If you’re a regular listener to CrimeFiction.FM, you may have noticed that I’ve been missing from your podcast feed for the past several weeks. It turns out the show schedule I set for myself a year ago when I launched CrimeFiction.FM was just too ambitious.
The podcast launched in early April 2015, and in the first full year, I recorded, produced and released 110 episodes. Since I like to read the books before speaking with the authors, you can probably imagine the amount of time that took. Needless to say, my own work suffered, so I decided to take a break to focus on two projects that I’d been working on for far too long.
The first is FOUR SEASONS OF RENO HART, a collection of short stories introducing Reno Hart, a Miami PI who’s working hard to rebuild her life after the loss of her husband. The second is RENO’S DEBT, a full-length novel featuring Reno.
FOUR SEASONS OF RENO HART
When I began planning RENO’S DEBT I had a particular character type in mind for my protagonist. I envisioned a female version of Archie Goodwin, doing the leg work for a great detective.
As I wrote the novel, Reno’s character began to morph into something much different. She was tough and smart, but she cared far more about people and her clients than I’d expected. By the end, she was nothing like the character I’d sketched out at the start of the novel.
I needed to get to know her better, so I put her into different situations to learn how she’d react. What would she do when faced with problems that weren’t hers to solve? How far would she go to help a friend? How would she react when confronted with a client very much like her old self?
By the end, I’d grown to love Reno Hart. She’s a complex character trying to atone for the mistakes of her past while rebuilding a new life from the ground up. She cares deeply about the people she helps and she’s learning to deal with the various shades of gray that life presents to all of us.
If you enjoy spending time with Reno, I’d really appreciate a review at Amazon. It makes such a huge to sales. One last thing, if you’re active on social media, shares and tweets are also helpful in spreading the word.
Thanks for all of your support over the past year, it means the world to me!
Author Angela Misri joins us in this episode of CrimeFiction.FM to discuss her new book, the third in her wonderful Portia Adams mystery series, NO MATTER HOW IMPROBABLE.
Angela Misri Interview Notes
Angela shares the backstory for Portia Adams, the heroine of this series of mysteries, who moves to London after inheriting a townhouse at 221B Baker Street.
We discuss the reasons why Angela chose 1930s London as the setting for the series. Angela is fascinated by the period between the great wars.
We discuss the ways in which readers find the books, some are hard-core fans of Sherlock Holmes, and others, younger readers, are being introduced to Holmes through the series.
We discuss Angela’s decision to use “casebooks” in the novels, as opposed to novel length stories. She chose the casebook idea because of the way the original Holmes stories were written and published.
A certain amount of celebrity is inevitable when you’re Sherlock Holmes’s granddaughter, especially when you’re also a consulting detective. But for Portia Adams, it’s getting to be a little much. She decides to escape the rabid London press by chasing a case all the way to Italy.
When she gets back, it seems that the media frenzy has finally run its course — but now she’s got bigger things to worry about. Sherlock Holmes is missing, his apartment burned to the ground. Her boyfriend, Gavin Whitaker, is acting strangely and spending too much time with unsavory people. And as if that weren’t enough, her best friend Brian isn’t speaking to her.
Can Portia right all that has happened in her brief absence or will she lose someone she loves to the gray London streets?
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to me. They matter in the rankings of the show, and I read every one of them. If you’re not sure how to leave a review, you can follow the step-by-step instructions to leave an iTunes review here.
Please note that Amazon links are affiliate links. You’ll pay the same price for anything you order, but CrimeFiction.FM will earn a small commission.
Tim Adler is an entertainment and business journalist who also writes a darn good thriller. He joins us today to discuss his latest novel, HOLD STILL.
Show Notes from Tim Adler Interview
HOLD STILL is Tim’s third thriller, but the first to be traditionally published. He shares the reason for the change.
We discuss the setup for HOLD STILL, in which a woman snaps a picture of her husband, at the moment where he dies. The idea running through Tims’s mind when he conceived the story was MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS for the Instagram generation.
Tim has an extensive background as a journalist and we spend some time discussing the current state of the newspaper business.
Tim has also had success as a non-fiction author and shares stories from that part of his career, before we get into his reasons for turning to fiction.
The book takes place in Albania. Tim describes why he chose that country as a setting, and in a podcast first, shares some travel tips for visitors to Albania.
From the Publisher:
‘I photographed the moment of my husband’s death…’ So begins HOLD STILL, a nerve-twisting thriller from bestselling author Tim Adler.
How much do we really know about those we love? Kate is visiting Albania with her husband Paul, a much needed break from Paul’s stressful website business. ‘Hold still,’ says Kate, taking a picture as Paul steps onto the hotel room balcony. ‘We’ll always be together,’ Paul responds. Suddenly there is screaming below and a blaring car horn. Kate stares down from the balcony at the broken body of her husband lying lifeless in the street. Overcome with grief, Kate can’t accept the truth of Paul’s tragic death, and replays the incident over and over again, searching her pictures for a vital clue to what really happened. When she meets the enigmatic Priest at a grief support group, they journey together into a dangerous world of violence and secrets as Kate realizes what Paul really meant when he said he would never leave her……
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to me. They matter in the rankings of the show, and I read every one of them. If you’re not sure how to leave a review, you can follow the step-by-step instructions to leave an iTunes review here.
Please note that Amazon links are affiliate links. You’ll pay the same price for anything you order, but CrimeFiction.FM will earn a small commission.
New York Times bestselling author Eliot Pattison joins us in this episode of CrimeFiction.FM to discuss his new book, the fourth in the Bone Rattler Mystery series, BLOOD OF THE OAK.
Show Notes for Eliot Pattison Interview
We discuss the time period for the Bone Rattler series, which began in the 1750s, around the time of the French and Indian War.
We discuss the series protagonist, a Scottish outcast named Duncan McCallum, as well Conawago, a Native American recurring character.
This book, BLOOD OF THE OAK, moves the series forward several years from the French and Indian War, to the year 1765, to the time of the Stamp Tax dissent.
We discuss the future for the Bone Rattler series, as well as Eliot’s other mystery series, the Inspector Shan set in Tibet.
From the Publisher:
The fourth entry in the Bone Rattler series moves ever closer to the beginning of the American Revolution and advances the protagonist Duncan McCallum to 1765 and into the throes of the Stamp Tax dissent, which marked the beginning of organized resistance to English rule. As the story unfolds, Duncan is drawn into the mystery of ritualistic murders that are strangely connected to both the theft of an Iroquois artifact and an additional series of murders and kidnappings connecting to the network of secret runners supporting the nascent committees of correspondence—which are engaged in the first organized political dissent across colonial borders. In following the trail he encounters a powerful conspiracy of highly placed English aristocrats who are bent on crushing all dissent. Duncan is captured by its agents, and sent into slavery in Virginia beside the kidnapped runners. Inspired by an aged native American slave and new African friends Duncan decides not just to escape but to turn their own intrigue against the London lords.
Included in the novel’s cast of characters are figures from our history who have their own destinies to fulfill in the next decade, including Benjamin Franklin (writing from London), Samuel Adams, the early Pennsylvania rebel James Smith, Dr. Benjamin Rush, and, very briefly, a soft-spoken militia officer named Washington. The Blood of the Oak takes a fresh view on the birth of the new American nation, suggesting that the “freedom” that became the centerpiece of the Revolution was uniquely American, rising not just from unprecedented political discourse but also from the extraordinary bond with the natural world experienced by frontier settlers and native tribes.
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to me. They matter in the rankings of the show, and I read every one of them. If you’re not sure how to leave a review, you can follow the step-by-step instructions to leave an iTunes review here.
Please note that Amazon links are affiliate links. You’ll pay the same price for anything you order, but CrimeFiction.FM will earn a small commission.
Debut author Trudy Nan Boyce joins us in this episode of CrimeFiction.FM to discuss her first book, which introduces Atlanta Detective Sarah Alt, OUT OF THE BLUES.
Show Notes for Trudy Nan Boyce Interview
Trudy Nan Boyce spent more-than-thirty-year as a police officer for the city of Atlanta, serving as a beat cop, homicide detective, senior hostage negotiator, and lieutenant. We discuss some of the ways in which Trudy brings that experience to her writing.
We discuss, Sarah (Salt) Alt, the protagonist in the new series. Sarah, who’s father was also a police officer, is a newly minted detective who is a cold case where the victim was a blues musician. We spend some time discussing Trudy’s love of blues music and the inspiration for the victim in this story.
We discuss some of the ways in which Trudy learned more about her hometown of Atlanta by doing the research for the Salt series.
Trudy became interested in writing during a particularly challenging point in her life and used writing as both a creative output and as a way of honoring a deceased friend.
From the Publisher:
From an author with more than thirty years’ experience in the Atlanta Police Department comes a riveting procedural debut introducing an unforgettable heroine.
On her first day as a newly minted homicide detective, Sarah “Salt” Alt is given the cold-case murder of a blues musician whose death was originally ruled an accidental drug overdose. Now new evidence has come to light that he may have been given a hot dose intentionally. And this evidence comes from a convicted felon hoping to trade his knowledge for shortened prison time . . . a man who Salt herself put behind bars.
In a search that will take her into the depths of Atlanta’s buried wounds—among the city’s homeless, its politically powerful churches, commerce and industry, and the police department itself—Salt probes her way toward the truth in a case that has more at stake than she ever could have imagined. At once a vivid procedural and a penetrating examination of what it means to be cop, Out of the Blues is a remarkable crime debut.
Ratings and reviews are extremely helpful and mean a great deal to me. They matter in the rankings of the show, and I read every one of them. If you’re not sure how to leave a review, you can follow the step-by-step instructions to leave an iTunes review here.
Please note that Amazon links are affiliate links. You’ll pay the same price for anything you order, but CrimeFiction.FM will earn a small commission.
The first is FOUR SEASONS OF RENO HART, a collection of short stories introducing Reno Hart, a Miami PI who’s working hard to rebuild her life after the loss of her husband. The second is RENO’S DEBT, a full-length novel featuring Reno.
By the end, I’d grown to love Reno Hart. She’s a complex character trying to atone for the mistakes of her past while rebuilding a new life from the ground up. She cares deeply about the people she helps and she’s learning to deal with the various shades of gray that life presents to all of us.
Author Angela Misri joins us in this episode of CrimeFiction.FM to discuss her new book, the third in her wonderful Portia Adams mystery series, NO MATTER HOW IMPROBABLE.
Be careful what you wish for
‘I photographed the moment of my husband’s death…’ So begins HOLD STILL, a nerve-twisting thriller from bestselling author Tim Adler.
The fourth entry in the Bone Rattler series moves ever closer to the beginning of the American Revolution and advances the protagonist Duncan McCallum to 1765 and into the throes of the Stamp Tax dissent, which marked the beginning of organized resistance to English rule. As the story unfolds, Duncan is drawn into the mystery of ritualistic murders that are strangely connected to both the theft of an Iroquois artifact and an additional series of murders and kidnappings connecting to the network of secret runners supporting the nascent committees of correspondence—which are engaged in the first organized political dissent across colonial borders. In following the trail he encounters a powerful conspiracy of highly placed English aristocrats who are bent on crushing all dissent. Duncan is captured by its agents, and sent into slavery in Virginia beside the kidnapped runners. Inspired by an aged native American slave and new African friends Duncan decides not just to escape but to turn their own intrigue against the London lords.
From an author with more than thirty years’ experience in the Atlanta Police Department comes a riveting procedural debut introducing an unforgettable heroine.
