Author R&R with William Ian Grubman

William Ian Grubman is a retired businessman, philanthropist, artist, author, art collector, and performing artist from Los Angeles, California. His art background prompted his interest in writing a crime novel set in the art world, resulting in The Storm over Paris, the first of three installments featuring the same family.

The fictional thriller is set during the Nazi occupation of Paris and centers on Mori Rothstein, whose expertise in the works of the masters has gained him a loyal following—but also the attention of Hermann Goering, the head of the Nazi Gestapo, who forces Rothstein to identify the most prized paintings for a museum being designed by Hitler. After Mori begins to recognize artworks he sold to others long ago and realizes they are stolen, he devises a daring plan with the help of his son, Émile, to smuggle the precious paintings out of the Nazis’ clutches. When a high-ranking German officer is killed, the Rothsteins find themselves on the run and drawn into a web of intrigue, kidnapping, and murder.

Grubman stopped by In Reference to Murder to talk about writing and researching his debut novel:

Several years ago, I decided to write a story about art forgery. I’ve been a student of art my entire life, as well as a collector. Unfortunately, I gave little thought to the process, and I had never attempted writing anything more than a column or two for a newsletter. Needless to say, I was beginning a journey, a long one, and discovered quickly that I was writing a novel about a family. Forgery would become a sub-plot.

It wasn’t difficult at first. I began with a character, added another, created a simple domestic scene, and was off. The problem was, after I finished a couple of pages, I realized I was on the wrong track. In my mind, I was writing a book that took place in present day New York. I discovered the story was something other than what I had planned. The plot wasn’t so much about art forgery as it was about a man and survival, and it didn’t take place in New York, nor was it present day. I had to go back. I had to go to Paris.

I’ve visited Paris many times and know my way around the city relatively well. The problem was, the Paris I know and Paris of the 1940s are quite different. My characters were coming to life, but I needed to understand what day to day life was like in a city controlled by the Nazis.

First, I turned to the internet for pictures, stories, and information; then to books. Hector Feliciano’s The Lost Museum provided a great deal of information about stolen art and the players on both sides of the trading table. That would help in creating the plot line between Mori and Goering. From there, Ronald C. Rosbottom’s historical account When Paris Went Dark helped provide me with a graphic view of the city. I recall when reading Rosbottom’s book, for some unexplained reason, my visuals were in black and white. Possibly a holdover from newsreels of the war. For whatever reason, color eluded me, as did the weather. Each time I thought of Paris during that period, it was black and white and cold. I decided my story would take place in the warm summer months, and I built in as much color as I could to a time shrouded in darkness.

In addition to reference books and the internet, my greatest asset was a map of Paris that sat beside my computer during the creation of my story. As I mentioned, I am familiar with the city, but the map brought intimate light, helping add detail to each scene. Additionally, I researched businesses that were in existence prior to 1940. That would bring depth to my story. I included a few of those names in the text and chose names that would be recognizable to my reader.

I did however make a conscious decision not to include the inner workings of the Louvre in the story. Doing that would have detracted from the intimacy of my tale, overshadowing the plight of the people of Paris. The inner workings of the Louver will have to wait for another book.

My characters began to unfold nicely, but their back stories required work. I found once I created their personas, physical as well as emotional, quirks, habits, likes, dislikes, etc. they came to life easily.

While the story progressed, I was still missing an important layer of the yarn: the hiding place. Without giving anything away about the plot, my biggest obstacle was where to place the stolen goods. That required a trip to Paris. I needed to see the city, walk its streets, put myself in Mori’s shoes.

One afternoon I was visiting Parc Monceau, one of the few parks I had never seen during previous trips to Paris. I was enchanted by its size and charm and discovered within its boundaries several follies that attracted my attention. Most notably, a pyramid with a small door on one side. Voila! I found what I was looking for. I found my hiding place. I was so excited. That jubilation was cut dramatically short when I realized the hiding place only worked if there was a method of transporting that which I wanted to hide.

It would be several weeks before the movable trash can would become a mode of transportation. Once I had a visualization of the object, designing it was easy.

There is one piece of research that I missed along the way. During various trips to the City of Lights, I have often strolled along the banks of the Seine for no other reason but to enjoy the beauty of Paris from the water’s edge. I’m not sure why, but for some unknown reason I had always believed the water to move in a distinct direction. That was the one thing I failed to research during the writing of The Storm over Paris, and an important part of the story. When the book was completed, my editor asked the question about the flow of the river. I was not only embarrassed, but shocked. That detail would require me to rewrite several scenes of the story.

I learned a very hard lesson from that (correctable) mistake ... one can never do enough research.

 

You can read more about William Ian Grubman and The Storm Over Paris via the author's website and also follow the author on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. The Storm Over Paris is now available via all major booksellers.

Author R&R with Jay A. Gerzman

Jay A. Gertzman is Professor Emeritus of English at Mansfield University, where his specialties included Shakespeare, D.H. Lawrence, noir crime fiction, and literary censorship. He's written books on the editions of Lady Chatterley’s Lover and on the distribution and prosecution of erotic literature in the 1920s and 30s. He's also the author of the seminal study of Samuel Roth, Samuel Roth, Infamous Modernist. Gertzman has published articles on David Goodis in Paperback Parade, Crimespree Magazine, Academia.com, Alan Guthrie’s Noir Originals, and the programs of the Noircon conferences.

His new book is titled Pulp According to David Goodis, which, as the title suggests, focuses on the work of David Loeb Goodis (1917-1967), an American writer of crime fiction noted for his output of short stories and novels in the noir and pulp fiction realm. Gertzman's work starts with six characteristics of 1950s pulp noir and works its way to drawing parallels between Goodis's work and Kafka’s. Other elements covered in this critical analysis of Goodis’s oeuvre include his Hollywood script-writing career; his use of Freud, Arthur Miller, Faulkner and Hemingway; and his "noble loser's" indomitable perseverance. Woody Haut (author of Neon Noir: Contemporary American Crime Fiction), called Gerzman's book "The most comprehensive Goodis study yet. Gertzman culls the files, brings everything together and then some. Not only essential reading for all Goodis obsessives but an excellent introduction to one of noir’s greatest writers."

Jay Gertzman stops by In Reference to Murder to talk about writing and researching his new book:

 

AGING BOOKWORM’S PAPER TRAIL TRACES PULP WRITER

David Goodis became exclusively a writer of crime paperback originals (not previously published in hardback) in 1950. He remained so the rest of his life. The points of sale, the readership, and the selling points of the novels were the same as for the pulp crime magazines. They had the same distributors. People scoped them out on newsstands, in drug stores, super markets, candy stores, cigar stores, hotel lobbies, bus and train stations, and for a while in subway station vending machines.

My first task was to study the pulp market. The Association of National Advertisers recorded magazine circulation and rate trends, from 1937 to 1995. Popular Publications studied the parameters of marketing and distributing the paperback “original.” The “original” was a new and highly significant post-war development in mass market popular entertainment. Publishers like Lion and Fawcett paid writers upon acceptance of the MS. Popular Publications specialized in sports, men’s adventure, romance and western magazines. They recorded the number of copies sold in various parts of the country of each of these genres and the most lucrative points of sale.

The New American Library files include advice to editors about instructing writers how to sell books. Publisher Victor Weybright wanted writers who could combine “sparse sentences, the conscious use of short, punchy words, inexorable movement,” and stories that  “got under the skin of life. He had Mickey Spillane under contract, but much preferred James M. Cain, whom Raymond Chandler dismissed as sleazy.  Two of Cain’s most famous passages describe a wife and her lover making violent love immediately after the killing of her husband; another couple have sex on the altar of an abandoned church. Spillane, anyone?

L Ron Hubbard’s correspondence describe how to create workable pulp story lines and character types. He headed The American Fiction Guild of magazine writers in the 30s. His yarns featured good-guy cops and reckless heroes. Yes, he stated he first learned the ropes by “dragging the story into the muck.” Surprisingly or not, there is no better source for understanding 1930s pulp magazine formulae.

Goodis set many novels in the working class and underclass neighborhoods of his native Philadelphia, where “blight” was the result of political abandonment of what once were proud ethnic enclaves. Loan sharking, alcoholism, prostitution, drug dealing, and gambling addiction were the motivating forces of the “Philly gothic” in which Goodis (“the poet of the losers”) specialized. 

I have gathered census figures of the neighborhoods about which he wrote, as well as newspaper stories and photographic coverage of 1950s urban Philadelphia. The Temple University Urban Archives contain clippings of reporters’ interviews with residents suffering in enclaves of declining population and businesses. They document the elimination of playgrounds, corner stores and other support services for the neighborhoods, and of the odorous and unhealthy rendering factories that zoning commissions did not prevent from existing next to houses and schools. The city’s own archives have stunning photos of this process. Philadelphia police statistics in 1950 show that Philadelphia skid row and river wards ranked highest in the city in arrests. The reason was the racketeering that replaced lawful means of employment when City Hall turned its back instead of helping people in stress. Goodis’ writing is as productive a treatment of this process as any sociological study. This is partly the result of his use of the slang and idiom that people actually spoke. Novels with titles such as Street of No Return and Down There show that he is the master of Philadelphia Gothic.

A Major theme of American 20^th century literature is the existence of discontent and isolation because of obligations to family and community. I detected the effects on Goodis’ writings by reading Nathaniel West, Thomas Wolfe, Hemingway and Faulkner. They also write about manic behavioral repetition, familial obligations, and psychic entrapment what Arthur Miller called “The Tragedy of the Common Man.” Reading then-reputable critics who dismissed pulp crime as a form of “masscult” gave me a perspective on the false contrast between the “low” entertainment of pulp stories and the cultural capital of “literature.”

Analogues in Goodis’ writings to Kafka’s occur throughout his career. I can’t say that I took a trip to the Kafka Museum in Prague as research, but the shadowy lighting, the expressionistic background music, and the roomful of art based on Kafka’s work did deepen my feeling about Goodis’ own work.  A construction modeling the killing machine from Kafka’s “Penal Colony” was a revelation: Kafka and Goodis, who wrote less than two generations apart, were brothers under the skin.

 

You can read more about Jay Gerzman and his book via the Down & Out Books website or the book's Facebook page, or follow the author on Twitter and Facebook. American History is now available via Down & Out Books and all major booksellers.

 

Author R&R with Libby Fischer Hellmann

Libby Fischer Hellman has published thirteen novels and twenty short stories including suspense mysteries, historicals, PI novels, amateur sleuth tales, police procedurals, and even a cozy mystery. Her first novel, An Eye for Murder, which features Ellie Foreman, a video producer and single mother, was released in 2002 and nominated for several awards. Publishers Weekly called it a "masterful blend of politics, history, and suspense." In 2008 Libby introduced her second series featuring hard-boiled Chicago PI Georgia Davis, with the latest book in that installment just released, High Crimes.

How do you solve a murder when there are 42,000 suspects? That’s the task facing Chicago PI Georgia Davis, hired to hunt down those ultimately responsible for the assassination of  Resistance leader Dena Baldwin at a demonstration fourteen months after the 2016 election. The gunman, on a hotel rooftop near Grant Park, dies within minutes of the shooting.  As Georgia sifts through Dena’s 42,000 Facebook followers, she discovers that unknown enemies hiding behind fake profiles have infiltrated the group. She finds others who will do whatever it takes—including murder—to shield right-wing, wealthy elites. When Georgia begins piecing together the facts, relatives of both victims mysteriously disappear, and the danger escalates. Threats and bruises have never frightened Georgia, but she’s side-swiped by the sudden reappearance of the mother who abandoned her when she was a child. Can she survive an emotional family crisis  at the same time she pursues killers whose only goal is to protect themselves?

Libby stops by In Reference to Murder to talk briefly about writing the book and offers up an excerpt:

 

RESEARCH FOR HIGH CRIMES

The short answer is that I didn’t do much research for this book. The daily news cycle provided most of what I needed. Even before the election, I started following a few people on Twitter with contacts in the IC (Intelligence Community). Through piecing together what they were and were not reporting, I was able to construct an overview of what has become the most corrupt, incompetent administration in American history.  I also joined a Facebook group (featured in the novel itself) that provides a daily compendium of news stories and articles that deepened my knowledge. And I followed blogs like Amy Siskind’s Weekly List of creeping authoritarianism and the death of democracy. Fun stuff, right?

Having said all that, however, there were a couple of situations for which I needed help. I talked to an ethical hacker to construct how to send an anonymous email that couldn’t be traced, and I also talked to a scientist who told me how to set up the explosion that kills the killer. 

 

BOOK EXCERPT 

Georgia rose. “Erica?”

The woman nodded. Her black hair, threaded with gray, was pulled back into a messy ponytail. She wore jeans, a wool jacket, and snow boots despite the absence of snow. Her neck was long and graceful, but her tight expression made her otherwise smooth features look sharp and out of place, as if they were surprised to find themselves arranged on her face. She was pale and thin, on the way toward emaciated. Grief, likely.

“I’m Georgia Davis.”

The woman, probably in her fifties, gave her a slight nod and gestured to the younger man beside her. “This is my son, Jeffrey. Dena’s brother.”

That Dena had a brother was news to Georgia. It hadn’t been mentioned in the media. Jeffrey was several inches taller than his mother, but just as slim. Somewhere in his thirties. He shared his mother’s dark eyes and hair, minus the gray. His face held a somber, soulful expression.

“He’s as devastated as I am. We both want to get to the bottom of this.”

Get to the bottom of what? Three people had died, including Dena. A dozen more wounded. The shooter had been found—dead from an IED explosion on the roof of a hotel directly across from Grant Park. An open-and-shut case, or so officialdom proclaimed. Domestic terrorism. Tick off yet another massacre to add to the legacy of American gun violence.

Georgia reined in her impatience. “Would you like some coffee? It’s on me.”

“I—uh—tea would be nice.”

A few minutes later, with cappuccino and a pastry for Georgia, the same for Jeffrey, and tea for Erica, they settled into chairs. Jeffrey cleared his throat. Erica sipped her tea. She looked dazed, almost lost. She was clearly struggling. An unusual tug of protectiveness came over Georgia. She gentled her voice as she prompted Erica.

“You said, ‘get to the bottom of this.’ What do you mean?”

Erica’s chest rose and fell. She took another sip of tea. “I assume you’re up to speed on the events of—of Dena’s death.”

Georgia nodded. It was still the top story everywhere. A year had passed since the election of the most unpopular president ever, and despite a core base of supporters, millions were demanding he be removed from office. The president and his administration were incompetent, corrupt, and dangerous. The rumors were that Chicago bookies wouldn’t take any more bets about his odds for survival. A special counsel was investigating.

Erica played with her spoon. “So let me tell you about Dena. She is—was—a left-wing progressive, and she supported Bernie until the convention. Afterwards, she switched to Hillary. She volunteered, rang doorbells in Wisconsin, made phone calls. She organized a rally in Evanston and even put together a carpool to drive seniors to the polls.” She shifted. “The morning after the results were in, she refused to believe them. Later that day she created a Facebook group, ResistanceUSA.”

“Wait. Are you saying she founded the group?”

A wan smile came across Erica’s face. “That’s right. She believed that the vote, particularly in the midwest swing states, had been manipulated by Russia. She wasn’t alone: others were—and still are—alleging it too. The group exploded, and by the end of the year, there were nearly forty-two thousand members.”

“Forty-two thousand people in seven weeks?”

Erica nodded. “Her energy never flagged. Within six months, she was a national figure. She was one of the first to call out every misstep by the new administration, every injustice, every example of creeping authoritarianism, every risk to our democracy. She was in the middle of expanding her ‘repertoire’ when she—died. She had begun to speak out about other issues. The dangers of fracking, the criminality of the new administration, the mess he’s made with our foreign allies. She’d really come into her own. It’s as if she was born to do this. Of course, in the process she made enemies.”

“Such as?”

“There were the bots—you know—know—automated tweets and Facebook messages that roll out whenever a specific subject is raised. Anyway, hundreds, maybe thousands of bots trolled her online.” Erica let out a world-weary breath. “Then there were the real trolls. Human crazies, I call them.”

Georgia nodded. Like mutant viruses, they had invaded the Internet to sow discord and chaos wherever possible.

“They accused her of lying, of propaganda, of being a traitor to the country. Some people even accused her of being a Russian spy working undercover.”

“Although how they could, given the administration’s complicity with Russia, is nuts,” Jeffrey cut in.

Erica nodded in acknowledgment. “Still, Dena was in her element. She thrived on allies and adversaries alike. When she wasn’t appearing on TV, she was organizing, bringing new converts to the group.”

Georgia’s eyebrows went up at the word “converts.” Erica caught it. “Yes, it may have started as a cult, but it grew so big so fast that it became a movement. Dena is—was very persuasive.” Her smile held a mix of pride and sorrow.

“So, last fall she and her crew decided to organize a grass-roots demonstration. They used the Facebook group to spread the She called for a million people to come out. Privately, she hoped there would be at least a thousand.”

“For what reason?”

“January marked a year since the inauguration, but in that short time so much of our country and policies are now unrecognizable. She wanted people to use their First Amendment rights to let the traitor know that what he’s doing and what he represents are not okay.”

“She succeeded,” Georgia said.

Another sad smile curled Erica’s lips. “It was amazing! Police estimated over two hundred thousand people came to Grant Park.” Her smile faded.

Georgia understood. There was no need to repeat the rest. A sharpshooter with a .223 Bushmaster rifle equipped with a bump stock had opened up, killing Dena, group member DJ Grabiner, and a protestor in the front row. Her second-in-command, Ruth Marriotti, along with a dozen others, had been wounded. Chicago cops tracked the gunman to the roof of the White Star Hotel twenty-two minutes later, where they discovered he’d blown himself up with what they later learned was a pipe bomb. Why he hadn’t used the Bushmaster to off himself was still unknown.

The shooter, Scott Allen Jarvis, had materialized seemingly out of nowhere. He was raised on an Iowa farm, but the family was forced to sell when Jarvis was seventeen. He moved to Iowa City for college but never graduated. His parents died in a house fire soon after he left home, leaving only Jarvis and his younger sister, Katherine. He enlisted in the army and survived two tours in Afghanistan and one in Iraq. Afterward he resurfaced in Rogers Park, a neighborhood on Chicago’s North Side, where he lived with his sister and was unemployed much of the time.

Law enforcement and the media scoured his history in the hope of tying him to some kind of radical terrorist group but didn’t find anything. It was as if the guy dropped in from another planet. That didn’t deter cable news, of course, hungry for any scrap of information, meaningful or not. They replayed the video of the shooting and the simple service that passed for Jarvis’s funeral so often that Georgia had to turn the TV off. She could only guess how it affected Erica.

Now Erica’s eyes filled. She swiped at them with her napkin.

Georgia squeezed Erica’s hand. Jeffrey Baldwin cleared his throat. Georgia glanced over. He looked like he was struggling to control his emotions.

Erica swallowed, then picked up her teaspoon, stirred her tea, replaced the spoon on the saucer. Finally, she looked up, and Georgia asked, “Why do you think your daughter was targeted for murder?”

Excerpted from HIGH CRIMES © Copyright 2018 by Libby Fischer Hellmann. Reprinted with permission of the author. All rights reserved. 

 

You can read more about Libby and High Crimes via her website and follow Libby on Facebook and Twitter.

Author R&R with J.L. Abramo

If you believe in omens, J. L. Abramo's crime-writing career was launched the day he was born in Brooklyn on Raymond Chandler’s fifty-ninth birthday. Abramo later earned a BA in Sociology at the City College of New York and a Masters Degree in Social Psychology at the University of Cincinnati and is a long-time educator, arts journalist, film and stage actor and theatre director. He is the author of Catching Water in a Net, winner of the St. Martin’s Press/Private Eye Writers of America Award for Best First Private Eye Novel, and the subsequent Jake Diamond private eye mysteries Clutching at Straws, Counting to Infinity, and Circling the Runway, which won the Shamus Award for Best Original Paperback Novel of 2015 presented by the Private Eye Writers of America.

Abramo's latest novel, American History, is both a historical novel and an epic crime novel and a multi-generational saga of loyalty and deceit, law breakers and enforcers, and families torn apart or bound together in a one-hundred-year battle for survival. The book follows the Agnello and Leone families and their stories that parallel the turbulent events of the twentieth century in a nation struggling to find its identity in the wake of two world wars.

Abramo stops by In Reference to Murder today to take some Author R&R about researching and writing American History:

 

WHEN YOU TITLE A NOVEL AMERICAN HISTORY—EXPECT A LOT OF HOMEWORK

During my last visit here, I spoke of the importance of location in my work—and the essential need to be accurate in depicting settings which are critical elements in the narrative.  I also spoke of the importance of being precise in describing time period, particularly with regard to Chasing Charlie Chan where most of the action took place nearly twenty years before I began writing the book, and a good deal of the action concerned historical events going back to the nineteen-forties. 

Rather than cover the same ground, I refer you to the earlier discussion as a prelude to my talking here of the greater challenge—and of the wealth of knowledge gained and enjoyment experienced—in doing the research for American History. 

American History is set in a number of locations in both Europe and the United States, and the story spans a time period of nearly 100 years. 

The saga of the Agnello and Leone families—perennial enemies—begins in Naro, Sicily.  I chose this small town in Agrigento province because my grandfather and father were born there and also because it gave me good reason to explore my heritage.   I had learned, from the memories of family members who emigrated to America, about what life was like for them in the old country—it was a rocky, infertile land with little promise of a better future for their children.  I came to understand the conditions which inspired these and millions of other immigrants to journey across the ocean—by way of western European ports such as Liverpool and Belfast—to an unknown land with alien customs and language.  And I came to appreciate the courage it required.  I complimented this anecdotal knowledge with academic research—reading books such as Sicily by Guy De Maupassant, The Peoples of Sicily by Louis Mendola and Jaqueline Alio, and The Leopard by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa.  Giuseppe Agnello came to America in 1915.  Nearly thirty years later, his son, Louis, served on a U.S. Navy ship during the allied invasion of Sicily.  Fifty years later still, Louis’ grandson visits Naro to learn more about his ancestors.  Same places, different eras. There was more homework to do.

Most of the action in American History is set in New York, San Francisco, and Denver.  I set my Jake Diamond series, from Catching Water in a Net through Circling the Runway, primarily in San Francisco, and I have set Gravesend and Coney Island Avenue in Brooklyn.  I have lived in those places, and in Denver, and rely on my personal experiences.  But I always need to double-check any specific landmarks, business establishments, and street intersections to avoid glaring geographical errors.  In American History, I had the added responsibility of accurately depicting nine decades of change in these settings.

I also touch upon actual events in the narrative, and did extensive reading about historical figures such as Franklin D. Roosevelt; Fiorello LaGuardia; William Sebold, a German working as a double-agent for the FBI during World War II; organized crime figures like Paul Castellano and John Gotti; and many others.  I also had need to research historical events—the ocean crossings in the 1910s, World War I, the Spanish Flu of 1917, prohibition years, the illegal importation of goods in the 1920s and beyond, early transcontinental railroad travel, World War II in the Mediterranean, and also learned about a number of prisons from coast to coast.

I tried to be as accurate as possible with regard to the changing political and social climate of America over the decades.  I read books, both non-fiction and fiction, illuminating life in America during the twenties, thirties, forties, and fifties.  Last Call by Daniel Okrent, The New Yorker Book of the 40s, and The Fifties by Davis Halberstam were particularly helpful.  I also borrowed from my own reminiscences of the sixties and seventies.

Like much of my work, American History is heavily centered on family.  Family loyalty, family honor, hierarchy and dynamics.  Personal experience, and books including The Italian Americans by Luciano J. Iorizzo and Salvatore Mondello, The Italian Americans: A History by Maria Laurino, and The Urban Villagers by Herbert Gans were equally valuable.

Finally, there was the language.  These immigrants, particularly in their first years in American, would naturally have spoken to each other exclusively in their native tongue—but that would have been impractical.  I did feel, however, that including a sprinkling of foreign words and phrases—primarily in the early portions of the novel—might help the reader imagine that the characters were actually conversing in their native language.  For that purpose, I studied the language and I received invaluable help from my sister Linda, who is a much more proficient translator.

The road I traveled and the research I employed to write American History was—for me—enlightening, surprising, exciting, and a good time.  Hopefully, the reader will enjoy following the epic journey of these two warring families—spanning a continent and a century in America.  

 

American History is available from Down & Out Books and all major booksellers. You can find more about J.L. Abramo via his website or follow him on Facebook, Twitter, and Goodreads.

Author R&R with J.J. Hensley

J.J. Hensley is a former police officer and former Special Agent with the U.S. Secret Service. He's the author of the novels Resolve, Measure Twice, Chalk’s Outline, Bolt Action Remedy, and Record Scratch. He graduated from Penn State University with a B.S. in Administration of Justice and has a M.S. degree in Criminal Justice Administration from Columbia Southern University. Hensley’s first novel, Resolve, was named one of the Best Books of 2013 by Suspense Magazine and was named a Thriller Award finalist for Best First Novel.  

Record Scratch is the second installment of the series featuring private eye and former secret service agent Trevor Galloway and centers on a woman who wants to hire Galloway to not only solve her brother’s homicide, but recover a vinyl record she believes could ruin his reputation. He doesn't want or need the case, but when the potential client closes the meeting by putting a gun under her chin and pulling the trigger, his sense of obligation drags him down a path he may not be ready to travel. 

As Galloway pieces together the final days of rock and roll legend Jimmy Spartan, he struggles to sort through his own issues which include having the occasional hallucination. He’s not certain how bad his condition has deteriorated, but when Galloway is attacked in broad daylight by men he assumed were figments of his imagination, he realizes the threat is real and his condition is putting him and anyone nearby at risk. The stoic demeanor that earned Galloway the nickname The Tin Man is tested as he reunites with an old flame, becomes entangled in a Secret Service investigation, and does battle with old enemies.

Hensley stops by In Reference to Murder today to take some Author R&R talking about "Research, Records, and Receipts":

 

I like Vince.

Vince is a nice guy. Vince runs Galaxie Electronics in the Squirrel Hill neighborhood of Pittsburgh and happens to be an encyclopedia of information about record players, turntables, and vinyl albums. Vince and I spoke at length with the understanding I might use both him and his shop as references in a novel I was planning to write. I did make it clear I couldn’t guarantee the safety of the semi-fictional character nor the store that I ended up naming Planetary Electronics. Vince was more that okay with that arraignment. Poor, sweet, innocent, Vince.

 

Hopefully, Vince will still speak with me and he’ll understand how incredibly valuable he was to the creation of Record Scratch. Vince is one of many people who have saved me from making horrible errors over the years and allowed me to plug in details readers find interesting. I’m often amazed when writers make basic mistakes that could have been avoided by not only conducting simple online research but by making a few phone calls or going out an interviewing people face-to-face. It’s amazing how many people are excited to help an author get the details right and most aren’t even offended, and sometimes may be flattered, if some thinly-veiled version of himself ends up getting massacred in chapter seven.

Over the past few years, I’ve researched blacksmithing, sniper rifles, the sport of biathlon, and several other specialized topics I wouldn’t have taken the time to learn about if it were not for writing. It’s fairly easy to get motivated to become educated on specialized material because it’s new and exciting. However, many errors are made in novels because of the presumption of knowledge. Much of this comes from television where we have spent decades hearing criminal suspects and lawyers claim that Miranda rights must always be administered to a suspect or watching cops chamber rounds into weapons that in real life would have already been ready to fire. Many authors assume this information is true and think certain “facts” aren’t worth researching. Unfortunately, that is when basic errors occur, especially in crime fiction. Thanks largely to the indoctrination we receive from Hollywood productions, writers have to be careful when making assumptions as to what constitutes reality. Even when we have experience in a certain area, the research never ends.

Case in point, I have an extensive background in law enforcement. However, methodologies and technologies change and many of the tools used on the job today weren’t available to me (garble garble) years ago. I narrowly avoided making an error in one of my books when I was writing a scene that involved pepper spray. I was going to have an officer carry a specific type of spray that I happened to know was extremely effective because not only had I carried it when I was a police officer, I’d been sprayed with it in the academy. Trust me. It was effective. Anyway, something made me think I should check with a friend who is still active in my former department to see if they still carried that brand of spray.

“Oh, no!” he told me.

I asked why not.

“It turns out it’s a bit flammable when used with Tasers.”

Good to know!

Well, back when I was a police officer in Virginia we didn’t have Tasers. The technology had changed and I nearly made a silly error in a novel. Now you might be thinking that nobody would have noticed that kind of mistake. Someone…always…notices. And although many writers have better luck getting organ donations rather than Amazon reviews, it will be THAT individual who will write multiple scathing online reviews pointing out the writer’s complete lack of knowledge and total abundance of laziness. That’s just the way it works.

These are some of the reasons I conducted so much research for Record Scratch. Vince was kind enough to help me with the mechanics surrounding equipment not many people understand or appreciate. My brother, who happens to work in the music business, gave me a crash course on recording studios, soundproofing, and an assortment of other items. The chief of a police department in Pennsylvania met with me to explain various training requirements in the state and the sharing of jurisdictional resources. And I may have purchased a turntable, speakers, and several vinyl albums in the process. Research. It’s all about the research. You hear me, IRS?

Note:  Always keep receipts for your research.

 

J.J. Hensley's Record Scratch is on sale this week via Down & Out Books and all major booksellers. You can learn more about Hensley and his books through his website and blog and follow him Facebook and Twitter.

Author R&R with Rich Zahradnik

Rich Zahradnik served as a journalist for 30-plus years working as a reporter and editor in all major news media, including online, newspaper, broadcast, magazine and wire services. He held editorial positions at CNN, Bloomberg News, Fox Business Network, AOL and The Hollywood Reporter. He's also the author of the Coleridge Taylor Mystery series (A Black Sail, Drop Dead Punk, Last Words). The first three books in the series were shortlisted or won awards in the three major competitions for books from independent publishers. A Black Sail was named best mystery in the 2017 Next Generation Indie Book Awards and a finalist in the 2016 Foreword Reviews Book of the Year Awards. Drop Dead Punk collected the gold medal for mystery ebook in the 2016 Independent Publisher Book Awards, while Last Words won the bronze medal for mystery/thriller ebook in the 2015 IPPYs and honorable mention for a mystery in the Foreword Reviews competition.

The latest series installment, Lights Out Summer (Camel Press), is set in March 1977, when ballistics link murders going back six months to the same Charter Arms Bulldog .44, and a serial killer, Son of Sam, is on the loose. But Coleridge Taylor can’t compete with the armies of reporters fighting New York’s tabloid war—only rewrite what they get. Constantly on the lookout for victims who need their stories told, he uncovers other killings being ignored because of the media circus. He goes after one, the story of a young Black woman gunned down in her apartment building the same night Son of Sam struck elsewhere in Queens. The story entangles Taylor with a wealthy Park Avenue family at war with itself. Just as he’s closing in on the killer and his scoop, the July 13-14 blackout sends New York into a 24-hour orgy of looting and destruction.

Rich stops by In Reference to Murder today to talk about writing and research Lights Out Summer:

 

Researching the Coleridge Taylor Mysteries changed in a big way in 2014—in both interesting and embarrassing fashion. Sometime before then, I’d put on my gift list the massive “The New York Times: The Complete Front Pages 1851-2009.” The tome included three DVDs—remember those?—containing 54,693 front pages linking to complete articles.

Taylor is a reporter who always has an acute awareness of the other stories going on around him. He reacts to news and how it’s covered even when it’s not his story. The novels are set in the seventies. From a storytelling standpoint, a headline from a certain day can give readers a feel for the period—or remind them of a crime or political event or cultural incident they’d forgotten and perhaps echoes what’s happening today.

Right, so that’s why I needed the book. My wife gave it to me for Hanukkah. The cost of the giant thing was somewhere between $125 and $165. Within months, the New York Times announced online subscribers would have access to TimesMachine, an online archive of complete issues of the paper as they originally appeared going back to 1865. I never did put one of those DVDs into my computer. You can now buy the DVD/book package on Amazon for $8.27.

I am well past my embarrassment. (The Times could have given me some warning, though.) TimesMachine is indispensible. I can go deeper to see the stories beyond the front page. The ads, too. This helps for all the reasons I mentioned above. And others. My new mystery, Lights Out Summer, is set in 1977 and an important set piece in the plot is the New York blackout of July 13-14. No book was written about those terrible 25 hours when thousands of businesses were looted and destroyed. But I could read all of the articles the Times published during and in the aftermath of the stealing, fires and vandalism. (The Times itself pulled off a miracle by sending editors over to Jersey and getting the paper out.) I’ll admit, the TimesMachine is particularly helpful to me because my books are set in New York, so I can track local politics, cultural and crime. Tidbits are sprinkled throughout the novels.

Each of my books involves a major New York historical event in the plot: the city’s near bankruptcy, the Bicentennial celebrations, Son of Sam’s murder spree. And for each, I’ve found at least a couple of books to go deep on the subject even if the event—like the Bicentennial—serves as a backdrop to the crime story. For “Lights Out Summer,” I was greatly aided by “Son of Sam: Based on the Authorized Transcription of the Tapes, Official Documents and Diaries of David Berkowitz” by Lawrence D. Klausner and “Son of Sam: The .44 Caliber Killer” by George Carpozi Jr. I learned of an earlier New York serial killer, 3X, from the wonderful “Police Reporter: Forty Years One of New York’s Finest Reporters” by Ted Prager. That book also gave me insights into what Taylor’s job was like for one or two generations of reporters before him.

A collection of general histories, timelines and atlases of New York rounds out my library.

Oh, and one last reference is indispensible: “Billboard Top 10 Singles Charts, 1955 to 2000.” Music triggers memories in readers. The seventies were a period of massive change as disco, punk, hairband rock and the sixties survivors fought for listeners’ attention. I could easily pick out a song I remember from 1977 and drop it in. But the charts show me what tunes were hot in a particular week—adding a nice level of detail. They also remind me of songs and bands I’d forgotten.

Disco-Tex and the x-O-Lettes anyone?

You can learn more about Rich and his books via his website and follow him on Twitter, Facebook, and Goodreads. Lights Out Summer is available via all major book retailers.

The 'Zine Scene

I haven't done an update on the latest crime magazine offerings lately, so without further ago, here are some great issues to check out (in alphabetical order):


Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine:  The May/June double issue has the usual mystery puzzles, mystery photograph contest, reviews, and new stories from Emily Devenport, John H. Dirckx, Jane K. Cleland, Deborah Lacy, Steve Liskow, Leslie Budewitz, Tara Laskowski, Thomas K. Carpenter, John C. Boland, Neil Schofield, Dayle A. Dermatis, Marianne Wilski Strong, and B.K. Stevens.


Crimespree Magazine features a cover story on the late, much-beloved Bill Crider, author of the Sheriff Dan Rhodes series and much more; a celebration of Mickey Spillane’s 100th birthday (did you know the iconic author was also a spokesman for Miller Lite for 18 years? He made over 100 commercials both for TV and radio); two articles from Eryk Pruit, and the regular features.

Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine:  In addition to reviews, Blog Bytes, The Jury Box, and the announcement of the EQMM Readers Award, the May/June issue has new short fiction from Doug Allyn, Gabriel Flores, Peter Sellers, Hollis Seamon, Richard Helms, William Hallstead, Steve Hockensmith, Susan Dunlap, R.t. Raichev, Benjamin Percy, Marjorie Eccles, Bill Pronzini, Hilary Davidson, and Carlos Orsi.


Flash Bang Mysteries shares new short, short crime from featured author Regina Clark and "On and Off," as well as the Editor's Choice, "No Way Out" by Herschel Cozine; and also mini-tales from Robert Petyo with "Don’t Text and Drive," Vy Kava with "No Good Deed Goes Unpunished," and John M. Floyd, with "While You Were Out."

Mystery Readers Journal's latest themed edition is Big Cops II, which continued the two-issue focus on policing in urban environments. There are columns, reviews, and twenty essays from authors on such topics as "How Technology Is Affecting Big City Cops," including two you can read online, "Proof of Procedure" by J.A. Jance and "Big City Perspective, a Greek Island Life" by Jeffrey Siger.


Mystery Scene Magazine: The cover story is an Oline H. Cogdill interview with Anglophile author Elizabeth George; Michael Mallory also takes a look at the versatile writer Henry Slesar, who's penned scores of short stories and TV programs; Jake Hinkson takes a look at true crime docuseries; Jon L. Breen has his annual round-up of recent legal thrillers; and much more.


Mystery Weekly Magazine's May 2018 issue includes stories by Jazz Lawless about a mob hit that didn’t quite "take"; Troy Seate’s take on a 1950s detective who’s haunted by a legend from the deep; Cecily Winter’s near-futuristic look at a terrorist car; Craig Terlson’s look at an unusual couple; Jody Wenner’s unsettling tale of a man who wakes up to find a piece of himself missing; and Edward Musto’s "Armistice."


Sherlock Holmes Mystery Magazine's recent March issue had Holmes features from "John H. Watson, M. D" and "(Mrs) Martha Hudson"; new short stories by Stan Trybulski, Michael Haynes, Dianne Neral Ell, Laird Long, Ellen Wight, Marian McMahon Stanley, Teel James Glenn, Dana Martin Batory, and a classic from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle himself; and new non-fiction articles, poetry, art, and cartoons.


Strand Magazine's spring edition features fiction by Jeffery Deaver (a Lincoln Rhyme story), William Trevor, David Marcum, and Andrew McQuilkin; a feature article by Lisa Gardner on research, inspiration, and fact vs. fiction; and an exclusive interview with Caleb Carr, whose Alienist books have been recently adapted for TV.


Suspense Magazine has its usual author interviews, reviews, and articles including profiles of Jack Carr, Alma Katsu, Jake Tapper, Steena Holmes, Lee Goldberg, and Rhys Bowen; Barry Lancet and Anthony Franze are back with their latest "Articles on Talking Writing." Dennis Palumbo tells us "How not to overwrite." Stepping back in time, there's a great interview that was recently on Crime and Science Radio, hosted by D.P. Lyle and Jan Burke, as they talked with Michael Tabor, a forensic dentist who has stories you won't believe.


Switchblade Magazine's May issue has "fast action gutter" fiction from returning author Court Merrigan and Rob Pierce; Indianapolis crime writer, and managing editor of Pulp Modern, Alec Cizak; Switchblade usual suspects Preston Lang, Jack Bates, Robb T. White, Rick Risemberg, and Lisa Douglass; and also new prospects Tom Andes, Tony Genova, E.F. Sweetman, David Rachels, Danny Sophabmisay, Chris McGinley, Timothy Friend, and Tom Barlow.


 Yellow Mama's April issue includes the feature story by "Noir-meister" Jason Butkowski, as well as new crime stories by Jim Farren, Marci McKim, British horror writer Sam Graham, Kenneth James Crist, J. Brook, Jon Park, and Jerry Vilhotti; and the usual kick-ass poetry and illustrations.

Author R&R with Patti Abbott

Patti Abbott is no stranger to this blog and its readers, since IRTM has been a participant in Patti's Friday's "Forgotten" Books features on her blog for some time. In addition to being a blogger, Patti is an outstanding author of short crime fiction and has published over 125 stories online and in print journals in various anthologies, winning a Derringer for her story "My Hero." She's also published two print novels, Concrete Angel (2015), nominated for an Anthony and Macavity Award, and Shot in Detroit (2016), nominated for an Edgar Award and an Anthony Award in 2017. She's also authored two ebooks, Monkey Justice and Home Invasion, and co-edited the anthology Discount Noir. 

Her latest literary endeavor is a collection of twenty-six of her stories, titled I Bring Sorrow: And Other Stories of Transgression, published by Polis Books, which Publishers Weekly called "A sparkling collection from Edgar-finalist Abbott...This brilliant collection is sure to boost the author’s reputation as a gifted storyteller." From a daughter who finds a way to save a mother who no longer knows her name, to a father who eases his grief through an act of kindness that few will judge kindly, to an uxorious husband who finds the limits of his love, the collection promises to take you "into the deepest, darkest corridors of the heart."

Patti stops by In Reference to Murder today to talk about one of the stories in that collection and how it came to be:

 

"Um Peixe Grande"

From I BRING SORROW AND OTHER STORIES OF TRANSGRESSION

Early in my writing career, such as it is, I wrote a story for a specific challenge. The instructions were to choose a fairy tale or a myth and base a crime story on the tale. I chose Hansel and Gretel (along with half of the eventual entries) and wrote a story about two city kids whose mother is pretty much the witch. I had fun doing it and resolved to try my hand at it again.

So a few years later, I chose Grimm’s story "The Fisherman and His Wife" to update. And my first attempt pretty much followed the story’s structure. In the tale, a fisherman sets a caught flounder free and when he returns home his wife tells him he should have demanded a prize for his good deed. He returns to the water and demands a prize, which he gets, and the demands and the prizes escalate until it spins out of control.

I wasn’t happy with my story. It turned out to be too much about the harridan wife. It seemed like a cliché-filled short story when I was done. So my story eventually became more about the fisherman and the fish. The fish becomes a crime boss and the lakes of Maine a scene for certain sorts of crimes. I made the fisherman Portuguese, which felt authentic. His wife’s role is largely trying to persuade him to work for a fish farm. I was pretty happy with this story and happier still when PLAN B who published it had it read online by a fellow who perfectly got the voice that had only existed in my head. Incidentally, a certain B.V. Lawson has a story in the same collection. Thanks to Bonnie for hosting me.

 

You can follow Patti on her popular blog, or on Facebook, Twitter, and Goodreads. I Bring Sorrow and Other Stories of Transgression is available now via Polis books and all major booksellers.