Author R&R with Kevin R. Andrade

Kevin R. Andrade writes crime fiction about loyalty, redemption and the trouble people find when they confront the darkness that surrounds them. Raised in the college town of Bowling Green, Ohio, he has lived in Mexico City, Boston, New York and Los Angeles. More than twenty-five years as a bartender has given him plenty of opportunities to observe people at their best and their worst and how it affects the world around them. He now lives in Manhattan Beach, California.

His latest novel, In for a Dime, is the second installment in the Jake Hansen thriller series, following the first novel, Ten to the 405. The series explores the dangerous intersection of friendship, loyalty and survival against the sprawling backdrop of Los Angeles.

In For a Dime follows former journalist turned reluctant PI Jake Hansen, who thought he'd seen the worst Los Angeles had to offer. Alongside Pete Mills, a bruised NYPD veteran, and Lamar Wagner, an ex-con with his own moral code, Jake makes a living chasing small-time cases and keeping his dive bar afloat. But when an insurance firm hires them to track down a missing accountant and $2 million in stolen funds, the trio is pulled into a case far darker than they imagined. When Sophie-their bartender, confidante, and unofficial fourth partner-finds herself targeted by a predator from her past, the investigation spirals into a web of political corruption, blackmail, and a sex trafficking ring protected by the city's elite. With bodies dropping and the law closing in, Jake and his crew have one chance to expose the truth-before the people they love become collateral damage.
 

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

 

The City, the Bar Stool and the Price of Loyalty

The character, Jake Hansen, started with a bad beat in a college football game.

That was back in 2011. I couldn’t have told you then where the idea would lead, but it eventually became about a journalist in decline, a man searching for redemption while carrying around plenty of reasons he might not deserve it. Before I had a novel series, I wrote Jake and the characters from the books in a series of screenplays and always with Jake at the center of the storm. He’s someone whose next decision might make his life better- or considerably worse.

By the time I wrote Ten to the 405 and now, In for a Dime, I knew that the people surrounding Jake would matter as much as whatever trouble Jake would find himself in. I wanted to explore what happens when friendship becomes loyalty and obligation. I wanted to see how, ultimately, when someone you care for needs help but helping them means you crossing a line you never thought you’d cross and how one would react.

Loyalty is paramount in these books. It’s also complicated. We admire people who stand by their friends but there comes a point when standing by someone means answering for their choices. That’s fertile territory for crime fiction. How far will you go? What will you excuse? And can you live with what happens next?

I’ve spent more than twenty-five years behind a bar and I’ve heard a remarkable range of explanations for human behavior. People tell you what happened, what they wish had happened and what they need you to believe happened. Sometimes all three versions arrive during the same conversation. I try to use that thought process and cadence in my work.

In my stories, place matters just as much as the human characters. Some of the South Bronx stories in Ten to the 405 grew out of real experiences that I fictionalized. With In for a Dime, I continued building a world rooted in places and people that feel lived in.

Los Angeles gives me an enormous amount to work with. The city changes as you move through it. A beach bar in Hermosa, a café or steakhouse in Koreatown, a club in Hollywood and downtown LA after dark; each of these areas have their own rhythms. The distance between them can shape an entire day. Traffic gives someone time to reconsider a decision, sit with a suspicion or work oneself into doing something truly foolish.

I want those places to affect the story. I want the place to be a character and have a role in how the story plays out; where the place feels comfortable or uncomfortable and tells us something and as we watch and listen, we can see that the different stretches of Los Angeles can provide entirely different possibilities depending who is reading.

These books are a love letter to the city, written with an awareness of its rough edges. I love its neighborhoods, its contradictions and the people making lives here beyond the familiar images of Hollywood and palm trees. That’s the Los Angeles I want readers to spend time in.

Ultimately, the crime of the story brings everyone together but it’s the relationships that make me keep writing. I want to know what Jake and Pete and Lamar and Sophie will do when their loyalties become expensive.

And after all those years behind a bar, I know there’s usually another story coming through the door.

 

You can learn more about Kevin R. Andrade via his website and follow him on Facebook, Instagram, Substack, and Goodreads. In For a Dime is now available via Wild Rose Press and all major booksellers.