The Crime Cafe

My guest this week on the Crime Cafe podcast is Liz Lazarus. Listen in on her remarkable story. You can download a copy of the transcript here. Debbi (00:54): Hi everyone. My guest today has an engineering degree and a very interesting background in general. Among other things, she lived in Paris for three years and speaks fluent French. She has a pilot’s license and has produced a music CD. She’s also the author of several legal thrillers, including her latest, Dawn Before Darkness, which is available on Kobo, as well as in print or will be, I guess, in May. Liz (01:28): Will be. May 26th. May 26th. Yeah. Debbi (01:31): May 26th. There, you heard it now. You heard it there. It’s my pleasure to introduce my guest, Liz Lazarus. I’m trying not to say Liz Lemon. Liz (01:42): It’s a tongue twister. Liz Lazarus. Yeah. Debbi (01:44): Liz Lazarus. It’s a lovely name. I love it. I love that name. That’s cool. What made you choose to write Thrillers? Liz (01:54): Well, I would tell you, as you said, I’m an engineer. I’m probably the most reluctant author you’ll meet. I did not intend to be an author, and that may be the story for lots of people. But my first book, Free of Malice, was based on a real story, something that happened to me in college. And the novel actually was just me writing about what happened to start with. And then it turned into a novel. And I was going to be one and done after Free of Malice, and people that were reading it said, “Can’t wait for the next one.” And so I thought, okay. And it took me a while to agree to write the second one. And then once that was done, that was Plea for Justice, then came Shades of Silence and now Dawn Before Darkness. So now I feel like it’s a bad addiction. Debbi (02:36): Wow. And each one of these is a standalone novel, not a series. Liz (02:40): They are standalone. I like to give my characters closure and move on to new people. Debbi (02:45): That’s cool. Yeah, I can appreciate that. Your first novel was inspired by a real event, correct? Liz (02:53): Correct. Debbi (02:53): What was it like to write in a fictional form about a thing that really happened? Liz (03:00): It was therapy. So what happened in brief, I was in college at Georgia Tech. I was living off campus in this area called Home Park, which is a bunch of old houses, college students, a fair amount of riff raff. It wasn’t the safest area. And it was my senior year. I was going to sleep that night. I was living with two other girls in a house. And at four in the morning, I wake up to the sound of my bedroom door crashing open. Debbi (03:26): Oh my God. Liz (03:26): And I remember distinctly thinking, “Is this real?” And my next thought was, “This is real. You’ve got to deal with it. ” And you don’t know what you’re made of. Thank goodness I had fight in me, so I started fighting back. And eventually, at one point I write about this in the book, he says, “If you shut up, I’ll leave.” And I thought, “I’m not shutting up. I’m screaming louder.” And eventually he gave up and I left. So I didn’t have any self-protection at the time. I had a can of mace. I ran to the door, watched him run away into the darkness. And so for me, the writing about it, writing about the PTSD that I had. I didn’t even know what that word was, but I started writing about how I felt, what happened, how I would check every nook and cranny in the house. (04:09): And I had said to my brother-in-law afterward, “If I’d had a gun, I would’ve shot him.” And he said, “Well, that may not have been self-defense. By the time you could have shot him, he was retreating off your property. You would’ve shot him in the back.” And that got me really curious about where’s that line between self-defense and vigilantism. And then my mother asked a question, which I won’t tell you because it gives away the ending, but she asked just the most out of the blue question. And I thought, wow, that would make a killer ending to a book. And that was it....

My guest this week on the Crime Cafe podcast is Graciela Kenig, a crime writer who can tell you a tale in two languages. But she’s giving away her debut novel, The Plans They Made, in English. Check out the transcript of our interview here. Debbi (00:54): Hi everyone. My guest today has been a feature journalist, online forum contributor, and careers columnist. Her work has appeared in the Chicago Tribune, the Sun-Times, and other national publications. Her debut novel, The Plans They Made, won the 2022 Page Turner Award for best genre writing. So it is my pleasure to introduce you to my guest, Graciela Kenig. Am I saying that correctly, Kenig? Graciela (01:31): Yes, you are. Yes. And thank you for having me. It’s amazing. You’re saying both things correctly and that’s cool. Debbi (01:40): Ah, well, you see, I’m married to an Italiano man. His last name, if you pronounced it correctly, would sound very different from the way people actually pronounce it, when they can pronounce it. It’s funny. I have no problem with vowels, folks. I did take Spanish, so that helped in junior high and high school and all that stuff. So how are you doing anyway? Graciela (02:07): I’m doing fine. Thank you. I’m just looking forward to spring in Chicago. Debbi (02:12): We’ve had a rough one. Graciela (02:12): Yeah. Debbi (02:14): All right. You’ve had a very interesting career from writing features to having your own column. How did you go about developing this particular career path? Graciela (02:26): Some of it was very organic. I wanted to be a writer from the get- go when I was little, and of course the language, because I was born in Argentina and I wrote in Spanish. And so I moved to the United States with my family and I had studied English, but you don’t use it every day until you have to. And so yeah, it kind of started like that, that I wanted to be a writer. And for the longest time, even though I had been encouraged about how I could write well, I kept thinking that Spanish was the language I should write in because that’s what I was very comfortable with. So I entered the newspaper writing career because the Chicago Sun-Times had started a section in Spanish. So I started writing articles for them, no journalist training. It’s just like, okay, let’s see what happens here. (03:23): And so I learned quickly and soon enough they asked me if I would come in part-time to help the editor because he was not a native-born Spanish speaker, if I could just do a final sweep of his columns. He’d already done his editing, so I had to go back and make sure that everything was okay. And so that column, I think it lasted for sometimes a couple years. And then you’re inside this newspaper. And so somebody says, “Do you write in English too?” I do. And I was always drawn to being somebody who could give you advice. So some of the things that I liked for a while, eventually I freelanced for the Chicago Tribune and there I got in because I was writing for a know-how section. So I could write about how do you put together a ceiling fan? And so those kinds of things like that. (04:20): And I wrote for a bunch of local papers and eventually I kind of started doing other things, getting interested in helping people with their career. And then The Tribune started a Spanish language newspaper, and that one lasted 10 years. And I wrote the careers column. So it was this interesting thing that kind of opened doors for me as to how I can help people in a very more specific way. And I felt that I wanted to help the Latino community because oftentimes we tended to be real roaded into one kind of job or another kind of job. And at least I said, “If you’re bilingual, you can do that and the other thing.” And the more I did that, the more I realized it wasn’t just being able to speak another language, it was also about the cultural issues. So it was very organic and went like that, but I always, always wanted to write fiction. Debbi (05:18): Oh, that...

My guest interview this week on the Crime Cafe podcast is with the author of two mystery series, Joy Ann Ribar. Learn all about the Deep Lakes and Bay Browning series here! Transcript available here. Debbi (00:12): Hi, everyone. I hope the year is going well for everybody. Today I have as my guest, the author of two mystery series, the Deep Lakes Cozy Mysteries and the Bay Browning Mysteries. She is also a frequent traveler by RV with her husband and has blogged about some of her travels that have included some landmarks of literary note I might add. It is my pleasure to introduce my guest mystery author, Joanne Ribar. I’m sorry, Joy Ann Ribar. I mispronounced your first name instead of your last. Joy (01:35): Something is always bound to trip somebody up. It’s quite right. It’s so nice to be here with you today, Debbi. I feel like I’ve waited for this day forever. Debbi (01:47): I feel like I wait for a lot of things forever. I got to tell you. Yeah, the waiting is the hardest part. Oh boy. Don’t sue me, Tom Petty, please. It was just a small snippet. I didn’t even really sing it. Joy (02:02): Right. Exactly. Anyway, less than 30 seconds. I think you’re good. Debbi (02:05): Oh, there’s no real. Yeah, there is no nothing like that. It’s all very depends on all these factors as they put it. It’s like a combination of factors. Anyway, having said all that, how are you doing today? Joy (02:22): I’m doing really well. Speaking to you from Arizona today, which is a whole lot different than Wisconsin right now. Wisconsin is very snowy. They just got dumped on again and here in Arizona it’s sunny and dry. Debbi (02:38): Oh my gosh. Wow. Yeah, it’s better than … we’ve got snow all over the place here and we have more snow here in Maryland. That’s supposed to be coming, so that’s throwing all sorts of spokes in our … sticks in our spokes, so to speak. Joy (02:55): Right. A wrench in the works. Debbi (02:58): Yeah. Totally a monkey wrench in the works for sure. I mean, it just screws you up all around. Traveling. Any sort of plans you have, who knows? Maybe things will happen, maybe they won’t. Joy (03:10): Right. Debbi (03:11): I’m curious, did you have a career before you started writing fiction or have you always written fiction? Joy (03:17): Oh, definitely. I’ve had a few careers. I started life as a, well, I was a journalist first and worked as a newspaper reporter and an assistant editor and a photographer, and then I went on to work for a law firm as a paralegal. So I did a lot of legal writing, which everything I’ve done seems to be centered around writing. And then I became an English teacher and I taught high school English, followed by college English. And then in 2017 I became a semi-retired part-time teacher. Found out I had a lot of time on my hands and decided I would try to do some writing of my own with fiction. And so I wrote my first book in 2018. Debbi (04:14): And which book was that? Joy (04:16): And that was Deep Dark Secrets, and it was the first in the Deep Lakes Cozy Mysteries. I wrote it in real time. It was January. I was in Wisconsin, looked out the window. It was snowing. It was cold. The streets were quiet, the snow was piling up in the crooks of the trees, and I thought, it’s beautiful out here, but how do I share the beauty of winter with readers who don’t know winter? And that was kind of how all of my mysteries then became set in different seasons in Wisconsin because I wanted to focus on the season even as much as I wanted to give them a good mystery. Debbi (05:02): That’s really interesting. It’s like you’re focusing on a local area and the way it changes over time. Joy (05:10): Yes, yes, exactly. And in that series, which there are five books plus a standalone Christmas book, but I wrote each one in a season and I picked up, I just continued where the last one left off as far as it being set in the same year, but in the next season and in the next season. That was how I set...

This episode of the Crime Cafe podcast features an entry from The Adventures of Philip Marlowe, which you can get without the ads here or here. Other than the one in the Old Time Radio replay. It’s called “The Dancing Hands” sound. Enjoy the show! Perhaps someday, I’ll be able to afford making transcripts of all these episodes!

This episode of the Crime Cafe podcast features an entry from The Adventures of Philip Marlowe, which you can get without the ads here or here. Other than the one in the Old Time Radio replay. 🙂 Someday, perhaps, I’ll make enough money to create transcripts of the Philip Marlowe episodes. Would you be willing to pay (even a buck) for that? 🙂 PS: I just finished this book. I’ve been as direct as humanly possible. 🙂 Every writer on the internet should read this book.

My guest interview this week on the Crime Cafe podcast is with crime writer and publisher of The Real Book Spy on Substack, Ryan Steck. Also, feel free to download a copy of the transcript here. Debbi (00:52): Hi everyone. Welcome to 2026. Our first show of the new year features the author of the Matthew Redd Thriller Series. He’s also a freelance developmental editor, which is an important thing to have if you’re self-publishing, and an author/publisher of The Real Book Spy on Substack. It’s my pleasure to introduce my guest Ryan Steck. Hi, Ryan. How are you doing today? Ryan (01:20): Hi, Debbi. Thank you so much for having me. Debbi (01:23): I am very happy to have you on, even though you are wearing a Yankees cap. Ryan (01:27): I know. Debbi (01:27): I can live with that. It’s cool. I have Yankee fan friends, even though I’m a Met fan and a Nationals fan. I’m a National League fan. I don’t know. Ryan (01:38): Well, I was telling you before we started to record, I’m actually a Tigers fan too, but I’m from Kalamazoo, Michigan, which is where Derek Jeter grew up. So I always loved the captain and rooted for the Yankees since I was a little kid. Debbi (01:51): Very cool. That’s a very cool reason to root for him, too. Ryan (01:55): Yeah. Debbi (01:55): There you go. So anyway, happy new year. Glad to have you on. Thanks for being with us. What inspired you to write a thriller series? Ryan (02:06): Oh, I think I’ve always loved to tell stories and I love thrillers. I love mysteries. Way before I was actually writing books, a fan of the genre, it was through talking with other authors. So I came from sports journalism and covering NFL teams, primarily the Detroit Lions, and then sort of made my transition into publishing. And at the time, I tried writing for other media outlets, writing book reviews and author interviews, but I didn’t love that I was told what books I had to review or which authors I had to talk to. I wanted to be in control of myself and my own boss. And so I was friends with a lot of the authors that I was covering. And the one thing I kept hearing from everybody is that there’s no one-stop shop for all things thriller. And it was a good friend of mine who was a mentor. (02:58): His name was Ted Bell, New York Time bestselling author, Ted Bell, of the Alex Hawk series. Ted’s a guy I worked with for a while and he really mentored me in writing. But he said, “Buddy, if you build a website, we’ll come. We’ll support you. We’ll be there.” So I launched The Real Book Spy at the end of 2014. And by 2016, we were averaging a million readers a year. And I think by 2018 … Yeah, I think it was 2018, we crossed two million readers for the first time and have hung around two and a half million readers a year or so on that. And I’m super proud of that. But at the same time, I’m so used to being on your side of the conversation that when I did become an author, it took time to learn to be on this side. And I just want to make another note too. The Matthew Redd series is my own books, but I also write now for the late Ted Bell’s estate. (03:49): So the guy that really mentored me that helped me launch The Book Spy passed away a few years ago and initially I took over his series for Penguin Random House. And now we just signed a new three-book deal with Blackstone to continue the Hawk series. So I get to write those too. And I guess what led to me wanting to write my own books, I just always wanted to tell stories. And I bring a different, I think, perspective. A lot of guys in my genre, they’re ex-military, ex-special forces, ex-law enforcement, that kind of a thing. And I’m a father. I have six kids. I’m married. I know family life. People say write what you know. And I don’t agree with that because if I did, my books would all be about a dad who’s trying to figure out how to make it to everyone’s gymnastics and how to volunteer at church and all these other things. (04:43): I believe in write what you want...

This episode of the Crime Cafe podcast features an entry from The Adventures of Philip Marlowe, which you can get without the ads here or here. Other than the one in the Old Time Radio replay. This episode is called “The Old Acquaintance”. As in, happy new year! Get ready for 2026!

This episode of the Crime Cafe podcast features an entry from The Adventures of Philip Marlowe, which you can get without the ads here or here. Other than the one in the Old Time Radio replay. This episode is called “The Friend from Detroit”. The Motor City. 🙂 PS: The Crime Cafe Nine Book Set is on-sale at the reduced price of $2.99 until the end of the year. Or get a free copy as a patron here.

My guest interview this week on the Crime Cafe podcast is with semi-retired attorney and crime writer, James Polkinghorn. Check out our discussion of Liquid Shades of Blue. And a little about the practice of law. Show notes are coming soon!

My guest interview this week on the Crime Cafe podcast is with award-winning crime writer Victoria Selman. And, yes, we do have a brief discussion of Doctor Who! :) And Guy Fawkes! You can download a copy of the transcript here. Debbi (00:12): Hi everyone. My guest today is the Sunday Times and Amazon number one bestselling author of five thrillers, including her popular Ziba MacKenzie series. Her novel Truly Darkly Deeply was shortlisted for the Fingerprint Thriller of the Year Award and longlisted for the Theakston's Crime Novel of the Year Award, and was a Richard and Judy Book Club Pick. It has also been optioned by See Saw Films. In addition, she's been shortlisted for two CWA Dagger Awards, has written for the Independent, and hosts a popular podcast called On the Sofa with Victoria on Crime Time FM. It's my great pleasure to have with me today, Victoria Sellman. (01:50): Hi Victoria. How are you doing? Victoria (01:51): I'm good. It's my great pleasure to be here. Thank you so much for having me. Debbi (01:55): I am very pleased to have you on. I was going to say you're in London and what's the vibe like in London these days? Victoria (02:06): Well, the vibe in London today is very noisy. I dunno if you can hear the children outside my window, but it's Halloween, so we may be interrupted by some doorbell ringing and some dog barking as the kids come. Debbi (02:18): Oh, that's right. It's tonight where you are. Victoria (02:18): We're busy on the streets tonight. Debbi (02:22): Good heavens. Oh my goodness. Perhaps goblins will come visit us. I don't know. In any case, have you always wanted to write thrillers? Victoria (02:33): I've always wanted to write, so when I was from a very young age, I'm sure the same with you, I was always an avid reader growing up, and I think when you love to read, at some point you're going to want to write as well. You want to have a go, and it was a dream. From the age of seven, I wrote my first inverted commas novel on two sides of A4 paper. It was a very great achievement, which my parents went and lost. Otherwise, I'm sure it would've been a fabulous bestseller, but it was fun. That was on my bedroom floor one summer I wrote that. No, I've always wanted to write, but as is so often, I think as a writer, it was a long time coming, so life got in the way. I left university, I got a job, I got married, I had children. And it wasn't until I was in my gosh, I'm trying to think, my late thirties, I guess, that I started properly going for it and I haven't looked back. I've loved every minute, even the downs as well as the ups because of course publishing is a journey of peaks and troughs, and I think the biggest takeout is you just have to keep riding those waves and believing in yourself and keeping going. But it's a rollercoaster and it's a fun ride and I've loved it. Debbi (03:54): It truly is. Yeah, it is a great deal of fun when you can get things to work out and get the story to make sense finally. Victoria (04:03): Well, that's right. I think that's part of it. It's not just that we want to tell a story, but as a writer, the challenge of telling the story of getting it right, of getting the character's voice spot on and getting the character in with that first thing that they're going to say on the page, you just have to see who they are, how to create suspense. I love sleight of hands, so my novels, I love to keep people guessing and hopefully guessing wrong if I'm doing my job right, but also to play fair. So I dunno about you, but I think there is nothing worse than reading a novel and it's all about the big twist at the end and you get to the twist and you're like, okay, so I didn't see that coming. But also it doesn't make any sense whatsoever. I think the twist should absolutely, when you get to it, it should be "Oh!" not "uhh?", but when it's done well, everything just falls into place and you feel satisfied. And one's job,

My guest interview this week on the Crime Cafe podcast is with former investigator and crime writer Patrick H. Moore. Check out our discussion of Patrick's work in sentencing mitigation work. It's a lesser-known unique type of investigative work. You can download a copy of the transcript here. Debbi (00:54): Hi everyone. My guest today is a retired Los Angeles based investigator and sentencing mitigation specialist. Since 2003, he worked on more than 500 drug trafficking, sex crime, violent crime, and white collar fraud cases. My, what a mix. He also studied English literature and creative writing at San Francisco State University. As a student, he published several short stories and novel excerpts. In 2014, he published his first thriller novel Cicero's Dead. Today he has a three-book series, the first of which is a political thriller called 27 Days, which was along with Cicero's Dead, a finalist in various awards contests. As I said, it is the first of the three books in the Nick Crane thriller series. My guest was also co-founder of a blog called All Things Crime that apparently reached its zenith of popularity somewhere in the mid-2010s, which was what, 20 or 30 years ago? No, no, it was only last decade. It only feels like 50 years. Alrighty. It's my pleasure to introduce my guest, Patrick H. Moore. Hi. So how are you doing? Patrick (02:26): Oh, I'm doing great, Debbi. Hi. Thank you very much for having me on. Debbi (02:30): It's my pleasure. Believe me. And I was very intrigued to see that you used to be an investigator. Was that like a private investigator? Patrick (02:39): Well, I worked for a private investigator. The person I worked for, he held the private investigator's license, so I did investigations for him and also I did what's called sentencing mitigation work. We worked for lawyers primarily in the greater Los Angeles area, but also all around the country. And we would do a lot of their legwork. We would do a lot of their interviewing, and so we do their legwork, their interviewing, and also we would do a lot of the ghostwriting for the lawyers. So my specialty was actually writing federal sentencing memorandums, which are highly precise documents written in a very formal style that follow certain ground rules. (03:36): And so I wrote hundreds of these federal sentencing memorandums, and I also edited hundreds for my boss, but I also did investigations. But in doing sentencing mitigation work, it really is, it is like an investigation of a slightly different sort, that is you're not going out and knocking on doors or searching for things on the internet in one of the databases, but rather you're actually talking to your clients or our clients, my boss's company, John Brown and Associates. And so I would interview the clients at great length. I would interview their family members. I would collect character reference letters. So I was basically investigating the client his past, what he had or had not done, whether or not he had come from a disadvantaged background, all of those things. And so it was a kind of investigative work, but a kind of investigative work that very few people know about because the vast majority of the population has no idea that there are sentencing mitigation specialists in existence. And there actually are very few. I think Los Angeles really created this phenomenon, and I don't think it's really caught on in other parts of the country, which is why lawyers from other parts of the country would use my boss's firm too. Debbi (05:07): That's very interesting. Patrick (05:09): Because sharp lawyers quickly realized that to get those sentences a fair deal, they needed to have lots of ammunition, they needed to have lots of arrows in their quiver, and a full complete workup on the client they discovered was hugely helpful. We also did state cases, but those were fairly simple compared to the federal cases. My specialty was federal cases, drugs and fraud cases,

My guest interview this week on the Crime Cafe podcast is with legal thriller author Amanda DuBois. Among other things, we talk about how telling true stories persuasively can make you a better fiction writer. For a PDF copy of the interview, just click here. It's there, somewhere. :) Debbi (00:54): Hi everyone. My guest this week is the founder and managing partner of DuBois Levias Law Group, one of Washington State's longest standing woman-owned law firms before becoming a family law attorney, a field I learned to avoid like the plague, frankly, she was a labor and delivery nurse. She uses her medical and legal knowledge to address inequities in the legal system as an author of the Camille Delaney Mystery series, an award-winning book series. Her third and latest book is called Unshackled. She also founded an organization that helps formerly incarcerated people to reenter society. What a laudable goal. And I just finished reading the script for The Shawshank Redemption. What interesting timing. Anyway, I'm pleased to have with me today the author Amanda DuBois. Hi, Amanda. How are you doing? Amanda (01:57): I'm doing awesome. I want a copy of that script. How interesting that would be. Debbi (02:01): Oh, I can probably send you the link to where it was found. Or even a copy. Amanda (02:05): Oh, fantastic. I didn't know you were reading that. Debbi (02:09): Oh, it, it's kind of cool to read it, and I didn't have a chance to actually watch the movie. We were doing a discussion on it, and I hadn't had a chance to see it in a long time, but it seemed like there were scenes in there that might not have made it into the movie, which was interesting. Amanda (02:24): Yeah, that's exactly right. Debbi (02:26): It was very interesting to read, but I'm always pleased to have a lawyer on who has written crime fiction. I'm just pleased to see lawyers writing fiction, frankly, in general. And you have done some remarkable work starting your own law firm. How long have you had your own law firm? Amanda (02:49): So I'm just this year celebrating 30 years. Debbi (02:52): 30 years. Amanda (02:53): And so that makes us one of Seattle's longest-standing women owned law firms. Debbi (02:58): That's really awesome. Amanda (02:59): We've been celebrating all year. We have a little pontoon boat outside our office. Our office is on a lake, and we just did this champagne thing. You cork the champagne off and yeah, we've been having a good time celebrating. Debbi (03:11): That's awesome. That's fantastic. I think I can hazard a guess as to what led you from delivering babies to law, perhaps the absolutely broken healthcare system in this country that had something to do with it? Amanda (03:26): Well, a little bit. Yeah. Mostly I just wanted to do something different and was, here's a really funny story. How I ended up in law is I wanted to get out of nursing and I thought I'd go to medical school. So I went, took all the super hard science classes and then I decided I didn't really like ... I took like two years of biochemistry and all that stuff. And then I thought, well, maybe I'll go get an MBA. And so I went to buy the MBA study guide book at the bookstore, and right next to that was the law school book. And I thought, well, I'll buy that. I'd never thought about law school. So I went home and I was doing the MBA study book, and it was all this math and calculus and it was really hard, and I thought, this is awful. So I got a beer and sat down and did the law school study book, and I'm like, oh, this is much easier. (04:09): So my husband came home and I said, I'm going to go to law school. And he goes, what? I said, well, I'm not good at this MBA stuff. It's too much math, and I'm really good at this law school, so they must have a better idea about what would make a good lawyer. So I was totally the accidental lawyer. I had no interest really in being a lawyer at all, but I thought I had the aptitude. So anyway,

My guest interview this week on the Crime Cafe podcast is with crime fiction author Desmond P. Ryan. Check out our discussion about Toronto and the experiences in law enforcement that have informed his fiction. You can download a copy of the transcript here. Debbi Mack (00:07): Hi everyone. My guest today is a former police detective with the Toronto Police who draws on his experiences to write two very distinctive series, the Mike O'Shea series of gritty police stories, reminiscent of Joseph Wambaugh, so definitely gritty stuff. And also a series called A Pint of Trouble, which is closer in tone, apparently to the Thursday Murder Club books by Richard Osman. So I find that just a fascinating dichotomy of series there. Way not to get pigeonholed. It's my pleasure to have with me today, the author Desmond P. Ryan. Hi Des, how are you doing today? Desmond Ryan (00:54): I'm doing great, Debbi. How about yourself? Debbi Mack (00:57): Quite well, thank you. I just got through wrapping on my first film. I directed a film a week ago. It was a short film. It's a short film. Yes. Desmond Ryan (01:12): I'll bet that's a lot of work. Debbi Mack (01:14): Oh boy. It was a lot of work and it was a very, very interesting and eye opening, just kind of an experience I'll never forget. Desmond Ryan (01:24): What's the film about? Debbi Mack (01:25): It's about a priest who has a dark, somewhat dangerous past who has to face the consequences of what he's done. Desmond Ryan (01:36): Okay. Debbi Mack (01:37): I'll leave it at that. I don't want to spoil anything. Desmond Ryan (01:40): And where will we be seeing this film? Debbi Mack (01:42): I hope to have it somewhere online eventually. Somehow I think that the company that I was associated with, the nonprofit called Charm City Filmmakers helped make this happen. They basically teach new directors how to be directors, what's involved and who does what on the set, that kind of thing, and what your role is. And you'd be surprised how much work the first AD or assistant director does. It's just this amazing process that, it requires you to be really paying attention for one thing. Desmond Ryan (02:32): So it's not all magic? Debbi Mack (02:35): It's magic, but it's magic that looks invisible. I mean, the best magic does not reveal its tricks. Right? Desmond Ryan (02:44): That's true. Debbi Mack (02:45): But it's funny. People go behind the scenes all the time and see the tricks, so it's interesting, but it's a magic that we willingly buy into. Something like that. Desmond Ryan (02:56): Yes, you're going to have to let us know when it's going to be [inaudible] I'm already excited. Debbi Mack (03:03): Thank you. I feel like I've kind of hijacked this interview with you here. Just mentioning that film. My God, the film was really just a great experience and I'll probably talk about it more on a YouTube channel, so I'm on YouTube as Debbi Mack if you want to find it there. Desmond Ryan (03:22): We will. Debbi Mack (03:23): Okay, awesome. Let's see. You have the Mike O'Shea Series and the Pint of Trouble series. It's interesting. They're so very different. I love that you're writing though focuses on the diversity of Toronto's neighborhoods. I'm just fascinated with neighborhoods and how cities are made up of neighborhoods often. Tell us about the neighborhoods in Toronto and in particular, Cabbagetown, which I never knew about until I found out you were there, looked it up and has a very interesting entry on Wikipedia. Desmond Ryan (04:03): Yeah. Well, Debbi I'm born and raised in Toronto, and so I take a lot of it for granted, and it would take me hours and hours and hours to explain the diversity of Toronto. I believe it is the most diverse city in the world, not just because Des says so, but I think in whoever measures all of that stuff out it is. And it's made up of little neighborhoods, and a lot of the neighborhoods are based on culture and ethnicity,

My guest interview this week on the Crime Cafe podcast is with thriller author Christina Kovac. Get the bird's eye lowdown scoop inside story about her latest novel, Watch Us Fall! For a copy of the transcript, click here. Debbi (00:54): Hi everyone. My guest this week worked in television news covering crime and politics at Fox Five's 10 o'clock news in Washington DC. She went on to become a news producer and desk editor at the Washington Bureau of NBC News. She now writes psychological suspense thrillers set in DC. DC is one of my favorite places to talk about since I live near DC and worked in DC and well, I feel like a DC native almost. Her latest novel coming out in December is called Watch Us Fall. It's my pleasure to have with me. Christina Kovac. Hi, Christina. How are you doing today? Christina (01:36): I'm doing great. Thanks for having me. Debbi (01:38): It's my pleasure to have you on. Believe me, I'm always interested in talking to journalists and former journalists because you guys have such a difficult job. I mean, I know once upon the time I aspired to be a journalist, did freelance writing for a bit, but anyway, but I am intrigued by the description of your latest novel, which Alafair Burke described as, and I quote, "an insightful look at the complex dynamics of close female friendships and the lingering effects of trauma." Wow. Tell us more about what inspired you to create the story. Christina (02:19): I started writing in the beginning, or I think it was in the beginning of the end of the pandemic, and a lot of people around me were coming out of the pandemic. It felt sort of traumatized. I think we all came out of our houses sort of stumbling. I don't know how to act anymore. I don't know how to with my friends anymore. I don't know how to hug people anymore. And it really struck me that being alone, being away from each other felt like a traumatic experience. I wasn't writing out of my own experience. But then I started thinking about what must that be like to have a kind of traumatic experience and then finally find a bunch of friends that you just want to hold onto and that you build this life around. And that was what these four female characters did. (03:30): They met in college. They're Addie, Lucy, Penelope, and Estella, and they met at Georgetown and they became fast friends, and they were actually, when I was writing, I imagined that they started college during the pandemic like my daughter did, which was really a traumatic experience. They were stuck in their dorms. It was just a really horrible thing. They didn't get to know each other, but what they did was they kind of hung out, the group in their little quad. They hung out very tightly together, and they became just kind of forever friends. And so I thought that was really interesting. I wasn't writing out of my own traumatic experience, I will be honest. But at the time that I was writing, I was also very interested in the fact that misinformation had taken off. (04:25): A lot of people were listening to lies on the Internet about COVID and all the rest of things, and I wondered why they were so open to things that were obvious lies and misinformation. And I started to wonder if there was a connection between being alone in COVID and feeling kind of traumatized by that and believing things that were the exact opposite of what their doctors were telling them and what made absolutely no sense to any sensible human being. Basically, why you would believe a lie. And that was really the beginning of my thinking about these people. So it's a bunch of disparate strands, strands, excuse me. It started in one place. It moved all over the place. That's kind of how I write. I don't know why. I wish I could just pick a lane and ride down the highway, but that's just not really how I roll. Debbi (05:19): Yeah, yeah, I can appreciate that. It's funny how when you're writing, sometimes ideas come and stuff that you thought you were goi...

The Crime Cafe once again is pleased to bring another episode from the annals of Old Time Radio! With one of my favorite protagonists–Philip Marlowe! With Gerald Mohr in the title role! Get early access to ad-free episodes and bonuses, when you become a Patron!

My guest interview this week on the Crime Cafe podcast is with the spy thriller novelist, Howard Kaplan. He has a fascinating story or two in him, for sure. For a PDF copy of the transcript, click here. Debbi (00:12): Hi everyone. My guest today has a most interesting background in international affairs. I would like to talk to him more about that, actually. Let's just say his work was so interesting, he got picked up by the KGB and interrogated. Okay. A native of Los Angeles, he's lived in Israel and traveled throughout Lebanon, Syria, and Egypt. He's the author of the Jerusalem Spy Series, the latest of which is The Syrian Sunset. It's my pleasure to have with me Howard Kaplan. Hi Howard. How are you doing today? Howard (01:32): I'm doing fine, thank you. Debbi (01:34): Excellent. Good, good. Your background is just fascinating. At the age of 21, you actually were sent on a mission to smuggle out of Russia, a Soviet dissident's manuscript on microfilm to London? Howard (01:47): Yes. I actually went to Russia twice to consecutive summers. It was right around my birthday's in July, so I think it was one right before I was 21, and right around the time I was 22. And it was old school stuff. These were before the technology era where at that time the KGB had a single agent who monitored every Xerox machine in the Soviet Union. They could do that because it was a crime to have unemployment. So they gave everybody a job and they used to have something called Samizdat, which was self-published, where people would go into a typewriter and type a manuscript with onion skin, which is very thin paper and carbon paper. Most people don't even know what these things are anymore. Debbi: (02:51): I do. Howard (02:52): And you would get several copies and they would be circulated underground. So I was not involved in how they transferred this manuscript to microfilm, however I was involved. When I met with them, I had, again, pre-digital age, lots of rolls of film in a camera bag, some exposed pictures I'd taken, some not. So we took a, this was prearranged, a fresh roll of film, slid open the box carefully so it could be reglued together, opened the Kodak yellow canister, removed the regular film, placed the microfilm in, taped a lead of film back in because they used to come with like six inches of film sticking out and glued the box together and threw it in the box. Wasn't somebody, I thought it was a very good idea and it was unchallenged on the way out. Debbi (04:00): And it was much less conspicuous than a pumpkin.Howard (04:06): So I was bold and I thought, oh, this is easy. I can go back every year and do this kind of thing. And that turned out to be misconstrued because I went back the next year and I got arrested for meeting with dissidents. But fortunately, I'd actually transferred a different manuscript to the Dutch Embassy at that time because again, they're KGB agents. They would stand outside a little phone booth like a London booth, and Russians couldn't enter a foreign embassy. But when I was arrested, I didn't have anything incriminating on me, and they didn't know actually about any of these prior events. They didn't even know I'd been in Russia the year before. I had a new passport, still with my name, and they were just picking me up for meeting with dissidents, with people protesting the government.(05:06): And so they interrogated me for a few days. It was generally polite. Interestingly, in Moscow, the Russians have a great interest in Jack London, in the writer, I think because the Canadian Arctic, if that's a proper term, is reminiscent of the Soviet North, the Russian North and Siberia. And so they're very akin to his writings. He's one of the writers that's most sought after in Russia. Now they can get books. It's a different world. And they asked me a lot about Jack London novels, and I wondered if this was for a long time, meaning years. I wondered was this surreptitious?

My guest this week on the Crime Cafe podcast is the award-winning author of the Detective Parrott and Quinn McFarland Mystery Series, Saralyn Richard! Check out our discussion about her latest work, including the Quinn McFarland novels and a new historical novel in the works, inspired by her grandparents, about the 1900 Storm in Galveston, Texas. Treat yourself to a PDF copy of the transcript. Debbi (00:54): Hi everyone. My guest today is the award-winning author of the Detective Parrot Mysteries and the Quinn McFarland Mysteries, as well as other books. Her laudable goal is to change the world one book at a time, which I think is a great, great goal. It's my pleasure to introduce today's guest, Saralyn. Richard. Hi, Saralyn. How are you doing? It's been a long time. Saralyn (01:19): I'm good. It's wonderful to be back with you, Debbi. Debbi (01:23): It's wonderful to have you on. Thank you. Before we delve into the world of Quinn McFarland, I have to ask about good old Detective Parrott. Do you plan to continue that series? Saralyn (01:37): I do. I do. Debbi (01:39): Awesome. Saralyn (01:40): But I generally give him a rest and he gives me a rest after a book just to have some time to regroup and have some new things happen in his life. New things happen in my life. So I kind of alternate between Detective Parrott books and other books. Debbi (02:04): That's a great approach actually. That way you don't get burnt on doing the same sort of thing. It adds a little variety. Saralyn (02:14): And he doesn't get burned with me asking a million questions. I like it when he comes to me and he whispers in my ear and I don't have to beg and plead for, give me a new story. Debbi (02:31): That's great. I like that. That's absolutely a wonderful approach. What inspired you to write about a woman who works in her family's mortuary? Saralyn (02:43): Well, Quinn is more than that. She works in that mortuary because she is kind of withdrawn from society. She had a very bad experience when she was young in high school, and she doesn't really trust people. She really just kind of resorts to her family business, which happens to be a mortuary, and there she can be herself. She doesn't have to worry because dead people don't hurt you and they don't talk about you and they don't tell lies about you and things like that. So she's gotten very comfortable in that life and in the first book, which was Bad Blood Sisters, she was just about to turn 30, and it was a big aha moment for her that life is passing her by and she's not accomplishing any of her goals. Originally, she wanted to be in the medical profession, and she is an embalmer, so that is considered the medical profession, but she wanted to be on the living side of things, and she hasn't done that. (04:17): She hasn't gotten married, she hasn't had a family. She hasn't really made friends since high school. And so she's uncomfortable with the place that she's in in her life, and boom, suddenly she's thrown into solving a mystery and she becomes an amateur sleuth, and that's Bad Blood Sisters. And by the end of Bad Blood Sisters, she is getting herself more on track. When the second book begins, which is Mrs. Oliver's Twist, she has foresworn police matters and crime. She doesn't want to have anything to do with that anymore, and she actually wants to leave the mortuary business and become a physician's assistant. And she's applied to that school and she's about to get in and she's feeling a little guilty that she's leaving her family in the lurch, but she's ready to move on and she's promised, well, she's now got a husband. That's a bit of a spoiler, but she's promised him and she's promised her parents no more criminal activity, no more searching for perpetrators. (05:41): And then suddenly she is thrown into another mystery because her very favorite teacher from high school who helped her get through that rough period in high school turns up dead,

My guest for this episode of the Crime Cafe podcast is clinical psychotherapist and crime writer Harper Kincaid. Learn more about the challenges and joys of the writing life, along with the inspiration for her books and advice for anyone who wants to write. Download a copy of the transcript here. Debbi (00:54): Hi everyone. My guest today is the USA Today bestselling author of the books in the Bookbinder Mystery series, Bookbinding Mystery series. Her work has been published in a variety of publications including Writer's Digest Magazine and CrimeReads, and many, many others. It's my pleasure to have with me today, Harper Kincaid. Hi Harper. Harper (01:19): Hey, Deb. To everybody here. Such a fabulous treat to be able to meet with you today and talk. Debbi (01:26): Awesome. Yeah, it's great to meet you too. And I love your name, Harper. You weren't named for Harper Lee, were you? Harper (01:32): No, and honestly, it's a pen name because I'm also a licensed clinical psychotherapist, and so I try to keep, I don't really keep the streams very separate anymore, but when I first started writing, I was doing child and adolescent social work and I was writing dirty romance and people getting killed. So maybe you want to not have that come up in the same Google search for that kind of thing. Debbi (02:03): Understandable. Yes, very much so. Let's see. You were born in California and raised in Florida. Then—I love this quote—"moved like a nomad with a bounty" on your head. Harper (02:15): I did. Debbi (02:17): Where are you living now? Harper (02:19): So I have lived right outside of Washington DC in a town, Vienna, Virginia, Northern Virginia. Actually, the Bookbinding series is based there and in the series we're not going to talk too much about it, but it's a combination of places and people and businesses that are really there and some that I've made up. And a girlfriend of mine said it's Vienna zhuzhed up in the books. So I've been there for almost 20 years at this point. But it's true. I lived in New Orleans, I lived all over South Florida. I lived in Northern California, but we're East Coasters and we are there in the DC area, which is an interesting time to be there, to say the least. Debbi (03:04): Well, cool. I'm glad you're relatively close to where I am. Harper (03:10): And where are you based? Remind me. Debbi (03:10): I'm in Columbia, Maryland. Harper (03:13): Oh, I'm going to wave. *waving* Debbi (03:16): Hey! *waving* Right across the river. Hey, there, across the river, Vienna and all that. Wow. Harper (03:24): It's nice. It's funny, when I first came to the area, I did not understand this demarcation between Maryland and Virginia that people, like Virginia people did not really go over to Maryland, vice versa. And I was like, it's not that far. What's the big deal? And I don't know if that's ever been your experience, but that was something I found really strange. Debbi (03:47): I have found a little peculiar myself when I first came here because I'm originally from New York and I've lived in all these different places too, like California, Pennsylvania, and then back DC for one summer. I mean, it's just here, there and everywhere. Indeed. So when you encounter something like that, you're kind like, what? Harper (04:11): Yeah, every region, I guess. Debbi (04:13): And then there's the traffic. Harper (04:13): Oh, the traffic is never going to get better. Debbi (04:18): Oh, it is outrageous around here. It really is, and it always makes its way into my books somehow. I mean, I write about around here and one of the things I always write about is traffic. The traffic is terrible. Harper (04:30): It's true. Everyone can relate to that for sure. Debbi (04:32): For sure. Yeah, and anytime I've been in Los Angeles, everybody there is so polite by comparison to here, yet people complain about the traffic there and I just don't understand it. Harper (04:44): Every region has its little pecca...

My guest for this episode of the Crime Cafe podcast is journalist and crime writer Jonathan Whitelaw. Wherein we discuss important topics like treating your writing career like a business. Along with really great topics, like Doctor Who, James Bond, and Terry Pratchett. Just sayin'. :) You can download a PDF of the transcript here. Debbi (00:54): Hi everyone. My guest today is an award-winning journalist and author. He once worked in Scottish politics, then moved into journalism where he covered a wide variety of topics for major publications. He appears on the Bloody Brothers Podcast and the Bloody Scotland Book Club. His novel, The Concert Hall Killer, was recently shortlisted for the Whodunnit Award for Best Traditional Mystery by the Crime Writers of Canada. Originally from Scotland, from Glasgow, he is now living in Canada in Alberta. It's my pleasure to have with me Jonathan Whitelaw. Hi, Jonathan. How are you doing? Jonathan (01:37): Hi there. I'm very well, thank you, Debbi. Thank you very much for having me. It's a pleasure to be here. Debbi (01:42): Oh, it is a pleasure to have you on, and I love your accent. It is so beautiful and musical. Jonathan (01:49): Thank you very much. It's the only one I have. Debbi (01:51): I love it. I love it. It's great. Jonathan (01:54): Very kind. Debbi (01:55): What was it that took you from Glasgow to Alberta? Jonathan (02:00): My wife. Short and sweet and simple answer, much like her, except the simple part, obviously far from it, she's the brains of the operation and I often say that I always like to try to think that I'm the eye candy of the operation, but I'm not even that, so she's that as well. So yeah, my wife's a doctor, so a few years ago it was pre-pandemic actually. She was at a conference and she got chatting to an expat doctor who's working in a place called North Battleford in Saskatchewan, and he was there promoting Western Canada. And him and my wife got chatting and he effectively offered her a job, but of course, with the pandemic and then my wife completing their training and stuff like that, I was having a baby. Everything got kicked into the very, very long grass for a couple of years, and the job was no longer there when we were ready for it. So by that point, we'd really talked ourselves into it and we'd explored all the options and stuff like that about coming over and visas and permanent residency and things and citizenship beyond that. And we found that there was a job opening in Alberta. A place called Grand Prairie, which is about an hour's flight northwest from Calgary. And that was it. We up sticks and moved wagons west in May 2022, and we haven't looked back since. [W]e found that there was a job opening in Alberta. A place called Grand Prairie, which is about an hour's flight northwest from Calgary. And that was it. We up sticks and moved wagons west in May 2022, and we haven't looked back since. Debbi (03:29): Wow. That's really something. Jonathan (03:31): Yeah Debbi (03:32): You can write from anywhere, so that's cool. Jonathan (03:35): Exactly right. Well, I was a journalist as your very, very kind intro mentioned there. I was a journalist, but I write full-time now. I've been able to go full-time writing since we moved to Canada, so it's over three years that I've been a full-time writer. And it was a mixture of circumstances. It was a mixture of where we were going and what we're going to be doing and stuff like that, and The Bingo Hall Detectives as a series sort of picking up. So yeah, it's been a great adventure. We've been made to feel very, very welcome here in Alberta and Canada in general. Debbi (04:13): It's fantastic. Jonathan (04:14): And I get to go back to the UK all the time for work. I go back for festivals and stuff like that, and it's only one flight from Calgary, which is great. So it's just a red eye there, and then you're back during the day. So it is good fun,

My guest for this episode of the Crime Cafe podcast is crime writer and media entrepreneur, Clay Stafford. Don't miss our discussion of the ways the publishing and filmmaking worlds collide, so to speak. :) To download a PDF of the transcript, just click here. Debbi (00:54): Hi everyone. We are back with a new season of the show, which is starting its 11th year. I can't believe I've been doing it this long. And once again, I have with me one of the crime genre's most multimedia and multihyphenate entrepreneurs out there. His business, American Blackguard, does film and television production as well as publishing. He's also the organizer and promoter for the Killer Nashville Conference, which will be coming up later this year. It's my pleasure to introduce my guest, Clay Stafford. Hi, Clay. How are you doing? Clay (01:34): Hi, Debbi, Debbi (01:34): Gotta get you on camera. There we go. Clay (01:38): Hey, how are you? Debbi (01:39): I'm fine, thank you. How are you? Clay (01:41): Eleven years. Debbi (01:42): Eleven freaking years. Can you freaking believe? Clay (01:45): Stamina. Stamina. Debbi (01:47): It's insane. There's stamina. Yeah, I'm mustering up the stamina to keep it going. Yeah. Clay (01:56): Well, for Killer Nashville, we're coming up on 20 years. Debbi (01:59): Wow, that's impressive. Clay (02:02): Yeah, so ... stamina. Debbi (02:06): Amen to that, man. Amen. I hear you. Apart from getting ready for the conference, what projects are you currently working on? What's on your front burner, so to speak? Clay (02:17): I've actually got three projects that I'm working on right now. One is a nonfiction book and the other is a memoir. And because I come from a very eclectic kind of Appalachian background, and then Country Boy went to the city, and so there's some things to discuss there. And then I'm working on a novel now, the first in his series, and it's got a few short stories and poems and stuff like that out and some essays, but those are the long-term projects that I'm working on right now. Debbi (02:58): Very cool. It's funny you should say you were a country boy who found the city. I was a city girl who ended up in the country. Briefly. Clay (03:10): Yeah. So I sort of came back. I was a New York guy, a Los Angeles guy, and a Miami guy, and went back and forth from place to place in those areas, but ended up in Nashville. So I don't know if I'll actually, we can call Nashville the country, but it's back towards home where I'm from in Tennessee. Debbi (03:38): It's not quite as country as say, Bakersfield, California. Clay (03:43): No, I've been to Bakersfield. I love Bakersfield. But no, it's still, we've got our family farm back in east Tennessee, and so I've still got roots in that area and spend a lot of time in north Georgia and areas like that. So I get out in the tick country, so. Debbi (04:10): Excellent, excellent. Very good. Nashville is also a big place for music, correct? Clay (04:16): Yeah, they do a little bit of music here, Debbi (04:20): A little bit of music, just a little, Clay (04:26): Yeah. And the little community I live in is replete with country music and gospel pop performers, writers, producers and stuff. And so we have these tour buses that come by all the time, and I never thought I would live in an area where tour buses come by to point at houses and things and say, so and so lives there, so-and-so lives there, but it's just, yeah, Nashville's got its charm, that's for sure. Debbi (05:00): My goodness, that must be quite a thing. Having tour buses come through your neighborhood. Things have changed so fast in terms of the publishing industry and the movie industry and the television industry that I see them kind of coming together. Do you have any thoughts on that? Clay (05:24): Well, I think that they're definitely tied together now because we are in a position where we're doing IP, intellectual property more. That's what I focus on more right now.