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 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.