The Crime Cafe

Debbi Mack interviews crime writer Matt Coyle on the Crime Cafe podcast.

Check out the show notes below. Or, if you’re in a rush, click here to download the transcript!

Debbi: [00:00:13] Hi everyone. This is the Crime Cafe, your podcasting source of great crime, suspense, and thriller writing. I'm your host Debbi Mack. Before I bring on my guest, I'll just remind you that the Crime Cafe has two e-books for sale: the nine book boxed set and the short story anthology. You can find the buy links for both on my Web site debbimack[dot]com under the "Crime Cafe" link. You can also get a free copy of either book if you become a Patreon supporter. You'll get that and much more if you support the podcast on Patreon. Along with our eternal gratitude for doing so.

[00:01:02] Hi everyone. Today our guest is the author of the bestselling Rick Cahill crime novels. His books have all either been chosen as finalists or won various awards including the Anthony for Best First Novel. It's my pleasure to introduce our guest Matt Coyle. Hi Matt. Thanks for being here today.

Matt: [00:01:25] Thanks for having me.

Debbi: [00:01:26] Well, how is San Diego?

Matt: [00:01:28] It is a beautiful day today. It really is.

Debbi: [00:01:31] Oh God.

Matt: [00:01:33] It's exactly the kind of day people think about what they think of San Diego.

Debbi: [00:01:36] Yeah. I love San Diego. Such a wonderful city and the weather is fantastic. So tell us about Rick Cahill. Who is he and what's his story?

Matt: [00:01:51] Well, when the first book opens, which is Yesterday's Echo which came out 2013, it's been about eight years for Rick since his wife was murdered. He was a police officer on the Santa Barbara Police Department, arrested for his wife's murder, but never tried. He was released but never exonerated.

[00:02:13] So he was kicked off the force eventually and he moved back to his hometown of San Diego, went to work in a restaurant kind of behind the scenes and eventually worked his way up to manager. We had to be more out in front because when he was arrested for his wife's murder, obviously the press was all over him. There was a 48 Hours episode on it, on her murder, which made him look like he was guilty. So he had all that baggage since his wife's death. Now, in the first book, he's managing a restaurant, helps a woman in peril. Now in Book Five, which is Wrong Light he's been a private investigator for five years. And a radio station has hired him to try to find out the person who's calling himself Pluto, who this person is, and why he's harassing their breakaway talk radio star Naomi Hendrix, and bad things ensue.

Debbi: [00:03:20] Uh huh. So in the bio that you wrote with your guest post, you credited Raymond Chandler with inspiring you to write crime fiction. What was it about his writing that inspired you?

Matt: [00:03:34] You know I read him very young. My father gave me The Simple Art of Murder when I was ... I think I was 12 to 13, 14. Somewhere around there. And of course I read the short stories in the book and I read his thesis on writing detective fiction. I just liked the idea of someone living by their own code. He was a man of honor, but he had his own code. I always see the private eye as kind of a gunfighter who rides into town alone and has to deal with sometimes competing forces, and all he has is his honor and his code. And Rick's very much that person. He actually lives by the credo handed down to him by his father who was a disgraced cop before him, which is sometimes you have to do what's right, even when the law says it's wrong. And with each book, Rick takes that more and more extreme.

"I always see the private eye as kind of a gunfighter who rides into town alone and has to deal with sometimes competing forces, and all he has is his honor and his code."

Debbi: [00:04:21] There's almost a Dirty Harry-ish side to that sort of philosophy. Do you sort of get some kind of inspiration from that kind of story?

Matt: [00:04:38] Course I loved all the Dirty Harry movies. But I think that when you live by this kind of code, you have to be careful, because as the books go on Rick does start to question his own sense of what is right and wrong. Because I think that that's how all despots start really. You know, I'm here to help people. I'm doing it my way. It's my way or the highway. When they get too much power, obviously things go very wrong. So it's something he has to be very careful of. He doesn't have the law enforcement behind him like Dirty Harry. In fact, often he's at loggerheads with the law, because obviously when you hire a private investigator, it's because the police haven't handled your problem. I'm very much a law and order guy. My brother-in-law was a cop in L.A. for 33 years. His son's a police officer there. Now it's probably been 14 years. But of course, when you're writing fiction and there's a PI, there has to be a reason for him to take the case. Generally, it means the police ignored something.

Debbi: [00:05:49] Let's see. Has your protagonist changed over the course of the series? And, if so, in what ways?

Matt: [00:05:56] Yeah he has. In the first book, he was kind of trying to find himself. He'd gone back to his restaurant roots, as I said earlier, but he was out of the spotlight. And he met a woman who all of a sudden needed help. He was kind of forced back into more of a confrontational mode. So with each book, he's gotten a little more secure in his own skin, if you like, which is not always a good thing for him, because he does live by that code. So I think his arc has become ... his whole life now since his wife was murdered, it's a quest for redemption. You have to read the first book to find out whether he killed her or not. But he was arrested for her murder and whether he did or not he feels responsible for her death. So he's on this journey to try to gain redemption and through five books. I just turned in Book Six. I think people looking from the outside might think it's OK, Rick, you're redeemed, but internally I don't know if he's ever going to get there. So with this sense of redemption and to find the truth, he sometimes makes bad decisions that actually hurt the people he's trying to help.

Debbi: [00:07:21] So morally complex and complicated from an emotional standpoint as well. Have you ever thought of writing another series or a standalone?

Matt: [00:07:35] Yeah, I have. I don't really have an idea. Like I said, I just turned in Book Six I'm in discussions with my publisher about seven and how many more to go. I mean I love writing Rick. Most people know in the book business know it's hard to make money and I'm trying to find a way to make more money. So that might mean I have to write a standalone and go to a different publisher, maybe, which my publisher is aware of. They're very good to me, but they understand the financial consideration. I just quit my job December 31 to write full time. So I don't really have a standalone hard idea. I've got some ideas. I don't have anything I can really get up and run with right now. I do have a very good idea of the next Rick book, but yeah, I think everybody that writes a series eventually has to write a standalone, anyway, no matter how tied you are to that series. You just kind of need a cleanser, to get refreshed, and then oftentimes with obviously say Michael Connelly that starts another series and you still have your old one but then you're doing The Lincoln Lawyer. I think there's always that possibility, but I think I'm getting close to writing a standalone but the idea is not really solid yet.

Debbi: [00:08:50] Mm hmm. Well, that's interesting. When did you start writing fiction with serious intent to be published?

Matt: [00:08:57] It's a good question.

Debbi: [00:09:00] I ask because you had all those other careers before you started writing.

Matt: [00:09:03] Too late. Probably. I knew I wanted to write ever since my Dad gave me The Simple Art of Murder when I was 14 or so, but it took me 30 years to figure out you actually have to write to become a writer. So I was working, I was helping put the fourth golf company I'd worked for in 10 years out of business when I realized, because the handwriting was on the wall I'd seen this happen before, so I knew this company was going down. I said well I was 42 or 43 somewhere around there, and I said to my self, well, this is it. The line's in the sand. You have an opportunity, you can have some free time, you got enough money saved up for a few months at least. Now it's time to write that book or shut up about it. You can't talk about it anymore. You can't have those dreams. You have to find a real career, instead of just a job each time.

"I knew I wanted to write ever since my Dad gave me The Simple Art of Murder when I was 14 or so, but it took me 30 years to figure out you actually have to write to become a writer."

[00:09:55] So I drew that line in the sand, which was about 16, 17 years ago. And I wrote a first draft in five months. And I thought, well, I thought it was a book, because I had a beginning and it had the end at the end. So I thought that made a book, because I didn't know anything about the writing. Of course, I came to realize that. It was just a first draft, and those won't get published.

Debbi: [00:10:20] Yeah. We all have our first draft.

Matt: [00:10:25] Right. And so you know I went through the whole getting an agent, but I would say at that point, once I started doing it I realized, yes, you're really doing what you're put on earth to do. So I would say when I was 43, and it took me 10 years to get published. But, at that point, I knew once I started doing it every day and forcing myself, I realized well this is what you're supposed to be doing. Even though it's hard most days, this is what you should do.

Debbi: [00:10:51] Yeah, yeah....

This episode of the Crime Cafe features the Philip Marlowe radio episode “Where There's a Will”.

I hope you enjoy the show! :)

Be a doll and support the podcast on Patreon! :)

Debbi Mack interviews crime writer K'Anne Meinel on the Crime Cafe podcast.

Check out the show notes below. Or, if you’re in a rush, click here to download the transcript!

And be sure to enter her five-book giveaway! Just click here.

Debbi: [00:00:13] Hi, everyone. This is the Crime Cafe, your podcasting source of great crime, suspense, and thriller writing. I'm your host Debbi Mack. Before I bring on my guest, I'll just remind you that the Crime Cafe has two ebooks for sale: the nine-book boxed set and the short story anthology. You can find the buy links for both on my website debbimack[dot]com under the "Crime Cafe" link. You can also get a free copy of either book if you become a Patreon supporter. You'll get that and much more if you support the podcast on Patreon, along with our eternal gratitude for doing so.

[00:01:03] It's my pleasure today to have on an author with more than 100 published works including short stories, novels, and novellas. She works in a variety of genres, including crime fiction of course, and she's a USA TODAY bestselling author. She is also owner of Shadoe Publishing, amongst her other accomplishments. So it's my great pleasure to introduce K'Anne Meinel. Thanks for being here today, K'Anne.

K'Anne: [00:01:38] Thank you for having me.

Debbi: [00:01:41] It's my pleasure to have you on. Glad you're able to be here. So you've written an impressive number of works. How long have you written and published fiction?

K'Anne: [00:01:55] I've written all my life but I've actually only published about eight years. But I had books waiting. I wrote my very first complete novel in 2003 and I did it in two weeks.

Debbi: [00:02:12] Wow.

K'Anne: [00:02:13] Yeah.

Debbi: [00:02:13] That's impressive. Was that your completed draft or did you have to amend?

K'Anne: [00:02:21] I played with it for eight years before I actually sought out publishers. Got 20 rejection letters, and something told me to go with self-publishing which has worked for me.

Debbi: [00:02:34] That's excellent. Yeah.

K'Anne: [00:02:35] Once I published it, I did get approached by a publisher, and I should have read more of the reviews because they turned out to be con artists. I've never received any residuals.

Debbi: [00:02:49] Oh my gosh.

K'Anne: [00:02:49] They stole it, and then I got my rights back. Using my lawyers. And they've never stopped publishing it. They keep stealing.

Debbi: [00:03:03] Oh, my gosh. That's awful.

K'Anne: [00:03:05] Yeah, it was a horrible experience. That's why you know I caution people. Yeah. Anybody can call themself a publisher but watch what they do.

Debbi: [00:03:15] Right. Absolutely. And self-publishing ... you have your own imprint. I also have my own imprint and I think that's very important.

K'Anne: [00:03:23] Yeah. Because a lot of self-published authors, if they don't have a so-called publisher behind them, some stores won't even consider them.

Debbi: [00:03:34] Yes, exactly. Exactly right. It gives you a more professional image.

K'Anne: [00:03:41] It does. It does. And I've compared my paperback books to some of the so-called professional books. Some people that I may compete with or whatever, and I'm very pleased with what we've produced. And it was a learning curve. You know I didn't walk into this knowing anything, but I really enjoy learning. It's a challenge. I absolutely love formatting my books. Once the story is written, then tweaking all the little fine details like putting in a doodad here that most people wouldn't notice. But when you're looking at a paperback and it feels different, accordingly, and you don't know why, it's because of those details.

Debbi: [00:04:29] Yes. Yeah I really like self-publishing and the flexibility that it gives you.

K'Anne: [00:04:40] Well, they're trying to make it a little harder. I notice with CreateSpace going away, because Amazon is bringing it back under their umbrella and it's no longer going to be a separate company. I had my first experience with Amazon's print and---wow---did they make me jump through hoops that were unnecessary. Well, you can't do this. You can't do that. And I'm like, funny, you published it already and I've done that. Now you say I can't do that. I had found an error that I wanted corrected, because I'm real particular about that, and it took about five or six tries to get it published again.

Debbi: [00:05:28] That's bizarre. I've had no trouble with IngramSpark myself.

K'Anne: [00:05:32] Yeah. Yeah. There, too, there's a learning curve and, in fact, that was one of my goals this year: to switch not only all of my books, but my authors' books over to IngramSpark, just because of the broader range that'll give us.

Debbi: [00:05:50] Absolutely. I myself would recommend IngramSpark any day over any other publishing platform in terms of print. That's just my feeling about it. I've been with IngramSpark since before there was an IngramSpark. Back when there was Lightning Source.

K'Anne: [00:06:10] Yes, yes.

Debbi: [00:06:11] When I decided to go completely self-published, I used Lightning Source and never looked back. So, as far as I'm concerned, I'm covered.

K'Anne: [00:06:24] Well, you also get into a creative, comfortable feeling. I was used to CreateSpace. And, yes, I balked at using Kindle's platform. But Kindle is the biggest dog in the yard. So you gotta deal with that.

Debbi: [00:06:45] Oh, I'm not arguing with that.

K'Anne: [00:06:46] Yeah no. But as a result because they already owned CreateSpace and now they're bringing it back in, all their little hiccups are costing some of us time, effort, etc.

Debbi: [00:07:03] Well, it's interesting because one of the arguments I've always heard for using CreateSpace is that you'll get your print books up on Amazon faster?

K'Anne: [00:07:10] Theoretically.

Debbi: [00:07:12] Theoretically. Well, that may be true, because right now my print book which I just came out with is only available through Barnes & Noble and Indiebound online.

K'Anne: [00:07:27] You can't discount Barnes & Noble. They're still out, they're still hustling, they're still fighting, and I hope they win. Because, you know, Amazon has killed the stores and I mean I've seen strip malls that are absolutely empty because you can't have Mom-and-Pops anymore when you have an Amazon. I mean, I know myself my first thought is, "Well, let's go see what it is on Amazon."

Debbi: [00:07:55] I know. Well, it's the go-to place for a lot of people. And one of the things I like about Kobo is that it reaches certain international markets that Amazon does not. Oddly enough.

K'Anne: [00:08:11] Yes, yes. I have my books out on 18 different distributors, because there are countries that don't allow Amazon.

Debbi: [00:08:21] Interesting.

K'Anne: [00:08:24] And I like the fact that my books are available. We still can't get into South Africa. South Africa blocks a lot of books.

Debbi: [00:08:35] Fascinating.

K'Anne: [00:08:38] It's interesting when you find out that from a fan they're like I can't get your book but I really want it. And, fortunately, I made it so that all my books are available on my website and that makes a big difference in what they can download, because I have another fan who only orders from my website, because she's having trouble getting it in Australia, of all places.

Debbi: [00:09:02] Wow. I had no idea.

K'Anne: [00:09:05] Amazon. Yeah. Amazon isn't capitalizing in Australia like I personally believe they should.

Debbi: [00:09:14] And Kobo certainly does.

K'Anne: [00:09:19] Yeah.

Debbi: [00:09:19] Yeah, well. Well, let's talk about your series, the Malice series. You have a long string of novellas in this series. What inspired you to write about a lesbian serial killer?

"Ninety to 95 percent of all serial killers are male and from all the research I've done, the remaining five or 10 percent that are female either ... I don't want to say women are smarter, but they're less likely to be perceived as a killer."

K'Anne: [00:09:37] Ninety to 95 percent of all serial killers are male and from all the research I've done, the remaining five or 10 percent that are female either ... I don't want to say women are smarter, but they're less likely to be perceived as a killer. They're able to fake it better. I think women can be more devious. If you look in some of the different cultures, women were always nastier. For instance, in the American Indian culture if somebody had to run the gauntlet, the women were always the ones that were more bloodthirsty, more willing to kill. And nastier. That's just one example. I mean that's throughout history. But when I came up with this series, I loved Dexter and I didn't want to copy him at all, because I don't do that. But I thought, "Gosh can I write a murder mystery?" Well, it was an experiment. It was only supposed to be five books. Number 25 should be out in the Spring. But this fascinating character resulted. And what I have Alice in my head and what she's like and what my fans perceive her is absolutely fascinating to me, because she's this petite little blonde and yet I get this gamut of descriptions of her that I just kind of go ... That's not what I wrote.

[00:11:23] Okay. That's how you want to see her. Go for it, but she's highly complex and it doesn't come out in one book. And as you read her, you're thinking okay, well, most serial killers are loners. And because I cater to a lesbian market, it always surprises me how many straight hetero male followers I have to that series. In fact, one of my followers, I killed him off in the third book cause he was being a smart aleck on social media. I said, well, guess what? You're going to die. And he loved it. He absolutely loved it. He has bragging rights, but you don't think about women being serial killers and the beauty of it is I've already thought up at least t

Debbi Mack interviews crime writer Chris Roy on the Crime Cafe podcast.

Check out the show notes below. Or, if you're in a rush, click here to download the transcript!

Debbi: [00:00:13] Hi everyone. This is the Crime Cafe. Your podcasting source of great crime, suspense, and thriller writing. I'm your host Debbi Mack. Before I bring on my guest, I'll just remind you that the Crime Cafe has two e-books for sale: the nine-book box set and the short story anthology. You can find the buy links for both on my website debbimack[dot]com. Just click on the "Crime Cafe" link. You can also get a free copy of either book if you become a Patreon supporter. You'll get that and much more if you support the podcast on Patreon, along with our eternal gratitude for doing so.

[00:01:04] It's my pleasure to have my guest today crime fiction author Chris Roy. He's from South Mississippi and currently resides in the Mississippi Department of Corrections. So the audio might not be perfect. You'll probably hear a lot of background noise, but let's hope for the best. I would also like to mention that Chris has edited along with Andy Rausch A Time For Violence. This is his latest project. It is a love letter to the great anthologies of yesteryear. And the theme is violence. And I'll let Chris do the describing from here. Thanks for being here today, Chris. It's great to have you on.

Chris: [00:01:55] It's nice to be here today.

Debbi: [00:01:59] I'm glad you're able to be here and I think it goes without saying that your experiences have informed your fiction. Can you tell us a little bit about exactly how your experiences have inspired you to write?

Chris: [00:02:18] Oh, sure. Some of my earlier works of crime fiction were short stories that had two characters I created named Razor and Blondie. This was about 10 years ago. They were based on personal experiences selling drugs, stealing cars, identity theft, that sort of thing. And also a lot tough crimes preferred from criminals while incarcerated. And so I had just had all this knowledge about crimes and also I found that when I was started writing these stories I like to create crimes, create new crimes. So I had all of this this knowledge to draw on and experience to draw on and that is where my original stories came from.

Debbi: [00:03:16] Would you say to your genre is more geared toward noir or thriller?

Chris: [00:03:26] It's noir definitely. My earlier works were thriller. There were anti-heroes and they had all these difficulties and there was usually a happy ending. The stuff I write now, terrible things happen to really good people and the endings are usually not very good. So it's definitely noir right now.

"My earlier works were thriller. There were anti-heroes and they had all these difficulties and there was usually a happy ending. The stuff I write now, terrible things happen to really good people and the endings are usually not very good."

Debbi: [00:03:52] I was going to say, yeah, I read your story Her Name is Mercie. I think I'm saying that right. and I liked it very much and your other book Shocking Circumstances. I've just started. And I'm interested that you focused on female protagonists. Can you talk about what prompted that?

Chris: [00:04:19] Okay. When I was studying books on writing, when I started getting serious, the first story that I wrote after that was Shocking Circumstances and I was thinking you know I have a limited knowledge of skills that I can put into my characters you know. I was a mechanic on the street. And I'm a tattoo artist now. I studied engineering, metal fabrication. Boxing. I actually teach boxing and have for many years in here. You can hear in the background, there's a guy beating on his bag now. You hear that? That's one of my guys. I train. He's getting a warmed up for a workout. We're going to work out afterwards. After the podcast. So I had these skills, knowledge that I can put on my characters and so what's more impressive than a guy that can fix cars, do engineering, tattoo, and box? Well, a girl that can. A girl that can do all this stuff. I wanted to create a girl that could draw us and she's really a kick-ass chick. You know Haywire. The movie Haywire had just come out around a time, and so strong female protagonists were back in. There were some other movies with strong female protagonists. I had read L.A. Outlaws by T. Jefferson Parker and you got the schoolteacher in that story that had a double life where she was robbing stores, she was going around as a robber. And it was really cool. And it was first person female, too, and all that came together at a time where I was wanting to write, take on a huge project and write something. And so that's where Shocking Circumstances came from. That's where Clarice "Shocker" Ares came from.

Debbi: [00:06:11] Personally I think that's awesome. I just love it when you have a strong female protagonist. Having a protagonist who boxes and loves cars is really awesome. Tell us a little bit about A Time For Violence. Is that the latest thing you're working on?

Chris: [00:06:37] Yes. I work for a publisher. I do PR for Close to the Bone, a small publisher based in the U.K. A buddy of mine hired me there. Craig Douglas is the chief editor. And so we do a lot of grit fiction. Real gritty stuff. Crime and horror mostly, and we do novellas, short story collections, anthologies. And so I had a place to publish, he said. A friend of mine, Andy Rausch, who's the author of Riding Shotgun: And Other American Cruelties. Really, really great book. Fantastic. Very talented guy. He and I were about writing stuff all the time, and he was like, man, let's do an anthology. You know a lot of authors, I know a lot of authors, let's get them together. Let's get them to write something great. We can bridge this thing. And so I was like I don't know you know. Okay, let's try to give it a shot. And he jumped on it. He got some really big name authors. You've probably seen the list of their three of them have co-written with Stephen King recently. One of them is John Russo, who co-wrote "Night of the Living Dead". And one is Max Allan Collins. Collins wrote the Quarry series which is now a Cinemax series. So we have several other up-and-comers that are kind of a big deal now. And then we got some really the best out of the indie publishers. Tom Vater, Tony Knighton, Elka Ray, James Longmore. I mean, these writers are really under-published in my opinion. So people will see the names and recognize the names in the list, but I think they will enjoy the smaller-name writers, the unknowns, more I mean. But it's just a really great collection of stories.

Debbi: [00:08:49] I'm just looking at over for the first time and I'm floored by some of these names. You've got some great people on here. It's just great.

Chris: [00:08:59] Richard Chizmar, Joe Lansdale. Yeah. We have a bunch of them that are just really fantastic.

Debbi: [00:09:06] Yeah. This is wonderful. That's fantastic and congratulations on that.

A Time For Violence, a crime fiction anthology will be out in February 2019.

Chris: [00:09:13] Thank you. It's coming out in February, by the way. This will be out in February. Released by Close to the Bone. Craig Douglas is going to do the editing and the cover. He's a really great graphic artist. We will be publishing this in February 2019.

Debbi: [00:09:30] Fantastic. Good to know. Let's see. I saw in an interview that you didn't become a reader until you were 18. What was it about your first reading that prompted you to write?

Chris: [00:09:48] Well, when I got locked up in the county jail when I was 18 for murder. And that's what I'm serving a life sentence for now. Yeah. So I didn't read novels on the street unless it was like a school project or something. You know, in literature class, whatever. And so I didn't really read for pleasure until I got locked up and there was nothing else to do. And then I realized, oh, no wonder my mom and my grandma had these big giant stacks of books next to their bed, because it's awesome. I love reading. You know, I realized that it's in me, too. Okay. I understand now. I mean, my mom reads like 200 bucks a year. She's ridiculous. So you know I got locked up. I started reading. The Ninja by Eric Van Lustbader was the first series I remember reading. I read some of the old Stephen King. Stories like Rose Madder. This is great. Better than TV, it's better than sitting around and talking and doing nothing like these other guys are doing. I'd rather be kicked back reading. So I started writing, too. Of course, when you're locked up, it's kind of a thing to do in prison or jail. Send our love to family and friends and stay in touch, so my writing was just horrible. And my handwriting is still horrible, but my writing improved initially from writing letters. Then years later from PenPal. I got on some PenPal websites for prisoners and met some really great people. And so I was writing letters all the time, nearly every day, and then reading. Over the years, I've read hundreds--I've read a thousand novels by now. I'm not sure. I've never kept count, but I've read so many books. Nineteen in a penitentiary. Oh, yeah. So I realized one day about 10 years ago, all this writing I've done, all this I've done, I have the skills, the ability to write my own stuff. I can do this. And so I started studying books and writing. I've several dictionaries. You know, I was a dictionary guy for a long time. Improving my vocabulary and stuff. I started with a friend, a couple of friends, actually on a high risk program. After I had two escapes in 2005, 2006, I was in high risk in Supermax. There were some other guys that were aspiring writers. Very intelligent, very well-read guys. They were also writing. So that's how I started it and the idea was you know maybe we can write something and a big contract,...

Debbi Mack interviews crime writer Paul Heatley on this episode of the Crime Cafe.

Check out the show notes below! Or, if you’re in a rush, download your copy here!

Debbi: [00:00:13] Hi, everyone. This is the Crime Cafe, your podcasting source of great crime, suspense, and thriller writing. I'm your host Debbi Mack. Before I bring on my guest, I'll just remind you that the Crime Cafe has two ebooks for sale: the nine book box set and the short story anthology. You can find the buy links for both on my website debbimack[dot]com, under the Crime Cafe link. You can also get a free copy of either book if you become a Patreon supporter. You'll get that and much more if you support the podcast on Patreon, along with our eternal gratitude for doing so.

[00:01:02] It's my pleasure today to have as my guest the author of the Eye for an Eye series, one of which I'm currently in the midst of reading and thoroughly enjoying, as well as other novels and more than 50 short stories. Very impressive. I mean, it just amazes me. Anyway, from northeast England, it's Paul Heatley. Hi, Paul.

Paul: [00:01:29] Hello, Debbi.

Debbi: [00:01:30] It's great to have you on.

Paul: [00:01:32] Thank you. Good to be here.

Debbi: [00:01:34] Excellent. How would you describe your books in terms of genre or subgenre?

Paul: [00:01:43] Crime fiction noir. That's the best way to describe them. Sometimes I set them in America. Sometimes I set them here in northeast England. I think it just depends on what kind of story I'm trying to tell and how I think it can be best presented. Some story ideas come to me and I just think that wouldn't work in England.

[00:02:03] But I do watch a lot of American movies and a lot of American TV shows. I read a lot of American books and I think that's what has a big influence on me and why I end up setting things in America and why when I get ideas, after going through them. I'm like, "Is this English? Is it American?" And that's how the creative process grows as the setting process.

Debbi: [00:02:24] That's very interesting. I noticed you did mention a lot of American authors as influential. James Ellroy, Jim Thompson, and Chester Himes being your big three there. And I've read all of them and enjoy all of them. They're great authors. Are there any particular books by them that you find particularly inspirational?

Paul: [00:02:48] Yeah. For James Ellroy, it would be Black Dahlia. That was probably the first crime book I read that a big impact, because that was a big shock for me to see that crime fiction could be dark. And that sounds silly, but I read it when I was about 16 or 17, and up to that point, my only knowledge of crime fiction was ... it wasn't anything I'd read. It was adaptations of Agatha Christie, and you know, if you're not in that kind of thing, you're not going to be into that kind of thing. But then I read James Ellroy and you had these incredibly dopey policemen and sociopathic serial killers, and it was just something incredible to read and to discover and that's really what turned around for me. And Jim Thompson again, he came after Ellroy. And he was another one that kind of opened my eyes to what crime fiction is and what it can be, because at the same time as discovering Ellroy, I don't like police procedurals.

On Paul's favorite books: "For James Ellroy, it would be Black Dahlia. That was probably the first crime book I read that a big impact, because that was a big shock for me to see that crime fiction could be dark."

[00:03:48] And Jim Thompson doesn't write that. Jim Thompson, for the most part, writes from the bad guys' point of view and that's what I like. I like to read from the criminals' point of view. That's why I like noir. And Savage Night by him is my favorite. That's just totally off the rails. It's just great. Chester Himes ... anything, anything Chester Himes. I just think he's fantastic.

[00:04:12] There's not a single book particularly sticks out. I think if I had to pick one it would be A Rage in Harlem because that was the one I read first. And again he's another one, a bit like James Ellroy. I was kind of shocked. The level of violence and darkness that he was actually putting in these books are incredibly graphic. I flicked through one a little while ago and I just came to a page where somebody gets their head cleaved in half. I was like, yeah. Chester Himes.

[00:04:39] I'll just quickly interject Chester was a big influence on the Eye for an Eye series that you mentioned. When I came to write the story and I knew I had the two characters, I was thinking of Coffin Ed and Gravedigger Jones. That's the genesis of Graeme Taylor and "Tracksuit" Tony came from. It was from Chester Himes.

Debbi: [00:05:10] Well, I'm going to have to read more of your books and Chester Himes because I've read one of Chester Himes..

Paul: [00:05:17] Nice.

Debbi: [00:05:19] And I picked that one because I remembered there was a movie by that name. So I have to read more of those books, because I really loved Cotton Comes to Harlem. But that's very interesting, the way you picked your characters that way. So I was reading your guest post and found myself nodding along with a lot of what you were saying. This whole notion of "write what you know". I mean, come on. I mean, I've never killed anybody, but I can write mysteries. So seriously, how you get into the head of killers and things like this, since you've never killed anybody?

Paul: [00:06:06] I think everyone has inside them that notion of violence where you can get pissed off and you can get pissed off to the point where you don't really know what you're thinking anymore, what you're doing anymore, and it's just a case of tapping into that moment in time and thinking, "How did I feel when that guy pissed me off?" This is how I felt and this is what I wanted to do to him. I wouldn't do it. I wouldn't knock somebody out with a hammer. You know. That would be silly, but that's where it comes from.

"I think once you just get going and I think once you get into a character's mindset, and if they're a psychopathic character, write them a certain way that they're a bit crazed as you go along, it becomes a natural progression."

[00:06:37] I think once you just get going and I think once you get into a character's mindset, and if they're a psychopathic character, write them a certain way that they're a bit crazed as you go along, it becomes a natural progression. Yeah, he told me to punch this guy in the face and break his nose. Yes, he'd kick him while he's down. Yes, he'd stomp his ribs, and it kind of just gets easier as you get into the character.

Debbi: [00:06:58] Mm hmm. You can kind of understand where they're coming from.

Paul: [00:07:02] Yeah, because sometimes the story just takes off and you realize this is what's going to happen. He wouldn't do what I've planned. He wouldn't do this that I've got in outline. He's doing this thing.

Debbi: [00:07:13] Exactly. Exactly, yeah. Because the story has to come out of the character. That's one thing I've noticed in writing. No matter what you started off thinking, your character is going to take you in a certain way or if you want your character to do certain things, they have to come at it from a certain point of view.

Paul: [00:07:36] Yeah.

Debbi: [00:07:38] Understanding where that comes from is important. So you mentioned Get Carter in your guest post. It's a movie that I absolutely love, and I thought it was interesting that it was made with the tropes of the Western in mind because I had no idea that northeast England was like the Wild West in that way. Can you talk a little bit about that?

"Get Carter always had a big influence for me even before I knew what it was, because where I grew up was near that area and I was born in Gateshead where a lot of the movie takes place."

Paul: [00:08:07] Oh, yeah, definitely. Get Carter always had a big influence for me even before I knew what it was, because where I grew up was near that area and I was born in Gateshead where a lot of the movie takes place. And whenever we went into Gateshead, the bus stop was directly opposite the big car park that he throws guy off. And it was a very famous building that's not there anymore. They knocked it down. And so it always had a looming presence in my life and had a looming presence I think in a lot of people's lives in the northeast, even if they didn't know anything about it, even if they'd never seen it. And I didn't see it until I was like 18 or 19, and it's a fantastic movie. It's brilliant. And I think you asked about the Western aspect of it.

[00:08:55] Mike Hodges, who directed, he said that he spent a lot of time up in North Tyneside, because the book itself is not set in Newcastle. I think it's set in or somewhere a bit further south, and Mike Hodges spent a lot of time in Newcastle and he always had the idea of setting a story in that area. I think something about the grey and the bleak really appealed to him as a Northeast setting for a Western effectively, where it's the stranger rides into town and he's looking for revenge for the people that killed his brother. It is just a Western story. Michael Caine is “The Man with the Name”. A brilliant role for Michael Caine, too. It's not really a part that we see him do, playing a very cold-blooded psychopath.

[00:09:47] There was a story I read where one of the first lines in the movie, he walks into a bar, he asks for beer, and the script said, "In a tall glass, please." And Michael Caine decided to read that line, "In a tall glass." No please, no manners. He knows what he wants and he wants it. He's not going to ask you nice.

Debbi: [00:10:11] That's pretty cool. Yeah, I like that. The stranger who comes to town. Yeah, yeah. Great Western tropes in some of these noir movies. And I'm noticing like Spaghetti Westerns have a kind of noir influence. Yeah....

This episode of the Crime Cafe features the Philip Marlowe radio episode “The Panama Hat”.

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Debbi Mack interviews crime writer Dana King on this episode of the Crime Cafe.

Check out the show notes below! Or, if you're in a rush, download your copy here!

Debbi M: [00:00:06] Hi everyone. This is the Crime Cafe, your podcasting source of great crime, suspense, and thriller writing. I'm your host Debbi Mack.

[00:00:25] Before I bring on my guest, I'll just remind you that the Crime Cafe has two ebooks for sale. The nine-book boxed set and the short story anthology. You can find the buy links for both on my website debbimack[dot]com under the Crime Cafe link. You can also get a free copy of either book if you become a Patreon supporter. You'll get that and much more if you support the podcast on Patreon. Along with our eternal gratitude for doing so.

[00:01:02] It's my pleasure to have as my guest today the author of two series and a standalone novel as well as several short stories. And he is also a Shamus nominee and nominee for other awards.

[00:01:19] It's Dana King. Hi, Dana. It's great to have you on today.

Dana K: [00:01:23] It's great to be here. Thanks for having me.

Debbi M: [00:01:26] It's my pleasure to have you on, Dana. I was at the C3 conference with Dana, and he told the funniest story during Noir at the Bar. But we won't go into that. It was great, though. That was a wonderful take-off on the Sergeant Friday Dragnet thing. And had a lot of hardboiled humor in it. So I'm a big fan just based on that. So you have two series: Penns River and Nick Forte--is that correct?

Dana King writes the Penns River and Nick Forte series.

Dana K: [00:02:02] That's right. Nick Forte. That's right.

Debbi M: [00:02:04] And is Nick Forte a private eye?

Dana K: [00:02:08] Yes.

Debbi M: [00:02:08] Okay, tell us a little bit about that series.

Dana K: [00:02:12] He's a private eye based in Chicago. It got started actually you mentioned that the satire on the Joe Friday stories. He was the first character actually created. I was coming out of a musical career and I wrote a short story that was supposed to be a satire on Mickey Spillane that used a bunch of friends of mine as part of a story with a musical background to it. And it was so well-received by a lot of people I wrote another story about the job I was at and included them. Same type, too. He was investigating something at this job, and I went to another job and they read the other two stories and pretty soon I got to thinking maybe I should do something more serious with this character and that's where the idea for writing the novels came from.

Nick Forte is a private eye based in Chicago.

Debbi M: [00:02:57] Aha. Okay, and how did you choose Chicago as a location?

Dana K: [00:03:03] I was living in Chicago at the time, and I really enjoyed my time there so there were a lot of locations, a lot of things about Chicago that came to mind when I was putting it together.

Debbi M: [00:03:14] Interesting. And the Penns River novels. I'm reading one now and enjoying it. They're based in a small town near Pittsburgh, correct?

Dana K: [00:03:28] Yes.

Debbi M: [00:03:29] Because you are originally from that area?

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Dana K: [00:03:31] Yes. Penns River as a town is actually an amalgam of three small cities about 20 miles up the Allegheny River from Pittsburgh, and I grew up sort of in all three of them. I was born in Warren and the hospital is no longer there. My parents took me to an apartment in another of those three cities. That building has since burned to the ground is now a vacant lot. And then I grew up in the third one and lived there--in fact, my parents lived there until just last year. My father passed. So I know not just the area, but I know the people, I know the kinds of things they are interested in. I had an idea for a police procedural story. I wanted to tell it. I needed a new setting, because obviously Forte wouldn't work for a police procedural. And I actually fell into the old "write what you know". What I know is what those little towns in western Pennsylvania are like. So that was where I decided to set it. And I've been very happy ever since then, because story ideas just present themselves to you know all the time.

“Penns River as a town is actually an amalgam of three small cities about 20 miles up the Allegheny River from Pittsburgh, and I grew up sort of in all three of them.”

Debbi M: [00:04:41] So, would you say that place is a pretty critical part of those series novels?

Dana K: [00:04:48] I would yes. Certainly much more the Penns River, because I do make a conscious effort. I mean I still subscribe to the local paper on the Internet, and I pull stories out of the local paper all the time that I can use. But also one of the things I wanted to pick on there was Pittsburgh has done very well since the steel mills. There was a period of quite a few years where things were tough. But now it's rebuilt itself as an educational and financial and medical facility--wonderful city, a beautiful city. But if you get up the river where I grew up, very little if any of that progress actually went up the river. We're still living in towns having the steel mills in them and to use a phrase my father used. I would say, "Well, gee. There's always new businesses starting in town, Dad." And he said, "Yeah but they're all locals." I remember the phrase, actually used the phrase in the book, he said, "They're all locals helping each other go under a little slower.".

Debbi M: [00:05:46] Wow. Yeah. Well, that's interesting talking about Pittsburgh. I lived there for a brief time. And I'm very familiar with some of the places that you mentioned in the novel. Kennywood, for instance. Definitely. The rollercoaster. I went on it. Pittsburgh is actually a very nice city. I love it. I should have worn my Pirates shirt for this interview, but instead I were In-N-Out shirt. For other reasons. We'll talk about that later. So yeah. Yes. Like really in these places when we write about them. How would you describe your writing generally? Do you see yourself as more of a police procedural writer or a hardboiled mystery writer. More like the tough P.I. or a little of both?

Dana K: [00:06:48] I would have to say a little bit both. Pretty much everything I write now--particularly with the novels--are either procedural or a PI story. What happens is I get the idea for a story and then sometimes a decision has to get made about which venue would be better off telling that story in. The best example is I was 30 or 35 thousand words into what I thought was going to be a Nick Forte novel. I just didn't like how it was going. I mean it wasn't even wrong. It didn't seem to move. And then I took a couple of days off to go back and redo the outline or think about stuff when it occurred to me. This isn't a Nick Forte story. This is Penns River story. So I just started over and redid the outline, and once I decided that this needs to be set in Penns River, I just blew right through it. It was one of the easiest books I ever wrote, because I realized I had the wrong venue for it. So, a lot of what I pick depends on which approach will tell the story better. Far as whether I write mysteries, certainly a PI story, I think. I always tell my PIs from the first person, and they're somewhat more of a mystery because the reader knows everything the investigator knows. But even those, very often I've solved the mystery two-thirds of the way through the book and it kind of morphs from being a mystery into more or less of a thriller. Okay, now we know who did it. What are they going to do about it? And are they going to do anything about it before something else bad happens? So I'm less concerned with keeping the reader in suspense about the killer all the way to the end than I am in keeping them in suspense of about the resolution all the way to the end.

Debbi M: [00:08:46] That's a great point because a mystery doesn't have to be a complete whodunit. In other words, you can combine elements of the thriller with elements of mystery and I like stories like that. Personally, I think they're not only fun to read, but they translate well to the screen, for instance.

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Dana K: [00:09:06] Yeah, I think that's a good point. The first Nick Forte book I wrote called A Small Sacrifice, I revealed the killer ... oh jeez ... it can't be much more than halfway through the book. And you nail him down within two-thirds of the way through the book. He's obviously this guy. Here's exactly what happened. But, by that time, it's been turned around, so now he's coming after Forte. So the rest of the book now, Forte is almost kind of the man in jeopardy. What's he going to do about it? And I was always curious about how that would play out with people, because it wasn't either fish or fowl actually. And then it got nominee for Shamus Award, so I figured it played out okay. So I didn't worry about it after that anymore.

Debbi M: [00:09:52] Well, getting nominated for a Shamus is definitely an honor, and I will have to read that book. Sounds very interesting. Tell us a little about what Wild Bill is about.

Dana K: [00:10:00] Wild Bill is the only standalone I ever wrote, and I wrote it when I'd written four Fortes and I was getting ready to get the Penns River series together. And I had an idea for a story about an FBI agent who was close to retirement who worked in Chicago. I was still up on Chicago stuff. And I've also done an enormous amount of research on organized crime in Chicago, so I knew how it worked pretty well. And the guy's name is Willard or Will Hickox. But as a young FBI agent, he used to do things that the FBI kind of kind of frowns on like not calling for backup or walking in on bank robberies. So he earned the nickname Wild Bill and was sent to Chicago to listen to wiretaps as punishment for the rest of his career. Well,...

Debbi Mack interviews crime writer David Malcolm on this episode of the Crime Cafe.

Interview highlights:

David discusses his novel, The German Messenger, a historical espionage story. He covered the following topics:

The role of historical research in fiction writing.

The appeal of espionage fiction in a broader context.

Authors who have influenced his writing, including Joseph Conrad's The Secret Agent and John Buchan's The 39 Steps.

The influence of film noir on his work.

His next project, a series of adventure stories.

His advice for aspiring writers: "Writers write."

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This week, the Crime Cafe presents crime talk between Debbi Mack and crime writer Gareth Spark.

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This week, the Crime Cafe presents Debbi Mack's interview with crime author Michael Zimecki.

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