other words, doing no harm to what needs no assistance.

What is the surest way not to do harm to what already exists? (Short of not editing it, of course.) Accept your limitations. We all have them. If a particular phrase doesn’t read quite the way you’d like, change it, but keep the change only if you’re sure you like the edited version better. A tie should go to the original, if only because that was what you wrote in the full flow of creativity, presumably with the Muse perched on your shoulder.

Or maybe it wasn’t. Maybe you were just stuck at the time. It was late, you didn’t feel well, shitty day at the paying gig. Whatever. You took what was available, maybe justifying yourself by considering it a placeholder until you could get back and fix it in the edit. Now the edit is here and you still don’t have a better way.

There are a couple of directions to go from here. The preferred method is to re-write the entire paragraph or section to create a more elegant setup or exit for the problem sentence or phrase. Here’s the key: make sure that in fixing the offending sentence you don’t fuck up the surrounding material. If a less than optimal sentence is the result of leaving alone excellent writing both fore and aft, well, ain’t no one perfect.

That’s not to say you settle. At least for me, there are always additional editing passes, including a gruesomely detailed read/edit on screen/edit on paper/read aloud and proofread sequence that marks the final draft, after which I can type THE END and move on. This comes after at least two thorough edits beyond the first draft. Sometimes more.

The prescription to do no harm allows me not to have to undo anything in the later drafts that I should have left alone in the first place. I’m not so much accepting a less than stellar segment as I’m accepting that maybe that’s all the better I can write it at this time. If I’m diligent in improving my craft, I may have absorbed what I need to improve this bit by the next time I come around to it. This is why I don’t mind reading fiction when I’m working on a project. First, I almost have a project working, so I’d hardly ever get to read fiction if I denied myself access while crafting my own piece. More important from a writing perspective, I never know when something will strike me as a better way to handle whatever is giving me trouble. I like to thinking of it as inspiration or education rather than plagiarizing, but let’s be honest: we all steal. Might as well steal from the best, and from a passage that has some relevance to what you’re stuck on rather than a book of writerly advice.

First, do no harm. Editing can be enough of a pain in the ass. Don’t make subsequent passes harder than necessary because you improved what was good in the original right out of existence in the hope of making it better. (This is also why you should keep all drafts in separate files, so you can go back.) We write as we learn, in increments. Take your improvements as you find them.

And what if you never do get that sentence exactly how you want it? Regrettable, true, but not every word of your deathless process need bring a tear of envy to Shakespeare’s eye. Pick any favorite book from your shelf. I guarantee you there will be word choices, phrases, sentences, that you look at and think, “That’s not his best effort.” Doesn’t matter who the author is. The perfect cannot be aloud to become the enemy of the good.

June's Favorite Books (Movies, Too)

What with only weekly blog entries for the foreseeable future and hoping two a month are Diversity Friday posts, most months would be no more than one post for my favorite reads of the month prior and one would be the movies I’ve seen since last I mentioned them. We all know I’m too opinionated to keep them all to myself lest I burst, showering entrails across the countryside, so today we’llo see if combining the two allays the situation.

First, the books I liked best, because though never having been a journalist, I know better than to bury a lede. (And I know how to spell the cocksucker.) (Editor’s Note: Yes, he’s watching Deadwood again. Roll with it. It’ll fucking pass. Oops.)

Deadwood: Tales of theBlack Hills, David Milch. The companion to the series, written by The Man himself. Full of insights into history, drama, characterization, human frailty, and just about any other fucking thing you can find to say about such an immersive experience. I don’t believe in saying something is a “must read” or a “must have,” but if you’re looking for a peek into the experiences and mind that drove Deadwood, you ought to take a look. More than one.

Cheapskates, Charlie Stella. My favorite Stella, full of pitch perfect dialog and well-drawn but less than reverentially depicted characters with various plots and plans coming together in ways no one expects, least of all the characters. Stella hasn’t had a book out in a while, which is a shame, but Mr. Silver Lining here seized an opportunity to look back on what’s come before and be reminded how good it is.

And the movies…

The Highwaymen (2019) Kevin Costner and Woody Harrelson play Frank Hamer and Maney Gault, Texas Rangers brought out of retirement to capture Bonnie and Clyde while a thousand-man dragnet foundered. Costner and Woody are prefect, their chemistry is perfect, the other casting and performances are perfect, and every other decision made by writer John Fusco and director John Lee Hancock works, too, to create a wonderful film. (Or whatever it is we’re supposed to call Netflicks.) Highly recommended.

L.A. Confidential (1997) Yes, again. I think it’s the first time this year, so be quiet. Yes, I’m talking to you, Mike Dennis.

Bosch (2019: Season 5) True, not a movie, but it’s my blog and I’ll put whatever I want in here. Bosch is a good solid show. The writing is good, the acting is exceptional, and the production values are first-rate. Limited run series like this are now my preferred way to encounter visual stories, as they allow for scope without worrying about padding. That said, the show also lacks the same things the Bosch books lack, at least for me. I know I’m in a minority here, but while Michael Connelly tells great stories, the books don’t sing. There’s little wit in the dialog and, frankly, Harry’s an asshole I wouldn’t mind seeing get taken down a peg. Even so, The Beloved Spouse™ and are looking forward to Season 6, though not with the same fervor as we did for Justified or The Sopranos.

Vice (2018) The most disappointing movie I’ve seen since Blade Runner 2049. I’m no fan of Dick Cheney, but Adam McKay’s hatchet job tends too often to use the blunt end rather than the blade. McKay’s touch was outstanding in The Big Short, but he had Michael Lewis’s brilliant book to work with. He tried a similar approach here, but wrote it himself from scratch and it shows. All told, I’d rather have watched Michael Moore direct a Cheney film, and Michael Moore embarrasses me as a liberal.

Bad Times at the El Royale (2018) I occasionally let time pass before writing these capsules so my thoughts about a film can coalesce. It’s been two weeks and I can’t remember a single thing worth complimenting about this movie. So, there’s that.

Deadwood: The Movie (2019) Well, it’s about fucking time. Seth and Al and all those cocksuckers come back to add an element of closure to the series so unceremoniously ass-fucked by HBO thirteen years ago. The storytelling is a little different from the series because David Milch had only two hours to work with instead of twelve and HBO cut half an hour while adding some flashbacks for the hoople-heads who didn’t know what the fuck was transpiring back there. Still, it’s a more than worthy bow to tie off the series and an accomplishment on its own. A second viewing only enhanced its appeal and a third is in the offing as soon as we work our way through the series again.

                

The Choirboys (1977) This is such an execrable adaptation of Joseph Wambaugh’s masterpiece he completely disassociated himself from the film and sued to have his name removed from the credits. He was right to do so.

S. W. Lauden, Author of That'll Be The Day

I can appreciate how good a writer George Pelecanos is, but I never got into his Derek Strange books because he spends too much time talking about cars and music I know nothing of. S.W. Lauden’s new novelette, That’ll Be The Day, revolves around music I know practically nothing of—it’s damn near about music I know nothing of—yet I read it in a single sitting. Literally couldn’t put it down. That’s some storytelling.

Steve stopped by to dish about the book, writing, and music.

One Bite at a Time: We’ve discussed how much I like That’ll Be The Day, yet the more I think about it the more things I find to like. Let’s start with the characters. It’s often said of a book that no character is all good or all bad, but you pulled that off in convincing ways I’d not seen before. Did you have the characters sketched out in advance?

S.W. Lauden: Thanks so much for the kind words! It definitely helps that I played in bands myself for many years and have plenty of personal experience to draw on. And there’s something about a story of this length (17,000 words) that I find easier to write than either short stories or full-length novels. There’s an immediacy to the pace of the storytelling, but the end is always in sight. All of that makes it easier (for me, at least) to focus on the characters.

OBAAT: Jackson Sharp is a man who can hold a grudge. He wants the fifty grand he had to leave behind when he was sent up mainly so he can afford to find and kill his father. He undergoes quite a change by the end. Was that the point of the book when you started, or did things evolve to there?

SWL: Music and fandom are the framework, but I always thought of this story as Jack’s journey to accepting that his dreams weren’t going to come true (at least not the way he once envisioned them). Jamie has made a kind of peace with his shitty life and found ways to be happy, but Jack can’t even see the point in trying. A big area of focus for me was their simultaneous relationship with music and crime, because that’s what’s in their bones. I wanted the guns and guitars to seem interchangeable to some degree. I was also riffing on the proud history of battling brothers in rock bands (like Ray and Dave Davies of The Kinks, Noel and Liam Gallagher of Oasis, etc.).

OBAAT: Russell Patterson is as fucked up a character as I can remember and in a completely unique way. I suppose people as rich as he is can afford all kinds of off the path hobbies, but what gave you the idea for his personal rock-and-roll memorabilia Hall of Fame?

SWL: Patterson’s definitely a piece of work. I wanted him to embody an overblown version of ‘toxic fandom.’ With any artform, there is always a small but extreme group of fans who take their passion too far and kind of lose sight of the innocent reasons they connected with something in the first place. He’s a shady (sometimes violent) businessman with a very specific kink when it comes to music, but his outrageous collection is really just an extension of his massive ego. The music isn’t enough for a guy like Patterson, he needs to hoard important artifacts from the band’s history and keep them to himself.

OBAAT: Having been a musician myself, I think the reason I’m able to get past the fact I don’t know a lot of the music in the book (I’m more of a classical and jazz guy) was because, unlike the Pelecanos reference above, your musical references are more about the life of a musician than the music. I don’t want to spoil a nice plot point, but I was particularly taken by how Jack and his brother need to make a detour on their way to a job so they can afford to do the job. Musicians live that way, one job to the next. You came up with a creative way to show that while not lessening the motion of the story. (Yeah, there’s no question there. Talk about it.)

No more ever says, "More cowbell!" when
Steve Lauden's around.

SWL: There was an earlier version of this book (in my mind only) that was just going to be the two brothers driving to the heist—kind of like a rock ‘n roll Waiting For Godot or My Dinner With Andre. I ultimately didn’t take the story to that artistic extreme, but I still wanted to capture the mind-numbing delirium of life on the road. Bands tackle a lot of the world’s problems while barreling down the interstate in the middle of the night. They also get into pointless, heated debates about their favorite bands and songs.

Then there’s the musical genre that inspired this story. I previously published a trilogy of books about a punk rock PI (Bad Citizen Corporation, Grizzly Season and Hang Time) that was more aggressive, much darker and almost cartoonish in some respects because I felt that embodied the punk rock lifestyle I had seen firsthand growing up. Power pop, on the other hand, is melodic (sometimes jangly) guitar pop that includes everybody from Raspberries, Big Star and The Knack to The Bangles, Fountains Of Wayne, and The New Pornographers. Power pop bands are usually inspired by the early music of 60s bands like The Beatles, The Who, The Byrds and The Beach Boys. All of that’s a bit more nuanced than punk, especially hardcore punk. So much of the tone, pace and dialogue was set by the music I was listening to.

OBAAT: Jack never wants to play again and his brother Jamie doesn’t really want to do anything else, making great sacrifices to allow him to keep his hand in. To me, the two brothers represent an internal struggle a lot of less than successful musicians have within themselves. Is that what you were going for?

SWL: You hit the nail on the head. Music, especially commercial music, is mostly a young person’s game. It’s a lot of blood, sweat and tears (hey, that would make a good band name!) that most often leads nowhere. So it can be difficult to keep doing it simply for the love of music, especially when it comes to lugging gear around and playing to empty bars in middle age when you should probably be home with your family and/or trying to achieve more reasonable goals.

OBAAT: What’s up next? Will we see you in Dallas for Bouchercon?

SWL: Funny enough (especially given my answer to your last question), I just recorded an album with some good friends as The Brothers Steve. We have a digital single coming out at the end of June. The vinyl album will be available in late July.

I also co-edited an essay collection about power pop with Paul Myers called “Go All The Way” that will be released in October by Rare Bird Books. As you can tell, I really love going down musical rabbit holes like this.

No Bouchercon for me this year. I’m too busy with the book projects, the Writer Types podcast, and music. That’s in addition to the day job and my amazing family. Speaking of which, I should probably go…Thanks again for having me back!

BIO: S.W. Lauden is the author of the Greg Salem punk rock P.I. series including Bad Citizen Corporation, Grizzly Season and Hang Time. His Tommy & Shayna novellas include Crosswise and Crossed Bones. A new novelette, That’ll Be The Day: A Power Pop Heist, was released on June 18, 2019. S.W. Lauden is the pen name of Steve Coulter, drummer for Tsar and The Brothers Steve. More info at http://swlauden.com.