Episodes
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This week’s guest on the Crime Cafe podcast is historical crime writer Stephen Eoannou.
Check out our discussion about the creator of the Lone Ranger!
Grab a PDF copy of the transcript here!
Debbi: Hi, everyone. My guest today has published two novels with the third coming in May of next year. Along with novels, he has written at least one short screenplay. He lives and works in Buffalo, New York, which also provides the setting and inspiration for his work. It's my pleasure to have with me today, the award-winning author Stephen Eoannou.
Stephen: There you go.
Debbi: Did I get that right?
Stephen: Yes.
Debbi: Awesome. Fantastic. So thank you for being with us today.
Stephen: Thank you for having me.
Debbi: I'm pleased to have you on. I really enjoyed your book Rook, your debut novel. That was a very interesting story. What inspired you to write about this particular man from the FBI's Most Wanted List?
Stephen: Yeah. I had finished my first book Muscle Cars, which is a short story collection, and I was picking around trying to find an idea for the next project, and I can remember it vividly. It was a Sunday morning. I was standing in my kitchen and I was reading the newspaper. It was spread out on the kitchen table, and I saw an article, and the title of the article in the Buffalo News was “The Strange Tale of a Buffalo Bank Robber Turned Writer”, and that immediately caught my eye, thinking this maybe is another career avenue for myself. But I started reading this article about Al Nussbaum. I had never heard of the man before, and by the end of the article, I knew that I wanted to write about him.
I was standing in my kitchen and I was reading the newspaper. It was spread out on the kitchen table, and I saw an article, and the title of the article in the Buffalo News was “The Strange Tale of a Buffalo Bank Robber Turned Writer”
I wasn't sure it was going to be a novel or a short story or what, but I knew I wanted to learn more about this man and write about him. And what fascinated me was not only was he this kind of cerebral bank robber who approached the robberies like chess matches - which he was an avid chess player - and he's quoted as saying that robbing banks is like chess for cash prizes, which I think is a great quote. He became a writer when he was in prison, and he was a penny-a-word guy, Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine, Alfred Hitchcock. He even was writing for Scholastic Books, if anyone's old enough to remember Scholastic Books.
Debbi: Oh, I do
Stephen: Yeah, me too. I still have a few of them. So the man who was doing time in Leavenworth was also writing Scholastic Books. He was just a fascinating character, and he was a Buffalo guy. I had kind of decided after I completed Muscle Cars that really Buffalo, New York was going to kind of be my literary turf I was going to carve out for myself. Kind of what William Kennedy did for Albany and Richard Russo did for upstate New York, the Catskill areas. That's what I was going to do. And so this just kind of fell in my lap and I just kind of really became intrigued with Al and his story.
Debbi: Interesting. Very interesting that you were able to find this in the local paper, right?
Stephen: Well, what it was his daughter, who's just an infant in the novel, she was trying to do a Kickstarter campaign to gather up all her father's short stories and anthologized them, and so the newspaper did a feature on it. And what was really great about this whole experience with Rook is that since the publication, I've become friends with her. She lives about two hours away. She's a retired attorney, not a defense attorney or criminal lawyer. We've had coffee a few times and she's come to a couple of my events when I'm in the Central New York region, telling me some fascinating stories about her dad that I wish I knew while I was working on the manuscript.
Debbi: Interesting. Because this is a fictionalized account of a true story, -
This week’s episode of the Crime Cafe podcast features my interview with paleontologist and crime writer Leonard “Kris” Krystalka.
Check out his reading from The Bone Field!
Grab a PDF copy of the transcript here!
Debbi: Hi everyone. My guest today is both a professional paleontologist and a novelist. He writes the Henry Przewalski - is that correct, I hope? Przewalski?
Leonard: Literally, it reads as Przewalski but it's actually a Russian-Polish name, named for the discoverer of Przewalski's horse, that small kind of dwarfish horse that lives wild on the Asian steppes. So it's pronounced in the Russian sense.
Debbi: Got it. All right. I'll try to remember that. It's my pleasure to have him with me today. It's Leonard Krystalka, who goes by Kris. Like Kris Kristofferson, may he rest in peace.
Leonard: May he rest in peace. A terrific person.
Debbi: Indeed. Yes.
Leonard: Yes. Wonderful artist.
Debbi: He was, yes. I want to thank you for being here so much. It's good to have you on. Tell us about Harry Przewalski. I almost screwed that up again. How much did you draw from your own experiences in creating him?
Leonard: A great deal. I named Harry Przewalski as a homage to the study of the life of the past and the study of present biodiversity. So, Przewalski's horse is this miniature horse that roams wild on the steppes of Asia. It almost became extinct by over hunting, and in World War II, the German soldiers ate what is reputed to be some of the last Przewalski's horses in a zoo in Poland. But enough were saved to repopulate the wild steppes of Asia.
Przewalski's horse is this miniature horse that roams wild on the steppes of Asia. It almost became extinct by over hunting, and in World War II, the German soldiers ate what is reputed to be some of the last Przewalski's horses in a zoo in Poland.
Debbi: Interesting. Did you choose that name deliberately?
Leonard: I did. I chose it deliberately, although it's hard to pronounce, and as a homage to the paleontological studies of the evolutionary history of life on Earth, the three billion year history of life on Earth.
Debbi: That is so cool. How many books do you have in the series, and how many do you plan to write? Or do you have a plan for the series?
Leonard: There are four books now in the Harry Przewalski series. There's THE BONE FIELD, DEATH SPOKE, THE CAMEL DRIVER, and the newest one just published this year called NATIVE BLOOD. I have a fifth novel, which is not in that series. It's a historical fiction of a murder that occurred in Lawrence, Kansas in 1871. A doctor accused of murdering his patient because he was having an affair with the patient's wife. The doctor was arrested and the resulting trial was equivalent to … imagine the OJ Simpson trial in 1871 in Kansas. You have sex, you have murder, you have adultery.
It attracted reporters of every single newspaper in the country from San Francisco, from Chicago, from St. Louis, from New York, Washington, Detroit, and so forth. This is 1871 Kansas. It's only six years after the end of the Civil War. So the trial was a national sensation, and one of the Lawrence women becomes the heroine. She talks the editor of one of the Lawrence newspapers into hiring her as the first woman correspondent west of the Mississippi. She covers the trial and solves the murder.
Debbi: Wow.
Leonard: She also fights for women's rights. She fights for suffrage for women and blacks. Yeah, she's quite a woman.
Debbi: And which book is this again?
Leonard: This is called THE BODY ON THE BED. I could hold it up for viewers to see.
Debbi: That's very cool. I noticed that book was outside the series.
Leonard: Yeah, it is. I'm writing the sequel to that now. It's called The Body on the Bricks. She is the heroine of that book as well. But your original question was about the Przewalski series of which there are now four, and yes, there may well be a fifth.
Debbi: Fantastic. -
Episodes manquant?
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This week's episode of the Crime Cafe features another story from The Adventures of Philip Marlowe.
This episode comes to you ad-free. Relatively. :)
The following is an unedited AI-generated transcript. Does an awesome job, huh? :)
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Hi, everyone.
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This is The Crime Café, your podcasting source of great crime suspense and thriller writing.
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I'm your host, Debbi Mack.
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Before I bring on my guest,
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I'll just remind you that The Crime Café has two e-books for sale,
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the nine-book box set and the short story anthology.
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You can find the buy links for both on my website, debbiemack.com, under the Crime Café link.
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If you'd like to
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You can also get a free copy of either book if you become a Patreon supporter.
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You'll get that and much more if you support the podcast on Patreon,
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along with our eternal gratitude for doing so.
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Unfortunately, our scheduled guest was unable to make it this week.
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However,
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I have instead another episode from the files of Philip Marlowe,
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Private Eye,
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Daring Young Dame on the Flying Trapeze.
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Enjoy!
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For the safety of your smile, use Pepsodent twice a day, see your dentist twice a year.
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Lever Brothers Company presents the Pepsodent program,
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The Adventures of Philip Marlowe,
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starring Van Heflin.
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Pepsodent presents Philip Marlowe, Raymond Chandler's famous private detective.
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You've seen him on the screen in Lady and the Lake,
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Murder,
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My Sweet,
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The Brasher Doubloon,
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and The Big Sleep.
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Now Pepsodent brings you the adventures of Philip Marlowe on the air and starring
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MGM's brilliant and dynamic young actor,
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Van Heflin.
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Pepsodent
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There comes a certain time in the year when I don't want to see midget auto races.
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I just want to see midgets.
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When I prefer sawdust to stardust, and popcorn to all other kinds of corn available in Hollywood.
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The circus was moving in on the grounds at Washington Boulevard and Hill Street,
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and I was turning in my usual fine job as sidewalk supervisor.
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It was exciting.
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It brought back all the sounds and sensations and convictions of childhood.
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And then someone had me firmly by the wrist,
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and I turned to look into a pair of steady,
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smoky,
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dark eyes that could be dangerous.
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Excuse me, sir, but you are a private detective?
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I'm a detective, but I don't get much privacy.
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Yeah, my name is Ralph Tassinari.
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Who told you I was a detective?
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My feet aren't that flat.
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Do you know a gentleman named Al Sicanolfi?
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Well, I know an Al Sicanolfi.
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He pointed you out.
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He asked me what was the big idea.
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What was my angle hiring a private detective?
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He gave me an idea.
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When has Al Sicanolfi had any ideas to spare?
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Mr. Marlowe, besides owning one-third of this very fine little circus, I am Tassinari.
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Of Tassinari, the Swede, and Glorian.
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Trafisto.
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The most brilliant aerial act in the business.
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I own this circus with Glorian and the Swede.
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Well, where does Al Sicanolfi fit in here?
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Now, the Swede gets drunk and gambles fantastic sums of money.
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This circus is worth a quarter of a million dollars.
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Already, -
This week’s episode of the Crime Cafe podcast features my interview with crime writer Tom Fowler.
Check out our discussion of his Baltimore-based crime fiction.
Click here for a PDF copy of the transcript.
Debbi (00:55): Hi everyone. My guest today is the USA Today bestselling indie author of the John Tyler thrillers and the CT Ferguson crime fiction series. Born in Baltimore, he now lives in the Maryland suburbs of DC, a place that I know well, or at least I used to know it well. It's my pleasure to have with me Tom Fowler. Hey, Tom. How are you doing today?
Tom (01:21): Good, Debbi. Thanks for having me on.
Debbi (01:23): Excellent. My pleasure. I was particularly intrigued by the fact that you are writing hardboiled mysteries that take place in Baltimore. You're originally from Baltimore and you've also written a whole lot of those books. How many books do you have in the CT Ferguson series?
Tom (01:44): Sixteen currently. Just put up the pre-order for number 17. My hope is to have it out a little before Christmas.
Debbi (01:56): Well, I got to tell you, I love a hardboiled mystery, and I love the idea of the setting in Baltimore. How many books do you plan to write for the series? What's your plan for the series in general?
Tom (02:09): Yeah, I don't have any plan to end it. I think it's common in the genre to have these kind of open-ended series, and we look at the Spencer series. Robert B. Parker wrote 40 or 41 before he died, and there's been another 11 or 12, I think since his passing. Ace Atkins wrote the first nine or 10, and now Mike Lupica has taken over. So Jack Reacher was more of a thriller character, I would say, than mystery, but that's a 27 or 28. And again, there's an author transition happening there too. So I think it's very common to see these series just keep going, and as long as people are interested in reading them, I'm certainly interested in writing them. I have a lot of fun with these books.
Debbi (02:56): That's cool. I've noticed they tend to be on the short side. Is that intentional? Is it just the way you write?
Tom (03:04): I guess it's just the way I write. They're usually 70 to 75,000 words. The more recent ones have been closer to 70, so I'd say most mysteries are probably somewhere in the 75 to 80 range. So I hope I'm not writing too short, but it's the right length for the story. I don't want to pad the word count unnecessarily. They're first-person stories, so there's not a lot of side quests, if you will, happening that the other characters are going on, so.
Debbi (03:34): Exactly. Yeah, and personally, I like short reads, so I mean, that just really appeals to me.
Tom (03:41): Yeah.
Debbi (03:44): What prompted you to write that series?
Tom (03:49): A few things. I've mentioned before, I think I have a longer bio that mentions I wrote a "murder mystery" (in air quotes for those who can't see me) when I was about seven years old in which no one actually died, so no murder. And I named the, I guess I can't really call him the killer, but the person who stabbed people, the stabber, like in the first paragraph. So not a mystery either. Oh for two, but it's because I was at my grandparents' house a lot, and they would watch shows like The Rockford Files. This was probably the early eighties, and they were probably in syndication by then, but Columbo, shows like that where you had a cop or a PI, someone solving a mystery, and I've read a lot of different genres over the years, but I wanted to, at some point in the late two thousands to 2010, I wanted to write my own, and I really started writing that book.
(04:52): I know I had a finished draft of the first book, The Reluctant Detective, around November, December of 2010. I wouldn't publish it until October of 2017. So the process took me about seven years, but I wanted to do, I like the crime genre a lot. I was big into shows like Monk and Psych and things like that at the time, -
This week’s episode of the Crime Cafe podcast features my interview with crime writer Catherine Rymsha.
Check out our discussion about leadership skills and crime fiction writing.
You can download a PDF of the transcript here.
Debbi: Hi everyone. My guest today has a career in workplace communication and management. She teaches leadership skills and has a nonfiction book called The Leadership Decision which she published before her crime novel. Her crime novel is Stunning. It's called Stunning, and in addition, she has given a TED Talk on the importance of listening, so listen up. You might learn something. It's my great pleasure to have with me today, Catherine Rymsha. I hope I'm pronouncing that correctly.
Catherine: You are. Thank you. Yes, you are.
Debbi: Excellent. Wonderful.
Catherine: So happy to be here.
Debbi: I was going to ask you about that, and I'd completely forgotten, in the big hubbub of trying to get connected.
Catherine: That's fine.
Debbi: You wouldn't believe, people. Anyway, thank you so much for being here. What is it that made you decide to write a novel, and a mystery at that?
Catherine: I love murders.
Debbi: Who doesn't?
Catherine: It's so odd saying that, but I'm talking to an audience who understands that. I love crime, I love murder. Even as a kid, I was reading like the Fear Street books and R.L. Stein and Goosebumps, and then ventured into Stephen King and then started to watch everything on ID, and 20/20 and Dateline, and all of those shows that dig into it. When I was a kid, I always wanted to write and I fell into leadership and wrote a ton about leadership, which for some, that's not the most thrilling topic in the world, which I understand totally. But then, I was pregnant when I wrote Stunning. It was a dream. It was based on a dream that I had, and I kept having the dream, and I thought maybe I should write this down and I just started writing. I would write before bed and just write, write, write when I had time and I wasn't sleeping or working a real job, and that's how it came about. It just felt like it needed to get out of my brain.
Even as a kid, I was reading like the Fear Street books and R.L. Stein and Goosebumps, and then ventured into Stephen King and then started to watch everything on ID, and 20/20 and Dateline, and all of those shows that dig into it.
Debbi: Interesting. So do you picture writing more books, or is this like your one shot ?
Catherine: I just came out with a textbook, also not as thrilling, very academic, but I want to get back into writing murder and crime and even if I could do something based on real life murder or crime. I think those are things that are interesting to me to explore next. But I do want to start getting into it and I keep saying that, and I thought all summer I'll write another book. And now summer has come and gone and the book is not written. So I'm thinking, well, maybe in the fall. I say that and I laugh because I don't know if it's going to happen that quickly, but it's more fun than writing leadership. I mean, leadership is important but crime and murder and making things up is way more fun.
Debbi: Making things up is fun.
Catherine: Yes.
Debbi: It's its own form of work, but at the same time it's fun work.
Catherine: It is fun work.
Debbi: Yeah. Your books - do you have a traditional, hybrid or are you self-published?
Catherine: I am self-published with my first two, but the textbook, I did work with a publishing company, so that was interesting too, to have that experience after doing two on my own and working with editors and beta readers and that whole spiel.
Debbi: The whole shebang, yes.
Catherine: The whole team.
Debbi: I was going to ask you about your publishing journey. What has it been like for you? Has it been what you expected?
Catherine: With the first one, it was a learning curve, because I wanted to find an editor and I found an excellent editor named Sandy. -
This week’s episode of the Crime Cafe podcast features my interview with crime writer Anna Willett.
Check out our discussion about thriller writing and her Cold Case Mystery series.
You can download a PDF of the transcript here.
Debbi: Hi everyone. My guest today is the author of several thriller novels, including five books in The Cold Case Mystery series. Her latest book is called Needles and Pins, and it's this week's giveaway, so make sure to check out the giveaway on my blog or on her Instagram. You can find it there on Instagram for sure. So it is my pleasure to introduce as my guest the author, Anna Willett. Hi Anna. How are you doing today?
Anna: Hi, I'm well. How are you?
Debbi: Good, thank you, although right now at the moment, I'm in Maryland where tornadoes are threatening somewhere on the horizon.
Anna: Oh really?
Debbi: Yes. Apparently we've been getting tornado warnings in different parts, not too far from where I live, but it's all very sketchy right now. Hopefully I won't be interrupting this podcast to dive under a desk or into a bathroom or something. I don't know where I'd go.
Anna: Oh, that's scary.
Debbi: It is. They are scary. In any case, let's talk about your thrilling novels rather than my thrilling tornadoes. At what point did you decide to write a series?
Anna: Well, as I said in the post, I wrote a book called The Woman Behind Her, and the main character finds herself as the suspect in a murder. The lead detective on that case was Veronica Pope, who I became very interested in and wanted to write more of, and I thought, I think that I can do a lot more with this character, and so I'm going to write another book. So after really what was the second book in the series, I thought, there's so much more I could do. There's so many more places I could take her. I had so many more ideas for the sort of situation she could be in and her team, and it went from there.
Debbi: It's fascinating. How many books had you written before you made that decision to go after that series?
Anna: I think it would've been 13, maybe 12 or 13 books.
Debbi: That's very interesting how a character gripped you to the point where you decided to create a series for the first time.
Anna: Yes. Well, I'd had another series. It was just three books, and it was about a journalist, but all the others are standalones. And the woman behind her was, I thought, going to be a standalone, but it turned into this ongoing series.
Debbi: Yes, it's fascinating. What inspired you to create Veronica Pope? What kind of inspiration went into creating the character itself?
Anna: Well, I wanted a female leader. I like to write about strong female lead characters, and so I wanted a female detective, and I wanted her to be - I'm going to say normal - so that she's just an average woman who's very good at her job, and she's not a super cop. She's not invulnerable to being hurt. She cares; she worries about things. She has her insecurities, she has her family life. She's a single mother. She has ambitions for her job, but she's also a little bit funny and down to earth, and that's the sort of character I would like to read.
I like to write about strong female lead characters, and so I wanted a female detective, and I wanted her to be - I'm going to say normal - so that she's just an average woman who's very good at her job, and she's not a super cop.
Debbi: Yeah, a very relatable sort of character.
Anna: Yeah, yeah.
Debbi: And skilled.
Anna: Yes. So I wanted her to be really good at her job and very insightful and very observant, but at the same time, I wanted her to have the same worries that most people would.
Debbi: Yes, exactly. Do you plan to write more books in the series?
Anna: I haven't decided. I'm not sure. I might. If something comes to me, if an idea comes to me that I think would be perfect for Veronica. Not all, but quite a few of the books I drew from real unsolved cases in Western Australia. -
This week’s episode of the Crime Cafe podcast features The Adventures of Philip Marlowe in "The Orange Dog."
And my thanks to Old Time Radio Researchers Group for the content. You're awesome! -
This week’s episode of the Crime Cafe podcast features my interview with crime writer Michael J. Young, MD.
Check out our discussion about his medical thrillers and enter his book giveaway here!
You can download a PDF of the transcript here.
Debbi: Hi everyone. Today my guest is a doctor who spent 30 years as a surgeon while living and practicing medicine in Chicago. He's the author of a memoir/assessment of the current medical system - oh my - titled The Illness of Medicine: Experiences of Clinical Practice. He's also authored a trilogy of medical thrillers, and they all sound absolutely terrifying. I say that in the nicest possible way. I mean it in the best possible way. Anyway, he is also on the faculty of the Departments of Urology and Biomedical Engineering at the University of Illinois at Chicago. He has invented and patented various medical devices, too. Amazing guy! It's my pleasure to introduce Dr. Michael J. Young, medical thriller writer and M.D. Hi, Michael. How are you doing today?
Michael: I'm wonderful, thank you.
Debbi: Great. Fantastic. Wow. My first question to you, of course, is how are we going to fix our horrible healthcare system?
Michael: Oh, we could spend hours and days.
Debbi: Hours, yes. I was going to say, you probably ask the same question all the time in your books.
Michael: Every morning.
Debbi: Boy, I can tell you, I've had enough experience with it to know. So I was reading your first few chapters in Net of Deception and my gosh, what egregious examples of what not to do on the internet.
Michael: Yes, it is. Well, actually, Net of Deception evolved out of my dissatisfaction and distrust and frustration, if you will, with the online pharmaceutical access that people have. As easy as it is, and in many ways, the advantages of having it are great, but the disadvantage is that patients don't have the opportunity to truly have informed consent about potentially very dangerous drugs. And in this particular scenario, nefarious activity occurred within the company that was selling these drugs. So it was really predicated on my own frustration with that evolution of how drugs are obtained today.
Debbi: Yes. And not to mention medical information in general on the internet.
Michael: Yes. Again, it's a double-edged sword. I encourage people to have information. The problem with the internet is that you don't always know the reliability or the source of that information. And although it may say it's from so-and-so, it may not be. And so a consumer of this data, of this knowledge, of this vocabulary has to be extraordinarily mindful and diligent in assuring that they're obtaining that information from a reliable source.
I encourage people to have information. The problem with the internet is that you don't always know the reliability or the source of that information.
Debbi: Yes, absolutely. And so often things will depend on other factors that aren't being addressed in the information that you have, so that you don't have the whole picture.
Michael: No, you don't, and that carries over too much of the direct consumer advertising of drugs. I mean, there's only two countries in the world that allow it - the United States and New Zealand. That's it. And so when you hear or watch these ads on TV, everything looks wonderful but you're only getting a snippet because there's only so much time with which that information can be given to you and you can't decipher it. The legal information that's given is boilerplate. Everybody has the same side effects.
Debbi: It's read very fast.
Michael: Very fast, but also at the end, you may die. You may this, you may that. Well, of course. And so how is a consumer supposed to make that decision? But unfortunately for us as physicians, patients come to the office with a preconceived solution to the problem without really understanding the problem. But they've had this wonderful advertisement telling them all the benefits. -
This week's episode of the Crime Cafe podcast features my interview with crime writer Phil M. Williams.
If you like thrillers, you'll want to check this out.
And don't forget to check out his giveaway here!
Before I bring on my guest, I’ll just remind you that the Crime Cafe has two eBooks for sale: the nine book box set and the short story anthology. You can find the buy inks for both on my website, debbimack.com under the Crime Cafe link. You can also get a free copy of either book if you become a Patreon supporter. You’ll get that and much more if you support the podcast on Patreon, along with our eternal gratitude for doing so.
We also have a shop now. Check it out!
Check us out on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/crimecafe
The transcript can be downloaded here.
Debbi: Hi everyone! This week we have with us the author of 27 books, primarily thrillers. His stories tend to explore modern dilemmas and controversies which pit powerful villains against average citizens. He's giving away an audio version of one of them, NO GOOD DEED. It's my pleasure to introduce my guest, Phil M. Williams. Hi, Phil. How are you doing today?
Phil: Very good, Debbi. Thank you so much for having me on!
Debbi: It's my pleasure, believe me. I noticed that most of your books are thrillers. I also noticed that you do have at least one series, the 2050 series.
Phil: That's correct.
Debbi: What prompted you to write this series?
Phil: I think I was interested in – in thinking about what would happen in my lifetime. Right? I mean, I'm 48 years old, so I'm hoping I get another 25 years at least. So I was thinking, okay, well, I wonder what the world would look like. I don't know. 2050 is a good, seemed like a good round number. And I see a lot of the – I'm interested in history. I'm interested in some politics. And to me it was just sort of an extension of.
Now it's a very exaggerated version of what's maybe happening in the world today, but it's sort of taking the extreme versions of totalitarianism and projecting it on the United States and seeing what life would be like for. And in the series, there's four main characters. And so I wanted to see, wanted to explore what life would be like for the one character as a farmer. He's an average guy that's struggling, as a lot of our farmers are today, and struggling to make ends meet.
And then you have the congresswoman who's sort of a budding communist congresswoman who eventually rises to power. And then you have the banker, who sort of comes from a very shadowy family where they control a lot of the economics behind the scenes. So you get a chance as the reader to kind of, to see that.
And then you have just this regular woman who's sort of, who's a nurse, and she and the farmer end up. They end up, they end up crossing paths, but they kind of show that … those two characters show the every man and every woman perspective of what life is like in this dystopian future, whereas, and then the other side of the coin, you have the corporate power banker, and then you have the governmental power person that ends up being the president. They show you the power side of the dynamics, which I think is really interesting for the readers.
And you can see, as the series goes on, you can see how the plots wrap around each other and how the characters sort of interact with each other. And in the beginning, you don't always see how it all is going to connect, but it all kind of sort of weaves together, which I think was just unbelievably complex to do.
The plot outline was – Yeah, the plot outline was over 100,000 words. I think it was, like, 130,000 words just for the plot outline. And I put a – put a lot. I spent over a year just working on the five book plot outline before I even wrote a single sentence of the series.
Yeah, the plot outline was over 100,000 words. I think it was, like, 130,000 words just for the plot outline. And I put a – put a lot. -
This week's episode of the Crime Cafe podcast features my interview with crime writer and entrepreneur Clay Stafford.
Check out the plans for the upcoming Killer Nashville conference!
Before I bring on my guest, I’ll just remind you that the Crime Cafe has two eBooks for sale: the nine book box set and the short story anthology. You can find the buy inks for both on my website, debbimack.com under the Crime Cafe link. You can also get a free copy of either book if you become a Patreon supporter. You’ll get that and much more if you support the podcast on Patreon, along with our eternal gratitude for doing so.
We also have a shop now. Check it out!
Check us out on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/crimecafe
The transcript can be downloaded here.
Debbi: Hi everyone. Our guest today is a return visitor. Along with being a bestselling and award-winning author, he's a poet, screenwriter, and playwright. He's also founder and CEO of Killer Nashville. It's my pleasure to have with me again as this week's guest. Clay Stafford. Hi, Clay. How are you doing?
Clay: Hi, Debbi. Doing well. Absolutely wonderful.
Debbi: Wonderful. You're looking good there.
Clay: Well, thank you.
Debbi: Looking good. It's always nice to know. The farther we get along in age, it's nice to know you're still looking good at least. Shall we talk about what's coming up at Killer Nashville then?
Clay: So you're just leaving it wide open then, what's coming up?
Debbi: Yeah. What's special coming up, let's say?
Clay: Well, every year it changes, and this year I truly do think it's going to be the best one yet so far, and we're coming up on - what is it - it's the 18th year or something.
Debbi: 18th or 19th, I was going to say
Clay: Maybe 19th, but we're getting close to that two decade point. I think the lineup ... I'm currently finalizing the schedule - should have it online very quickly, and it's going to be, I think, a wonderful year.
Debbi: That's excellent. That's good to hear. I happened to notice that one of your offerings was a mock crime scene, which I thought was kind of cool. Is that like a display, or do people get to interact with it?
Clay: We actually used to do that all the time, and then Dan Royce, who was the assistant director of the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, always put that on. This last year and the year before, he did not do it just because I think he'd been doing it for 15 whatever years and decided to take a break. But he has told me that he is coming back with another crime scene. It's basically an interactive crime scene where people try to actually solve the crime, and it looks like it's the same training methods that are used with the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation and the FBI and all of the other agencies. Each attendee who wants to try to solve the crime, the winner gets a heavily discounted attendance for next year for Killer Nashville.
But it's a tricky business and it's always been a lot of fun. We've learned over the years how to be able to handle that, because one year we just set up the crime scene and some attendees at a hotel we were at at the time came by and happened to look in, and it looks very realistic - blood and brain matter and everything all around - and they called 9-1-1. The next thing we know, we have police officers and medical people all showing up, and they're telling us to get out of the way, and then of course, they're going over to look at the dummy, and then I guess they kind of feel like maybe a dummy. But we've now set it aside so that it's not right in front of other people who are not—
The hotel we're using - Embassy Suites in Cool Springs, Franklin - we actually have sold out the whole hotel, so it should be all crime writers who are there, so there should not be any danger of the 9-1-1 team showing up. I'm hoping Dan will come through with us on that. He said he is working on an idea, so hopefully we'll have that ready to go.
Debbi: Well, that's very cool. -
This week’s ad-free episode of the Crime Cafe podcast features my interview with crime writer Weldon Burge.
Check out the first interview of our Tenth Season. Dear God Good grief! Has it really been ten years?
And check us out on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/crimecafe
You can download the transcript here! :)
Debbi: Hi everyone. This is the first episode of our 10th season here at The Crime Cafe. And boy, that decade sure went fast. Where did all that time go? In any case our guest today is a writer, indie publisher, and a full-time editor, although I now believe he has retired, but we can talk about that. He's written numerous articles for various publications as a freelancer. His first novel, Harvester of Sorrow was originally published by Suspense Publishing, but is now published through his own company, Smart Rhino Publications, which focuses mostly on horror and suspense thriller books.
He has also published 17 books. That company has published 17 books, including the most recent anthology, Asinine Assassins. There's the tongue twister for you - Asinine Assassins - which I believe is also part of a trilogy. His latest short story collection is Toxic Candy, which he is offering as a giveaway. Check the notes in this recording for his guest post and giveaway details. Alrighty then. So in any case, it is a great pleasure for me to introduce Weldon Burge as my guest today. Hey, Weldon.
Weldon: Hi. Thanks, Debbi. Good to hear you.
Debbi: It's great to see you and great to hear you, and glad to have you on the show. So you are no longer working full-time and you are devoting yourself to writing fiction these days?
Weldon: Yes. Pretty much.
Debbi: As well as publishing.
Weldon: If a nonfiction job comes up, I will take it, but I'm focusing primarily on fiction at this point.
Debbi: Yeah, yeah. I reached a point where I pretty much said, okay, that's all I'm going to do.
Weldon: Well, I was working for an educational consulting firm, so I was dealing with PhDs every day, and then I'd come home and I have to get into fiction because I'd had enough brainy stuff all day long. So now that I'm retired, I'm going full force into the fiction and enjoying it. I love it.
Debbi: Awesome. That's great. That's a wonderful thing. So how do you structure your writing schedule?
Weldon: I don't. I mean, I'm constantly writing. I'm constantly writing notes, bits of dialogue that come into my head I will write down. So as far as the schedule goes, it's just whenever I have time to do something, I'll do it. But I have things churning in my head constantly, so getting something on paper is something I do all day long. Ideas come for me and I try to work them out in my head, and I have notebooks everywhere, notes everywhere, and when I have time to sit down and do it, I do it.
I'm constantly writing notes, bits of dialogue that come into my head I will write down. So as far as the schedule goes, it's just whenever I have time to do something, I'll do it.
Debbi: Yeah. Notes everywhere. I think that's kind of like a writer's life. Notes everywhere.
Weldon: Yes, that's right. That's right.
Debbi: What was it that inspired you to create the Ezekiel Marrs character, and what are your plans for the series?
Weldon: Okay. Actually there's one chapter in the book that has nothing to do with Ezekiel Marrs. That actually spun the tale for me. There's a section in the book where a teenage couple find a body in the woods, and that was the very first thing that came into my head, and everything kind of spread from there. Ezekiel Marrs was first called Simon something, and it went through umpteen different names, and I liked the Ezekiel because of the biblical parlance there and then Marrs because it's out there. So I like the idea of that name, and it's fairly unique, which was the other thing I was looking for. The character kind of grew out from himself. It was kind of interesting how that occurred. -
This week's episode of the Crime Cafe podcast features my interview with crime writer Charles Salzberg.
Check out our final regular episode of Season Nine!
Before I bring on my guest, I’ll just remind you that the Crime Cafe has two eBooks for sale: the nine book box set and the short story anthology. You can find the buy inks for both on my website, debbimack.com under the Crime Cafe link. You can also get a free copy of either book if you become a Patreon supporter. You’ll get that and much more if you support the podcast on Patreon, along with our eternal gratitude for doing so.
We also have a shop now. Check it out!
Check us out on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/crimecafe
The transcript can be downloaded here.
Debbi: Hi everyone. This is the last regular episode of the ninth season of the Crime Café. I cannot believe that I've been doing this for nine years, honest to God. So, in any case, our guest tonight is a person who has worked as a journalist and he is a novelist, who has written for a variety of magazines, including Esquire, GQ, Elle and others. He's also written book reviews. He gets paid to do that. I have to find out about that.
Charles: Not much. Not much.
Debbi: Not much?
Charles: Not much.
Debbi: Well, you get paid something. That's nice. His series though is the Henry Swann Detective series, which is really cool, I think, at least based on what I've read. He has written true crime and a variety of nonfiction books, including a book about Soupy Sales, which I have to ask about. He's a writing teacher and mentor, as well as the founding member of the New York Writers' Workshop. It's my pleasure to have with me, Charles Salzberg.
Charles: Thank you so much for having me.
Debbi: Oh, sure. It is my pleasure, believe me. I just started actually your latest Man on the Run. Wow. What a great opening. You already have me hooked. I love your style. It has a kind of a chatty feel to it. Is this the way you write generally?
Charles: Yes. Almost all the stuff I write is in first person from different people, and I just like that conversational style.
Debbi: Yeah. Yeah. I'm with you there. Yeah. I like that. What inspired you to write the Henry Swann Series?
Charles: It was inspired in the beginning by spite. I was in an MFA program at Columbia, and I had to have a manuscript to get in, and I chose this teacher who said he read the manuscript - I'm not sure he did. It got me into the program and he said to me, do you know how to tell a story? And I said, yes, I know how to tell a story. He said, well, you don't tell stories. This book is written like Nabokov and Philip Roth, in a style like that. You should read Chekhov. I was an English major. I had read Chekhov. Anyway, I quit after two weeks and I thought, well, this guy doesn't think I can write plot. I'm going to write a book that's very plotted, and those would be detective novels.
So the first Swann book was called Swann's Last Song because I had no intention of writing crime novels after that, or revisit Swann. It had a very interesting history because I wrote it and I sent it to agents and editors, and they all said we love this, but we can't publish it with this ending. The problem with the ending for them was the detective follows all the clues, and in the end, the murder has nothing to do with any of the clues he followed. It was totally random. So the reader finds out what happened, but the detective who's really a skip tracer had nothing to do with solving the crime. And they said you're going to disappoint detective/crime lovers because they need the detective to solve the crime. And so I said, well, that's not what this book is about. I was much younger then, and so I said if you're not going to publish it this way, I'm going to put it away and forget about it and go onto the next thing.
About 20 years later, I happened to stumble across the manuscript and I read it and I thought, this is pretty good. -
This week's episode of the Crime Cafe podcast features my interview with crime writer Len Joy.
Get to know Len and his books, as well as his interest in athletics and how it has inspired his writing.
Before I bring on my guest, I’ll just remind you that the Crime Cafe has two eBooks for sale: the nine book box set and the short story anthology. You can find the buy inks for both on my website, debbimack.com under the Crime Cafe link. You can also get a free copy of either book if you become a Patreon supporter. You’ll get that and much more if you support the podcast on Patreon, along with our eternal gratitude for doing so.
We also have a shop now. Check it out!
Check us out on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/crimecafe
The transcript can be downloaded here.
Debbi: Hi everyone. My guest this week is the award-winning author of several novels, including one that I read called Dry Heat, which I really liked a lot. Like many authors, he started off in another career before he started writing. It's my pleasure to introduce my guest Len Joy. Len, hi.
Len: Hi. Thank you very much for having me. I never thought of myself as a crime writer, but as I look at my work, I do have a lot of crime in there, so happy to be part of this.
Debbi: Absolutely. Well, I am glad to have you on, that's for sure. Now I finally have you . Okay. I wanted to ask you particularly about Dry Heat, because I loved it so much. What was it that inspired you to write this novel?
Len: Well, this was one of the few novels I think I wrote that was inspired by a specific incident. In my earlier career, I had an engine remanufacturing company in Phoenix with my brother-in-Law. We ran that for almost 20 years. It was a down and dirty, gritty, manufacturing operation. We had about 200 employees at any given time, and I had a very trusted employee, a woman and her husband that worked for me in the office. Their son, who I knew, I think he had just turned 18 and he was out hot rodding on the interstate on a Friday night, and not sure whatever happened, but they basically were dueling with another car and somebody in the vehicle he was in shot at the other car.
Didn't hit anybody, but it turned out that the other vehicle was driven by an off-duty policeman, and he was arrested. He was the only adult -18 years old - and the other three were underage, and he was charged with attempted murder of a police officer, which is a serious crime. I mean, it's more serious penalties, and even though nobody was hurt, I don't believe he was the one shooting, but nevertheless, he was arrested. I followed this with obviously the parents as a father, and I had a kid about the same age as Tim, and instead of going to college, he's going to trial, and they have this lawyer, and they're going to a pretrial conference. They're going to fight this. I think they have a good case. They come back in the afternoon and they tell me that they basically presented him with the alternative of if you lose at trial, you could go to jail for 20 years, or you can take a deal and you go to prison for three, and they took the deal.
But that just stuck with me, not just for the kid, but for the parents to have to make that decision in an instant, and it just changes the whole direction of your life. That was 20 years ago, and I started writing after that, and it was just something. I followed their story and he went to prison. He came out. I stayed in touch with his mother. My business ended in 2003, so I was no longer in Phoenix, but it was a story that interested me. And after I'd written a couple other novels, I decided not to use that story, per se. I mean, his story is his story, but that incident inspired me, I guess, in a way, to try to write about that kind of event where you're heading in one direction and something happens and your whole life changes.
And I like sports, so I always make it somehow an athlete involved. But that was the inciting incident, I guess, -
This week’s episode of the Crime Cafe podcast features another great story from The Adventures of Philip Marlowe.
Feel free to check out the video version, too.
Check us out on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/crimecafe
Where ad-free episodes are a bi-weekly event!
Here’s a copy of the transcript in PDF.
Marlowe (01:17): Somewhere in the cold, persistent rain that made the city itself seem a thing of evil, a girl had disappeared and it was my job to find her, but before I did, I found death and a devil.
Narrator (01:31): From the pen of Raymond Chandler, outstanding author of crime fiction, comes his most famous character as CBS presents The Adventures of Philip Marlowe, and now with Gerald Mohr starred as Philip Marlowe, we bring you tonight's exciting story, "The Black Halo".
Marlowe (02:10): For three days, an ugly storm had lashed at the west coast from northern Oregon to the tip of lower California, and although it was only noon when I drove up to the sprawling red brick house just south of Santa Barbara to meet a new client of mine, the black that was in the sky and the driving rain that was everywhere left the day bleak and wet and cold. Left it the kind of day that made you feel that logs blazing in a fireplace and a warm dry robe were the only things that could matter to anyone. But when I got inside the house, Felix Drum, 350 uncomfortable pounds of executive in a wheelchair, who made his living importing perfumes, was very worried and not about the weather outside.
Felix Drum (02:52): Marlowe. Julia Perry is gone. I want you to find her and bring her back, and the sooner you do that, the better.
Marlowe (02:58): And the more I know, Mr. Drum, the easier it'll be. Exactly who is Julia Perry?
Felix Drum (03:02): My assistant, very capable girl who in the past six months has practically taken over my entire business. She handles most of the work from her cottage here on the grounds where she lives. She also has some little cubbyhole in Los Angeles where she keeps her files and some sample stock.
Marlowe (03:19): Do you have the address of that cubbyhole?
Felix Drum (03:20): If I knew the answer to everything, I wouldn't have hired you and anyway, it isn't important. Hand me that little bottle.
Marlowe (03:29): This one?
Felix Drum (03:31): Yes. Thank you.
Marlowe (03:43): When did you last see Julia, Mr. Drum?
Felix Drum (03:45): Three days ago. It was three days ago when she left on one of her regular weekly trips down to Los Angeles to bid on perfumes. Usually she stayed away overnight at the Beachwood Plaza Hotel most of the time, and she was back here by noon the next day.
Marlowe (04:02): I suppose you've already checked the Beachwood Plaza?
Felix Drum (04:04): Yes, of course. My man, Ruby, the one who showed you in has called the place a dozen times, but they only know that Julia registered there three days ago and hasn't been seen since.
Marlowe (04:14): Well, what about the girl herself, Mr. Drum? I mean her background, friends, family, that sort of thing?
Felix Drum (04:18): Yeah, as far as I know Marlowe, Julia has no friends, no family either. She's just a sweet but smart little girl from someplace in Kansas.
Marlowe (04:26): No beaus, not even nice ones, huh?
Felix Drum (04:28): I don't think she had the time. You see, when Julia first came to work for me, she wanted to get ahead and I gave her the chance. She made good. Today, she's as much my right arm as Ruby is my leg.
Marlowe (04:39): Mr. Drum, did you notice anything unusual about Julia's behavior lately?
Felix Drum (04:42): Yes, and that's the reason I'm worried. About two weeks ago I saw changes in the girl, Marlowe. She seemed less spry, more preoccupied. I figured it was overwork myself. Since the end of the year always means detailed annual reports, so I made no comment at the time.
Marlowe (05:00): I see. Tell me, Mr. Drum, what does she look like?
Felix Drum (05:03): Well, I have no pictures, -
Our guest for this episode of the Crime Cafe podcast is crime fiction and true crime writer Amanda Lamb.
Join us as we discuss her career in journalism and how close she came to going to law school! Yikes! :) Good call, BTW.
Before I bring on my guest, I’ll just remind you that the Crime Cafe has two eBooks for sale: the nine book box set and the short story anthology. You can find the buy inks for both on my website, debbimack.com under the Crime Cafe link. You can also get a free copy of either book if you become a Patreon supporter. You’ll get that and much more if you support the podcast on Patreon, along with our eternal gratitude for doing so.
We also have a shop now. Check it out!
Check us out on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/crimecafe
The transcript can be downloaded here.
Debbi: Hi everyone. My guest today has worked for more than 30 years as a television news reporter. She now has four podcasts, has authored three books of crime fiction and three of true crime. She's also written family and children's books. She owns a company called Stage Might Communications. I am very pleased to have with me today the multi-talented Amanda Lamb. Hi Amanda. How are you doing?
Amanda: Good, Debbi. Thanks for having me. I appreciate it.
Debbi: Well, I really appreciate your being here, and I am just amazed with the work you're doing. I love that you create podcasts the way I create blogs. You seem to not be satisfied with just one.
Amanda: Yes, I developed an interest in podcasting when I was working for my television station a couple years ago, and I really didn't have any idea what it was about. I had done a little bit of listening to podcasts, but I hadn't really ever worked on a podcast, and writing a narrative podcast is like writing a book, or it's like writing multiple documentaries because of the length of a True Crime podcast, for example. But I just really loved it and I really developed an interest in it, and now I'm doing more interview-based podcasts like yours, and I love that as well, because I'm curious about people. I'm interested in people, and it just really fits kind of where I am in my career.
Debbi: That is really cool, because I can really appreciate that, because I've often thought of doing other interview-type podcasts because actually I have a journalism background
Amanda: There you go. Well, you can try.
Debbi: It all started with that, you know. That's where really my writing in a sense, professionally started kind of.
Amanda: Yes
Debbi: It started with journalism school, let's say.
Amanda: Okay. Okay.
Debbi: And I didn't go quite the route you did. I went to law school instead.
Amanda: Well, you know, one of the things I'm learning - my podcast is called Ageless, and it's about women transforming personally and professionally - and I'm learning that nobody's life is linear. Everybody's life seems to kind of go in many different directions, sometimes to arrive at the same place, but there's nothing about life that's linear.
Debbi: Yes, I agree with you completely there. What was it that prompted you to start writing crime fiction and true crime?
Amanda: I became a focused crime reporter. Most people in TV don't specialize early on in their careers. You're a general assignment reporter, which means you cover a little bit of everything, but I was always interested, especially in the courtroom process and the criminal justice process. My parents were attorneys. My father was a district attorney, and so growing up, I actually went to several murder trials and I got an opportunity to see how the process worked. I always thought I'd be an attorney. That just seemed like the thing that I was going to do, given my family background.
I really loved writing, so in college I started to think more about how could I combine this love of writing with kind of this interest in criminal justice, specifically in the puzzles, because a case, -
Our guest for this episode of the Crime Cafe podcast is Southern Gothic mystery writer Faye Snowden.
Check out our discussion of her Killing Series and what inspires her to write.
Before I bring on my guest, I’ll just remind you that the Crime Cafe has two eBooks for sale: the nine book box set and the short story anthology. You can find the buy inks for both on my website, debbimack.com under the Crime Cafe link. You can also get a free copy of either book if you become a Patreon supporter. You’ll get that and much more if you support the podcast on Patreon, along with our eternal gratitude for doing so.
We also have a shop now. Check it out!
Check us out on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/crimecafe
The transcript can be downloaded here.
Debbi: Hi everyone. Today I'm pleased to have with me the author of a series of dark Southern Gothic mysteries with strong and flawed female characters. She's going to give away a copy of her first book, A Killing Fire, and her second book A Killing Rain was named by CrimeReads as one of the best Southern Gothic mysteries of 2022. She also won and has been long-listed for various writing awards. So it is my great pleasure to have with me today Faye Snowden. Hi Faye, how are you doing?
Faye: Hi there. Fine, Debbi. How are you?
Debbi: Good, thank you. And I need to put you in the spotlight if I can manage to do that. I am just a technological mess today. There we go. That's much better. So, tell us about Raven Burns and the Killing Series, and what inspired you to write it?
Faye: Oh my. Certainly. This series was actually not my first. I had a mystery suspense series back in the day. But the Raven Burns series is, like you said, southern noir, complete mystery, dark mystery, and it is about a woman whose father was a serial killer. So in order to atone for his sins and to prove that she's a good citizen, she decides to become a homicide detective to right his wrongs in that small town, made up fictional town. She lives in Byrd’s Landing, Louisiana that seems for some reason have a lot of serial killers and she has to spend an inordinate amount of time chasing them. So the series is actually based on - what is it, the four? Is it the four? Oh, I'm kind of drawing a blank there. But it's based on fire, water, soil, and then air.
She lives in Byrd’s Landing, Louisiana that seems for some reason have a lot of serial killers and she has to spend an inordinate amount of time chasing them.
So the first book in the series is A Killing Fire, and then the second book is A Killing Rain, which is out now. I'm working on A Killing Breath as we speak, and then the last book is A Killing Soil. And in each book, Raven is going to learn something about herself that's either going to push her to be a good citizen of Byrd’s Landing, Louisiana, or become more like her father.
And in each book, Raven is going to learn something about herself that's either going to push her to be a good citizen of Byrd’s Landing, Louisiana, or become more like her father.
Debbi: Oh, wow. I'm really hearing some interesting themes that people are basing their series on lately. I've heard the Seven Deadly Sins, now the Four Elements.
Faye: The Elements, right.
Debbi: Earth, wind, fire, water.
Faye: Yes. Yeah. Yeah.
Debbi: Wow.
Faye: I got the idea for the book because - I tell this story all the time, my poor dad - but I am a child of divorce. My mom, who's since passed away - she died in 2015 - but she did not have a fondness for my dad after the divorce, and she would disparage him in front of us. I looked a lot like my dad. I favored him a lot, and I used to look in the mirror and say, well, if my dad's a something and something, what does that make me? What kind of person does that make me? And you know, a writer's mind just takes off sometimes, the imagination. I said, oh, you know, that would be a neat character to write, but you have to up the stakes. So it's like, -
Our guest for this episode is thriller author Leanne Kale Sparks.
Check out the podcast to hear more about her Kendall Beck series and the authors who inspire her, amongst other things.
Before I bring on my guest, I’ll just remind you that the Crime Cafe has two eBooks for sale: the nine book box set and the short story anthology. You can find the buy inks for both on my website, debbimack.com under the Crime Cafe link. You can also get a free copy of either book if you become a Patreon supporter. You’ll get that and much more if you support the podcast on Patreon, along with our eternal gratitude for doing so.
We also have a shop now. Check it out!
Check us out on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/crimecafe
The transcript can be downloaded here.
Debbi: Hi everyone. Our guest today had a short career in law before turning to writing a series of thrillers featuring FBI agent Kendall Beck. Her books are set in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado, which is a really cool place. I love that. She currently resides in Texas with her husband and two dogs - a German shepherd named Zoe and her Corgi named Wynn. It's my pleasure to welcome today Leanne Kale Sparks. Hi, Leanne.
Leanne: Hi.
Debbi: I'm so glad you could be with us today.
Leanne: Me too. This is exciting.
Debbi: Excellent. Wonderful. I, too, had a career in law before I started writing full-time.
Leanne: I think there's a lot of us.
Debbi: I think there are quite a few of us who left the profession in a kind of "we gotta do something else" feeling. You were fortunate in making yours a short career though, as you've described it. How long were you practicing law, and what kind of law did you practice?
Leanne: Well, I did a little bit of everything in that short amount of time. I did a little bit of family law and ...
Debbi: Oh, God!
Leanne: I did a little bit of estates, but that was short-term. Mostly, it was criminal defense.
Debbi: Ah. I'm telling you, family law right there will turn you off to the idea of doing more.
Leanne: It's the most dangerous profession. Everybody thinks it's the criminal lawyers that get it. It's family law.
Debbi: Not at all, because at least the clients understand you're dealing with a certain type of system. People going through divorce, acrimonious ones just go temporarily insane. That's my theory. It's temporary insanity.
Leanne: And you're taking away kids and money, two of the things that people value the most. In criminal defense, most of your clients, they know they're guilty. They have probably been in the system before, and so they know what's going on.
Debbi: Their expectations are well managed right from the start. Oh my. What inspired you to write the Kendall Beck series?
Leanne: I lived in Maryland at the time, and I had a friend who had retired from the FBI, and he used to be the person that was in charge of the criminal part of the FBI, the investigations. I had gone online and looked, and there was this really interesting department or group within it, a unit, and they did Crimes Against Children. And so I talked to this guy and I'm like, Hey, can you get me in to see them or talk to them, or have somebody just answer some questions? He pulled some strings and I was able to meet up with some actual agents that work in the unit.
It was a while ago and it just always stuck with me, and I thought, I need to have a character. The Wrong Woman started out as a short story just to see if I could actually write a crime thriller, and get all of the red herrings. The first versions of this, it was just like this person died and then we investigated, and yay, I figured it out, so I had to learn a lot about red herrings and things like that, so it kind of evolved. But I really did want Kendall to be involved in the Crimes Against Children, because I really think it's important now. My books don't focus on that. I don't talk about any of the icky, really icky. I don't go in depth with any of it, -
This episode of the Crime Cafe features my interview with crime writer Melissa Yi.
Don't miss our discussion of her Dr. Hope Sze series and the Seven Deadly Sins!
And the play Terminally Ill!
Before I bring on my guest, I’ll just remind you that the Crime Cafe has two eBooks for sale: the nine book box set and the short story anthology. You can find the buy inks for both on my website, debbimack.com under the Crime Cafe link. You can also get a free copy of either book if you become a Patreon supporter. You’ll get that and much more if you support the podcast on Patreon, along with our eternal gratitude for doing so.
We also have a shop now. Check it out!
Check us out on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/crimecafe
The transcript can be downloaded here.
Debbi: Hi everyone. My guest today is a doctor who studied emergency medicine and works in emergency rooms, I presume. She has received many accolades for her work, including a Derringer Award for best short story of 2023, and finalist for the Silver Falchion for best thriller. She also writes medical humor - which I find fascinating and want to know more about - and has won speculative fiction awards as well. It's my pleasure to have with me today Melissa Yi. Hi, Melissa. Thanks so much for being with us today.
Melissa: Oh my goodness. Thank you so much for having me.
Debbi: Well, it's my pleasure to have you on, believe me, and your background just fascinates me. I used to be an EMT and my husband was a firefighter. He's retired now, so I can thoroughly appreciate the whole hectic thing involving emergency rooms, what that must be like. Do you still practice medicine?
Melissa: I do. Not as much as I did, but I still like to keep my hand in.
Debbi: Excellent.
Melissa: I just have to say good for you guys, because now you can sleep. The nights are so hard.
Debbi: Yeah, yeah, for sure. Yeah. I remember getting up in the middle of the night to go on calls and it was like, whoa! I mean, sometimes those five in the morning ones were the worst, right before the dawn. I would get into the back of the ambulance and would just feel nauseous. I couldn't explain that.
Melissa: Oh, that's because that's a very physical job also. For me, I would say 3:00, 4:00 AM is tough because you've been working so long, but there's still so much to go. To me, 5:00, 6:00 people are starting to wake up. Normal people are alive at this time, it's not so bad. You might start to get some sort of backup, but the middle of the night, really, you are it, and I just find that very tough and very bad for circadian rhythms.
Debbi: Oh, yeah. Yeah, really. I was much younger then, so I could adjust to it a little more easily, I suppose. But I've always been sort of in awe of people who go to medical school, because I went to law school and the med school was right down the street from me. And I was like, wow, I'm so overwhelmed with work, but what if I were in med school? Oh my God! You guys have to study all these bones, all these muscles, all these nerves. It just amazes me.
Melissa: I think law school is very cognitively taxing, though. I think there's so much involved, so that it's a different kind of stress.
Debbi: Very much so.
Melissa: Medicine is really holding people's lives in your hands. That's the stressful part of medicine.
Debbi: Yes, yes. That to me has always been … you guys are really in there, doing stuff, fixing people's medical problems, things like that. What is it that inspired you to create Dr. Hope Sze?
Melissa: Very good.
Debbi: Thank you.
Melissa: You know, for me, honestly, there were a few things. I'm from Ontario in Canada, and the medical system was relatively good when I went to medical school. People probably don't know this, but in Canada, the federal government has the money and then they give the money to the different provinces, and when you finish medical school, you get matched anywhere in the country. You don't have to apply everywhere, -
This episode of the Crime Cafe features my interview with crime writer Laurie Buchanan.
Among other things, we talk about her (planned) nine-book Sean McPherson series.
Before I bring on my guest, I’ll just remind you that the Crime Cafe has two eBooks for sale: the nine book box set and the short story anthology. You can find the buy inks for both on my website, debbimack.com under the Crime Cafe link. You can also get a free copy of either book if you become a Patreon supporter. You’ll get that and much more if you support the podcast on Patreon, along with our eternal gratitude for doing so.
We also have a shop now. Check it out!
Check us out on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/crimecafe
Download a copy of the transcript here.
Debbi: Hi everyone. My guest today is the author of the Sean McPherson series, and while Sue Grafton had her alphabet series, this author has picked one letter and stuck with it—the letter I. All the books in the series have one-word titles that start with I, which I think is really kind of cool. The latest one released is Impervious, and the next one will be called Iniquity. It's my pleasure to have with me today Laurie Buchanan. Hi, Laurie. How are you doing today?
Laurie: Hi, Debbi. I'm fine. Thank you for having me. I'm looking forward to talking with you.
Debbi: Awesome. Well, I'm glad to have you here. The last time you were here, your first book was out, right? Indelible?
Laurie: Yes. Yes.
Debbi: And that established the story of Sean McPherson, who works at this kind of place where writers' retreats are held.
Laurie: Exactly. Pines & Quill is a writing retreat in the Pacific Northwest, and now by Iniquity, which comes out this April—it’s a premier now. It has had so many people, and now there's this huge waiting list and you need to be background checked and so on and so forth, because some murders have taken place there. Some from without and some from within. So they're being more than cautious. And the neighbors can see when first responders come, oh, what's going on there? There's paramedics, there's police, there's whatever it is. And then the news crews come over. So we've gotten now pretty far into the story, so Book Four Iniquity comes out in April, and Book Five is with the publisher. I just finished writing Book Six. It went to the beta readers, and I'm now starting Insidious, Book Seven.
Debbi: Oh my goodness.
Laurie: Yes. I'm on a nine-book contract right now. It went from one to three to five to seven to nine, and I suspect it will grow.
Debbi: Good heavens, nine books! Well, this is very interesting, because you have anticipated a few of my questions already. Well, we can talk about that, though. Boy. Nine books! How has the story of Sean McPherson developed over time so far?
Laurie: So we've gotten now where there's three very close friends—a private investigator, Sean McPherson, one of his two best friends, homicide Detective Joe Bingham, and then his other best friend, Sean Rafferty. Because there are two Seans, they go by their last name. Sean McPherson goes by Mick, Sean Rafferty goes by Rafferty, and he's an FBI special agent, and the three of them work together very well. Two of them, the homicide detective and the FBI special agent, have constraints, bureaucratic constraints. There are some things they cannot do because they are law enforcement agents. And because Sean is a PI in the state of Washington, he carries a gun. He doesn't have bureaucracy to answer to. He doesn't break the law, but he doesn't have the same constraints. So the three of them can get places and accomplish things that they wouldn't be able to do if they were all just police or all just FBI. So they've got this three thing going on.
Now where I'm at in the story, Sean McPherson in Impervious, which is the one that we're talking about today, Sean and Emma get married. They go to New Orleans, which is a destination location for weddings and horrific things happen there. -
This episode of the Crime Cafe features my interview with crime writer Jason Kapcala.
Check our discussion about his novel, Hungry Town, along with his other writing.
Before I bring on my guest, I’ll just remind you that the Crime Cafe has two eBooks for sale: the nine book box set and the short story anthology. You can find the buy inks for both on my website, debbimack.com under the Crime Cafe link. You can also get a free copy of either book if you become a Patreon supporter. You’ll get that and much more if you support the podcast on Patreon, along with our eternal gratitude for doing so.
We also have a shop now. Check it out!
Check us out on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/crimecafe
Download a copy of the transcript here.
Debbi: Hi, everyone. Today I have with me the author of two novels and numerous short stories that have been published in many magazines and literary journals. His latest book is Hungry Town. It's my pleasure to have with me, Jason Kapcala. Did I say that right?
Jason: Kapcala
Debbi: Kapcala. Jason Kapcala. Well, hello Jason. Thanks for being here. Thanks for spending time with me.
Jason: Thanks for having me, Debbi.
Debbi: It's my pleasure. Now, you have two novels, but you have many short stories. Did you start off writing short stories?
Jason: Yeah, I did. I kind of went the academic track. Went through an MFA program, and when I was there, started out learning to write stories, short stories, and actually my first book was a short story collection, but it was a linked collection so they all kind of tie in with one another, and it was all based around the town where I grew up, that area in Northern Pennsylvania where I was from. And then after that, I started moving into writing longer things, working on novels, and wrote my first novel, Hungry Town, and kind of got into that mode of writing about crime and police.
Debbi: Does your work tend to focus on small towns?
Jason: It does, yeah. I always write about a fictional place, but there's always elements of real life places that influence those towns. I just do that because I think I like the freedom of being able to put things where I need them, as the story demands it. So if I need to have a river here, I can put a river here, nobody's going to say, Hey, I'm from that town. There's no river there, but I'll go ahead and really base these towns on places where.... The first one was the place where I was from, but in other cases, places I know. So the town of Lodi in the novel Hungry Town, it's kind of an amalgamation of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, which was very close to where I grew up, and it was a steel town, of course, and had a large steel mill there.
Jason: It was really non-functional by the time that I was old enough to pay attention to it, but I still passed the ruins of it a lot. So it's sort of part that, and then part Athens, Ohio, where I did my Masters which was also formerly an industrial town turned college town. It had a brick factory and brick streets and everything. I don't know that there's really a town in existence that's quite like the one in my novel that would have a mill the size of the mill in the novel, but also a town as small as Athens. But I kind of went with that and ended up naming it Lodi, but it doesn't have any connection to the actual Lodi, Ohio. If anybody's from there, it's not your Lodi. It's a fictional one.
Debbi: That's interesting, because I kept thinking of Lodi, California.
Jason: Well, that's why I picked that name. Someone had said to me once they think there must be a Lodi in every state of the country. And so I was like, yeah, that does seem like a kind of an every town name, and so that's why I ended up going with it. Plus I like the Creedence Clearwater Revival song.
Debbi: Gotta love the Creedence. Do you have a preference for writing short versus long?
Jason: Oh, definitely long. I enjoyed writing short stories when I first started it, - Montre plus
