Author R&R with Mark Ellis

 

UK-based Mark Ellis is former barrister and entrepreneur turned thriller writer and creator of DCI Frank Merlin, an Anglo-Spanish police detective operating in World War 2 London. Mark grew up under the shadow of his parents’ experience of the Second World War: his father served in the wartime navy and died a young man, and his mother told him stories of watching the heavy bombardment of Swansea from the safe vantage point of a hill in Llanelli, Wales. As a consequence, Mark has always been fascinated by WW2 and the fact that while the nation was engaged in a heroic endeavor, crime flourished—murder, robbery, theft, rape and widespread looting. This was an intriguing, harsh and cruel world, the world of DCI Frank Merlin.

Dead in the Water is the fifth and latest installment in the Frank Merlin series, set in 1942 with the war still raging. A mangled body is found in the Thames River just as some items of priceless art go mysteriously missing. What sinister connection links the two? Following a twisting trail of secrets, Merlin and his team must investigate a baffling and deadly puzzle.

Mark Ellis stops by In Reference to Murder to take some Author R&R about researching and writing the series:

 

The Importance of Research in my Writing

I am the author of a detective series set in World War Two London. My hero is Detective Chief Inspector Frank Merlin, a police officer working out of Scotland Yard. There are 5 books in the series to date,  and I’m currently working on the sixth. The Embassy Murders (formerly titled Princes Gate) kicked off the series with Merlin investigating deaths at Joe Kennedy’s London American Embassy in January 1940. The series then progressed to the latest, fifth book, Dead In The Water, set in August 1942, when Merlin investigates a number of deaths linked to Nazi-stolen art. The next book will take Merlin on to early summer 1943.

When I took up crime writing I chose wartime London for a number of reasons. One was that it was a period which had not been covered very much recently in crime fiction. Another was that I found out there had been a crime boom during the war. Crime grew by approximately sixty per cent in England and Wales between 1939 and 1945. Criminals benefited from the blackout, rationing and the black market, the growing market for vice, and the general civil disarray caused by bombing and the war. It seemed to me this would be a great time in which to set a detective series.

I am very keen on achieving historical accuracy in my books. I aim to transport readers to another very different time and place and in my view this cannot be done successfully without accuracy and authenticity. As to the research process I use to achieve this, it has changed a little over time. When I began writing in the early 2000s, I relied very heavily on libraries. In particular I spent a lot of time at the British Public Records Office in Kew, London, where amongst much other helpful information, they hold copies of all the newspapers printed in the war. However as the internet grew, I found that I could increasingly get much of that information online, and the balance of my research process changed, both in terms of sources and procedure.

Having built up a good detailed general knowledge of the period, my main focus now is the specific timeline of the story. Merlin 6, as mentioned above, will be set in early summer 1943. Before starting to write this autumn I spent around 3 months immersing myself in May and June 1943. I began by trawling through the internet searching for any information connected to that time. Then I did the same with my own wartime library of histories, biographies, autobiographies, diaries and literature of the period by authors like Graham Greene, Evelyn Waugh and Elizabeth Bowen. Public libraries still play a part if I encounter gaps. Of course, the research process hasn’t stopped completely now I am writing. There are always facts to verify, and geographical locations to check out.

Good research is crucial, but it is important for the author to remember that the story is the most important thing. There is often a temptation to show off the depth of research done. Many readers enjoy learning new facts in historical fiction books but authors should not overdo it and allow the fruits of research to overwhelm the story. I try hard not to leave myself open to that criticism.

PS I’ve been asked to say who I would consider for the part of Frank Merlin if my series was filmed. This is not so unlikely an event as I have had tv/movie interest from the BBC and others. I like a British actor called Luke Evans who has a Hollywood pedigree (Beauty and the Beast, Midway, The Hobbit). He has similar looks and build to Merlin, as does another possibility, the experienced British actor, Orlando Bloom. Both are the right age.

 

You can learn more about Mark Ellis and his books via his website, and follow him on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Dead in the Water is available now from Headline Publishing and via all major booksellers.

Author R&R with Tessa Wegert

 

Tessa Wegert is a journalist and former digital media strategist. Her business and marketing articles have appeared in such publications as Forbes, The Huffington Post, Adweek, and The Economist. She grew up in Quebec near the border of Vermont and now lives with her husband and children in Coastal Connecticut, where she writes while studying martial arts and dance. Tessa is also the author of the Shana Merchant series of mysteries, beginning with Death in the Family. The latest installment in that series is The Kind to Kill. 

In The Kind to Kill, a missing tourist spells trouble for former NYPD detective Shana Merchant, who is now a skilled Senior Investigator keeping New York's beautiful Thousands Islands community safe. As she investigates the disappearance, the case threatens to destroy not just the annual Pirate Days celebration but what remains of Shana's reputation, revealing secrets she's tried to keep hidden.

Tessa stops by In Reference to Murder for a little Author R&R about the book:

 

True Crime in Fiction: A Killer in the Family

In recent years, we’ve seen a pretty sizeable uptick in thrillers with true crime themes. Chalk it up to North America’s true crime podcast obsession, the glut of new docuseries available on Netflix, or cyclical trends—whatever its origins true crime is booming, and weaving it into crime fiction makes perfect sense.

There’s a true crime connection with The Kind to Kill, my latest thriller, too. In the book, New York State Police Senior Investigator Shana Merchant’s secret is finally out: she’s related to a notorious serial killer, and the man she’s been hunting for years was once her closest friend. I did a lot of research on true crime while writing—you’ll see local journalist Jared Cunningham mention a few real-life cases in his conversations with Shana—but this is a book that looks at true crime through a different lens. Instead of solely focusing on the victim and killer, it also explores the killer’s family.

When the news gets out that Shana has blood ties to Blake Bram, she quickly becomes a pariah. Even members of her own family, who are related to Bram too, opt to shut her out. Exploring true crime from the point of view of the killer’s family fascinated me, and Shana provided the perfect entry point for this analysis. What would it feel like to discover a relative had committed a brutal crime? How would that revelation affect someone who was duty-bound to uphold the law? These were the questions I wanted to address. In the end, it didn’t surprise me that Shana’s struggle to accept the truth and reconcile it with her profession and deep-seated desire to protect others became the heart of this story about resentment, redemption, and the darkest family secrets of all.

 

You can find out more about Tessa and her books via her website and follow her on Facebook and Twitter. The Kind to Kill is available in ebook and print formats from Severn House and all major booksellers.

Author R&R with Gregor Pratt

 

Greg "Gregor" Pratt is a former Ohio attorney who retired after 40 years of general practice focused on litigation in the Cincinnati area. But he always wanted to be a fiction writer, and with the winding down of the practice of law, found time over the last several years to write his first novel, Ebola Island, drawing on his experience as a trial lawyer. Ebola Island is the first in a series featuring class action lawyer, Jack Gamble, who is thrust into the middle of a pandemic on an island with a cast of dynamic characters who must grow to trust each other in their dire circumstances if they want to survive.

Pratt's second novel in that series is Dragon's Eye, in which Jack's wife Maddy, a teacher, goes missing. The police think Maddy has run off with one of her students even though there are no clues—she’s simply vanished. When the police and other agents of the New Zealand government begin to pull back the veil on hidden evidence, Jack and friends embark on a harrowing journey to rescue Maddy from the grips of the Chinese government. But how do private citizens challenge an overreaching totalitarian government with limitless resources and connections?

Greg stops by In Reference to Murder to talk about writing and researching the novel:

 

Each author and each novel are different. Like most authors my very first novel is still in a box under my desk. It needs so much work! Researching it was great fun and I mention it because the research process was so much different than my later novels.

Since most of my first took place in Newport, Kentucky, which was close to my home at the time I was able to go there and see the streets and some of the buildings for myself. Of course that meant I had to separate out the new buildings. Focus was on the buildings that were there in the 1960s when the Kennedy Justice Department investigated Newport, which had been a vice hot spot since the Civil War. But buildings and streets are just a start. What was life like? I read a number of books about Newport in those days. One that I remember is Razzle Dazzle, which described the lives of people back then and how the legal operations were used to mask the illegal ones. Razzle Dazzle was a dice game where the player often appeared about to make a big win and somehow they never did. I was lucky to have an acquaintance whose father had been quite the gambler. He played cards regularly with a character named Sleep Out Louie, who got his nickname because he would sleep out a few hands in his chair while the game went on around me. The shared stories were invaluable. For instance Louie and my friend’s father would play gin for stakes so high that major league baseball players who were in town would come by to watch the action. They would keep score but would not play. And one of my brothers in law had an ancestor who was a member of “the mob” in Newport. The real life touches of those “true” stories helped give feeling to those chapters of the book and helped define the characters and their interactions.

On my second and third books which were actually published I was not so well placed geographically. Ebola Island (2019) takes place largely in Madagascar and Dragon’s Eye (2022) takes place in New Zealand and Vanuatu. Not only does my budget not allow travel to far away places like that , when I was writing Dragon’s Eye New Zealand was not admitting visitors due to COVID. So I had to come up with other methods to develop the background for my stories.

Ebola Island is a pandemic novel and as you have likely guessed the island reference is to Madagascar. The conditions of the people the island in my novel are wholly a product of my imagination: the physical attributes of the island itself I gleaned or tried to from Google Earth and online research. What routes would my characters travel? What is the terrain like? What landmarks would they see or cross? How far could they be expected to travel in a day/how many days would an overland journey take? What were the flora and fauna like? What creatures inhabit those lands? How available is water? What does the countryside look like if viewed from a mountain’s edge? These are all items I want to represent as accurately as possible. From Google Earth I could travel visually across the island from one identifiable place to another and the terrain changed as the journey went on just like it would if we were really traversing the island. Flora, fauna, creatures and water were all subject to research. Before I started writing I purchased several books on Madagascar , read them and went back to them for reference while writing. In that fashion the big issues were largely correctly represented and hopefully realistic with some specific areas crafted to fit the story. This is fiction after all.

The locale for Dragon’s Eye was predetermined at the end of Ebola Island when Jack announced that after he and Maddy married they were going to New Zealand. In 2019 I was hoping to go to New Zealand, research locations and specifics and then start writing. And I planned to do a little sightseeing and some fly fishing while there.

That didn’t exactly work out. Ebola Island is a pandemic novel published just weeks before we heard of COVID for the first time. And I am proud to say I got a number of things right in that scenario. And some not, for instance I did not anticipate face masks. And I definitely did not anticipate New Zealand being essentially closed to visitors. So here using Google Earth again I visited Nelson, New Zealand remotely and I was able to identify Jack and Maddy’s house, the school their children would attend and walking routes to get there as well as many other physical attributes that played into my novel. I find the satellite view most helpful.

Other facts needed research. For instance, how long does it take to fly a small plane from Tauranga, New Zealand to Port Vila, Vanuatu,? Is there an airport there? What is the name of the airfield in Port Vila and what is its condition? What are the politics, economy, population of Vanuatu? What nations are they friendly with? Are there any ongoing international issues? For issues like that I prefer to start with the CIA World Factbook or just World Factbook sites for each country. These sites are very comprehensive and are attributed to the CIA. They are readily accessible online. By way of example the World Factbook site for New Zealand has twelve sections identified covering such things as Geography, People and Society, Energy, Military and Security. It is often a good place to start to get to know a new and remote area. And it can even spark additional issues or twists and turns for your novel or perhaps just accurate historical references to give your work more gravitas. That type of site will give you ideas on what to explore in more detail. It can help you spell place names correctly and alert you to historic and cultural issues. And best of all, it fits right in our budget.

 

You can learn more about Greg and his writing via his website and follow him on Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter. You can find the ebook version of Dragon's Eye via Amazon's Kindle Unlimited, with print versions available via most major booksellers.

Author R&R with Penny Goetjen

 Award-winning author Penny Goetjen writes murder mysteries where the milieus play as prominent a role as the engaging characters. A self-proclaimed eccentric known for writing late into the night, transfixed by the allure of flickering candlelight, Goetjen embraces the writing process, unaware what will confront her at the next turn. Fascinated with the paranormal, she usually weaves a subtle, unexpected twist into her stories. After writing a three book mystery series set on the coast of Maine and two books set in the Caribbean islands, her latest crime novel, The Woman Underwater, is set in her home state of Connecticut.

The Woman Underwater centers on Victoria Sands, whose husband disappeared without a trace seven years ago. In the years since, no witnesses have stepped forward and no credible evidence has been collected, not even his car. The few tenuous leads the police had are now ice cold. He simply vanished on a field trip with the private boarding school where he taught behind stone walls, the same school their son now attends. But someone has to know what happened. And that someone may be closer to Victoria than she realizes.

Penny stops by In Reference to Murder to talk about writing and researching her books:

 

What goes on before a writer sets pen to paper or fingertips to a keyboard?

Research is a malleable term. Writers each have their own definition of what that means to them in their work.

Honestly, I don’t spend a lot of time researching my novels before I sit down at my laptop to launch into a new manuscript. I write about locations I know intimately and have already fallen in love with, so there’s not much to research about the setting. But situations come up as I delve into each story that do require further investigation.

My most recent release, The Woman Underwater, a contemporary suspense set in New England, features a tension-filled helicopter scene. I didn’t know much about whirlybirds before I got to that development in the story, so I Googled certain parts of the craft and what the inside of helicopters looks like. Fortunately, I was writing from a laywoman’s perspective so she didn’t have to know technical terms, but I needed an understanding of what she would be seeing and experiencing. Once I was finished writing the chapter I ran it by a friend of mine, an airline pilot and former helicopter pilot, to test its validity. With only a single word tweaked, it sailed through with his nod.

In the second book in my Olivia Benning Series, Over the Edge ~ Murder Returns to the Caribbean, I needed to understand how the currents ran along Peterborg Peninsula on St. Thomas in the U.S.V.I.—particularly if “something” was dropped into the water on the bayside versus the oceanside of the peninsula. So, I reached out to a friend who is a seasoned captain there. He was very helpful, providing maps and regaling stories about how dangerous it can be on the point and the fate of the unfortunate who have stood in the wrong spot on the rocks at the wrong time.

In the third book of my coastal Maine mysteries, Murder Returns to the Precipice, I needed to get into the background of a certain coin that plays a key role in the story. What is referred to as the 1933 Double Eagle had an abbreviated stint in circulation when President Franklin D. Roosevelt recalled all gold, in an attempt to end the bank crisis of the 1930s. The few coins that were not returned soared in value but were deemed illegal to possess. I found it fascinating digging into this unique coin’s history, often uncovering varying versions of the story.

So for me, research isn’t visiting the local library or reading tombs of historical or technical information before I start a rough draft. Most of what I use is what I’ve experienced living or visiting in colorful locales. As the story develops, however, and as the need arises, I turn to Google or an expert in a particular field.

You can learn more about Penny Goetjen and her books via her website and also follow her on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Goodreads. The Woman Underwater is now available via all major booksellers.

Author R&R with Lisa Sherman

 

Lisa Sherman's love of words led her to pursue a BA in English Literature as an undergraduate. Her interest in jurisprudence led her to law school, where she attained her Juris Doctor degree. Later, Lisa rounded out her love of writing by obtaining an MFA in Writing Popular Fiction at Seton Hill University and became a book reviewer for Windy City Reviews through the Chicago Writers Association. Her debut novel, Forget Me, was released in August.

Forget Me follows Wandy Dellas, who feels void of an identity after she was robbed of her memory in a mysterious accident. But things change when Wanda learns about a missing woman who looks all too familiar. She can't help but wonder if this case might hold answers to her past. The closer she gets to the truth, the closer danger gets to her and her young daughter, leaving her to question whether some memories are best left forgotten.

Lisa stops by In Reference to Murder to discuss writing the book:

 

THE ROMANCE NOVEL THAT WANTED TO BE A THRILLER...

When I first began drafting what would become my debut novel, Forget Me, I set out to write a romance novel. I sat in front of my computer screen as thoughts of "meet cutes" and happily ever after endings buzzed through my mind. And just like the title of the classic song by Dorothy Fields and Jimmy McHugh, I was "in the mood for love." Romance would be my guide.  

Regardless of the type of book an author is writing, all novels have certain elements that lead them to fall into a particular genre. Essentially, every genre comes with things readers want to see happen in the novels they choose to read. This is also known as reader expectations. For example, readers who choose a historical fiction novel are looking for a story in which the characters are living in an earlier time period. These readers are hoping to immerse themselves in the details that make up the flavor of that era. Details like the fashions of the day, the popular cuisine, and the inherent battles of that century. Given those expectations, a reader would likely feel dissatisfied if they discovered the book they thought was traditional historical fiction took place in outer space.

While keeping the parameters of genre expectations in mind, I pecked away at my computer keyboard for months, trying to add the elements of a romance novel to my story. I knew exactly how I wanted the narrative to play out: who would fall in love with whom, and how, and why, as well as what obstacles my heroine and hero would face on their way to true love. Their journeys were tattooed upon my heart.

But as I worked my way through the draft, strange things started to happen. My beloved characters tapped me on the shoulder and instead of whispering sweet nothings in my ear, they spoke to me of crime and mayhem. I dismissed their musings, pushed those plot threads out of my mind, and reassured myself there was an easy explanation for these shenanigans. I’m an attorney. Of course I’m going to view things through a legal lens. Satisfied with this explanation, I forged ahead on a path to at least a "happy for now" ending to my story.

But my characters were not satisfied. They voiced their complaints louder. Much to my shock and dismay, one of them even tossed around the idea of murder! It was time for me to listen.

So, I saved my work in progress and created a fresh, new document on my computer. I began writing a book with twists and turns, mind teasers, a puzzle, a mystery…and murder. By the time I finished my first draft, I knew my desire to write a romance novel was destined to go unrequited. And in the same way romance novels often play out, the one" I thought was "meant to be" wasn’t the one at all. Instead, my story met the elements of a novel I hadn’t planned on writing. Yet it landed in a genre I’ve fallen in love with nonetheless…a psychological thriller.

 
You can learn more about Lisa Sherman and her writing via her website and also follow her on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Forget Me is available through the publisher, Speaking Volumes, and via all major booksellers.

Author R&R with J.L. Abramo

 

One might say that J. L. Abramo's crime-writing career began 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 theater director. He is the author of Catching Water in a Net, a 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. The latter won the Shamus Award for Best Original Paperback Novel of 2015 by the Private Eye Writers of America. 

 

His first full-length work of nonfiction is Homeland Insecurity: The Birth of an Era of Unrest in America. The book takes a look at the post-World War II American experience leading up to three murders in 1957, and the profound changes to come after the hits and misses of the law enforcement agencies and legal institutions which—over the course of nearly five decades—eventually stumbled upon justice.

 

Abramo stops by In Reference to Murder today to talk about researching and writing this true-crime tale:

 

On January 30, 2003, an article in a daily newspaper caught my eye. The piece reported the arrest of a 69-year-old man at his home just miles from where I lived at the time in Columbia, South Carolina. Ten years earlier, in a box of used books purchased at a yard sale, I came across a book by a prison inmate—written while he awaited execution. Those two discoveries stimulated my interest and imagination, and subsequent investigations have led me here.

Homeland Insecurity tells the story of two men accused of taking the lives of three fellow human beings:  a fifteen-year-old schoolgirl in Mahwah, New Jersey, and two young police officers in El Segundo, California. Two killers born 8 days apart in 1934; two men who died 57 days apart in 2017; crimes committed 140 days apart in 1957 at a time when Americans were beginning to feel less and less confident about the safety of their families. One convicted murderer spent nearly fifteen years on death row at New Jersey State Prison in Trenton—where he continually professed his innocence. The other perpetrator escaped identification for more than 45 years.

At the same time, Homeland Insecurity is an account of the hits and misses of the law enforcement agencies and legal institutions which—over the course of nearly five decades—eventually stumbled upon justice. Finally, it is a look at the post-World War II American experience leading up to the murders in 1957, and the profound changes to come after. When rock & roll, Rebel Without a Cause, and Catcher in the Rye burst upon the American scene. When the fear of nuclear annihilation and real-life scary monsters crept into the national consciousness. And when those three murders in 1957, and a growing sense of national insecurity, may have had mutual effect.

 

 

 

In researching the murder of Victoria Zielinski in March of 1957, I ran into a number of roadblocks. My interest was originally stimulated by the 1968 book, Brief Against Death, written by eleventh-year death row inmate, Edgar Smith. The book described the crime, his arrest, arraignment, indictment, trial, and conviction—posing questions about the jury’s guilty verdict—and gained Smith a powerful advocate, William F. Buckley Jr.

 

 

Research on the crime and its immediate aftermath relied heavily on Smith’s accounts (taken with a grain of salt and held up to scrutiny by other sources), media and police reports from the time of the murder, and on trial transcripts.

It wasn’t until after Smith’s discharge from prison after nearly fifteen years that he wrote a follow-up book, Getting Out, describing subsequent events—and the many appeals to state and federal courts, and to the Supreme Court—which ultimately led to his freedom in 1972. It took me quite some time to locate a copy of Getting Out, and much longer to learn of Smith’s fate after his release.

I navigated around that roadblock by writing to William F. Buckley in 1995. Buckley graciously responded to my inquiry with a somewhat shocking update on Edgar Smith—he was back in prison, this time in California.

 

 

It was another five years until I discovered the whereabouts of Edgar Smith, with the help of an attorney acquaintance in California.  I wrote Smith a letter in 2000. He kindly replied—but apologized for not agreeing to meet me for an interview.

 

 

After his numerous appeals for parole were denied, Edgar Smith passed away in 1971 at the age of 83—after spending all but four of his final 60 years behind prison walls.

 

You can catch a book trailer for Homeland Security here, learn more about J.L. Abramo and his books via his website, and follow him on Facebook and Twitter. Homeland Insecurity is now available via Down & Out Books and can be ordered from all major bookstores.

Author R&R with Mark Rubinstein

 

Mark Rubinstein served in the Army as a field medic tending to paratroopers, which led him to med school and to becoming a board-certified psychiatrist practicing in New York City. He also developed an interest in forensic psychiatry and has taught psychiatric residents, interns, psychologists, and social workers at New York Presbyterian Hospital as well as becoming a clinical assistant professor at Cornell University’s medical school. He's written nonfiction books and eight novels and novellas, including the Mad Dog trilogy and The Lovers' Tango.

His latest novel, Assassin's Lullaby centers on Eli Dagan, a thirty-nine-year-old man whose traumatic past led to his service as an assassin for the Mossad. He now lives in New York City, where under various assumed names he’s a contract killer. Anton Gorlov, the head of the Brooklyn-based Odessa mafia, has a new and challenging assignment for Eli. Gorlov wants to leave the country permanently, so all loose ends must be eliminated. He’s willing to pay $1 million for a task divided into two parts. The job involves extreme measures along with unprecedented danger for Eli, who has lived a ghostly existence over the last ten years. Is accepting Gorlov’s offer a subliminal death wish? Or is it a way to reclaim part of his damaged soul? For the first time since his pregnant wife and parents were killed by a suicide bomber years earlier, Eli Dagan faces challenges that will reconnect him with his blighted past and may yet offer hope for a new and better life.

Mark stops by In Reference to Murder to take some Author R&R about writing and researching the book:

I cannot envision a novel taking form with no research having been done. 

However, I find that doing too much research can lead to a never-ending quest for more and more information. A famous author like James Rollins, limits the time he devotes to research, even though his novels are immersed in scientific themes and details.

I keep research to a reasonable minimum. I have a few specific  people on whom I depend for some factual details and expertise: a gunsmith for information about weapons; an attorney for legal information; a police chief for any police procedural details (which I try to keep at a minimum); and of course, there's the Internet which I find provides plenty of the information about scientific, medical, legal and other information.  Before computers and the Internet, I spent a good deal of time in libraries which was an arduous way of doing research.

I truly feel that character is mainly responsible for a novel's narrative drive, so I concentrate on the protagonist's emotions (as well as on the antagonist's angst) to provide the story with a relentless push forward. I always want the reader to question "What happens next?" and try not to let the story get bogged down in too much research-oriented description. I've known writers who label a plethora of research-oriented descriptions as "The Tom Clancy Effect" which many readers relish while others love a more quickly paced (and nuanced) approach to storytelling. 

My books fall into the more rapidly paced camp. I also find that brief descriptors (often depending on some research) lend sufficient flavor and color to the story so the novel has richness yet doesn't get bogged down in minutiae. 

While research is necessary for verisimilitude, too much of it can be lethal to the narrative thrust of a story, especially when writing a suspense-thriller where an author wants to reader to keep turning the pages.

You can learn more about Mark and his writing at his website and also follow him on Facebook, Twitter, and Goodreads. Assassin's Lullaby is available in ebook format from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Kobo, and you can also order a print copy from your favorite bookstore.

Author R&R with Brian Lebeau

 

Brian Lebeau was born in Fall River, Massachusetts, home of the infamous Lizzie Borden. After being awarded an "A" in high school English once and denied a career in music for "lack of talent" repeatedly, he taught economics at several colleges and universities in Massachusetts and Rhode Island before moving to Fauquier County, Virginia, to work as a defense contractor for two decades. In his debut psychological thriller, A Disturbing Nature, Mr. Lebeau merges three key interests: a keen fascination with everything World War II, a morbid curiosity surrounding the motivations and mayhem of notorious serial killers, and a lifelong obsession with the Red Sox. 

A Disturbing Nature is set in the summer of 1975, when FBI investigator Francis Palmer believes that after the Vietnam War ended, so did his troubles. But the serial killer who strikes a southern New England town is like nothing he's ever seen. Mo Lumen—a young man perpetually stuck with the mental and emotional capacity of an 11-year-old due to a childhood accident—is the main suspect. Abandoned by the Great Society and sheltered from the counter-cultural revolution, he'd been forced to leave Virginia under the shadow of secrets and accusations. But as Palmer digs deeper, their intertwining lives blur the lines between fact and conjecture, truth and justice, man and monster. In war, you can identify your enemy. At home, it could be anyone.

Sitting down with In Reference to Murder for a little Author R&R (Reference and Research), Brian discusses the challenges and unique aspects of conducting research for a psychological thriller about a fictional serial killer from nearly fifty years ago.

 

My novel, A Disturbing Nature, is a psychological thriller in the strictest sense—with questions swirling around, and inside the minds of, a mysterious young man who arrives in Rhode Island just before the killing begins, raising suspicion that he may be the predator lurking in the woods, and an equally enigmatic FBI Chief Investigator tasked with hunting the monster down. While the primary storyline concerns a serial killer, and many significant serial killers from that time (called mass murderers before 1980) are referenced, the mystery unfolds with reduced emphasis on graphic violence and explicit sex, relying more on the resultant trauma. Yes, the story involves sexual themes, and, yes, there are violent crimes committed, but these unfold in such a way as to explore the psychological impact on the chief investigator and the newly arrived young man as they are drawn irresistibly together, though neither fully understands why.

The central theme concerns the thin line between man and monster, so I focused primarily on the psychological profiles of the hunter and hunted and the evolution of their thought processes as they react to distractions and disturbances. In addition to a long-time interest in true-crime documentaries, I leveraged heart-to-heart discussions with family and friends throughout my years as a professor of economics, a defense contractor, and CEO of a mid-sized firm. I also spent a great deal of time researching psychological profiling from the early-to-mid 1970s, as well as modern psychological studies. Combining all this with deep introspection into the darkest recesses of my own mind, I was able to develop a cast of fictional characters that couldn't be further apart intellectually, socially, or professionally. This afforded me an opportunity to explore the human psyche at the extremes and all the space in between. The result is a mystery with very realistic characters—individuals that could be living next door in your rural community, urban high rise, or even college townhouse. Compelling the audience to witness the transformation of a character's thoughts is intentional, evoking empathy and inviting the reader to speculate how similar circumstances in their past might have altered their mindset and motivations—the hallmark of a psychological thriller—because the scariest monsters usually hide in our own closets. 

Historical accuracy is paramount in a period piece. Having A Disturbing Nature unfold in late summer and early fall 1975 created several challenges, including: weaving in significant social, political and cultural events, infamous serial killer investigations, accurate weather, and sports-related history. Fortunately, gathering historical information today is much easier than back in 1975, so my team and I allocated countless hours to online research, scouring websites like farmersalmanac.com, baseball-reference.com, and vault.fbi.gov, among many others. There's no doubt that online information is an author's first source of data, though the information can vary a great deal, so verifying through multiple sources, when possible, is required. 

But online information only provides statistics and landmark references. It does not provide the ambience, flavor or authenticity associated with actually experiencing the locations and extrapolating backwards to the past either through experience or second-hand knowledge. I was eleven when the Red Sox and Reds battled in the 1975 World Series and saw the world through the eyes of an idealistic youth teetering on the edge of puberty. Raised in Fall River, where Massachusetts nestles along the Rhode Island border, I lived in several locations between my hometown and Worcester, Massachusetts while attending graduate school in my mid-twenties, so I'm very familiar with the geography, even back to that time. Additionally, I taught at Bryant College, now Bryant University, in Smithfield, Rhode Island—a key setting in A Disturbing Nature. Using old family photographs and a historical postcard collection of the area allowed me to put together a strong overall picture of central Rhode Island and southeastern Massachusetts at that time. 

In the novel, A primary location for flashbacks and memories is Fauquier County, Virginia, where I lived for a dozen years while working in the D.C. area. During that time, I engaged in the small, rural community by managing youth baseball, coaching grade school basketball and joining civic organizations. I got to know the people—their joys, sorrows, and fears—and I visited the places—from the beauty of the countryside vistas to the hardship of natural disasters—experiencing perfect summer days and blessed fall foliage, along with historic snowstorms and a flood of biblical proportions. Along the way, I uncovered some of the past in the hallowed battlefields, haunted meadows, and historic town centers, finding, as with any community, if you scratch the surface, you'll unearth dirt (maybe red clay) as anywhere else. In truth, Fauquier County is a wonderful place to live and raise a family, an almost idyllic environment that compels one to wonder what well-kept secrets are masked in the landscape and what proverbial sins are washed away by the waters of the Rappahannock River.

Armed with history, geography, and first-hand experience, I dusted off a shoebox full of memories and self-medicated with an appropriate dose of cynicism before finally sitting down to write A Disturbing Nature. After selling my interest in a company to enjoy an early, if premature, retirement, I assembled a small team under the label "Tangent Inspired Stories" to assist with story layout, research, and editing. Now, a little more than four years later, we have nearly a dozen novels in the works, and we expect to release two per year starting in 2023. Our four-person Tangent team has been together from the company's inception, and has made a number of research trips for A Disturbing Nature, its sequels, and future novels. Destinations have included: China, Australia, Belize, Guatemala, much of New England, Virginia, Seattle, Salt Lake City, Philadelphia, and New Orleans.

While the countless hours of online research and extensive travel are crucial to make a story accurate and plausible, nothing enables a writer to transport the reader quite like personal experience. Specifically, for A Disturbing Nature, I found tapping into childhood memories and emotions through the disenchanted eyes of an adult proved both challenging and cathartic. But writing in the psychological thriller genre demands a heightened awareness of one's own psyche via extensive internalized research and introspection. For, only when we become familiar with the beast inside ourselves, do we have less to fear from the demons that haunt us.

 

To find out more about Brian Lebeau, you can visit his website and follow him on Facebook, Instagram, and Goodreads. A Disturbing Nature is available via Books Fluent and can be purchased through Amazon in print, eBook, and audio formats, or directly from brianlebeauwriter.com.

Author R&R with Kim Hays

 

Kim Hays is a dual citizen (Swiss/American) who has made her home in Bern since she married a Swiss. Before that she lived in San Juan, Vancouver, and Stockholm, as well as the US, her birthplace. Since the age of seventeen she has worked at a wide variety of jobs, from factory forewoman to director of a small nonprofit and, in Switzerland, from sociology lecturer to cross-cultural trainer. She began writing mysteries when her son left for college. Pesticide, the first book in the Polizei Bern series, was shortlisted for the 2020 Debut Dagger award by the Crime Writers’ Association. Hays has a BA in English history and literature from Harvard and a PhD in cultural sociology from UC-Berkeley.

Pesticide is set in Bern, Switzerland, known for its narrow cobblestone streets, decorative fountains, and striking towers—until a rave on a hot summer night erupts into violent riots, and a young man is found the next morning bludgeoned to death with a policeman’s club. If that wasn't problem enough, the same day, an elderly organic farmer turns up dead and drenched with pesticide. When an unexpected discovery ties the two victims into a single case, seasoned detective, Giuliana Linder, has to work with her distractingly attractive colleague, Renzo Donatelli. But if Giuliana wants to prevent another murder, she’ll have to put her life on the line—and her principles.

Kim stops by In Reference to Murder to talk about researching and writing the book:

It goes without saying that some of my research for Pesticide had to do with crime: I wanted to find out how the Canton of Bern police respond to riots and investigate murders and to make sure I knew which wholesale dealers in the city handle marijuana and which, heroin. I also needed to check locations, which meant visiting Bern’s alternative culture center, an enormous, graffiti-covered former riding school next to the main train station, and driving around the Three-Lakes region northeast of the city, scouting out a model for Haldiz, the book’s imaginary farming village. The most fun I had, though, was exploring the topic of organic farming.

I already had a romantic view of farming, passed on by my father, who spent the happiest summers of his childhood on his great-aunt and -uncle’s small farm in rural Louisiana. But I’m not the only one who glorifies the agricultural life—most Swiss have an idyllic picture of farming as well, delighting in Alpine meadows dotted with cows, sunny hillsides lined with grapevines, and spring fields full of yellow rapeseed. The reality is grimmer, since the number of farms in Switzerland has been shrinking for decades. Today there are fewer than 50,000 of them, with an average size of 50 acres. Swiss farmers receive the equivalent of three billion dollars per year in subsidies; in return for its generosity, the government regulates their farming methods. There are rules about what farmers must do to increase biodiversity; improve the welfare of livestock; reduce the use of poisons on crops, antibiotics in animals, and fertilizer on fields; and, in general, look after the land and water under their care. The rules for organic farms—which make up about 16% of the acreage used for agriculture—are the strictest. All Swiss farms are checked regularly, and, if they are organic, they have to pass very thorough annual inspections in order to be recertified year after year.

For Pesticide’s plot to make sense, I needed to understand what makes a farm “organic” (or bio in Swiss-German) and how an annual farm inspection works. So, before I started writing, I visited small organic farms in Bern and talked to farmers. I spent time at the offices of Bio Suisse, which manages the guidelines of the organic label, and I interviewed several farm inspectors, one of whom was an organic farmer herself.  She told me something that went straight into my book:

Don’t think of us as a kind of police force; it’s not like that at all. Most farmers like our visits. All year long they protect the soil and the water and keep their crops and animals healthy, and no one really knows how difficult that is or how many setbacks they suffer. But we inspectors know, and we make that clear to them—at least, I do.

Another issue I thought a lot about during the writing of Pesticide was how much standard German and Bernese dialect to use. While a little bit of unintelligible language provides local color, I had to keep reminding myself that too much of it becomes confusing and distracting. Still, a few words turned out to be hard to translate into English. One of these was the police role called “Fahnder.” Literally, the word means “searcher”—we’d translate it as “investigator.” Within the Canton of Bern police department, it’s a plain-clothes job involving a lot of research—both on the computer and in the field, and the different tasks are usually assigned by detectives looking into serious crimes. One of the two main characters in Pesticide, Giuliana Linder, is a homicide detective, and the other, Renzo Donatelli, is an investigator of this kind—he’s junior to Giuliana in rank and age and often works with her on her cases. In the end, I decided to call him a Fahnder, even in an English-language book. I’m not sure the same job exists in the American police force.

I consider research not only an important part of writing but a quintessential one.  Sometimes I gather more information than I end up needing for a particular book, but I find that the process of researching helps me figure out what I want to say in my novel. I’m sure this is true for most writers, not just me. I suppose I’m also influenced by my mother having been a reference librarian whose job was to find things out for people. It was work that she loved.

Google has changed the nature of that pursuit—but not its importance.

 

You can learn more about Kim Hays and her books on her website, and follow her on Facebook and Twitter. Pesticide is now available in ebook and paperback via Seventh Street Books at all major book retailers.

Author R&R with B. G. Arnold

 

B.G. Arnold is the pen name of an octagenarian mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother who starting writing her debut novel, Bone Deep Bonds, in 2002 but picked it back up again during the COVID-19 pandemic. The reason for her pseudonymous name follows on from her life's work; although the characters in Bone Deep Bonds are fictitious, they are based on the author's thirty-five years as a licensed professional clinical counselor, where she worked with families of incest and other sexual abusers and victims. There is also a more personal connection, too—the author's own adopted father, a church elder, abused her until she left home at age eighteen.

In Bone Deep Bonds, upon coming home from work, a father learns that his twelve-year-old son hasn't returned from his routine jog on a country road nearby. The only clue is an unknown BMW that a neighbor noticed passing by, hours earlier. With family and the local police discouraging him, the father believes in his own intuition and the Spirit who guides him. As he sets out on a journey to combat the forces of evil, he's startled to discover some buried secrets from his own youth. 

 

Arnold stopped by In Reference to Murder to talk a little bit more about the book:

 

Although the plot and characters of Bone Deep Bonds are all fictional, they are drawn from an in-depth interview from an expert on the symptomatology, diagnosis and treatment of subjects on 'The Wheel of Sexual Abuse.'  That's me.

Emerging from a history of childhood incest, I instinctively followed an educational path in Clinical Psychology. That path allowed me to ‘step away’ from the emotional swamp that often floods survivors, drowning them in their own psychic pain and anxiety, that far too often results in their continuing on a path of self-destruction, expressed in their own deviant behavior, and/or suicidal chemical addictions.

It was not difficult for me to portray the five major characters as males, as I've had extensive experience in their actual clinical treatment, both as victims and perpetrators. Childhood victims frequently emerged as adult abusers, be they male or female. Female offenders (misandrists) are far less likely to be identified as a sexual abuser, since most often their victims are males, and those victims go with the predominant characterization that allows them to believe that their own male sexuality is the lure that attracts their abusers.

When I began writing my novel, it began in the mind of a wealthy male pedophile who kidnaps a twelve-year-old male, drugging him into an oblivious state, and drives the victim back to his hidden underground apartment, where he 'grooms' him. From that point forward, the characters led me, and the story somehow developed in an organic fashion, much like the human body follows structural patterns.

An example of this character-determined 'organicity' is that the villain drives his chosen boy from his search ending in southern Ohio back to his home in Baltimore, Maryland. I had never been to Baltimore, and tried to 'get out of there,' but my characters wouldn't allow me to leave, so Maryland it was. This called for some research as to city landmarks, but on the advice of my overseeing editor from Atmosphere Press, I soon saw that too much research for actual places deadened the tone of the writing. So I made up the names of many of the streets, suburbs, restaurants, bars. I imagine that Baltimore residents, if they read it, will be offended by my inaccuracies. Or perhaps they'll delight in exposing all my 'mistakes.'

The murders that enter into the plot happen because their perpetrators feel completely justified in their actions, seeing the consequences that would otherwise arise as keeping them from reaching their goals. They’re the ultimate illustrations of self-absolving characters. So...I didn't start out with murder in my mind, but it evolved from the characters that grew out of my clinical background and knowledge of characters on 'The Wheel of Sexual Abuse' that keeps spinning round and round until its momentum is stopped. And that can be stopped only through teaching others how to identify, report, and stop sexual victimization, along with social rehabilitation programs for the victims, abusers and conjoined family members.

This is of prime importance in our modern world where the breakdown of social order begins with the failure to build strong, healthy family units, leading to healthier communities and, eventually, nations. Stopping human abuse of the weak and vulnerable, the cornerstone of a firm foundation, will go a long way toward leading us out of the worldwide chaos, which now prevails.

 

You can find Bone Deep Bonds in both digital and paperback formats from most booksellers, including Amazon and Barnes and Noble.

Author R&R with Michael Landweber

 

Michael Landweber has worked as a copy editor at the Japan Times, as an editorial assistant at the Associated Press, and worked for the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy and for the State Department. He also served as Associate Director for a non-profit called Partnership for a Secure America, which promotes bipartisanship in foreign policy and national security. His short stories have appeared in literary magazines such as Gargoyle, Fourteen Hills, Fugue, Barrelhouse, and American Literary Review. He is an Associate Editor at Potomac Review and a contributor for the Washington Independent Review of Books.

His new novel from Crooked Lane Books is The Damage Done, set in an Earth where violence has suddenly and inexplicably become a thing of the past. Fists can’t hit, guns don’t kill, and bombs can’t destroy. The U.S. president must find a new way to wage war. The Pope ponders whether the Commandment “Thou Shalt Not Kill” is still relevant. A dictator takes his own life after realizing that the violence he used to control his people is no longer an option.

In the first days after the change, seven people from different walks of life—who have all experienced violence—struggle to adapt to this radical new paradigm. As their fates intertwine, the promise and perils of this new world begin to take shape. Although violence is no longer possible, that doesn’t mean that some among us won’t keep trying. Mindless cruelty is still alive and well, and those bent on destruction will seek the most devious means to achieve it.

Michael Landweber stopped by In Reference to Murder to take some Author R&R about researching and writing the book:

My approach to research is low key and ad hoc. Of course, I think research is important. If you are writing a novel about 16^th century France, you better study up. You weren’t there. Similarly, if your book is a military thriller that mainly takes place on a submarine, you’re going to need to learn a little something about submarines. But those are not the novels I write. So, in my own work, I believe research is important when necessary. The key is knowing when you don’t know what you need to know.

I often describe my books as literary fiction with a Twilight Zone twist. I start with a what-if question. What if you got trapped inside the brain of your younger self? What if time stopped and you were the only one not frozen? What if teleportation was a commercial means of transportation? And my most recent novel, The Damage Done, presents a world where violence is no longer possible. As you can see, most of my work hinges on ideas that are not particularly researchable.

Take my last book, The In Between, in which a couple loses their son while teleporting to Japan. When I started the book, I was very curious about whether anyone thought teleportation was even possible. (I would also note that good research is only successful if you are actually curious about the topic you are researching.) Turns out that subatomic particles may be able to teleport in quantum computing. That’s cool. But not that helpful for my story of losing a child somewhere between Omaha and Tokyo. So that was a research rabbit hole I didn’t go that far down.

And that maybe is my main thought about research. The assumption is that every effort is a deep dive. But for me research can be quite limited and still valid. The goal for me is not to become the expert in every aspect of every thing I write about. Most of what I need to research does not require an extensive bibliography or interview schedule. My goal is to immerse the reader in the story I’m telling. So for me, research tends to be a series of targeted jobs. In and out, find out what I need, no fuss.

That doesn’t mean I’m not obsessive about what I’m writing. I spend countless hours making sure that the rules I’ve created for my worlds are airtight. In The Damage Done that meant creating a mental catalogue of all the ways people commit violence against each other and countering each with a creative way to thwart it. The time that I might have been reading reference books or chatting up experts is instead wiled away in an internal debate over things like whether bumping into someone purposefully on a subway platform constitutes a minor act of violence. There was research to be done, things I needed to know like how to make a Molotov cocktail or where people cross the Rio Grande. But each time I discover one of those factual stumbling blocks, I find what I need with as much efficiency as I can muster. I don’t linger.

So maybe that’s my true mantra on research. No loitering.

But who knows? Maybe I’ve got a historical novel or a submarine thriller in me somewhere that will require a more methodical style of research. For now though, I’m sticking with my need to know approach.

 

You can learn more about Michael and The Damage Done via his website and follow him on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. The Damage Done is available from Penguin Random House via all major booksellers in ebook, print, and audiobook formats.

Author R&R with Tessa Wegert

 

Tessa Wegert is a journalist and former digital media strategist. Her business and marketing articles have appeared in such publications as Forbes, The Huffington Post, Adweek, and The Economist. She grew up in Quebec near the border of Vermont and now lives with her husband and children in Coastal Connecticut, where she writes while studying martial arts and dance. Tessa is also the author of the Shana Merchant series of mysteries, beginning with Death in the Family. The latest installment in that series is Dead Wind.

In Dead Wind, a body is discovered on Wolfe Island under the shadow of an enormous wind turbine. Senior Investigator, Shana Merchant, arriving on the scene with fellow investigator, Tim Wellington, can’t shake the feeling that she knows the victim—and the subsequent identification sends shockwaves through their community in the Thousand Islands of Upstate New York.

Politics, power, passion...there are dark undercurrents in Shana’s new home, and finding the killer means dredging up her new friends and neighbors’ old grudges and long-kept secrets. That is, if the killer is from the community at all. For Shana’s keeping a terrible secret of her own: eighteen months ago she escaped from serial killer Bram Blake’s clutches. But has he followed her...to kill again?

Tessa stopped by In Reference to Murder to take some Author R&R about researching and writing her books:

 

Like most authors, I have a folder of story ideas that I refer to – even if those “ideas” are nothing more than a few overheard words or abstract lines – but for me, the writing process often starts with setting. That was the case with Death in the Family, the first book in the Shana Merchant series. I knew I wanted to write a mystery that paid homage to Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None and the Golden Age detective fiction I had always loved. I’d been visiting the Thousand Islands in Upstate New York for years, and setting a mystery on one of those islands, in a grand historic home, just made sense.

Setting inspired my new crime novel, Dead Wind, as well. A few years ago, prior to starting the series, I visited Wolfe Island in Ontario, Canada. It’s a small, flat, sparsely-populated island that houses a wind farm, and the turbines are absolutely massive. I was there on a day when a storm was rolling in, and a story unfolded right in front of me: a body found at the base of one of those towering turbines, the local police rushing to collect evidence before the rain, and a female investigator wondering whether the crime could be linked to the serial murderer who’d been terrorizing the community for months. When I sat down to write the book, which is the third in my series, I returned to the photos and videos I had taken that day, and I was off to the races.

I think that for mysteries in particular, a strong sense of place helps to pull the reader into the story and keep them invested. Setting can also help to shape the plot. In the Thousand Islands, where Dead Wind is set, there’s a big class divide – you have the year-round locals, many of them in the hospitality and restaurant trades, living alongside tourists from cities across the Northeast and the uber-wealthy owners of the area’s many private islands. In reality, everyone gets along beautifully, but when it comes to writing crime fiction, there’s no limit to the number of stories an environment like that can produce.

 

You can find out more about Tessa and her books via her website and follow her on Facebook and Twitter. Dead Wind is available in ebook and print formats from all major booksellers.

Author R&R with Len Joy

 Len Joy's short fiction has appeared in FWRICTION: Review, The Journal of Compressed Creative Arts, Johnny America, Specter Magazine, Washington Pastime, Hobart, Annalemma, Boston Literary Magazine, and Pindeldyboz. He's also a nationally ranked triathlete and competes internationally representing the United States as part of TEAM USA. His first novel, American Past Time, was published in 2014 and was followed in 2018 by Better Days and in 2020 with Everyone Dies Famous.

In his latest work, Dry Heat, the day Arizonan All-American Joey Blade turns 18, he learns his ex-girlfriend is pregnant, he's betrayed by his new girlfriend, and he's arrested for the attempted murder of two police officers. Then things go from bad to even worse.

Len Joy stops by In Reference to Murder to take some Author R&R about writing and researching his work:

In my first novel, American Past Time, the main character, Dancer Stonemason, is a minor league baseball player in the 1950s who pitches a perfect game that ends up costing him his chance to make it to the major leagues. The novel covers the twenty years after the cheering stops as Dancer struggles to find his way in postwar America. My third novel, Everyone Dies Famous, picks up Dancer’s story thirty years later, with Dancer a grief-stricken old man, trying to come to grips with the death of his son. In my second novel, Better Days, the main character, Darwin Burr, has coasted through life on the fading memory of high school heroics. But when his boyhood vanishes, he risks everything to save him.

My new novel, Dry Heat, is the story of Joey Blade, All-American high school football player. On the day Joey turns 18, he learns his ex-girlfriend is pregnant, is betrayed by his new girlfriend, and is arrested for the attempted murder of two police officers.  

I was a good high school athlete in a small town back in the day when it was possible to play three sports. I have always been interested in the life lived after the crowds have all gone home. In my novels, Dancer struggled, Darwin coasted and Joey went to prison.

Put simply, I am following that adage, to “write what you know.” I understand athletes, the rush of having a crowd cheer for you, the wistfulness of no longer being able to do something that you loved, the challenge of moving on and growing up.

Dry Heat is set in Phoenix during the period from 1999 to 2014. Joey Blade, is an All-American high school football star, planning to attend the University of Arizona on a football scholarship in the fall. His family owns the largest engine rebuilder in the southwest.

In 1988 I bought a large engine rebuilder in Phoenix and for the next fifteen years I operated that business with my brother-in-law. On a summer evening in 1996, the son of one of my employees was riding in a car with two other boys and they were involved in a road rage incident with another vehicle. One of the boys fired a gun at the other car. It turned out that the driver of the other vehicle, who had instigated the confrontation, was an off-duty cop. They were all arrested, but the other two disappeared before their trial and my friend’s son was the only one prosecuted. He was looking at twenty years in prison if he lost at trial, so he took a plea deal for three years. One foolish mistake and his life was changed forever.

In my novel, on the day Joey Blade turns 18, he learns his ex-girlfriend is pregnant, is betrayed by his new girlfriend, and after a road rage incident where he is the innocent bystander, he is arrested for the attempted murder of two police officers.

It is not the story of my friend’s son. But that incident made me think about how easy it can be for any of us to have our lives turned upside-down in an instant. I imagined a character who had everything going for him and lost it. The challenge of the novel was not describing the incident or even the courtroom drama. The challenge was figuring out what Joey Blade does with the rest of his life.

I am a strong believer in what Robert Boswell’s describes as “The Half-Known World.” Boswell maintains that it is not necessary to know everything about your character. Let your imagine roam. Give your character the opportunity to surprise you. 

It is important, of course, to get the details right. It was easy for me to recreate the setting of Phoenix circa 2000, because I lived there. I didn’t have any experience with gangs or the criminal justice system, but I had good contacts. The mother of the boy who went to prison shared with me her son’s perspective as well as her own. One of my beta readers is a criminal attorney and he helped me with the trial procedures. I found numerous articles and blogs on gang activity.

It is easy to get caught up in the research, but it is important to have a light touch. The goal is not to show the reader how much you know. The goal is to tell a good story and keep the reader turning the page to find out what happens next.

You can find out more about Len Joy via his website and follow him on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. Dry Heat is now available via all major online booksellers.

Author R&R with Emilya Naymark

 

Photo credit: Lynne Breitfeller

Emilya Naymark's short stories appear in Secrets in the Water, After Midnight: Tales from the Graveyard Shift, River River Journal, Snowbound: Best New England Crime Stories 2017, 1+30: The Best of Mystory, and in the upcoming Harper Collins anthology, A Stranger Comes to Town. She has a degree in fine art, and her artworks have been published in numerous magazines and books, earning her a reputation as a creator of dark, psychological pieces. Being married to an N.Y.P.D. undercover detective compelled her to create the character of Laney Bird, whose occasionally wild and, even more often, terrifying experiences are inspired by real events. When not writing, Emilya works as a visual artist and reads massive quantities of thrillers and crime fiction. She lives in the Hudson Valley with her family.

Behind the Lie is the second installment in Emilya's Sylvan series, in which NYPD detective-turned small town PI, Laney Bird, is in a fight to save lives—including her own—after a neighborhood block party turns deadly and ends with the disappearance of her friend and another woman. As people closest to Laney fall under suspicion, the local authorities and even her colleagues question her own complicity.

Emilya stopped by In Reference to Murder to take some Author R&R about writing and researching Behind the Lie:

 

My novels Hide in Place and Behind the Lie feature an ex-NYPD undercover detective. In my case, the research happened before the ideas for the novels even materialized. Being married to an NYPD undercover detective gave me a lot of my research ahead of time. In fact, it generated the story.

Once I had my novel’s plot, I sat down with my personal detective and asked him hundreds of specific questions—everything from how, exactly, an undercover makes a drug buy on the street (lots of acting), to what happens with the evidence in the precinct (the drugs get tested and whatever was confiscated gets vouchered, including cash), to what happens to an undercover during an arrest (they get arrested).

For those who don’t have a personal detective, I recommend finding one. Police officers are often very pleased to discuss their jobs. Many of them write, and if you know any who belong to the same writing association as you do, reach out! Take him or her out for lunch and ask away. Schedule a zoom. Offer a beta read in exchange for their hard-won wisdom. In addition to my husband, I interviewed three other detectives and one corrections officer.

I read everything I could find on racketeering cases against the Russian mob. The Shulaya gang case in Brighton beach was a treasure trove, and I downloaded the official indictment and referenced it for plot ideas. And really, when it comes to the Russian mob, no ideas were too wild.

My detective’s teenage son is a firebug, and I spent countless hours watching instructional videos on building homemade flamethrowers (it’s super easy), breathing fire, and juggling flaming torches. I downloaded and read elaborate instructions and journals written by people who practice fire breathing for a living.

One of the characters in Behind the Lie is a research scientist, and I’m fortunate to have a research scientist in the family. I needed to know how medical compounds are tested and how drugs get approved for human use. He gave me thorough notes.

Another part of the novel takes place inside a residential facility for at-risk youth. I found a similar establishment near me and read about its troubles. Whatever I put into the novel, no matter how drastic it sounds, came directly from the news. Then I spoke with a psychiatrist who works with residential programs, and she gave me the procedural details I wouldn’t have gotten from just reading articles.

Because my novels and stories revolve around crimes, I downloaded the entire NYPD Patrolman’s Guide, all 1000+ pages of it. It’s been quite useful because my police officer characters have to know procedures and what crimes come with what charges. The Patrolman’s Guide is an exhaustive manual for both.

I bought several handbooks for private investigators, which are a goldmine because they list not just how to run a case, but what tools of the trade to use, down to the brand names and models.

In general, my best sources are the news, legal and judicial websites, and professionals who work in the pertinent fields.

For me, there can never be too much research or too much information. A great deal of what I learn doesn’t make it into the books, but it gives me the confidence I need to write about a subject as if I know it well. Or, more importantly, as if my characters know it well.

 

You can find out more about Emilya Naymark via her website and follow her on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Goodreads. Behind the Lie is available via Crooked Lane Books and can be purchased through all major booksellers in ebook, print, and audio formats.

Author R&R with Michael Kaufman

 

Michael Kaufman holds a PhD in political science and has worked in fifty countries with the United Nations, governments, companies, and NGOs engaging men to promote women’s rights, support diversity and inclusion, and to positively transform the lives of men. He also turned his hand to writing crime fiction in 2021 with The Last Exit, which introduced Police Detective Jen B. Lu and her "partner," Chandler, a SIM implant in her brain and her instant link to the Internet and police records, as well as being a constant voice inside her head. Kaufman's latest installment in that series is The Last Resort, which the author describes as "Margaret Atwood meets Raymond Chandler meets Greta Thunberg."

It’s March 2034 in Washington, D.C., when environmental lawyer and media darling, Patty Garcia, dies in a truly bizarre accident on a golf course. Of the eight billion people on the planet, only D.C. Detective Jen Lu thinks she was murdered. After all, Garcia just won a case for massive climate change reparations to be paid by oil, gas, and coal companies.

Soon Jen is in the crosshairs of those who will ensure the truth never comes to light. Is the culprit an oil and gas big shot? Or Garcia’s abusive ex-husband? Whoever it is, Jen has to move quickly before she’s marked as the next victim on the killer’s hit list.

Today, Michael stops by In Reference to Murder to take some Author R&R about writing and researching The Last Resort:

 

How do you research and write a mystery set in 2034? 

The easy way would be to claim (since this is the second book of my Jen Lu/Chandler series) that I’m now the world’s expert on what’s happening in Washington D.C. eleven years from now.

So, it was easy?

Sorry, I couldn’t do that. For one thing, I hate reading a book where the details are wrong. For another, years ago while a graduate student and later writing a number of non-fiction books, I pummeled my brain with a clear message: know everything that you can.

Can an author do too much research?

No, but you can show off your research too much. One of the cardinal sins of fiction is showing your research. We’ve all seen this. The bits with way too much detail about technical facts.  Or the author who is so fascinated by the place they just visited that they write a travelogue. Or perhaps they don’t want all that research to “go to waste”.  I’m lucky that I get to write both fiction and non-fiction. When I want to educate and explain things, I write non-fiction. When I want to entertain, thrill, amuse and just perhaps enlighten, I write fiction.

Was it fun doing research for The Last Resort?

Totally! To the annoyance of my wife and kids, I’m one of those people who constantly talks to strangers, asking them about, well, whatever. Doing research gives me permission to do just that.

For this one, I spoke to librarians and archivists in the Library of Congress and the National Archives and got to ask questions like, “How would a bad guy go about stealing something from you?”  

Since there’s a theme about resistance by Big Oil to climate change reparations (which, as you’ll find out in a few years, will be a very big deal) and because one of the suspects is a chemical-engineer-turned-executive, I spoke at length to a chemical engineer. It turned out that not a single question was directly relevant, but by talking to this person, I understood my character much better.

I got to wander around some of my DC faves, including the always-inspiring Library of Congress and the glass conservatory at the US Botanic Garden.

I invented the ultra-exclusive golf course where the story begins, but I tromped around the existing low-budget public course to see the land on which the private course will be built in a few years. Similarly, I walked and ran along the surrounding pathways of Rock Creek Park.

And the challenges actually writing the book?

The first big challenge is that The Last Resort is set in the near future. Climate change is hitting hard and economic and social inequality are worsening. Yet, I didn’t want this series to be another grim dystopia. The Last Resort is fun to read and, in spite of crappy things going on, there’s a sense of hope and optimism about our capacity as humans to create a better future.

The second challenge is that each book of this series engages one or more social issues. This one has themes around the oil and gas industries and also violence against women. However, these books aren’t political theory. They’re entertainment. So the big trick is to tell a page-turning story that also mentally engages readers. I really believe that my readers are smart people who are engaged in the world, but also want a place they can escape into. It’s a fun balance that takes hard work, but in the end, it’s story-telling that wins out.

Another big one was the specific challenge when writing a series. I wanted this book to be completely stand alone, but also to build on what’s come before. That required a lot of rewriting and tough choices, both about which characters and which storylines from the first of the series (The Last Exit) to include. Turns out that many of the main characters are with us again, but the storyline is totally new.

Finally, was it hard to find your narrative voice for this series?

There are actually two narrative voices. Half the book is a third person narration, but half the book is narrated by the bio-computer named Chandler who is implanted into the brain of D.C. Detective Jen B. Lu.  Chandler is a wannabe tough guy, but has a hard time pulling it off since he’s only three years old. Readers and reviewers keep saying they love him which, as a writer, is really gratifying.

What was really interesting to me is how Chandler’s voice came instantly to me. But what I didn’t know until I was half-way into the first book, was how much Chandler would become a complex character who evolves both within each book and from one book to the next.  

 

You can find out more about the author and his books via his website and follow him on Facebook, Twitter, and Mastodon. The Last Resort is now available via all major booksellers, your favorite indie store, Penguin Random House, and Crooked Lane Books.