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.

An Interview With Chris Bauer, Author of I Heard You Paint Cowboys

 I became aware of Chris Bauer’s work at a Noir at the Bar event at the Creatures, Crimes, and Creativity conference several years ago. His flash piece never fail to capture the audience and he doesn’t confine himself to a particular niche or genre.

Besides being an outstanding writer, Chris is a hell of a nice guy, as evidenced by the fact he’s from Philadelphia and I still interviewed him for the blog.

His new book is I Heard You Paint Cowboys.

One Bite at a Time: Hard to believe this is your first time on the blog, long as we’ve known each other and as much as I enjoy your work. Let’s start with the obvious question that may be on readers’ minds: where did you get the title I Heard You Paint Cowboys?

Chris Bauer: It’s a compromise, with a significant story behind it. It’s a thriller that began the submission process with the title America is a Gun, which is the title of a poem by UK poet Brian Bilston who, at the time, wasn’t as popular as he is now. (He’s outstanding; a very visual, observational, warm poet; people should check him out. He’s been dubbed the Poet Laureate of the internet, although he might have come up with that title himself. Readers can’t believe much of what he says, but in reality they should believe all of it.) I felt the America, etc. title captured the dilemma the U.S. faces with its proliferation of guns, plus it is a majorly “in your face,” “poke the bear” kind of title, and I like poking the bear. I contacted Mr. Bilston to see if he might give me permission to include his poem in the novel. He shocked me by a) responding to me, and b) saying yes. Fast forward: my agent at the time said nope, no way, the America, etc. title is too in your face, plus she wouldn’t shop the book because the topic’s too controversial. Boo-hiss; I’m no longer her client. Then came some interest from Independent Publisher Number One, folks who have published a number of my books. They eventually also said nope, you’ll piss off half your potential readers, plus we’d rather not publish it, it’s a tad too controversial, etc. Along came Independent Publisher Number Two who said we’d love to publish it but not with that title, again, too in your face, so what else you got? The first title that popped into my head—true fact—was I Heard you Paint Cowboys. It came from having recently seen Scorsese’s megahit movie “The Irishman,” based on Charles Brandt’s NYT bestselling true crime account book titled I Heard You Paint Houses, about organized crime hitman Frank “The Irishman” Sheeran from Philly, someone who claimed he offed Jimmy Hoffa. Secondly, the paint-art aspect works (art theft is a major plotline), the cowboys aspect works (a 1916 painting by N. C. Wyeth, “Wild Bill Hickok at Cards,” is heavily featured), the Philly connection works, and it’s not a stretch that the organized crime aspect works as well, when trying to categorize the real-life relationship the gun lobby has with gun manufacturers. Even though the title changed, the “America is a Gun” poem is still in there. So I’d love it if some of Mr. Bilston’s 316,000 Facebook “friends” would check out the novel, do you hear me, Brian Bilston FB community?

OBAAT: Counsel Fungo isn’t just an unusual name; she’s an unusual character. Tell us a little about her and why she is the way she is.

CB: I introduced Counsel Fungo in Binge Killer, released 2019, a rather violent novel where she chases a terminally ill killer to a small town in upstate Pennsylvania. Fungo is her married name; she kept it after her divorce. (I like the sound of it: “fun-go,” a type of baseball bat, and I love baseball. A different enough surname that maybe readers won’t forget it.) Trivia/easter egg stuff coming, so pay attention. She has an older brother named Judge Drury, the protagonist of the novel Jane’s Baby, a political thriller of mine. Backstory is their U.S. senator father wanted them both to become lawyers and follow in his footsteps, so he named his first born Judge, his sister Counsel. Other quirks: They both have Tourette syndrome, they both entered law enforcement, both became bounty hunters, and both have working dog partners. One day they will work together. The author hasn’t found the right case for them to work on yet.

OBAAT: What inspired you to write I Heard You Paint Cowboys?

CB: A combination of things. I wrote a horrifically gruesome short story titled “Kitchen Sink” in 2013, where a marginalized character (born female, identifies as male) is caught up in a gruesome crime where its multiple victims’ funeral arrangements were handled by a restaurant’s garbage disposer. A few of my short stories, published and unpublished, have become fodder for longer pieces. Second, I was intrigued by a piece I read on the early-nineteenth-century theft of the Mona Lisa and the search for it while it was missing. Third, I wanted to address the proliferation of civilian-owned assault-style weapons in the U.S. As a fugitive recovery agent, protagonist Counsel Fungo is not against the Second Amendment; she just wants no more assault-style long guns to enter the civilian population, and she’d rather much of that existing semi-automatic population be destroyed. Fourth, there are suggestions in the novel that direct law-abiding gunowners away from the current Number One gun-lobby gunowners association, not be named here, toward more benevolent gunowner groups that might be willing to tell their legislators to change the way people can obtain guns: better background checks, address the gun show loopholes, and are anti-assault-style weapons. And one suggestion I’d really like to see take hold: have these organizations acknowledge prospective victims of mass shootings and gun violence not simply with “thoughts and prayers,” but by having a portion of their membership dues specifically earmarked for their families. The newer, nicer, fictional, gunowner group the novel showcases does all these things.

OBAAT: You have enough novels under your belt now to have a pretty good idea of what process works for you. Describe that to our readers.

CB: I like writing thrillers, crime-type novels, and I’ve written horror and paranormal. I call myself a plantser, a “pantser-planner” combo. First there’s the germ of the idea, maybe a wrong that needs to be made right (gun lobby interference), or an oddity impacting common understanding of a controversial circumstance (Roe v Wade, highlighted in Jane’s Baby: the real-life Jane Roe did have the baby she wanted to abort, something that many people hadn’t realized), or the little known world of crime scene cleaning (the Blessid Trauma Crime Scene Cleaners series: who cleans up the scene after the cops leave?). Then comes creating the characters. I like making them quirky, with unique things about them to make them interesting (at least to me). Counsel Fungo has Tourette’s. “Wump” Hozer, my beloved Catholic church custodian in Scars on the Face of God, is an ex-con who earned his nickname from the sound a crowbar makes when it hits a person’s head. Max Fend, the creation of USA Today bestselling author Andrew Watts and a protagonist in the Maximum Risk thriller series, is a benevolent billionaire “playboy” who does piece work for U.S. security agencies in exotic locales.

Second, I outline the entire story chapter by chapter, working toward a climax that I think a reader would enjoy, creating conflict, a subplot or two, and twists. I’ll do the general plot and take a multiple-twisty way to get what I hope will be a satisfying, raucous conclusion. Then I sit down and write the damn thing, shooting for anywhere from 70K-90K words, or roughly 275 to 300+ pages. I’ve written novels in as little as 4.5 months and as long as six years (my first).

OBAAT: Who, or what, do you consider to be your primary influences? Could be a writer, book, movie, TV show, director. Whatever you feel has made you the writer you are today.

CB: When asked, I always highlight one novelist first: Steve Shilstone, who penned a wonderful baseball book titled Chance, published 2000. He now writes fantasy and poetry, but the voice of his unnamed narrator in Chance entertained me immensely, and it helped me find my own. Chance contains outstanding odd characters, great dialogue, and it all plays off the crazy, unique personalities that populated organized baseball in the twentieth century. There’s also Motherless Brooklyn by Jonathan Lethem, which provided great conflict in the organized crime environment by way of an extremely quirky Tourette’s-afflicted character named Lionel Essrog. Janet Evanovich’s Stephanie Plum bounty-hunter character inspired me to write a novel about a female fugitive recovery agent; Counsel Fungo now has two books about her. Carl Hiaasen does it for me, too; excellent nutjob characters, plenty of humor. Go Carl.

OBAAT: The classic final question: What are you working on now?

CB: Working on what could be a highly controversial series that crisscrosses political satire with various genres. One feature done, more in the hopper. I’m also invested in producing a post-WWII thriller that follows a 1940s Philly police detective through his Navy enlistment, his assignment to the Pacific theater, his survival in a Japanese POW camp, then his post-war Office of Naval Intelligence work in nuclear-ravaged, Allies-occupied Japan, where he needs to solve a few violent crimes perpetrated by Allied troops. Fun.

Thanks for having me on, Dana. A pleasure reading your blog, and a pleasure being on it. Readers can find me at chrisbauerauthor.net and on Facebook (cgbauer), Instagram (cntbauer1), Twitter/X (cgbauer), Bluesky (realchrisbauer), and a tiny presence on tiktok (chrisbauerauthor101).

 

An Interview with Dietrich Kalteis, Authof of Crooked

 Dietrich Kalteis is a regular visitor to this page, with good reason. He’s a fine writer whose books are always fresh and never predictable. He’s also a good friend and always an interesting interview. His newest book is Crooked. That’s the title. The book looks like any other book. Except for the cover, which is unique to Crooked. You get the point.

One Bite at a Time: Welcome back to the blog, Dietrich. It’s always a pleasure to have you. Crooked deals with the life and crimes of notorious Depression-era bank robber Alvin Karpis. The era did not lack for notorious bank robbers. What attracted you to Karpis?

Dietrich Kalteis: Thanks for inviting me, Dana. It’s nice to be back.

When I was researching for my novel Call Down the Thunder, also set in the same era as Crooked, I came across an archived newspaper article about Karpis and the Barkers. I looked up more about them and became intrigued in the gang’s crime spree and their evasion from the law which spanned over five years, making them the longest-running criminal outfit back then. I saw there was a story waiting to be told.

OBAAT: Avoiding any spoilers, did you learn anything about Karpis that surprised you? Or about the Barkers?

DK: Alvin Karpis was smart and exceptionally good at avoiding capture. Using a number of aliases, he set up various bank accounts, had stashes and a solid network of underground connections around the country. For instance, he and the Barkers sought safe haven in St. Paul where they were under the protection of a corrupt police chief, that is as long as they committed their crimes outside of his jurisdiction. Along with Fred and Doc Barker, Karpis used an alternating cast of midwestern criminals for their crimes.

One surprise about the gang was that Kate “Ma” Barker wasn’t the brains of the outfit as portrayed in the movies Bloody Mama and Killer Brood, or as stated by J Edgar Hoover after her untimely demise. Bank robber and gang associate, Harvey Bailey once stated, "Ma Barker couldn't even plan breakfast.”

OBAAT: I know you do a lot of research for your period pieces. How much of Crooked is true, how much is fiction, and how much is conjecture?

DK: The timeline of their crimes is accurate. I did cherrypick my way through a lot of archived material, using the moments that I felt would best bring the story to life. Of course, interactions between the characters are all conjectured, and their conversations are a play on how I imagined the characters to be.

OBAAT: In recent years you’ve written several historical novels. What provoked and sustained this interest? (Full disclosure: I’ve had an itch to write one myself but the research required has put me off so far.)

DK: Significant social and political corruption along with the 1906 San Francisco earthquake made for the perfect backdrop for House of Blazes. The isolation and desperation of the Dustbowl times on the Central Plains were ideal for Call Down the Thunder. The hard times of the 30s seemed right for both Under an Outlaw Moon and Crooked. The punk music scene of the late 70s became the perfect backdrop for Zero Avenue. And the taxi wars of Chicago during prohibition formed the background for my upcoming novel Dirty Little War. For me, setting needs to add atmosphere and interest, and it’s a bonus if it helps build tension and pace as well.

OBAAT: Your dialog sounds as much like two people talking as any writer I can think of. Any tricks or suggestions you can pass along to others looking to improve?

DK: I keep a notebook with detailed descriptions of each of the characters, including detailed backgrounds, and I find images that I attribute to them. As I’m working through the early drafts, I get to know them. And as they start to flesh out and come to life, it feels like they start talking on their own. That’s when I know I’ve got it right.

OBAAT: You have enough of a catalog now for the following question to have relevance: which of your books should someone unfamiliar with your work start with if they want to get a good idea of your style to be encourage to read more? Beside Crooked, I mean. The new book is always a given.

DK: I suppose it really depends on what a reader is looking for in a story. I’ve written about bounty hunters, smugglers, gangsters, pot growers, ex-cops, punk rockers, and about relationships from hell. If a reader prefers a story with more heart I’d likely suggest Nobody from Somewhere, the story of a dying old man who rescues a runaway teen. If a story based on real events appeals to a reader, then I might offer Under an Outlaw Moon, which is based on real-life bank robbers Bennie and Stella Dickson.

 

An Interview With Chris Quarembo, Author of Killer Deals

 Chris Quarembo is an award-winning former news reporter who also worked as a speechwriter and ghostwriter for corporate executives. A member of Sisters in Crime, Killer Deals is her debut novel, accompanying multiple short stories..

 

When not reading or writing, Chris loves live theater, art museums, and travel, especially in France and Italy. She is a volunteer docent at the Barnes Foundation, an early modern art collection in Philadelphia.

 

For more information about Chris and her books, check out her website.

 

One Bite at a Time: Welcome to the blog, Chris. We met at the Malice Domestic conference last April; your novel, Killer Deals, came out in May of 2023. Has your impression of conferences changed since you became published?

 

Chris Quarembo: I found the many conferences I’ve attended fun and valuable learning experience both as a published author and an aspiring author. I’ve learned more about the craft of writing and the publishing industry than I would have any other way. And I’ve found the writing community welcoming and generous in sharing their knowledge. This community is so important because writing is a solitary craft and writers need support to keep going.

 

OBAAT: Your background is as a newspaper reporter, which is fertile ground for crime writers, most famously Micheal Connelly and David Simon. Did you cover the crime beat or did your interest and knowledge come from elsewhere?

 

CQ: I covered criminal courts, which allowed me to observe trials, guilty pleas, and hearings on legal motions. As a result, I learned a great deal about Pennsylvania criminal law and legal proceedings. In addition, I was able to interview detectives, prosecutors, defense attorneys and judges. However, I decided to write Killer Deals from the perspective of a private investigator, who enjoys more flexibility and independence than anyone in law enforcement.

 

OBAAT: You were a reporter, so this is a good question for you I can pass along to struggling writers: What do think of writer’s block? Does it even exist? If so, how do you overcome it?

 

CQ: I’m sure writer’s block does exist. However, when you’re a reporter with a daily deadline you learn to write your stories no matter what. The clock is ticking and it helps concentrate the mind. I still write every day and miss it if I don’t. My best advice is to sit at your desk or computer and write, don’t edit. Simply get words on the page and edit later. Steve Martin, a great writer as well as comedian, said that he thought he had done pretty well considering he started out with a bunch of blank paper.

 

OBAAT: Your protagonist, Andrea Fabiano, is an Italian girl from South Philly. Coincidentally, you are an Italian girl from South Philly. How much of you is in Andrea? Did you make conscious decisions which elements of yourself to include and which to change?

 

CQ: I am Italian American. Both my maternal and paternal grandparents were born in Italy and lived in South Philly. I visited them often along with my aunts, uncles and cousins. However, I didn’t live in South Philly. For the bulk of my career, I lived in Boston and New York. Beyond the ethnic and gender similarities Andrea bears little resemblance to me. I wanted to create a strong female protagonist, who has to deal with what life has thrown at her but is undeterred from living her life as she chooses.

 

OBAAT: A look through your reviews shows consistent praise for your pacing. How do you keep things moving without letting them become frantic?

 

CQ: I like to keep things moving through dialogue. One of my favorite crime novels is The Friends of Eddie Coyle, which is told entirely through dialogue. Dialogue not only keeps the story moving but also serves character development, both essential in crime fiction. In Killer Deals, the fast pace of the dialogue is balanced by Andrea’s reflections on what she’s uncovered, and her interactions with the people close to her, who are not involved in the main plot.

 

OBAAT: Is Andrea about to become the lead in a series? Either way, what’s next for you as a novelist?

 

CQ: I’m working on a new Andrea Fabiano novel. There is no firm date right now for publication but later next year is the target.

 

 

An Interview with Author, Graphic Artist, Podcaster, and General Entrepreneur Sarah Burr

 One Bite at a Time: Welcome to One Bite at a Time, Sarah. We don’t get a lot of cozy writers here. No offense to cozy writers, but my books were once described as “a cross between Justified and The Wire,” so that’s where the posts tend to fall. We’ll talk about your books specifically in a minute, but first tell us what attracts you to the cozies.

 

Sarah Burr: There’s so much to love about cozy mysteries. Not only are the settings warm and welcoming, but the people are, too. Readers can always be assured that the good guys will win in a cozy. Yet, there’s something much deeper that drew me to reading and then eventually writing cozy mysteries. Their sense of justice is really quite remarkable. You have an everyday civilian (an amateur detective) willing to put everything on the line to pursue the truth. My heroines could leave things to the authorities, but their desire to do good in the world outweighs hesitation or fear.

 

OBAAT: The Court of Mystery is a nine-book series, which is a significant undertaking. I’ve written eight Penns River procedurals, so I have an idea of what’s involved in keeping a series going that long. What is it about this universe that keeps you coming back?

 

SB: My characters are really the driving force for me to return. I love hanging out with Duchess Jacqueline and her friends as they solve mysteries. I love how her mind works and how she must approach a crime scene, given that the Court of Mystery series is set in a medieval-like fantasy world called the Realm of Virtues. I’ve created my own set of rules in this setting, and it’s been so fun to explore everything it has to offer Jax. While I plan for Book Ten to be the final story in the series arch, I do have a spinoff in the works so that Jax’s adventures can continue.

 

OBAAT: You also write the Trending Topics series of mysteries, which includes #Tag Me for Murder and #Follow Me for Murder. Please give us a feel for these stories and where you came up with Coco Cline, the protagonist.

 

SB: A podcaster once described the Trending Topic Mysteries as “Nancy Drew Meets Instagram,” and I can’t think of a more perfect summation. Influencer and blogger Coco Cline introduced herself to me several years ago, back when the cozy mystery genre was still hesitant to get involved with social media and technology. It’s hard to make the Internet as warm and welcoming as a small, storybook town. However, as a millennial, I yearned to see more of myself in the characters I was reading about, someone who viewed their phone as a resource, not a hindrance. Not long after, Coco knocked on the door of my imagination, and we’ve been fast friends ever since.

 

Coco lives in the small coastal town of Central Shores, Delaware. Beyond her popular lifestyle blog, she runs a small online marketing business. When she stumbles across a dead body in her client’s breakroom, Coco realizes she has a major PR nightmare on her hands. Can she catch a killer, or will Coco end up trending for all the wrong reasons?

 

OBAAT: You also also write the Glenmyre Whim Mysteries, Too Much to Candle and You Can’t Candle the Truth, featuring candlemaker Hazel Wickbury. Catch us up on those, please.

 

SB: This series allows me to explore my love of the paranormal. Hazel Wickbury isn’t just any old candlemaker. She can see when someone is going to die. So, when a wealthy business developer dies before he was meant to, Hazel knows there’s foul play involved. Since she can’t alert the police to her power—what her family calls a ‘whim’—Hazel teams up with her best friend/aunt, Poppy, to shine a light on a killer.

 

The Glenmyre Whim Mysteries helped me get through the isolation and uncertainty of the COVID-19 pandemic. I wanted to create a charming, happy place where I could escape, and with the help of Hazel, her friends, and the fictional town of Crucible, New York, I did. This cozy has a sparkle of magic sprinkled over it, and I have so much fun with its diverse cast of characters.

 

OBAAT: You Can’t Candle the Truth is now available as an audio book. How did that come about? Was there anything unexpected about the process of creating the spoken version?

 

SB: I first began working with the incredibly talented Melissa Green several years ago to bring the Court of Mystery series to life on audiobook. Since then, we worked together on countless projects, and the partnership we’ve developed has become truly special. I often hear Melissa’s performances in my head as I write; she really has become Jax and Hazel's voice. Also, her performances are so emotive that readers have become too attached to certain characters (me included). I’ve actually changed my decision to kill characters based on her narration.

 

 

OBAAT: Apparently writing doesn’t keep you busy enough; you’re also a graphic artist with a niche in helping to create images specifically tailored to book promotion. I’m delighted with the work you did for The Spread. Please talk a little about that business and don’t be shy about telling folks how to get a hold of you.

 

SB: I’ve always been a creative techie – I love new technology and exploring ways to make myself more productive. This has come in handy as an indie author because you’re required to create your own promotional materials. I discovered so many great applications to help me do this, and eventually, other authors took notice of my social media posts, asking me where they came from. Once I told them I had made the designs myself… well, BookstaBundles was born. Authors began asking me to create graphics for them, and soon, I realized I could help others with my passion for graphic design. I now offer various digital services, as well as bookmarks, posters, and bookplates. If you’re an author looking to post more engaging content featuring your novel, stop by www.bookstabundles.com to check out my portfolio and my offerings. (Editor’s Note: I ordered five graphics for The Spreads and wa delighted with Sarah’s work and creativity.)

 

OBAAT: You fill some of what must be copious free time with The Bookish Hour, a live-stream web series you co-host with J.C. Kenney Thursdays from 8:00 to 9:00 PM ET. The chats revolve primarily around craft, which is a topic I don’t think writers talk about enough, as too many discussions get sidetracked into the business aspects of writing. What led to this, and what are the joys and challenges of keeping it going?

 

SB: This was another venture that came about unexpectedly. J.C. Kenney is a dear friend of mine in the writing industry, and in May 2022, we both had books releasing at the same time. We wanted to host an online party where our readers could see and interact with us. So, I sat down at my computer, figured out how to livestream a Google Meet call onto YouTube, and voila! J.C. and I had a fabulous time chatting about our books and writing process, and our viewers joined in the fun, too.

 

After the livestream wrapped, we received several emails from our author pals, asking if they could come on “our show” and chat about their books. With that, The Bookish Hour became a twice-a-month web series, and we’re now booking into 2025. Our biggest challenge is accommodating all the requests we have! To do so, we’ve started a companion show, A Bookish Moment, that allows for much more flexible scheduling. If you have an upcoming release and would like to swing by and talk with us, you can read what we’re about at www.itsbookishtime.com.

 

OBAAT: Based on what we talked about already, I know you’re working on something now. What’s next for the readers to look forward to?

 

SB: I have yet another cozy mystery series in the works! I am busy with revisions for Book One in the Book Blogger Mysteries, which features…you guessed it, a book blogger.

 

Over My Dead Blog releases later this year, and I cannot wait for readers to meet Arwen “Winnie” Lark, her brother Strider, and the folks of Copper Bay, Massachusetts. Interested readers can always learn more about me and what’s happening in my writing world at www.saraheburr.com or by signing up for my newsletter, https://bit.ly/saraheburrsignup.

 

 

Hugh Lessig, Author of Fadeaway Joe

 Hugh Lessig spent more than 30 years as an award-winning newspaper reporter, covering everything from city council meetings to the earthquake in Haiti. Along the way, he’s met people at the highs and lows of life, interviewed accused murderers and governors, welders and lawyers, and old men who fought our nation’s wars. Born in eastern Pennsylvania, he moved to Hampton Roads, Virginia in 1997.

 

Hugh’s short stories have appeared in Thuglit, Shotgun Honey, Crime Factory and Needle, as well as the following anthologies: Mickey Finn 21st Century Noir, Volumes I and II; Groovy Gumshoes: Private Eyes in the Psychedelic Sixties and Guns & Tacos. Fadeaway Joe is his first novel.

 

One Bite at a Time: Welcome to One Bite at a Time, Hugh. This is your first visit, so I’ll be gentle. Your new book, Fadeaway Joe, drops August 22 from Crooked Lane. Tell us a little about the book.

 

Hugh Lessig: First off, thanks for being gentle. I am a fellow Pennsylvanian, after all.

 

The central character of Fadeaway Joe is Joe Pendergast, an aging bouncer and tough guy. He works for a small-time loan shark and gambling ring operator. But when Joe is diagnosed with early-stage dementia, his boss abandons him. Now Joe wants revenge, conscious of the clock ticking inside his head.

 

His plans are complicated through a chance meeting with Paula Jessup, a 22-year-old wisecracker on the run from labor traffickers. She’s freed a woman from the traffickers’ grip and needs protection, the kind that Joe can provide. Even with his diagnosis, Joe is not someone to mess with.

 

Meanwhile, Joe is having a hard time devising a revenge strategy, other than “beat my old boss to death before I end up in a nursing home.” Not much of a plan. Paula has ton of street smarts and she’s devious. She helps Joe concoct a scheme to financially ruin his boss, which will hurt more than a right cross. They end up depending on each other.

 

As the story progresses, Joe finds himself worrying more about Paula’s fortunes than his own. He’s looking back at the choices he’s made. Maybe putting Paula on a path to success is more important than exacting his pound of flesh.

 

 

OBAAT: Joe Pendergast finds himself in an interesting situation. Give us a little insight into Joe and how things got this way.

 

HL: Joe is in his mid-60s. He has spent all his adult life working for his boss, Maxie Smith, a man he considers an older brother. The two go back to Joe’s childhood days, when Joe worked in his parents’ cut-rate store and Maxie came in, flashing cash and telling Joe to keep the change. Over the years, Joe has worked the door at Maxie’s bar, fetched his dry cleaning, mixed his martinis, and collected his debts. He’s beaten men. He’s killed. All for Maxie.

 

But then Joe began screwing up. He missed assignments and his collections didn’t square with what is owed. Maxie accused Joe of skimming and the two men brawl. There’s nothing quite like two tough-as-nails old men going at it with haymakers. Joe ends up in the hospital with a concussion, and tests reveal further problems that lead to the diagnosis of early-stage dementia.

 

As the story opens, Joe has been banished from Maxie’s operation and he’s moved back to his old neighborhood. He’s eking out a living by running a food truck.

 

OBAAT: Paula Jessup is an unorthodox sidekick. What’s her deal? Is she more of a help or a hindrance to Joe?

 

HL: At the outset, she’s a pain in the ass. Paula fancies herself a detective, which gets her in trouble. I can’t say exactly how she hooks up with Joe Pendergast, because it would give away a key point, but it comes after a bloody act on Paula’s part.

 

She’s also homeless, living in a vintage 1975 Chevy Nova. She is oddly fascinated by Joe’s penchant for casual violence and throws herself into developing his revenge plan. Her philosophy: Killing someone is easy. Ruining them, that’s hard.

 

Another thing: Paula is biracial and sports a Mohawk. Joe is a grumpy old white guy who never had kids and whose father was Klan. They have a few things to work through.

 

OBAAT: You’ve been around for a while as a short story writer. What made you decide to write a novel?

 

HL: The guardrails of a short story give me comfort. It requires economy and conciseness. Fadeaway Joe started as a piece of flash fiction in Shotgun Honey – different characters and settings, but a similar idea of cross-generational relationships in a criminal landscape. Honestly, the idea just kept expanding and I wanted to try it. (I’ve written two novels that ended up in the drawer before this one, including a science fiction novel.  So, I’m batting .333.)

 

OBAAT: Who do you consider to be your primary creative influences? Authors, books, movies, TV, whatever.

 

HL: For authors, I love the rural noir of David Joy and Daniel Woodrell. I enjoy stories set in the country or in small towns, maybe because I grew up in a tiny Slate Belt town in Pennsylvania. (Think coal town, but with slate quarries.) Elmore Leonard of course. I still love the old Black Mask Boys – Dashiell Hammet, Raymond Chandler, Frederick Nebel, Norbert Davis, and others. Those guys wrote to the end of the scene, then started another.

 

Currently, I’m holding high Eli Cranor, Rachel Howzell Hall, and Adrian McKinty. S.A. Cosby holds a special place. He lives about 45 minutes up the road from me in Virginia, and I interviewed him in 2018 for “My Darkest Prayer” when I was still a newspaper reporter.

 

OBAAT: Authors shopping their first book always want to know this, so how did you get hooked up with Crooked Lane?

 

HL: I wish I had a dramatic story to tell. I looked up the agents who attended Thrillerfest because I knew they were open for submissions. The list included Sara Henry, an editor at Crooked Lane. I sent a query letter to that group, tailored for agents. (“I am seeking representation for . . .”)  I really should have changed the opening line for her. But she picked that letter off the slush pile, loved it and the rest is history. She deserves a big thank-you for helping to get the story into shape.

 

OBAAT: The standard closing question: What’s next?

 

HL: It’s back to short stories for the near future. I have a story included in an anthology of private eye tales set during Prohibition. Watch for “Prohibition Peepers” in September from Down & Out Books. I also have a novella included in an upcoming series from Down & Out where every story is centered around a chop shop in Dallas. The series is called Chop Shop and my story is titled “Hunka, Hunka Burning Rubber. It features a car thief who steals a vintage Stutz from the parking lot at an Elvis Presley tribute convention.

 

 

An Interview with Jeffrey James Higgins

 Jeffrey James Higgins has been a journalist, deputy sheriff, federal agent, writer of both fiction and non-fiction, and a restauranteur. In his copious free time he appears at conference and readings, as well as organizing writer’s events at the restaurant he and his wife operate, Elaine’s. (More on that later.) I have served on conference panels with Jeff and had drinks with him, so I speak from experience when I say he’s not only smart and articulate, but a hell of a nice guy who has that too-rare ability to make you feel like he's glad to see you, as in “you personally as opposed to anyone else.” It was a treat to get to talk with him for the blog.

 

One Bite at a Time: Jeffrey, welcome to One Bite at a Time. To say you’ve been around is putting it mildly. Please give us a capsule description of what you did before you got into writing fiction.

Jeffrey James Higgins: Thanks for having me as a guest. I’m a big fan of your work, and I always enjoy chatting with you at conferences. It’s an honor to be interviewed and to share my work with your readers.

 

I always wanted to be an author, but after working as both a newspaper reporter and editor, I took a 25-year detour into law enforcement. As a deputy sheriff, I worked in patrol, auto theft, street crimes, and the organized crime bureau. As a DEA special agent, I investigated transnational criminal groups in New York, but that changed on 9/11 when I was first to arrive at the WTC’s north tower after it collapsed. Standing in the rubble, I vowed I’d find a way to hunt terrorists. I accepted temporary assignments on the Joint Terrorism Task Force and as a liaison at the Department of Homeland Security. When DEA’s nascent Kabul Country Office opened, I became assistant country attaché and led Afghan police on operations. As a member of FAST, DEA’s international tactical team, I fought in combat with special forces and made the first narco-terrorism arrest. I spent years chasing terrorists around the world with the Special Operations Division’s Narco-Terrorism Group. I was fortunate to have the opportunity to serve my country.

 

OBAAT: Your books are all standalones that cover a wide range of topics:

• Furious: Sailing into Terror. Civilian protagonists hoping to assuage the grief over their daughter’s death by sailing across the Indian Ocean, only to find trouble there.
• Forsaken: A Novella. An Army medic presumed dead and left behind the lines in Afghanistan.
• Unseen: Evil Lurks Among Us. Political thriller.
• The Interrogation. (Long Story) Two Florida sheriff’s deputies in a drug-related homicide investigation.

How did your prior experience affect the creation and development of these books?

JJH: Personal experience influences the work of every writer because we view the world through lenses colored by the past. I’ve traveled to over 50 countries and fought for my life dozens of times, and I used those experiences to infuse my work with gritty realism. My published work and upcoming novels are all grounded in personal and professional experience. I understand how agents and cops behave, which tools they use to target criminals, and what it feels like to have bullets and RPGs fly over my head. All that makes my characters and plots more authentic.

 

OBAAT: How much of what you saw or did in your previous professional life is in these books?

JJH: My novella, Forsaken, is set in eastern Afghanistan where I spent years hunting terrorists. My protagonist is also a medic, which was my collateral duty, so the story is realistic. My protagonist in Unseen is a detective, and in two soon-to-be-published manuscripts, my protagonists are federal agents, so all of those are also rooted in my professional experience. I chased terrorists and criminals through many of the countries where I set my novels. The opening scenes in my thriller, The Forever Game, is loosely based on one of my real-life missions. That book comes out on February 29, 2024, which is a cool launch date. Even my books not involving crime or war have personal elements embedded in them, like blue-water sailing in Furious. 

 

OBAAT: You’re retired now, but did any of your books require vetting by the security agencies before publication?

JJH: The short answer is no. I’ve written one nonfiction book about the first narco-terrorism case, and I’m considering another book with true cop stories, but I mostly write fiction. When I describe the military or intelligence agencies in my books, I stay away from classified material, and I reveal nothing that would harm national security. I wanted to be a writer all my life, but during 25 years in law enforcement, the government prohibited me from publishing. Now that I’m retired, I appreciate my freedom to tell stories.

 

OBAAT: Apparently writing didn’t keep you busy enough, so you and your wife have opened a restaurant in Alexandria, VA. Tell us about Elaine’s.

JJH: Thank you for asking about it. Elaine’s serves modern Mediterranean cuisine, which is Middle Eastern with French, Greek, and Italian influences. Elaine’s offers semi-fine dining at 208 Queen Street, Alexandria, VA, one block from the Potomac River in the heart of Old Town’s Historic District. My wife, Cynthia, is a terrorism expert and an author, but she grew up in a restaurant. When she was 12 years old, she promised her grandmother she would own a restaurant and name it after her. Opening Elaine’s was one of Cynthia’s dreams, and though it took a while, she did it. Check out the beautiful decor and food at Elaines-Restaurant.com.

 

OBAAT: You hope for Elaine’s to become more than a restaurant, especially for the writing community. What are your plans there?

JJH: Elaine’s is fast becoming the literary hub for the Washington, DC area. We offer free space to authors for book launches, interviews, signings, and readings. We also host several writing groups and will soon launch other literary events like Noir at the Bar and a monthly happy hour for mystery and thriller writers. My wife and I understand how hard it can be for new and mid-list authors to find venues to celebrate their books, so we’ve made Elaine’s a home for all writers. Authors can email me at jeffrey@jeffreyjameshiggins.com to discuss scheduling an event.

 

OBAAT: What’s next on your writing agenda as things calm down after getting Elaine’s up and running?

JJH: My wife oversees Elaine’s, and I only run the literary events, which frees me up to write novels. I recently signed with a new literary agent, Jackson Keeler at Inkworks, and we’re working on a trilogy with an eye on Hollywood. I have two novels coming out with different publishers in 2024. The Forever Game is a techno-thriller and Shaking is a murder mystery. Once they’re available, I’ll post links to them on my website (JeffreyJamesHiggins.com). I also have a psychological suspense novel on submission, and I’m editing two new thrillers. My goal is to publish at least two books each year.    

 

An Interview With Reed Farrel Coleman, Author of Sleepless City

Reed Farrel Coleman has won more awards than Tom Brady. (See below.)  Called a hard-boiled poet by NPR's Maureen Corrigan and the "noir poet laureate" in the Huffington Post, Reed is the New York Times bestselling author of thirty-two novels including six in the Jesse Stone series for the late Robert B. Parker. He is a four-time recipient of the Shamus Award for Best PI Novel of the Year and a four-time Edgar Award nominee in three different categories. Reed has also received the Audie, Scribe, Macavity, Barry, and Anthony Awards. His latest novel, Sleepless City, will be published July 11 by Blackstone Publishing. He lives with his wife on Long Island, and it’s a real treat to have him on the blog.

 

One Bite at a Time: Reed, we’ve known each other quite a while, but this is the first time I’ve had

you on the blog. Welcome, and thanks for stopping by. Your new book, Sleepless City, drops July 11 from Blackstone. Tell us a little about it.

Reed Farrel Coleman: Thanks for having me, Dana. Ooh, “tell us a little bit about it.” Danger, Will Robinson!!!! That’s a trap for an author. Over the years I’ve found it best not to directly fall into that trap. I hope my answers to your other questions give the people reading this a better sense of the novel than I could with some pithy or longwinded response.

 

OBAAT: You’re best known for your Moe Prager books, though I like the Gus Murphys at least as much. How is Nick Ryan different from either Moe or Gus?

RFC: Nick is different from them in ways both latent and manifest. Neither Moe nor Gus ever made detective. Both spent their careers in uniform. So, when it came time, either out of choice or circumstance, to try their hands at PI work, they were ill-prepared for the task. Competent as they were at their jobs in uniform, they stumbled around as detectives, making all manner of missteps and mistakes. Nick on the other hand, is still on the job. Unlike Moe and Gus, he’s a detective and a damned good one. He’s superb at UC (undercover) work. The best on the NYPD. Furthermore, Nick, having spent two tours in Afghanistan, has a different sense of right, wrong, and justice from Gus and Moe. Nick is not afraid to act alone and to take matters into his own hands. Whereas Moe and Gus were stumbling about, Nick is a natural leader of men. He’s younger than Gus and Moe and he’s unattached. Well, at least he thinks he is. But when it comes to heart and protecting the lost and less fortunate, he’s not unlike them at all.   

 

OBAAT: Sleepless City is a departure for you. While it still has the same moral dilemmas that made your other books so compelling, Prager and Murphy often had to find ways to work with, or around, the system; Ryan has the juice to bend the system to his will when necessary. What sent you in that direction?

RFC: It grew out of a discussion with my agent, Shane Salerno. Shane, a famous screenwriter in his own right, and I were kicking around the idea of a different kind of protagonist. One who could both work within the system and outside the system. One who had the full power of the system behind him when he needed it, but who could still be a lone wolf when the situation called for it. You alluded to Moe Prager and Gus Murphy in your question. I loved writing those guys, but as I stated in my previous answer, they were both stumblers, sometimes barely able to tread water, guys almost always in over their heads. In Nick, I finally got the chance to write someone who wasn’t afraid to swim with the sharks, a character whom the sharks themselves might fear. It was a revelation to me to write a competent character, but one who still has the interest of the little guy at heart. That’s why the book works, I think. Nick may draw outside the lines, but he never forgets who’s important.

 

OBAAT: You’ve been called the “noir poet laureate” with good cause. While Sleepless City does not lack hard-boiled poetry, I sensed more of an edge to the writing than typical in your work. Was that deliberate for this book/series? Or is your style evolving in this direction?

RFC: I hope I never stop evolving as a writer and I hope I never stop being inspired and influenced by other writers. It’s impossible for me to state the importance or how much I have learned by reading other authors’ work. As to Sleepless City, I did make a conscious decision to be a bit more plot driven and action oriented. One of my early readers called Nick Ryan the love child of WB Yeats and John Wick. I think that sums it up perfectly. One of the challenges of taking this on was to see if I could write a Jack Reacher-ish novel and still maintain that lyrical quality of my style. Lee Child once said to me that if I left three words out of all my sentences, I’d be a bigger seller. He said it with a smile. I understood what he meant, but I write how I write.

         More importantly, I wrote a portion of this novel during the pandemic and in the aftermath of George Floyd’s death. Anyone reading Sleepless City will immediately recognize the influence outside events had on my work. I usually try to shut out the world when I’m working on a novel because the only world I want to think about is the one in my head, the one I’m creating. Only here that was impossible. During that period it seemed the entire world was all sharp edges and moral dilemmas. How could I ignore it?       

 

OBAAT: I mentioned earlier that you were best known for the Moe Prager books, as the list of awards and nominations earned by that series attests. In fact, you may well be better known to the general public for carrying on Robert B. Parker’s Jesse Stone series. As self-assured as your writing always reads, what was it like to have to write in someone else’s universe?

RFC: I love answering this question. To do what I did with Jesse Stone or what Ace Atkins did with Spenser, you have to do two things: find a way into someone else’s character, and, more importantly, find a way to make that character your own. My way into Jesse Stone was through struggle and disappointment. Jesse struggles with alcohol. We all struggle, some of us with weight, some with drugs, some with our emotions, our relationships. But struggle is a common and unifying human quality. So, it was easy for me to relate to Jesse’s struggles, though I’m not an alcoholic. Jesse was also one phone call away from being the starting shortstop for the Dodgers. But he hurt his shoulder in a meaningless exhibition game. Talk about disappointment! Again, like struggling, who hasn’t dealt with big disappointments in life? Who doesn’t carry around those “What if …” questions with them? It took me three books until I really felt as if Jesse were my character. Although I’d gotten inside him, it took a few books to feel as comfortable with him as a character as say, Moe or Gus.  

 

OBAAT: You’ve said your greatest influencer was your college poetry professor, David Lehman, in part for helping you to learn how to self-edit. Please talk a little about that. (Full disclosure: My first agent, the late Pam Strickler, did the same for me. I use her lessons every day, so it’s a topic, and skill, near and dear to me.)

RFC: Writing and reading poetry are perhaps the best teachers for future prose writers. Poetry teaches you several important lessons: economy, rhythm, power of language. Poets sweat each word that goes on the page. I have often wondered how many drafts it took William Carlos Williams to write “The Red Wheelbarrow”, a sixteen-word poem or how many drafts it took Ezra Pound to write “In a Station of the Metro”, a six-word title for a two line, fourteen-word poem. On the other hand, “Prufrock” was once almost twice as long as the version we all know. The most important thing David taught us was to think of ourselves as writers. He had us take an oath that from that day forward, regardless of what we did to earn a living, we would always think of ourselves as writers. When many years later I went to a book signing of David’s, he said he had totally forgotten the whole oath thing. 

 

OBAAT: What’s next for you?

RFC: I’ve already written Nick Ryan #2, Blind to Midnight. And the pandemic has given me ample time to complete Gus Murphy #3, All Buried Things and two other standalone novels. Where Gus and the other stuff gets published is yet to be determined.

  

An Interview With James D. F. Hannah, Author of Because the Night

James D.F. Hannah is the Shamus Award-winning author of the Henry Malone series of private investigator novels, among other things. His story "No Man's Land" was selected for Best American Mystery and Suspense 2022, edited by Steph Cha and Jess Walter. Other short fiction has appeared in Playing Games, edited by Lawrence Block; Under the Thumb: Stories of Police Oppression, edited by S.A. Cosby; Trouble No More; Rock and a Hard Place; Shotgun Honey; Crossing Genres; and The Anthology of Appalachian Writers.

 

He lives in Louisville, where the bourbon he hasn’t drunk yet is.

 

One Bite at a Time: Your upcoming Henry Malone novel, Because the Night, drops June 19 from Down & Out Books. I’ve seen an ARC and it’s likely to get another Shamus nomination. What’s it about?

James D.F. Hannah: Because the Night follows up the events of the previous Malone novel, Behind the Wall of Sleep, where Henry was offered a chance to run for sheriff by Wallace “Bada” Bingham, owner of the local strip club, The Cherry Bomb. While he’s in the midst of the campaign, he’s asked by a pregnant woman at an AA meeting if he’ll look for her boyfriend, an ex-con who’s gone missing. Henry finds out his missing person case overlaps with a homicide being investigated by Jackie Hall, a state police lieutenant and probably the last trooper in the state who still likes Henry. In the course of the investigation, Jackie’s nearly killed, and Henry goes seeking revenge. He gets caught in a series of betrayals where friends become enemies and he finds himself part of an unlikely alliance in an effort to catch the man who shot Jackie and to bring down a criminal empire.

 

OBAAT: A lot of books put me off because the protagonist consistently makes wrong decisions just to raise the stakes. Henry Malone makes as many unfortunate decisions as anyone, yet you manage to ground them in such a manner that I can always understand why he did it, even while recognizing this is likely to break bad for him. How do you keep from falling into the trap so many others do?

JDFH: I’ve joked that the Malone books are a series of Pinocchio stories, where the goal is for Henry to grow up and become a real man. Part of that growth is making mistakes. I’m obviously a huge fan of Robert B. Parker and the Spenser novels, but during the series, Spenser eventually became infallible. He was always the smartest, strongest, toughest guy. Thus, he had no growth; there was nowhere for him to go. For Henry to stay interesting for me, and I hope for the reader, he’s got to keep growing as a character, and in that comes making mistakes, but also in the pursuit of him doing the best he can. That’s always Henry’s goal, to be a better person, typically in spite of himself.

 

OBAAT: Henry Malone is a former West Virginia state trooper and a recovering alcoholic with a bad knee and nine fingers, yet I, who was none of the above, feel empathy for him, never sympathy. I know it’s no accident, but how do you pull that off?

JDFH: Henry’s not really in that Raymond Chandler model of “down these mean streets a man must go who is not himself mean, who is neither tarnished nor afraid.” He’s very often an asshole, and he has a complicated series of relationships, ranging from Billy, his father, to Lily, his girlfriend, to Woody, his AA sponsor. Plus, Henry is a character of scale. He’s not Reacher or Jack Ryan—the guy you call to find a missing nuclear device and returns as a blank slate in the next book. When Henry finds himself in circumstances which require violence, he doesn’t become Rambo. He ends up damaged by these experiences, and they become part of his personal history, and they affect how he reacts to the world.

 

OBAAT: Why are the Malone stories set in West Virginia? Why not Kentucky or western Virginia or North Carolina or eastern Tennessee?

JDFH: Honestly, it was born out of necessity. I spent most of my first 40-plus years living in eastern Kentucky or southern West Virginia, with 16 years straight in the latter. I’d spent years trying to write a crime novel with no luck, because I thought they had to be set in a big city, and my metropolitan experience was, to be blunt, limited. So when it came time to start writing what became Midnight Lullaby, the first Malone novel, I decided I’d take the tropes I loved from PI fiction and just transplant them into West Virginia. And while I don’t live in West Virginia any longer, so much of it is just ingrained in me, and it’s easy to fall back into the rhythm of that storytelling and that environment.

 

OBAAT: Woody is not the typical psycho sidekick. He’s also a recovering alcoholic – Henry’s sponsor, in fact – and the voice of reason, right up until he dips into his substantial store of armaments and opens vats on whoop-ass on bad guys. What’s his backstory?

JDFH: Man, I wish I knew that myself. Woody started out as a one- or two-scene character in Midnight Lullaby, and the further I got into the book, the more I realized Henry needed someone to play off of, and Woody became an increasingly important character in the book. The benevolent sociopath is pretty stock in PI fiction since Parker introduced Hawk in Promised Land—you’ve got Robert Crais and Joe Pike, Walter Mosely and Mouse, S.A. Cosby and Skunk—but I wanted Woody to also function as a Jiminy Cricket (again with the Pinocchio references) who can be funny and earnest and balance against Henry’s abundance of bad ideas while also providing both a strong arm and those aforementioned armaments when needed. But outside of an anecdote he shares at the end of Complicated Shadows, Woody hasn’t offered much backstory, and I’m content with him staying mysterious. I’m sure at some point his past will come calling, and I’ll probably be as surprised as anyone.

 

OBAAT: Henry has two primary female influences in his life. Lily Wilder, the local high school principal; and Charlotte “Crash” Landing, the current sheriff, who he is running against for the office. Both are outstanding characters. (I confess to having a mini-crush on Crash, maybe because she is unattainable.) Both serve important roles in the story, yet neither reads like a character created to fill a role. Tell us a little about them.

JDFH: When I decided to give Henry a steady romantic relationship—the dating pool in Parker County is fairly small—I didn’t want that character to be Susan, Spenser’s partner, who became so perfect after a certain point that I dreaded when Parker would describe how slowly she ate. Lily couldn’t be around just to affirm Henry and his decisions, or to tell him how great he is, but she could tell him she loves him—the way a real partner would. She has her own interior life and her own opinions and no problem whatsoever in saying when Henry’s being an idiot.

Crash showed up in a non-Malone book, The Righteous Path, and I loved writing her. Since she became the acting sheriff at the end of that book, it made sense for her to play a role in these most recent Malone novels. She’s young, she’s smart, she’s grounded, and she’s very good at her job. She’s a wonderful contrast to Henry, and the dialogue exchanges between them are some of the most fun ones in the book.

 

OBAAT: What’s next?

JDFH: Right now I’m working on a standalone novel set during the week of the 1976 bicentennial. There’s a first draft completed, with a lot of revisions planned. I’m also hoping to explore Crash a little more in—fingers crossed—a series of short stories; we’ll see how that goes.

An Interview With Bill Rapp, Author of A Turkish Triangle

 Bill Rapp holds degrees from Notre Dame (B.A.), The University of Toronto (M.A.) and Vanderbilt (Ph. D.) and began his professional life teaching European History at Iowa State University. His 35 years U. S. Government service has taken him around the world, including to Berlin as the Wall fell.  Bill Rapp’s books include the mystery novels Angel in Black, A Pale Rain,  Burning Altars, Berlin Breakdown, Tears of Innocence, and The Hapsburg Variation.

 

Bill is a member of The Mystery Writers of America, International Thriller Writers, and The International Association of Crime Writers.

 

One Bite at a Time: Hi, Bill. Welcome to the blog. We’ve been friends for quite a while now thanks to the Creatures, Crimes, and Creativity conference, so it’s great to get you here. Your new book (released May 9 from Coffeetown Press) is A Turkish Triangle. What’s the quick description?

 

Bill Rapp: Hi, Dana, and first of all, thanks for inviting me to participate in your blog.  We have known each other for a while, and it sounds like you have a fascinating venue here.  As for A Turkish Triangle, this adventure finds Karl Baier in Turkey during the height of the Cuban missile crisis.  He’s been sent there to investigate the sudden deaths of three Soviet assets, whom the Agency has been running in Turkey.  While looking into the deaths, Baier comes to realize that the passing of the three assets is not the end of the story, something most would assume to be the case.  The Soviets discovered their betrayal and—as was often the case with the Soviets—the three men were eliminated.  Baier realizes that the story doesn’t end there, that this is actually a part of a longer and more ambitious scheme that goes well beyond the loss of three agents.  In fact, it is part of a broader scheme involving a number of Soviets, Turks, and even some Americans that could undermine not only the US position on the Cuban missiles, but also the US position in the Middle East and Europe.

 

OBAAT: Karl Baier has more going on than just being a CIA agent. What’s his backstory?

BR: Karl Baier comes from a family of German-Americans, his parents having fled Nazi Germany in the 1930s.  They were active in the Social Democratic Party in Germany, something that landed many in the concentration camps with a host of others.  Baier has retained his sense of a strong German heritage, but he is also fully committed to the United States and its postwar role in the world.  That’s what brought him to the CIA.  Like many educated Americans, his focus overseas has been on Europe—and Germany, of course—but he is also learning that he has to become familiar with a world and his nation’s responsibilities well beyond the good old world of the European continent.  It is the front line in the Cold War, but plenty of other challenges are emerging.

 

OBAAT: This is going to sound odd, but as a child of the Cold War, I think of it as the golden age of espionage. You and I are about the same age, which means the events you write of generally took place when we were too young to pay much notice to such things. What attracts you to this period and these stories?

BR: Ah, this is where my training in and love for history comes in.  Finding the settings for these novels in some of the high points of the Cold War allows me to combine two of my passions—history and intelligence—into a single series.  But beyond that it is also a time of growth and learning for the United States and the CIA.  We had to learn and grow into our new responsibilities and leadership as a nation, but also as an agency, an evolution that was not without its share of mistakes.  Unfortunately.

 

OBAAT: How much of what’s in A Turkish Triangle – all your books, for that matter - is drawn from actual events?

BR: Well, the three deaths is certainly fictional.  But the Cuban missile crisis is not, of course.  And I tried to tie the events in the story to developments in that crisis, especially near the end when Baier and a KGB officer discuss the near miss at a nuclear war.  That really happened.  The other aspect that one could say is drawn from actual evets is the manner and outlook of Baier and many of his colleagues.  I try to give an authenticity to these stories based on what I perceived to be an Agency culture, its standards and challenges, and the strong espirit d’corps.  (I think my French is correct there.)

 

OBAAT: Who are your major influences as a writer?

BR: That’s actually a pretty long list, and it probably looks pretty eclectic to most.  I guess you could start with Henry James and Joseph Conrad, then move on to F. Scott Fitzgerald and Earnest Hemingway.  More recently, I would point to Eric Ambler, Charles McCarry, Raymond Chandler, and Ross MacDonald.  They all brought something unique and gifted to their prose and storytelling, which I found essential when searching for my own voice.

 

OBAAT: You started out writing private eye fiction, a genre near and dear to my heart. What appeals to you about PI stories?

BR: You know, I started reading detective fiction when I was in grad school and looking for something to read other than history books.  That’s when I discovered Chandler and MacDonald.  I can’t count the number of times I’ve recommended Chandler’s “The Simple Art of Murder” or passages from MacDonald’s Lew Archer series to an aspiring writer.  I think that genre, when it reaches those heights is as literary as any other “serious” fiction.  At times, more so.  Eventually, I hope to get back to my Bill Habermann series, especially now that I’m back home in the Chicago area, where he worked.

 

OBAAT: What are you working on now?

BR: I figured it was about time for Karl Baier to do his tour in Vietnam.  In 1963/64 when I sent him there, it was our biggest deployment, at least until Iraq.  He would have been expected to do his part.  The challenge, of course, is to find a way to introduce some plausible skepticism into his mission without the benefit of hindsight that I have as an author.  But he will definitely sour on where US policy is going as we “Americanized” that war.  A major benefit I have, though, is that some of the academic studies on that war point to the skeptical and accurate CIA reporting and analysis about our predicament and the future prospects (or lack thereof) for our increasingly myopic and militarized course.  That gives me more to play with.