The Crime Cafe

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

I'll gladly provide transcripts when I can afford it Enjoy my expensive hobby the show! :)

This week’s episode of the Crime Cafe podcast features my interview with lawyer and crime writer Dan Flanigan.

Dan started off writing poetry. Check out the story of how his writing journey began.

To download a copy of the transcript, just click here.

Debbi: Hi, everyone. My guest today is a lawyer, author, playwright, and poet, who among other things, has taught legal history and jurisprudence and practiced civil rights law, as well as worked in financial services, so he has an impressive resume. His written work includes the Peter O'Keefe hardboiled crime series, which has earned praise and awards. He has also written stage plays and short stories. His novella Dewdrops was adapted from a play. It's my pleasure to have with me a lawyer and acclaimed author, Dan Flanigan. Hi, Dan. How are you doing today?

Dan: Good enough, thank you. As I said, better than I deserve I'm doing.

Debbi: Oh, dear me. Oh, I'd hate to think that. You always wanted to write a novel but ended up going to law school. How did that come about?

Dan: Well, I'm not sure.

Debbi: I know the feeling.

Dan: I wanted to be a writer from the time I was a sophomore in high school, and found many ways to avoid or evade it. When I look back on it, I punished myself a whole lot all those years, and unfortunately punished my wife as well for selling out, not doing what I was supposed to do. But when I look back on it now, I wonder if I really had anything to write and you've lived your whole life. You have had a lot happen to you.

Debbi: There's a lot to be said for waiting before you start writing, because then you have more content to draw from.

Dan: In any event, I never thought it would, but it worked out well.

Debbi: Absolutely. Yeah. What was it that started you? You started with poetry, correct?

Dan: Yes. I had written in sort of spurts occasionally over a long period of time, between my sophomore year in high school and when I really started writing in earnest, and I had a period in the 1980s when I was on kind of a two-year break from practicing law and I wrote several plays. I wrote some poetry, a couple short stories, and I wrote a novel. One thing led to another. For example, I had an agent, I had a publisher for the novel. The publisher went bankrupt, and I had a stage reading of a play in New York. I thought I was going to be on top of the world for about five seconds. Where do you go eventually with any of that? So I decided I'm going to quit punishing myself and have nothing to do with writing.

And about 20 years later, if you got something like that in you, I guess it stays in you. My wife died in 2011, and I thought I'd do a kind of tribute, I guess - she might not think so - to her with a book called Tenebrae, which is a book of poems, mostly focused on her last illness and death. That sort of broke the dam, if you will, and sort of led me back into writing in a very serious way, and I really kept to it since.

Debbi: What inspired you to create Peter O'Keefe, this character? What kind of a person is he and what do you draw on to create stories about him?

Dan: The way I ended up there is odd, but I had no thought of ever writing crime fiction or detective fiction or anything else. I had read some of it over the course of my life, but never was steeped in it in any way, and the first two books, one was poetry and one was a short story collection, Dewdrops that I guess - not to be pretentious - but you might call literary fiction. But then I wanted to write this novel, sort of a fall in reparation sort of thing. I thought I want to make this more interesting than just navel gazing, and so I said, you know, I'm going to try to put it in this sort of private detective format and see how it goes. And that was the book that I wrote, and got accepted by a publisher.

I had no thought of ever writing crime fiction or detective fiction or anything else. I had read some of it over the course of my life, but never was steeped in it in any way ...

But in the course of … I'm now in 2013 - in the course of writing the book of poetry, I pulled that book out of the box and said, you know, this is okay. This ought to be. So I rewrote it very extensively, and that's Mink Eyes, the first in this series. Then I thought, oh, that's one book, and I'll go onto something else. But then I had this notion of doing it as a series. The first book was set in 1986. I thought it would be interesting to take this group of characters and deal with serious "literary" kinds of subjects, but in a more interesting format, and move it along as much as possible, and do the history of our times.

This guy starts out, he's a Vietnam vet. Like everybody else, he's a recovering cocaine guy and an alcoholic and has PTSD, although he won't acknowledge it or do anything about it. He's divorced, has a daughter who's 9 years old in the first book, and he's really at the bottom. His childhood buddy, who's a big time lawyer named Mike Harrigan sort of plucks him out of jail, gets him a deal with the cops to be free of it if he goes straight and narrow. I'm going to make a private detective out of you, and that's the start, the origin story, if you will.

The books attempt to be standalone, but one theme in the first three is him struggling and dealing with the Mafia, and it's also about really the decline and disappearance really of the traditional Mafia in that period of time through RICO prosecutions and wiretaps and all that.

The first several books are really him trying to come to terms with being a new person. As he describes it, a more useful person, and then there's a whole theme. He gets crossways with the Mafia in the first book. The books attempt to be standalone, but one theme in the first three is him struggling and dealing with the Mafia, and it's also about really the decline and disappearance really of the traditional Mafia in that period of time through RICO prosecutions and wiretaps and all that.

Debbi: Interesting. Where is the series set and how much does the setting play in the book?

Dan: It's different in different books. When people ask this question, I say a place like Kansas City. That's where I'm from, and we had quite a Mafia group in town, too. But I don't ever say it's Kansas City, because I don't want to be tied down to streets and I want to be able to do something purely fictional if I want to, so I never say that, but people would recognize it as that if they knew Kansas City and it's a whole Midwestern thing. And then down in southern Missouri and northern Arkansas, not far from us, it's the Ozarks. The first book Mink Eyes is in fact about a Ponzi mink farm scheme down in the Ozarks and all kinds of other crazy stuff. The latest book, An American Tragedy … no, pardon me... the book I'm working on right now is another kind of Ozark-set book, where a lot of hate groups and fundamentalist Christian survivalist kind of stuff was going on in the 80s and 90s. So I make use of all that but without ever saying. I call it the Lake Country instead of just saying it's the Ozarks.

Debbi: Well, that's interesting. I noticed in an article about you that it says you described the 80s as not being a golden era where everything was just so much better than it is today, and with more hairspray.

Dan: Yeah. And that's not me. That was the author of the article.

Debbi: I noticed that. Yeah, it wasn't exactly an exact quote.

Dan: Right. And she's very young, and I think she probably had this exalted view of the 1980s.

Debbi: I find that very fascinating. I think we have a tendency to do that. Go back 20 years and say, oh, gee, things were so much better then.

Dan: With a whole lot of things. And I never thought so, even though it was in a lot of ways good to me, financially but it was fairly rotten in its heart, you know?

Debbi: Oh, yeah. I mean, there was some really bad stuff going on in the 80s, and don't even get me started about the 60s. Talk about an overrated decade! Okay, moving on. You're still practicing law, so where do you find the time to do the writing?

Dan: Well, luckily we have this great sabbatical program in my firm where every five or six years, you take three months off if you want to, and that let me sort of jumpstart this series business. And, then also, I do a lot less law practice than I did at one time, and I'm sort of ... let's call it moving toward the horizon.

[W]e have this great sabbatical program in my firm where every five or six years, you take three months off if you want to, and that let me sort of jumpstart this series business.

Debbi: Yes, I know the feeling.

Dan: So I have more time, but I think maybe in that article, I don't know, somebody asked me, how do you do all that? I said, well, it helps start out being a workaholic and …

Debbi: And living for a while.

Dan: A very helpful thing in certain ways anyway.

Debbi: I think that lawyers tend to be a bit workaholic generally.

Dan: Yeah, right and so that could carry over, although I don't have the same discipline writing that I did as a lawyer where you're writing for clients and their expectations and deadlines and all that, and especially in the era that I practiced, everything changed to “I want it yesterday.” But, with the books, I wish I would get up every morning and write two or three hours, and every day and all that, but it doesn't happen now. I need to sort of wallow around in it for two or three days. But on the other hand, I've gotten six books out now, so …

Debbi: There you go. Whatever works. That's the way it works. How much research do you do for your novels?

Dan: Varies a little bit, but a lot. The most recent one - An American Tragedy - I did lots and lots of reading plus I did a lot of different things as a lawyer, but one thing I never was a criminal defense lawyer. And the book is about a trial, and so I had to really, even as a lawyer, had to do all kinds of research to make sure I was doing it righ

This week’s guest on the Crime Cafe podcast is historical crime writer Stephen Eoannou.

Check out our discussion about the creator of the Lone Ranger!

Grab a PDF copy of the transcript here!

Debbi: Hi, everyone. My guest today has published two novels with the third coming in May of next year. Along with novels, he has written at least one short screenplay. He lives and works in Buffalo, New York, which also provides the setting and inspiration for his work. It's my pleasure to have with me today, the award-winning author Stephen Eoannou.

Stephen: There you go.

Debbi: Did I get that right?

Stephen: Yes.

Debbi: Awesome. Fantastic. So thank you for being with us today.

Stephen: Thank you for having me.

Debbi: I'm pleased to have you on. I really enjoyed your book Rook, your debut novel. That was a very interesting story. What inspired you to write about this particular man from the FBI's Most Wanted List?

Stephen: Yeah. I had finished my first book Muscle Cars, which is a short story collection, and I was picking around trying to find an idea for the next project, and I can remember it vividly. It was a Sunday morning. I was standing in my kitchen and I was reading the newspaper. It was spread out on the kitchen table, and I saw an article, and the title of the article in the Buffalo News was “The Strange Tale of a Buffalo Bank Robber Turned Writer”, and that immediately caught my eye, thinking this maybe is another career avenue for myself. But I started reading this article about Al Nussbaum. I had never heard of the man before, and by the end of the article, I knew that I wanted to write about him.

I was standing in my kitchen and I was reading the newspaper. It was spread out on the kitchen table, and I saw an article, and the title of the article in the Buffalo News was “The Strange Tale of a Buffalo Bank Robber Turned Writer”

I wasn't sure it was going to be a novel or a short story or what, but I knew I wanted to learn more about this man and write about him. And what fascinated me was not only was he this kind of cerebral bank robber who approached the robberies like chess matches - which he was an avid chess player - and he's quoted as saying that robbing banks is like chess for cash prizes, which I think is a great quote. He became a writer when he was in prison, and he was a penny-a-word guy, Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine, Alfred Hitchcock. He even was writing for Scholastic Books, if anyone's old enough to remember Scholastic Books.

Debbi: Oh, I do

Stephen: Yeah, me too. I still have a few of them. So the man who was doing time in Leavenworth was also writing Scholastic Books. He was just a fascinating character, and he was a Buffalo guy. I had kind of decided after I completed Muscle Cars that really Buffalo, New York was going to kind of be my literary turf I was going to carve out for myself. Kind of what William Kennedy did for Albany and Richard Russo did for upstate New York, the Catskill areas. That's what I was going to do. And so this just kind of fell in my lap and I just kind of really became intrigued with Al and his story.

Debbi: Interesting. Very interesting that you were able to find this in the local paper, right?

Stephen: Well, what it was his daughter, who's just an infant in the novel, she was trying to do a Kickstarter campaign to gather up all her father's short stories and anthologized them, and so the newspaper did a feature on it. And what was really great about this whole experience with Rook is that since the publication, I've become friends with her. She lives about two hours away. She's a retired attorney, not a defense attorney or criminal lawyer. We've had coffee a few times and she's come to a couple of my events when I'm in the Central New York region, telling me some fascinating stories about her dad that I wish I knew while I was working on the manuscript.

Debbi: Interesting. Because this is a fictionalized account of a true story, were there permissions involved in terms of using his name and so forth?

Stephen: No, and I figured the legal team at the publisher would worry about that. I just wrote it the way I wanted to write it, and no one said anything. So we'll just keep it amongst ourselves.

Debbi: Hard to say. Hard to say what happened. Okay. Your second novel is also historical. I take it that you're basically focused on historical writing most of the time?

Stephen: Yeah. And that wasn't the plan; I just kind of … I've always enjoyed it, but you know how these things are. You kind of stumble from one … an idea finds you and next thing you know, you've written a story set in the early 1960s, and now there's a story, Yesteryear, the second novel was set in the early 1930s, the book that's coming out in May is set in 1942. The thirties and forties have always been an era that has really intrigued me primarily because of my parents, that's when they were growing up. And so I kind of grew up listening to their stories about growing up in the Depression, the immigration experience from my father coming from Greece. Just growing up with those stories, watching old movies like The Maltese Falcon with my dad. He was 20 when The Maltese Falcon came out, so he remembers that from his youth. That was kind of my upbringing, if you will, listening to those stories and watching those movies. Next thing you know, fast forward 40 or so years, and I'm writing about those types of things now. So you never know what's going to percolate up to the top when you're in the creative mode.

The thirties and forties have always been an era that has really intrigued me primarily because of my parents, that's when they were growing up. And so I kind of grew up listening to their stories about growing up in the Depression, the immigration experience from my father coming from Greece.

Debbi: Exactly. Yes, and that era is very inspiring. There's so much from it that informs what we do today.

Stephen: Yeah, and my mom always said, she chastised me. She goes, you romanticize that period, but it was really hard. The Depression and World War. You romanticize it, and she was absolutely right. I do.

Debbi: Absolutely. I was fascinated by the subject of Yesteryear, which was a playwright that I had never known about who created the Lone Ranger. Tell us how you got interested in that.

Stephen: Another Buffalo boy, and I had never heard about him either. I was at a party or a bar somewhere where they were serving alcohol, and someone said to me, well, you know the guy who wrote the Lone Ranger is from Buffalo? And I said, no, he's not. I would've known about that. I mean, Buffalo is very good about promoting any creative person who's been successful, no matter what the connection. Mark Twain was the editor of the Courier Express newspaper for two years. He's a Buffalo writer. We made him our own. So for someone who ... because Fran wrote not only the Lone Ranger, but also the Green Hornet and Sergeant Prescott of the Yukon, so he has a huge influence on 20th century pop culture, and no one's really heard of him.

I think because he sold the rights to the Lone Ranger for $10 before the Lone Ranger just exploded into this 90-year money making franchise. And to make matters worse, the man he sold it to for $10, George W. Trendle, who owned WXYZ radio in Detroit where the Lone Ranger was broadcast from, started claiming in the 1940s that he was the creator of the Lone Ranger, not Striker. So Fran kind of missed out on the fame as well as the fortune, because if you think about not only the radio and the TV show and the movies, think of the comic books that Fran wrote. There were a dozen or so hardback novels published in the thirties and forties that Striker wrote, the comic strips that appeared in over 200 newspapers, all the spinoff toys. The Lone Ranger is one of the first kind of crossover into marketing and spiffs and toys. So all the masks and hats and holsters and all that money bypassed Striker and went to Trendle.

I think because he sold the rights to the Lone Ranger for $10 before the Lone Ranger just exploded into this 90-year money making franchise.

When Trendle sold the rights in the mid-fifties, he sold the rights for $3 million, which was a record in the entertainment industry at that time. I think Fran was working for him up until that time as head writer at WXYZ, but he may have received a bonus from that 3 million, but certainly not the millions that Trendle made.

Debbi: Oh, my gosh. It just goes to show you the importance of owning the intellectual property.

Stephen: And you know? It's a common story. You look at all these artists - visual artists, literary, musical. When it's a new medium or something new like the early days of rock and roll, and you think of all the African-American early rock and rollers who were screwed terribly with their contracts and rights. It seems like every time there's something new, a new medium, a new form, the artists are so desperate to get that work out there that they get taken advantage of.

Debbi: Yes, definitely. Yes. That is definitely true. It's a shame. So your latest one coming out next May about the private eye named Nicholas Bishop. He has a background from World War I that he carries into the story, correct?

Stephen: He has got a lot of baggage that he carries. A lot of abandonment issues, alcoholism, he may or may not have stepped in front of a taxi cab on purpose that has left him with a limp and unable to serve in World War II. His alcoholism is out of control, and when the novel begins, he wakes up on the floor of a hotel room where he's the house detective, because he has lost his private practice, he's lost his secretary, who he has been in love with forever. He can't find his car, and he wakes up on the floor after a five-day bender, can't remember anything, and two shots were fired from his gun and the police are downstairs. They want to talk to him....

This week’s episode of the Crime Cafe podcast features my interview with paleontologist and crime writer Leonard “Kris” Krystalka.

Check out his reading from The Bone Field!

Grab a PDF copy of the transcript here!

Debbi: Hi everyone. My guest today is both a professional paleontologist and a novelist. He writes the Henry Przewalski - is that correct, I hope? Przewalski?

Leonard: Literally, it reads as Przewalski but it's actually a Russian-Polish name, named for the discoverer of Przewalski's horse, that small kind of dwarfish horse that lives wild on the Asian steppes. So it's pronounced in the Russian sense.

Debbi: Got it. All right. I'll try to remember that. It's my pleasure to have him with me today. It's Leonard Krystalka, who goes by Kris. Like Kris Kristofferson, may he rest in peace.

Leonard: May he rest in peace. A terrific person.

Debbi: Indeed. Yes.

Leonard: Yes. Wonderful artist.

Debbi: He was, yes. I want to thank you for being here so much. It's good to have you on. Tell us about Harry Przewalski. I almost screwed that up again. How much did you draw from your own experiences in creating him?

Leonard: A great deal. I named Harry Przewalski as a homage to the study of the life of the past and the study of present biodiversity. So, Przewalski's horse is this miniature horse that roams wild on the steppes of Asia. It almost became extinct by over hunting, and in World War II, the German soldiers ate what is reputed to be some of the last Przewalski's horses in a zoo in Poland. But enough were saved to repopulate the wild steppes of Asia.

Przewalski's horse is this miniature horse that roams wild on the steppes of Asia. It almost became extinct by over hunting, and in World War II, the German soldiers ate what is reputed to be some of the last Przewalski's horses in a zoo in Poland.

Debbi: Interesting. Did you choose that name deliberately?

Leonard: I did. I chose it deliberately, although it's hard to pronounce, and as a homage to the paleontological studies of the evolutionary history of life on Earth, the three billion year history of life on Earth.

Debbi: That is so cool. How many books do you have in the series, and how many do you plan to write? Or do you have a plan for the series?

Leonard: There are four books now in the Harry Przewalski series. There's THE BONE FIELD, DEATH SPOKE, THE CAMEL DRIVER, and the newest one just published this year called NATIVE BLOOD. I have a fifth novel, which is not in that series. It's a historical fiction of a murder that occurred in Lawrence, Kansas in 1871. A doctor accused of murdering his patient because he was having an affair with the patient's wife. The doctor was arrested and the resulting trial was equivalent to … imagine the OJ Simpson trial in 1871 in Kansas. You have sex, you have murder, you have adultery.

It attracted reporters of every single newspaper in the country from San Francisco, from Chicago, from St. Louis, from New York, Washington, Detroit, and so forth. This is 1871 Kansas. It's only six years after the end of the Civil War. So the trial was a national sensation, and one of the Lawrence women becomes the heroine. She talks the editor of one of the Lawrence newspapers into hiring her as the first woman correspondent west of the Mississippi. She covers the trial and solves the murder.

Debbi: Wow.

Leonard: She also fights for women's rights. She fights for suffrage for women and blacks. Yeah, she's quite a woman.

Debbi: And which book is this again?

Leonard: This is called THE BODY ON THE BED. I could hold it up for viewers to see.

Debbi: That's very cool. I noticed that book was outside the series.

Leonard: Yeah, it is. I'm writing the sequel to that now. It's called The Body on the Bricks. She is the heroine of that book as well. But your original question was about the Przewalski series of which there are now four, and yes, there may well be a fifth.

Debbi: Fantastic. Do you see yourself ending this series in a particular way, or do you just think you're going to keep writing them?

Leonard: That's a really good question. Yeah, I do see myself ending the Przewalski series in a way that does poetic justice to Harry's character, how he thinks, how he acts, and when he would take off his gun and put it away somewhere and say, I'm going to do something else.

I do see myself ending the Przewalski series in a way that does poetic justice to Harry's character, how he thinks, how he acts, and when he would take off his gun and put it away somewhere and say, I'm going to do something else.

Debbi: Yeah. So putting up the guns and retiring at some point.

Leonard: Correct.

Debbi: In what ways does your protagonist differ from you?

Leonard: Well, Harry is not me. Of course, as with any writer, there are parts of you that you cannot help but insert into characters - experience, emotions, the way one thinks, senses of humor, senses of tragedy. In all of those ways, yes, there are parts of Harry that come from my life and my experience. But there's a great deal to Harry that isn't like me. So, for example, Harry was a student of paleontology and quit when his fiancé, who was a social worker, was brutally raped and murdered by a social misfit. He left his studies. He went to volunteer for a war in Iraq. He came back with a gun and a license to detect. That's not me.

Debbi: So he's a veteran.

Leonard: Yes.

Debbi: Wow. Yeah. That will have an effect on you.

Leonard: And he uses his skills that he learned by thinking as a paleontologist about those scarce clues, about a bone here, a tooth there or a skull there, to piece together the evolution of life on earth. He uses those skills of piecing together clues from different spheres to solve murder mysteries, which are all wrapped inside science intrigues as well.

He uses those skills of piecing together clues from different spheres to solve murder mysteries, which are all wrapped inside science intrigues as well.

So for example, The Bone Field investigates a paleontologist who is murdered for scientific glory, for fame, for one of the fault lines in the human condition that I like to write about. I think the job of every novelist is to explore the fault lines in the human condition, and the mystery genre, the hardboiled mystery genre, is a perfect vehicle for exploring those fault lines. So in The Bone Field, I quote John Wolcott, a Scottish satirist who wrote "the rage for fame infects both great and small! Better be damned than mentioned not at all." That infects a great deal of science intrigues. So there's a great deal of paleontological intrigue, geological intrigue, and of course, murder and betrayal in The Bone Field.

In the second book, in Death Spoke, the scientific intrigue is the archeology of prehistoric art. Who painted the spectacular bison and deer and horses and mammoths and the caves of France 12,000 to 34,000 years ago? And why didn't they paint in those caves? Why didn't they paint the outside environment? Sky, clouds, trees, grass, water, lakes, streams? There is an answer to that, which you will not hear in archeology class, but if your audience wants to read Death Spoke, they'll find out the answer to that question.

Debbi: Fascinating. That really is fascinating. I'm intrigued by the science here. How much scientific detail do you include in your books?

Leonard: A great deal, but the trick in writing the scientific parts is interweaving the murder story, the detective story with the scientific mystery, so that the two are inseparable and both of them are page turners.

Debbi: Exactly. Yeah.

Leonard: So that one compliments the other. So in what I just mentioned about the novel Death Spoke, the solution to the mystery of who were the artists and why did they paint art in the deepest recesses of the caves, and why only those four animals in almost 99% of the caves, that mystery is interwoven with solving the murder mystery.

Debbi: That is really cool. That is so cool. Have you ever thought of writing a mystery with dinosaur bones for kids?

Leonard: That's a really good question. I used to make up stories for my kids and not read it, but relate it at bedtime. And they loved those stories. I wish I'd written them down, and they did have dinosaurs. Yes.

Debbi: Oh my gosh, because kids seem to love dinosaurs, and I thought right away that you'd be a natural at telling that kind of story.

Leonard: Yes, they do.

Debbi: Wow. Do you work full-time as a paleontologist?

Leonard: I did work full-time as a paleontologist. I don't anymore. I go into the field once in a while, still excavating dinosaurs and other fossils in Montana, but I am not a professional paleontologist any longer in terms of publishing in the field, writing scientific articles and so forth. I've switched from that to writing about paleontology and archeology especially, in my mystery novels.

Debbi: That's really interesting and cool. What kind of writing schedule do you keep?

Leonard: I don't, and I wish I was disciplined enough to keep a writing schedule, then I would finish a novel in six months or a year, rather than take two years to write a novel. It's easy to procrastinate. It's easy to do other things that one enjoys. Reading. I'm an avid cyclist, so I do a great deal of cycling that takes a great deal of time. I like to camp and so on.

Debbi: That's great. That's wonderful actually. What was it that drew you to the field of paleontology?

Leonard: Say that again.

Debbi: What was it that drew you to the field of paleontology?

Leonard: That's a good question. There are two passions that made me a paleontologist. First was the passion of ideas, and in many ways, my novels are about those ideas. Paleontology asks ultimate questions. What triggered the myriad explosions and extinctions of life on the planet during the past 3 billion years? That's an ultimate question. Hundreds of millions of species came and went on land and in the waters,...

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

This episode comes to you ad-free. Relatively. :)

The following is an unedited AI-generated transcript. Does an awesome job, huh? :)

(00:00:12):

Hi, everyone.

(00:00:14):

This is The Crime Café, your podcasting source of great crime suspense and thriller writing.

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I'm your host, Debbi Mack.

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Before I bring on my guest,

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I'll just remind you that The Crime Café has two e-books for sale,

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the nine-book box set and the short story anthology.

(00:00:31):

You can find the buy links for both on my website, debbiemack.com, under the Crime Café link.

(00:00:38):

If you'd like to

(00:00:39):

You can also get a free copy of either book if you become a Patreon supporter.

(00:00:45):

You'll get that and much more if you support the podcast on Patreon,

(00:00:49):

along with our eternal gratitude for doing so.

(00:00:53):

Unfortunately, our scheduled guest was unable to make it this week.

(00:00:58):

However,

(00:00:58):

I have instead another episode from the files of Philip Marlowe,

(00:01:02):

Private Eye,

(00:01:04):

Daring Young Dame on the Flying Trapeze.

(00:01:06):

Enjoy!

(00:01:11):

For the safety of your smile, use Pepsodent twice a day, see your dentist twice a year.

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My Sweet,

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The Brasher Doubloon,

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Pepsodent

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There comes a certain time in the year when I don't want to see midget auto races.

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I just want to see midgets.

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When I prefer sawdust to stardust, and popcorn to all other kinds of corn available in Hollywood.

(00:02:28):

The circus was moving in on the grounds at Washington Boulevard and Hill Street,

(00:02:32):

and I was turning in my usual fine job as sidewalk supervisor.

(00:02:37):

It was exciting.

(00:02:38):

It brought back all the sounds and sensations and convictions of childhood.

(00:02:43):

And then someone had me firmly by the wrist,

(00:02:45):

and I turned to look into a pair of steady,

(00:02:47):

smoky,

(00:02:48):

dark eyes that could be dangerous.

(00:02:51):

Excuse me, sir, but you are a private detective?

(00:02:54):

I'm a detective, but I don't get much privacy.

(00:02:57):

Yeah, my name is Ralph Tassinari.

(00:03:00):

Who told you I was a detective?

(00:03:01):

My feet aren't that flat.

(00:03:03):

Do you know a gentleman named Al Sicanolfi?

(00:03:06):

Well, I know an Al Sicanolfi.

(00:03:08):

He pointed you out.

(00:03:09):

He asked me what was the big idea.

(00:03:11):

What was my angle hiring a private detective?

(00:03:13):

He gave me an idea.

(00:03:14):

When has Al Sicanolfi had any ideas to spare?

(00:03:17):

Mr. Marlowe, besides owning one-third of this very fine little circus, I am Tassinari.

(00:03:23):

Of Tassinari, the Swede, and Glorian.

(00:03:26):

Trafisto.

(00:03:27):

The most brilliant aerial act in the business.

(00:03:29):

I own this circus with Glorian and the Swede.

(00:03:32):

Well, where does Al Sicanolfi fit in here?

(00:03:34):

Now, the Swede gets drunk and gambles fantastic sums of money.

(00:03:38):

This circus is worth a quarter of a million dollars.

(00:03:40):

Already, the Swede has gambled away much more than his third of the circus.

(00:03:44):

And a partner may sell out his other partners without even consulting them.

(00:03:48):

Oh, you're afraid the Swede will sell you out to pay for his debts.

(00:03:50):

Yeah, and if he did that, I should not hesitate to... Uh-oh, watch yourself.

(00:03:58):

Uh, I'll take it off.

(00:04:00):

It has made it plain that the gamblers expect payment immediately.

(00:04:04):

Would you consider giving us your protection during the three days we're going to be here?

(00:04:09):

$25 a day in expenses.

(00:04:10):

That's the nut.

(00:04:12):

Cheap enough.

(00:04:13):

I know, but you see, I'm a sucker for circuses.

(00:04:28):

Yeah?

(00:04:28):

Is this the office of Philip Marlowe?

(00:04:30):

Better still, this is Philip Marlowe.

(00:04:34):

Didn't he?

(00:04:35):

Go ahead.

(00:04:35):

This is his partner, Glorianne.

(00:04:37):

I'm in a downtown bar with a Swede, and he's terribly drunk.

(00:04:40):

I know this isn't your job, but won't you come down and help me get him sobered up for the night?

(00:04:45):

Please?

(00:04:46):

All right.

(00:04:47):

Mother Marlowe will be right down.

(00:04:48):

I found the Main Street bar where Glorianne said I'd find her and the Swede.

(00:05:01):

The Swede was potted like Grandma's begonia.

(00:05:04):

And with the help of the bartender and four professional loafers, we got him into my car.

(00:05:09):

I told Gloria to drive.

(00:05:10):

Ah, ah, lay me alone, will you?

(00:05:12):

I'm all right.

(00:05:13):

Well, just take it easy.

(00:05:14):

Where shall I drive, Mr. Marlowe?

(00:05:15):

Jordan Street Receiving Hospital.

(00:05:17):

I'll stay back here and wrestle the Swede for the championship.

(00:05:20):

I just left him alone for an hour to do some shopping.

(00:05:25):

I'm telling you something, honey girl.

(00:05:27):

That Tesson there, he makes any more passes at you, I'll beat him brainless.

(00:05:31):

Oh, please don't pay any attention to him, Mr. Marlowe.

(00:05:34):

He thinks everyone at this circus is in love with me.

(00:05:36):

Okay, now back in your seat, Roger.

(00:05:37):

Yeah, yeah, and that flip doctor, too.

(00:05:39):

Oh, be still.

(00:05:40):

I'm telling you something, honey girl.

(00:05:42):

One of these days,

(00:05:43):

I'm going to get absent-minded on that trapeze,

(00:05:46):

and I'm not going to catch you,

(00:05:47):

friend Tassinari.

(00:05:48):

How's that, huh?

(00:05:49):

Don't listen to him, Mr. Marlowe.

(00:05:50):

Well, then tell muscles to let go of my ear.

(00:05:53):

Yeah, perfect crime.

(00:05:56):

Who'd know it was an accident or not?

(00:05:58):

And then I'd own half a circus instead of just a third.

(00:06:02):

Please, Mr. Marlowe.

(00:06:02):

He's drunk.

(00:06:03):

Yeah, but drunk or sober, you've got one doozy of an idea there.

(00:06:06):

Drunk or sober.

(00:06:07):

Hey, my wrist.

(00:06:08):

Watch that.

(00:06:14):

I knew some interns at Georgia Street Receiving Hospital who obliged with some oxygen and a mask.

(00:06:21):

A half hour of breathing that oxygen deeply in the Swede was stone cold sober and back in my car again.

(00:06:26):

He was making certain cagey explanations.

(00:06:31):

Uh, Marlowe, you don't want to take that stuff I was mumbling about seriously, you know, I...

(00:06:37):

I was drunk.

(00:06:38):

You certainly were.

(00:06:39):

After all, Gloria Ann's my wife.

(00:06:41):

Oh?

(00:06:42):

Naturally, I don't like other guys giving her the eye.

(00:06:45):

But that screwy talk about me dropping Tassinari accidentally on purpose.

(00:06:49):

Oh, forget it.

(00:06:50):

Oh, no.

(00:06:51):

Yeah, the perfect crime.

(00:06:53):

I was only talking, Marlowe.

(00:06:55):

I wouldn't do that to Tassinari.

(00:06:56):

Of course not.

(00:06:57):

He'd be all broken up about it, wouldn't he?

(00:07:07):

I sat in a field box that evening at this small, neat circus unwound toward the big act.

(00:07:13):

And the big moment arrived with butterflies warming up in my stomach and a pulse

(00:07:19):

thumping madly in my neck.

(00:07:41):

on the high trapeze.

(00:07:46):

Ladies and gentlemen,

(00:07:49):

the living and justifying Passaneri and the Swede came bounding into the arena and

(00:08:00):

over to the two spidery ladders that zoomed up into the very peak of the big tent.

(00:08:04):

Up there where it was hot, high, and dangerous.

(00:08:07):

Two magnificently made men climbing that slim ladder.

(00:08:11):

Their brilliant capes flowing behind them, going up higher, smaller, higher.

(00:08:16):

And then... They were on their tiny platforms, removing their capes grandiosely.

(00:08:21):

And they turned, faced each other across the void like divers.

(00:08:25):

Not a voice, not a breath, not a sound.

(00:08:28):

I began to perspire.

(00:08:31):

The net was being gathered back...

(00:08:36):

Then suddenly,

(00:08:37):

Passaneri raised his right arm and smiled,

(00:08:40):

dropped his arm,

(00:08:41):

and the Swedes shot out into space like a comet,

(00:08:43):

and the gay,

(00:08:44):

waltzing,

(00:08:45):

somehow insane music began.

(00:08:47):

The End

(00:08:57):

It was all the announcer said, at least to me.

(00:08:59):

Daring and terrifying.

(00:09:01):

Whirl and spin and contact.

(00:09:04):

Swing, swing, swing and spin.

(00:09:08):

Spinning and whirling, contact and break.

(00:09:11):

Hands locked to rosined hands, contact and break.

(00:09:14):

Spin, whirl, cartwheel and contact.

(00:09:18):

Swing, swing, swing, and leap.

(00:09:22):

Split second timing and the split second split again,

(00:09:25):

...

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

Check out our discussion of his Baltimore-based crime fiction.

Click here for a PDF copy of the transcript.

Debbi (00:55): Hi everyone. My guest today is the USA Today bestselling indie author of the John Tyler thrillers and the CT Ferguson crime fiction series. Born in Baltimore, he now lives in the Maryland suburbs of DC, a place that I know well, or at least I used to know it well. It's my pleasure to have with me Tom Fowler. Hey, Tom. How are you doing today?

Tom (01:21): Good, Debbi. Thanks for having me on.

Debbi (01:23): Excellent. My pleasure. I was particularly intrigued by the fact that you are writing hardboiled mysteries that take place in Baltimore. You're originally from Baltimore and you've also written a whole lot of those books. How many books do you have in the CT Ferguson series?

Tom (01:44): Sixteen currently. Just put up the pre-order for number 17. My hope is to have it out a little before Christmas.

Debbi (01:56): Well, I got to tell you, I love a hardboiled mystery, and I love the idea of the setting in Baltimore. How many books do you plan to write for the series? What's your plan for the series in general?

Tom (02:09): Yeah, I don't have any plan to end it. I think it's common in the genre to have these kind of open-ended series, and we look at the Spencer series. Robert B. Parker wrote 40 or 41 before he died, and there's been another 11 or 12, I think since his passing. Ace Atkins wrote the first nine or 10, and now Mike Lupica has taken over. So Jack Reacher was more of a thriller character, I would say, than mystery, but that's a 27 or 28. And again, there's an author transition happening there too. So I think it's very common to see these series just keep going, and as long as people are interested in reading them, I'm certainly interested in writing them. I have a lot of fun with these books.

Debbi (02:56): That's cool. I've noticed they tend to be on the short side. Is that intentional? Is it just the way you write?

Tom (03:04): I guess it's just the way I write. They're usually 70 to 75,000 words. The more recent ones have been closer to 70, so I'd say most mysteries are probably somewhere in the 75 to 80 range. So I hope I'm not writing too short, but it's the right length for the story. I don't want to pad the word count unnecessarily. They're first-person stories, so there's not a lot of side quests, if you will, happening that the other characters are going on, so.

Debbi (03:34): Exactly. Yeah, and personally, I like short reads, so I mean, that just really appeals to me.

Tom (03:41): Yeah.

Debbi (03:44): What prompted you to write that series?

Tom (03:49): A few things. I've mentioned before, I think I have a longer bio that mentions I wrote a "murder mystery" (in air quotes for those who can't see me) when I was about seven years old in which no one actually died, so no murder. And I named the, I guess I can't really call him the killer, but the person who stabbed people, the stabber, like in the first paragraph. So not a mystery either. Oh for two, but it's because I was at my grandparents' house a lot, and they would watch shows like The Rockford Files. This was probably the early eighties, and they were probably in syndication by then, but Columbo, shows like that where you had a cop or a PI, someone solving a mystery, and I've read a lot of different genres over the years, but I wanted to, at some point in the late two thousands to 2010, I wanted to write my own, and I really started writing that book.

(04:52): I know I had a finished draft of the first book, The Reluctant Detective, around November, December of 2010. I wouldn't publish it until October of 2017. So the process took me about seven years, but I wanted to do, I like the crime genre a lot. I was big into shows like Monk and Psych and things like that at the time, but I didn't want to do the photographic memory. I felt like that was overdone. So I had to put my own spin on it a little bit, but I really wanted to write something in that space because I've been a fan of it, even going back to my childhood watching those shows at my grandparents' house.

Debbi (05:27): Absolutely. Yeah, those shows are great too. I loved The Rockford Files. Oh my gosh, he was just perfect. I also noticed that you have a protagonist in John Tyler thrillers who's a military veteran. What inspired you to write that character?

Tom (05:47): Well, I've never been to the military myself, but I've worked for the Army and the DOD as a civilian for--I'm not in that space anymore, but I was there for about 16 years or so. So I met a lot of people who were in the military, and I wanted to do a different series, and I wanted to do more of a thriller style, like a military action thriller, and obviously the 800 pound gorilla in that space is Jack Reacher. So to be clear, I very much enjoy the Jack Reacher books. I'm not trying to bag on Jack Reacher, but I wanted to do something a little bit different than Jack Reacher. So I still wanted someone who's been in the service and seen and done his share, but a different character in a lot of ways, I think. And in the series, Tyler has PTSD and lives with it and manages it. He has a teenage daughter who lives with him. As the series opens, she later goes to college. So there are a lot of differences, I think, between a character like Reacher or the more loner types that you normally see in this genre. But I wanted to ground him a little bit differently and tells stories. A character like Reacher, he rolls into a town, raises hell, shoots people and leaves, and he's pretty much the same guy in the next book, and that's fun. But I wanted someone who has been affected by what he's done and continues to be affected by the things he does.

Debbi (07:12): Yeah, I hear that. Actually. I write about a female Marine veteran who also has PTSD and an opioid addiction.

Tom (07:21): Oh, wow.

Debbi (07:22): Who is trying to function as a private eye essentially. So that's an interesting thing to deal with.

Tom (07:29): I read about something for people with traumatic brain injuries. It was like a therapeutic painting program,

(07:35): And I talked to someone I know who's a psychologist, and I said, could something like this be adapted for people who were trying to manage PTSD? And she said, yes. So in the books, Tyler has this painting program that he does. He has watercolors and he has an easel, and he just gets these things out of his head. And interestingly, one of my readers teaches art and teaches watercolors. So he actually gave me some advice about these are the kinds of things he should buy, and this is how someone who's not an artist, because Tyler certainly wouldn't be an artist, this is how someone who's an amateur would do a painting and they would do this part first and then this. So I think my descriptions of him sitting at the easel and doing his painting has gotten a little more accurate over time just because someone who reads my books happens to have that experience and said, Hey, you can have him do it this way.

Debbi (08:31): Wow, that's really interesting. I like the idea of the art therapy as something to use to manage traumatic brain injury. Fascinating. So how largely does Baltimore as a setting figure in your stories?

Tom (08:51): Pretty prominently. Most of the stories, I mean, they all take place, at least partially there. Some of them are entirely contained in the city, but there's also some stories that go into the county or other parts of the state. A couple of the Tyler books actually, some of the action takes place in nearby states, but they always usually start and end In Baltimore, which is my city. It's the city I know. It's the city I love. I know it doesn't always have the best reputation, but it's more than just The Wire, and it's more than just what you see on the news.

Debbi (09:25): Exactly.

Tom (09:26): Yeah, it really is. It's a great city, and I want it to feature in there. And yeah, I'm writing crime stories, so yes, people are dying in Baltimore and these stories. People die in every city, every day around the world. But I really want it to feature in there, and I get emails from people, not just people who lived in Baltimore, but someone who says, oh, I came to Baltimore for a conference 10 years ago, and we ate at the restaurant, and you wrote about it in your book, and just little things like that. So when you ground your series in any real city, even Baltimore in this case, you're going to have people who know the landmarks, who have driven on those streets and who have been in neighborhoods, and it creates a real setting for people.

Debbi (10:10): Yeah, definitely. So you're an indie author like myself. What has your experience been like as an indie author and was it what you expected?

Tom (10:22): No, it was not. It's a lot more than what I expected, and I love it, don't get me wrong, but there are days it really feels like a second job. There are days, it feels like a tied for first job maybe. I really kind of envisioned it as, okay, I'm going to write these books. I'm going to put them up there. And yeah, I wasn't expecting to get rich or anything, and I haven't gotten rich from writing books, but man, there's a lot that goes on. You have to get your books in front of people, so you have to have an email list and oh, now you need to be on social media, and here's these Amazon ads and Facebook ads and things like that. It's like, man, I want to write. I don't want to do all this stuff. And I think a lot of people are in that boat.

(11:11): We get into this, I think, because we're creatives and we want to write and we have stories, and then the businessy aspects of it is where we kind of throw up our hands a little bit, and I've certainly done that in some areas. But yeah, I try to carve out time before the workday....

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

Check out our discussion about leadership skills and crime fiction writing.

You can download a PDF of the transcript here.

Debbi: Hi everyone. My guest today has a career in workplace communication and management. She teaches leadership skills and has a nonfiction book called The Leadership Decision which she published before her crime novel. Her crime novel is Stunning. It's called Stunning, and in addition, she has given a TED Talk on the importance of listening, so listen up. You might learn something. It's my great pleasure to have with me today, Catherine Rymsha. I hope I'm pronouncing that correctly.

Catherine: You are. Thank you. Yes, you are.

Debbi: Excellent. Wonderful.

Catherine: So happy to be here.

Debbi: I was going to ask you about that, and I'd completely forgotten, in the big hubbub of trying to get connected.

Catherine: That's fine.

Debbi: You wouldn't believe, people. Anyway, thank you so much for being here. What is it that made you decide to write a novel, and a mystery at that?

Catherine: I love murders.

Debbi: Who doesn't?

Catherine: It's so odd saying that, but I'm talking to an audience who understands that. I love crime, I love murder. Even as a kid, I was reading like the Fear Street books and R.L. Stein and Goosebumps, and then ventured into Stephen King and then started to watch everything on ID, and 20/20 and Dateline, and all of those shows that dig into it. When I was a kid, I always wanted to write and I fell into leadership and wrote a ton about leadership, which for some, that's not the most thrilling topic in the world, which I understand totally. But then, I was pregnant when I wrote Stunning. It was a dream. It was based on a dream that I had, and I kept having the dream, and I thought maybe I should write this down and I just started writing. I would write before bed and just write, write, write when I had time and I wasn't sleeping or working a real job, and that's how it came about. It just felt like it needed to get out of my brain.

Even as a kid, I was reading like the Fear Street books and R.L. Stein and Goosebumps, and then ventured into Stephen King and then started to watch everything on ID, and 20/20 and Dateline, and all of those shows that dig into it.

Debbi: Interesting. So do you picture writing more books, or is this like your one shot ?

Catherine: I just came out with a textbook, also not as thrilling, very academic, but I want to get back into writing murder and crime and even if I could do something based on real life murder or crime. I think those are things that are interesting to me to explore next. But I do want to start getting into it and I keep saying that, and I thought all summer I'll write another book. And now summer has come and gone and the book is not written. So I'm thinking, well, maybe in the fall. I say that and I laugh because I don't know if it's going to happen that quickly, but it's more fun than writing leadership. I mean, leadership is important but crime and murder and making things up is way more fun.

Debbi: Making things up is fun.

Catherine: Yes.

Debbi: It's its own form of work, but at the same time it's fun work.

Catherine: It is fun work.

Debbi: Yeah. Your books - do you have a traditional, hybrid or are you self-published?

Catherine: I am self-published with my first two, but the textbook, I did work with a publishing company, so that was interesting too, to have that experience after doing two on my own and working with editors and beta readers and that whole spiel.

Debbi: The whole shebang, yes.

Catherine: The whole team.

Debbi: I was going to ask you about your publishing journey. What has it been like for you? Has it been what you expected?

Catherine: With the first one, it was a learning curve, because I wanted to find an editor and I found an excellent editor named Sandy. She was so great at walking me through the entire process because she's very experienced and does a lot of writing herself and writes books for authors trying to get published for the first time, and she is just brilliant at everything she does. So with having her, that was amazing. I can't quite remember how I found her. I think I just found her through an online platform or a Google search or something, but she was a huge help. So even though I found it a little overwhelming at times and expensive at times, she really made it feel worth it. And then with the second book, it felt like a breeze because I knew what to expect and it just went a lot quicker.

But I would say there's so many tools out there, as you know, for authors to use and to benefit from and to get their work out there that it's no longer ... I can look back now and think it's not as bad as what I thought it was going to be. It can be expensive and you sell books but I haven't kind of broken even with it yet. So that's been interesting too.

I would say there's so many tools out there, as you know, for authors to use and to benefit from and to get their work out there that it's no longer ... I can look back now and think it's not as bad as what I thought it was going to be.

Debbi: It does add up. Everything out there does add up. It's incredible. So what is your writing schedule like then?

Catherine: I write at night. I have two twin boys who are two now. Like I said, I was pregnant with them when I was writing the book and publishing it. But now it's trying to fit it in when I can. So whether it's before bed, between classes at UMass or early in the morning if I wake up before my kids, then those are the times that I try to fit it in. I wish I had more time, which I know everybody says, to write, but I think it's just that matter of discipline, committing to a schedule.

Debbi: It's a matter of discipline. Yes, very much so. It sounds like you have a plan that involves catching time periods where you can, how you can pretty much.

Catherine: Yes. I was listening to another one of your podcasts about writing in the airport and even just having that pen and paper, and I think that's the thing. I take voice memos and then I take a screenshot of what the voice memo picked up, because if I don't remember this thought or idea, I'm going to lose it. I don't often have pencils and paper around these days.

I take voice memos and then I take a screenshot of what the voice memo picked up, because if I don't remember this thought or idea, I'm going to lose it. I don't often have pencils and paper around these days.

Debbi: Yes. That's true. I've done that myself actually. I find all sorts of things I wrote years ago that I forgot about. It's interesting. What authors have most inspired you to write in this genre?

Catherine: I think it's going back to that R.L. Stein starting as a kid. I think those Fear Street books, Goosebumps books really caught my attention. Also then in high school, I started reading Stephen King, as most high schoolers start to do. I shouldn't say most high schoolers. I think at the time a lot of my colleagues and peers and friends were. I don't know if Stephen King is as popular now with the younger demographic, although I want to make sure. I assume he is, but I think folks like that who were pretty mainstream and out there and being published and seen as real authors were the ones that got me kind of hungry to write, and now many years later, writing in this particular genre.

Debbi: Yes. I have to read those Goosebumps books sometime because I keep hearing about them. It's a period that I didn’t because I didn't have kids so there are all these children's books that sound so intriguing to me that I don't know about.

Catherine: I look back and I think - I didn't mean to interrupt you - but I'm like, oh my gosh, I was reading some of this at 12, 13. 10 I think I started with some of these books, and they got their hooks in me, I guess.

Debbi: I think they can be equally entertaining for adults.

Catherine: Oh, totally.

Debbi: I like that. I love stuff like that, just to go off and read a middle grade or a child's book or a teenage, a young adult just for something different, to get away from the adults for a while.

Catherine: Oh, a hundred percent. Gives you a new perspective.

Debbi: Yes. Your book is set in New England, correct? Which is where you are.

Catherine: Yes. I'm in Massachusetts in the greater Newburyport area, so if you're looking at a map, right on the New Hampshire/Massachusetts line, and my book kind of bounces around with perspective. So it's thinking about some activities happening years ago in Boston or even at Amherst, and some events happening here in Newburyport, and then some bouncing up to Mount Katahdin in Maine, and really just having some fun with playing around with locations and perspective and time. That's where I tried to weave some of that into Stunning.

I'm in Massachusetts in the greater Newburyport area, so if you're looking at a map, right on the New Hampshire/Massachusetts line, and my book kind of bounces around with perspective.

Debbi: That sounds like fun. I love when a book gives you a sense of the place where it's set, and it sounds like it's set in some pretty interesting places. I've been to Mount Katahdin. [Correction: It was actually Cadillac Mountain.] It's really nice. We went camping there and I remember the shoreline reminded me of California.

Catherine: Yes. Beautiful

Debbi: The rocky shoreline.

Catherine: It's beautiful. I mean, Maine's got so many great spots, but that Mount Katahdin is breathtaking.

Debbi: Yeah. Wow. If there's one trait or theme that tends to come out in your writing, what do you think it would … the most major theme or device or whatever you use in your work, what would it be?

Catherine: I think it's perspective. When I teach, and like I said, I teach leadership and management,...

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

Check out our discussion about thriller writing and her Cold Case Mystery series.

You can download a PDF of the transcript here.

Debbi: Hi everyone. My guest today is the author of several thriller novels, including five books in The Cold Case Mystery series. Her latest book is called Needles and Pins, and it's this week's giveaway, so make sure to check out the giveaway on my blog or on her Instagram. You can find it there on Instagram for sure. So it is my pleasure to introduce as my guest the author, Anna Willett. Hi Anna. How are you doing today?

Anna: Hi, I'm well. How are you?

Debbi: Good, thank you, although right now at the moment, I'm in Maryland where tornadoes are threatening somewhere on the horizon.

Anna: Oh really?

Debbi: Yes. Apparently we've been getting tornado warnings in different parts, not too far from where I live, but it's all very sketchy right now. Hopefully I won't be interrupting this podcast to dive under a desk or into a bathroom or something. I don't know where I'd go.

Anna: Oh, that's scary.

Debbi: It is. They are scary. In any case, let's talk about your thrilling novels rather than my thrilling tornadoes. At what point did you decide to write a series?

Anna: Well, as I said in the post, I wrote a book called The Woman Behind Her, and the main character finds herself as the suspect in a murder. The lead detective on that case was Veronica Pope, who I became very interested in and wanted to write more of, and I thought, I think that I can do a lot more with this character, and so I'm going to write another book. So after really what was the second book in the series, I thought, there's so much more I could do. There's so many more places I could take her. I had so many more ideas for the sort of situation she could be in and her team, and it went from there.

Debbi: It's fascinating. How many books had you written before you made that decision to go after that series?

Anna: I think it would've been 13, maybe 12 or 13 books.

Debbi: That's very interesting how a character gripped you to the point where you decided to create a series for the first time.

Anna: Yes. Well, I'd had another series. It was just three books, and it was about a journalist, but all the others are standalones. And the woman behind her was, I thought, going to be a standalone, but it turned into this ongoing series.

Debbi: Yes, it's fascinating. What inspired you to create Veronica Pope? What kind of inspiration went into creating the character itself?

Anna: Well, I wanted a female leader. I like to write about strong female lead characters, and so I wanted a female detective, and I wanted her to be - I'm going to say normal - so that she's just an average woman who's very good at her job, and she's not a super cop. She's not invulnerable to being hurt. She cares; she worries about things. She has her insecurities, she has her family life. She's a single mother. She has ambitions for her job, but she's also a little bit funny and down to earth, and that's the sort of character I would like to read.

I like to write about strong female lead characters, and so I wanted a female detective, and I wanted her to be - I'm going to say normal - so that she's just an average woman who's very good at her job, and she's not a super cop.

Debbi: Yeah, a very relatable sort of character.

Anna: Yeah, yeah.

Debbi: And skilled.

Anna: Yes. So I wanted her to be really good at her job and very insightful and very observant, but at the same time, I wanted her to have the same worries that most people would.

Debbi: Yes, exactly. Do you plan to write more books in the series?

Anna: I haven't decided. I'm not sure. I might. If something comes to me, if an idea comes to me that I think would be perfect for Veronica. Not all, but quite a few of the books I drew from real unsolved cases in Western Australia. This last one was not one of those, but most of them I've drawn on those cases. Some were unsolved when I wrote them. Some were solved, but not really to the satisfaction of knowing everything about them. So I sort of drew on those cases and took them in another direction and put Veronica in them. So if something comes up that fascinates me, a crime or an unsolved cold case, then I might take that and write about that with Veronica.

Not all, but quite a few of the books I drew from real unsolved cases in Western Australia. This last one was not one of those, but most of them I've drawn on those cases.

Debbi: So it sounds like you take a lot of inspiration from true crime.

Anna: In Western Australia, yes. The previous one, The Ideal Couple, which is set in a small mining town way outside of Perth, I took the inspiration from a real life case where a husband and wife went out into the Outback and were prospecting and went missing, and it's never been solved. And so I took that and changed it and put Veronica into it, and she comes in when it's a cold case and she manages to solve it. So those sort of things, I think, oh, we don't really know anything about what happened and what if it was this and this and this, and then I could put Veronica in there. If something grabs me like that, I'd definitely write another one.

Debbi: Cool. It sounds like each of these books are not necessarily part of a planned arc for the series, more like things come to you and they're more spontaneous, like, what would she do in this situation?

Anna: Yes, yes, that's exactly right. So there's no real arc to it. I sort of know where she's going on her journey, but the cases that will come across her desk and the ones that she'll want to investigate, I'll wait for the inspiration for those.

Debbi: That's really cool. That's great. How would you describe your writing to someone who's never read your work?

I sort of know where she's going on her journey, but the cases that will come across her desk and the ones that she'll want to investigate, I'll wait for the inspiration for those.

Anna: I would say that most of my books are thrillers, even the crime, the Cold Case series, they are thrillers, mystery/suspense thrillers. Most of my books are thrillers. A few are horror. I have a few horror as well as straight thrillers. A couple of them are supernatural horror. Quite a lot of them are domestic thrillers. So it just depends on the inspiration and the story ideas. I usually have a few ideas in a queue in my brain when I'm deciding which one to work on next. But, if you like thrillers, if you like mystery, if you like suspense, tension, and they're probably a little bit grittier than a cozy mystery, for example.

Debbi: Right, right. They sound like fun.

Anna: They are fun to write.

Debbi: What kind of readers do you generally attract? Do you have a sense of who you appeal to?

Anna: I think I appeal to a lot of overseas readers who are interested in thrillers and crime and suspense, but also enjoy the location as it's something new for many of them. Most people don't know very much about Western Australia. Most people know more about the Eastern states, and because Perth is the most isolated city in the world, you sort of have a feeling it's a place where anything could happen, and I think that appeals to a lot of overseas readers.

Most people don't know very much about Western Australia. Most people know more about the Eastern states, and because Perth is the most isolated city in the world, you sort of have a feeling it's a place where anything could happen, and I think that appeals to a lot of overseas readers.

Debbi: Well, I'm intrigued. Sounds fascinating. How much research do you do when you prepare to write?

Anna: I do quite a lot of research, particularly for the series because it's a police procedural, so I try to be as accurate as I possibly can be. I have a friend who is a former Western Australian police detective, and I talk to him a lot about how do you think they would react in this situation? What do you think would be the next step when they're doing this? Is it feasible that they would do this? How would they access this information? What exactly do you think they would say when serving a search warrant in this situation? Where would that allow them to search? Would I have to have a separate warrant for that? I try to get all the details as correct as I can possibly get them so there's that authenticity.

Debbi: Yes, yes. If you're going to do police procedural type stuff, you definitely need that.

Anna: And unlike a lot of other places in the world, there's not a lot of information on any procedural elements in Western Australia. You can buy books on police procedures in the UK and in some parts of America, but you can't really find anything on Western Australia in that way.

Debbi: How interesting.

Anna: So you really need someone you can ask.

Debbi: Yes, because things do have a tendency to change from region to region.

Anna: Yes. In Australia it's a little bit more like the UK. Generally it’s the same, but in each state there's a different police force. Most things are very similar in the way that they would operate, but I want it to be as authentic as I can make it.

Debbi: Sometimes I've noticed in the United States anyway, from county to county, some things can change about the way business is done, so I was wondering if the same thing was true of Eastern and Western Australia?

Anna: Not to the same extent as probably in America. We sort of mirror the British system here in Australia for the most part, and although there are different police forces, most procedural things would be very similar. There might be slight changes, differences in the law in different states, but it's a very similar sort of approach in every state.

Debbi: Right, right. What authors do you find most inspiring to read?

Anna: I really enjoy Karin Slaughter, and I like Michael Connelly,...

This week’s episode of the Crime Cafe podcast features The Adventures of Philip Marlowe in "The Orange Dog."

And my thanks to Old Time Radio Researchers Group for the content. You're awesome!