It sounds like law enforcement has been in your blood for a very long time, but was that what you always did professionally before turning to writing, or did you have yet another professional life, as well?

JH: Way back when, before I became a police officer, I worked for Western Electric, which was known as the manufacturing arm of AT&T.  I was much more into movies then, so I made up movies in my head and cast my various co-workers in the parts.   I had one story about pirate hijackers in New Orleans where a Pinkerton man went undercover to expose who was really behind the thefts.  Another was a war picture involving several of our soldiers being captured by the Viet Cong.  One of the soldiers was a sailor, who the others thought was a coward and who eventually saved the whole group.  I also had a western and a race riot.  All of these topics were current at the time except the pirates, who seem to be current now.

In the early seventies, as a vice detective, I started working prostitution cases and quickly realized that arresting prostitutes was nothing more than a numbers game the police department played.  The real criminals on the prostitution streets were the pimps.  Pimps are biggest child exploiters in the world and, at that time, got the least amount of attention from law enforcement.

I had the biggest case of my career in the mid 80’s with the help of an Assistant U.S. Attorney who defied his office policy and presented my case to a Federal Grand Jury just under the radar of his superiors.  Eventually he got consent and we presented eleven young women before the Grand Jury, all of whom had been turned out by the same pimp over a five year period.  Only two of them were 18 or older.   The rest ranged in age 14-17 years old.

I was sickened by the way Hollywood and television portrayed pimps and wanted to write what the prostitution streets were really like.  Three times I started writing without ever getting past the second chapter.  Then one night I started writing and it all came to me.  I knew exactly where I wanted to go and how I wanted to get there.  Shame: The Story of a Pimp is the story I wanted told.  The book is fiction, but a lot of my experiences and the people I encountered are intertwined in the story.

MA: Why a novel?  With all your experiences with real pimps and prostitutes, why not tell real stories about the gritty world of the sex industry?

JH: With Shame, I wanted to tell the whole story.  I wanted to show his life from the beginning.  His mother was a prostitute.  As for his father, he really didn’t know.  His mother would always say it was her pimp, but she couldn’t say for sure.  As I say in the book, she would never admit Shame was a trick’s baby.  I wanted to show how he learned the pimping game and how he developed his distain for society.  How he became a pimp and how he learned from other pimps the best practices in maintaining your stable.  A story like this cannot be written as a short story.  It is far too complex, not just in understanding how a pimp works, but also in understanding how his victims fall under his spell.  I also wanted to show the whole street, not just the women involved with Shame, but the other women on the street, where they came from and how they interact in the whole picture of prostitution.

I’ve written several short stories, poems and a novella about victims of prostitution.  I’ve also written another novel, Pimpel, which is about two private investigators who specialize in finding runaways.  If a sexual predator victimized them, the child’s family was offered an additional service that guaranteed the child would not be bothered by the predator again.

MA: You’ve got to have guts to take on a subject most people would find revolting, and then turn it into a novel…something many people look to for entertainment.  Why prostitutes and their pimps?

JH:  I’ve heard, on more than one occasion, write about what you know. I interviewed well over 5,000 prostitutes that came through the District of Columbia over my 27 years on the street.  Although there were common denominators among many, each one of these young women had a different story. I had one woman who had done concerts as a cellist, who became involved with a pimp and was subsequently murdered, another who had been a criminal investigator with the IRS, worked for a pimp from Pittsburgh, another who had three children at the age of 13, another who had lost her virginity at the age of 13 by a trick.

I also interviewed many pimps, not just arising from arrests, but candid talks on the street.  It always amazed me the things they would tell me, even knowing I was a cop.  I had pimps report their women missing to me and, of course, some made pretty good informants.

My next book is going to be about a male prostitute (not a female impersonator).  I probably don’t need to tell you, but other males, not females, use male prostitutes.  There were many similarities between male and female prostitutes, but there is much more politics involved in arresting them.  This particular character has worked the street, escort services and clubs and actually performed in porno movies.  He has worked in establishments owned by organized crime figures and observed child porn being made.  He later became a professional informant and worked for several different police departments across the country helping to solve murders, robberies and in identifying child predators. The book will be fiction even though the character that inspired me to write this story is real and is no longer among the living.

MA: Tell me more about Shame’s character.

JH:  Shame is the protagonist and he is developed from many different pimps I encountered on the job.  In the beginning of the story the main character is his mother, Latisa.  She is my vehicle for showing the street before Shame becomes a pimp.  The other main character is the street or the ‘ho stro’ as it’s commonly referred.

I’m not sure that you would consider anyone a hero in Shame.   I consider the heroes in my story the women that fought back, the women who sought justice, the women that survived the sexual slavery that is prostitution.

Their strengths were how they survived.  Their weaknesses were their emotions, lack of maturity, their need to be special, to be loved.  Over 90% of these women started in the ‘life’ (prostitution) as juveniles.  The average age of the juvenile prostitute is 14.

MA: This may be tough to nail down, but if your main character is really a “bad guy,” then who are the antagonists in the story?

JH:  To Shame, his antagonist was the police.  Of course, he always had a need to correct/punish his women when they broke the pimp law.  The D.C. vice detective and the Detroit policewoman were really Shame’s folly, but in the end justice came from a much more deserving source.

MA: You mentioned that Shame and the other characters in the novel are based upon many different people with whom you interacted over a long law enforcement career, sort of composites of pimps and prostitutes.  How close to real life do the characters come to actual people and situations?

JH:  Latisa, Shame’s mother, worked for a gambling pimp who provided sex shows to lure in more customers.  We had a local pimp in D.C. who did the same thing.  The fate of Latisa and her pimp actually happened in New York to a prostitute and her man, not necessarily for the same reasons.  In the book there is a group of pimps from California, headed by Demon.  We had a similar group in Washington.  This group used a human sized cage to lockup their women for punishment and terrorized them with a dog.  I arrested some pimps who used a human size cage for the same purpose, but used a monkey to terrorize the women.  I thought a dog was more believable.   There are many other circumstances that actually occurred, but I changed the location and embellished the story a little.

MA: Beyond Shame, what’s next?

JH:  As I mentioned before, I will be writing that book about the male prostitute, but I have another novel I plan to write about a former prostitute, who like many of the women on the street, was sexually molested as a child.  She was a masochist and equated, in a strange way, pain with love or attention.  She frequently broke from her curse, but would fall back into it when she felt abandoned or craved attention.  Through some street ministries and the Catholic Church she was able to break away for good and went to college to become a nurse.  While in college she is raped and all of her demons return.

I’m also planning to expand some short stories into novels and I want to publish a book of poetry about the street and police.  I entered Pimpel, a short story called A Father’s Honor, an article about hurricane Katrina and two poems in the contests for the PSWA conference.

My plan is when I finally retire, which I hope will be next year, I want to write full time.  I probably will not just do novels; I love writing short stories and poetry too.

I’m really looking forward to going to the PSWA conference and meeting so many of the talented and successful writers I’ve learned about through the PSWA website.  I’m also hoping I can interest a publisher in my new novel.  I will be bringing copies of Shame: The Story of a Pimp to the conference to sell.

Lastly, I want to thank Mike Angley for interviewing me and allowing me to talk about what I love to do, write.

MA: It’s my pleasure to have you on my blog, Joe. I recommend folks take a gander at Joseph Haggerty’s blog where you can learn more about his fascinating career and writing projects: http://haggertyswritings.blogspot.com.

Besides being an accomplished author, Hayden is a popular speaker often in demand.  She has done presentations and workshops all over the United States and was recently hired by major cruise lines to speak about writing while cruising all over the world.  From October 2006 to October 2007, Hayden hosted Mystery Writers of America’s only talk show, Murder Must Air.

Hayden, a Texas resident, enjoys traveling, scuba diving, Kayaking, reading, and arts and crafts.

Welcome, L.C.  I’m honored to have a fellow Mystery Writers of America member guest-blog with me today.  You are definitely a prolific and successful writer.  I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s all you’ve done, but I’m curious about any pre-writing career you may have had.

LCH: Prior to becoming a full time author, I used to be a teacher. I taught high school English and journalism for 28 years. While teaching, I had three novels published.  Then mostly the promotional end of writing started to interfere with my teaching career. I started turning down too many wonderful opportunities. I knew that it was time to retire. In 2001, I did and became a full time writer.

MA: What pulled you to writing fiction?

LCH: In my early writing career, I wrote for magazines and newspapers. One day an editor called me with an assignment. I heard myself saying, “No, thank you. I’m switching gears. I’m going to write a novel instead.” That came out of the blue and it shocked me. I had no idea I wanted to leave nonfiction and join the world of novelists. Since I opened my big mouth, I knew I had to make my statement come true. I wrote my first Harry Bronson book, Who’s Susan? and the rest is history.

MA: Talk about your series and about Harry Bronson.  I understand he became an almost accidental protagonist.

LCH:  Harry Bronson, my series detective, made his appearance in Who’s Susan? but he wasn’t the featured character. Susan was. He did his job and that was the end of him, as far as I was concerned. When my second book When Colette Died came out, I received tons of emails all basically the same. “Where’s Harry Bronson?” they asked. That’s when I realized that Harry Bronson needed to make a comeback. He did in my third book, Where Secrets Lie. He was also featured in my fourth mystery, What Others Know, but by then, mostly due to reader input, I knew he had to be the main character and not a side character as he was in my first four mysteries. My fifth mystery Why Casey Had to Die was Bronson’s first book where everything centers around him. I suppose I made the right decision as Casey went on to become an Agatha Finalist for Best Novel and a Pennsylvania Top 40 Pick. The next one in the series When Death Intervenes was released in April.

MA: Considering how Harry “fell into” his central role as your hero, how did you go about shaping his character, especially since you didn’t originally intend for him to be the star?

JCH: For Who’s Susan? I needed an elderly detective who could help Susan find her lost son. Since at that time, I wasn’t thinking series, I focused on what kind of character Susan needed. Fortunately for me, I fell in love with Bronson and love writing about him.  Bronson is clever, smart, and unorthodox. He does things his way which sometimes frustrates others. He loves his family and loves coffee. Carol, his wife, often gets the best of him. The love for his family is both his strength and his weakness. He also tends to be stubborn which can be a weakness but at times pulls him out of a tight spot.

MA: He sounds a little like my protagonist, Patrick O’Donnell…definitely a real family man.  Are your stories hard-boiled, or are the antagonists more like cozy mystery types?

LCH: My bad guys are bad guys—through and through. As of yet, I haven’t had a bad guy cross from one book to the other although I did leave Why Casey Had to Die open-ended.

MA: And do you reflect any of your real life experiences in your stories at all?

LCH: In Who’s Susan? there’s a scene where Susan goes to the daycare center to pick up her kid and he’s not there. That happened to me. I remember seeing the cowboys and cowgirls (it was Western Day) the kids had painted and I kept wondering which one was Don’s (my son.) I knew if I could find which one he did, he’d be returned to me. That scene is in the novel.

MA: I take it you are not going to give up a good thing anytime soon, and that you will keep writing Harry Bronson stories?

LCH: I will continue writing the Harry Bronson series as long as my publisher is willing to publish them. However, I’ve started a standalone set in my home town of El Paso, TX. I’m also starting another series about a reporter in South Lake Tahoe.  Mainly because of my grandson, I started writing children’s books. I’d like to do a couple more of those. I’m also working on updating my nonfiction book about miracles and angels, When Angels Touch You.

MA: Any final thoughts you’d like to pass on to my readers?

LCH:  As an author, I get asked a lot of questions, but the one I get asked the most is “What exactly does L. C. stand for?”  The answer goes back to way before I started writing my novels. Before writing mysteries, I freelanced for several magazines. I looked at the various ones and decided I’d like to write for the treasure magazines. I researched, wrote the article, and since this happened before the invention of computers, I typed the piece. I used my real name as my byline: by Elsie Hayden.  My husband, Rich, took the pictures, printed them (told you it was before computers), and I sent the package in. It came back. “Thanks, but we’ve just bought a similar piece.”

I was devastated but did not give up. I researched another buried treasure and eagerly sent it out. It, too, came back. “Thanks, but we’ve just assigned this to someone else.”

Hmm…I wasn’t liking this trend, but I must be from Missouri. I wouldn’t give up. I sent a third, a fourth, a fifth . . . They all came back.

By this time, I felt like a high school dropout. I picked up a copy of the magazine and slammed it down. Talking to myself, I said aloud, “This is exactly what they’re looking for. Why are they not publishing me?”

Rich picked up the magazine and pointed to the title page. “Look at the articles. They’re written by John, by Steve, by Mike. There’s no Marys, no Susies, no Elsies.”

Being a smart cookie, the light dawned on me. I took out the first rejected manuscript and retyped the first page. The only change I made was the byline. I changed it from by Elsie Hayden to by L. C. Hayden.  The article was immediately accepted. So were a second, and a third. . . I got used to using the initials and when it came time to write my mysteries and other novels, it felt natural to continue to use L. C. instead of Elsie.  And thus, L. C. Hayden, the author, was born (or was I created?).

MA: (smiling) My how times have changed!  I’m so happy you prevailed in the end, and continued to pursue a writing career.  Many others would have quit in frustration.  Thanks for coming over to my blog today.  You can read more about L.C. (aka Elsie) Hayden at her websites: http://lchayden.com and www.booksbyhayden.com

Although I am a thriller writer myself, I am open to all fiction writers.  I’ve hosted mystery, young adult, fantasy, historical, and thriller writers in the past and it has worked out well.  If you have already appeared on my website, you are welcome to come back for a return visit (especially if you have a new release pending).

I schedule posts on a first come, first served basis.  If you have a release you want to time the interview for, please let me know that so I can work with you to get it posted to maximize your exposure.  If you are interested, please email me at: mike_angley@msn.com.  I will send you some standard questions I use to craft the interviews, and we’ll go from there!

Cheers!

Mike Angley

Ben, welcome.  It seems like you’ve done a little bit of just about everything.  Describe the highs and lows.

BM: I had a misspent youth, where I went to the Air Force Academy and took a history degree. Then I served for four years, in Korea, Las Vegas, and South America. Then I hit the gutter: I worked as an actor and a journalist, took an MBA, and finally reached rock bottom with a stint in the Beltway as a federal security contractor, providing services to a variety of alphabet-soup-named clients. I later took the most harrowing gig of my life when I became a teacher for 6-12-graders in a reform school, and an English professor at a community college. I’m now in the environmental remediation field, doing program management tasks, and going to school again.

MA: Thanks for your service, by the way.  I live across the highway from the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, CO…a truly beautiful campus.  I’ve also served in Korea (twice, must have gotten someone angry with me)!  What brought you to write books?

BM: It kind of chose me. I’ve yet to sell any fiction, and publishers approach me about doing nonfiction gigs. My first publisher was one of my former editors from when I was in newspapers, and it just kind of went from there.

MA: Tell us about what you’ve written.

BM: I’m what’s called a “hack” by writers, and a “whore” by normal people. I’ll write anything for money. My first book is 1,001 Things To Do If You Dare, and it’s a simple amusement, the kind of thing you can pick up anywhere, flip open, and (hopefully) be entertained. My second, Criminal Investigations: Terrorism, was a brief, cursory overview of terrorism, for a high school audience. I’ve contributed to a number of other works, including everything from a book about weddings to one about a female politician from Alaska.

MA: I wonder who that Alaskan politician could be…?  Anyway, so has your real life influenced your writing, especially given the diversity of jobs you’ve had?

BM: Sure. Most of the things in the first book were activities I was familiar with from personal experience…about two-thirds of them, in fact. Mostly, this was because of my varied professions– I’d done most of those things for work, at one time or another. Looking back, many of them were painfully stupid endeavors only a young man would engage in (or an older man desperately trying to be young). The conceit of objectivity is one I find ridiculous: the writer also brings a personal vision to the party, and that enters the work, whether you want to pretend it does or not. If done well, it adds to the story; poorly, it can ruin it. But to claim that you can write without having insight or opinion is ludicrous and nonsensical.

MA: I’d have to agree with that!  So what’s next?

BM: Well, I’ve still got a novel and a few dozen stories in the can, and several I haven’t finished yet. I’ve pitched a few book ideas at several publishers, both fiction and nonfiction. Basically, I’ll keep doing as I’ve always done: throwing stuff out there, seeing if anyone will buy it, and taking whatever opportunities come along, as long as they don’t personally offend me.

Iam not averse to writing more on any topic I’ve already written about, in either books or articles or essays or columns. If someone wants me to do it, I’ll write about it, mostly. There have only been a couple things I’ve turned down, on principle or cowardice.

MA: You’re a very non-traditional type of writer; there’s no doubt.  I’m curious about your vision for the future of the writing industry?

BM: Professional writing, as it is now, will go away soon, and writers are not yet coming to terms with that. The concept of a “writer,” which has existed for only a couple hundred years, is going to evaporate as technology overtakes the written word, and everyone becomes a “recorder” or viewer– none of us professional, all of us capable. When a kid with a cell phone can break an important story by posting a video for worldwide consumption, the notion of some adult specifically paid to go and look at stuff, and write about it, is absolutely inane.

In the meantime, those of us who like to read and write, and can scrape together a few coins for doing either, should enjoy it as best we can.

MA: Thanks very much for coming to my blog today!  Visit Ben Malisow at his website for more information about him and his books: http://www.benmalisow.com/

Deborah Shlian, MD, MBA practiced medicine in California where she also taught at UCLA. She has published nonfiction articles and books as well as medical mystery/thrillers. Her first two novels, Double Illusion and Wednesday’s ChildRabbit in the Moon is an international thriller and has won the Gold Medal for Genre Fiction from the Florida Book Award, the Mystery Book of the Year Silver Medal from ForeWord Magazine, an Indie Excellence Award, a National Best Books Award Finalist from USA Book News and First Prize in the Royal Palm Literary Award from the Florida Writers Association.

Yolanda “Linda” Reid Chassiakos, MD, is a Fellow of the American Academy of Pediatrics, a Fellow of the American College of Physicians, and a Clinical Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at the David Geffen School of Medicine, UCLA. After graduating from and completing her residency in Pediatrics at the Georgetown University School of Medicine, Dr. Reid Chassiakos served as a Lieutenant Commander in the US Navy, and as the Assistant Head of the Ambulatory Branch of Pediatrics at the Naval Hospital, Bethesda and an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences. She then moved to the Department of Health and Human Services Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion and served as a medical editor and feature reporter for the evening Eyewitness news at the CBS affiliate in Washington, DC. Dr. Chassiakos joined Lifetime Medical Television as a medical editor, writer, and host of educational programming for healthcare professionals and the public in Los Angeles, and developed and hosted programs and features for media such as the NBC Network Sex, Drugs, and Rock ‘n Roll, Lorimar-Telepictures, and You TV.

During her thirteen-year tenure as an Associate Physician Diplomate at UCLA’s Arthur Ashe Health Center, Dr. Chassiakos also served as a staff writer for the television series, Family Medical Center. She is currently the Director of the Klotz Student Health Center at California State University, Northridge. Dr. Chassiakos’ features and essays have been published in the Washington Post, Baltimore Sun, Woman’s Day, Salon.com, the Los Angeles Times, the Los Angeles Daily News, and Tribune International. She has recently co-edited a text on Collaboration Across the Disciplines in Health Care. Dr. Chassiakos has also written a fantasy novel, Where Angels Fear to Tread, for imaginative young adult and adult readers. Dr. Chassiakos and her husband are the proud parents of three teenagers and live in Los Angeles.

I’m continually amazed at the high-caliber people who appear as guests on my blog.  You both have exceptional backgrounds, so much so, that I can’t believe you have time to write fiction!  Tell us more about your backgrounds and prior writing experiences before the collaboration on Dead Air.

Deborah: My previous earlier novels are co-written with my husband Joel, who is also a physician. We met and were married after a six-week courtship, while we were in medical school at the University of Maryland. Because we wanted to maintain the closeness of our relationship, Joel dropped out of ophthalmology so that we could practice family medicine together.

We did our residencies in Los Angeles, where we eventually joined a large group practice and worked in side-by-side offices. But you can’t live in L.A. for very long without getting bitten by the entertainment bug. Everyone you meet here does something else–your dentist is an agent, your lawyer is a producer, and, of course, every waiter is a would-be actor. Even though Joel and I wrote Double Illusion–originally published by Putnam under the title Nursery–as a novel, we always envisioned our story as a screenplay. The second novel we wrote was Wednesday’s Child, published by Simon and Schuster. Both these books, which are now out in reprints, were optioned for film, although, as is par for the course, the options lapsed. But the stories are written in a very fast-paced, rather cinematic style. Our third novel, just published, is titled Rabbit in the Moon.

In the 10 years between writing Wednesday’s Child and Rabbit in the Moon, Joel and I graduated from UCLA’s Executive MBA program, started a healthcare consulting and recruiting company, and wrote several books and articles on healthcare and medical management issues.

Linda:  I began my own neighborhood newspaper at age 10 and continued to write in high school and at the University of Maryland, where I also worked at the campus radio and TV stations. In medical school, I became “The Doc Around the Rock” on radio until I started my clinical training. Then, after my residency, I wrote for the Washington Tribune, the Baltimore Sun, and the Washington Post. I later worked as a medical feature reporter for the CBS-affiliate in D.C., and as a medical editor and host for Lifetime Medical Television. I feel truly blessed to be part of the brotherhood of physician-writers.

Mike: Fascinating!  So why novels?  Your resumes are packed with superb credentials that would enable you to write non-fiction, especially medical articles for journals and the media, which you’ve had some experience with already.

Linda: Debbie and I met at the Student Health Service at UCLA and we discovered that we shared common interests in both creative writing and health education.  I had taken a sabbatical from practice to serve as a staff writer for the TV series Family Medical Center, and, after the series ended, I returned to UCLA and Debbie and I developed several project ideas together. Among the projects we discussed was a medical thriller, which has evolved into Dead Air.

Deborah: I had just finished writing Rabbit in the Moon and while waiting for it to be published, began to get a little itchy to write another novel.  I was Director of Primary Care for the Student Health Service, and Linda, one of our specialists, approached me about writing something together. We decided on a plot that involved a less-than-ethical experiment on a Vermont university campus. The protagonist is a 20-something college student named Sammy Greene, a journalism student with her own campus radio talk show. Sammy uses her show as a forum to solve the mystery of why students are suddenly dying and ultimately expose the experiment. Linda and I have just completed the second book in what will be a series featuring Sammy. Its title is Devil Wind and it takes place five years later when Sammy has moved to Los Angeles.

Talk is cheap, but when this radio host takes action, she may pay the ultimate price. An outspoken, brash, native New Yorker, Sammy Greene isn’t afraid to ruffle a few feathers at Ellsford University, her traditional New England Ivy League college. Host of “The Hot Line”, a talk-radio show on campus station WELL, Sammy tackles the toughest, most controversial issues facing Ellsford’s students. When Sammy discovers the body of Dr. Barton Conrad, one of Ellsford’s most esteemed professors, her journalistic drive kicks in and she sets out to discover what happened to the beloved professor. But when several Ellsford students mysteriously disappear, Sammy realizes she’s uncovered the seamy, terrifying underbelly of this prestigious institute of higher education. With the entire campus in peril, and demons from her past close behind, Sammy Greene must race to find answers. Along the way, she’ll discover some unlikely allies-and even more unlikely enemies. If Sammy isn’t careful, someone is going to make sure that she signs off-for good.

Mike: That sounds like a seat-of-the pants thriller.  Given your medical backgrounds, did any of your real-life experiences make their way into the story at all?

Linda:  Very much so.  Deborah and I have both spent years in academic settings across the United States as students and then as physicians, staff, and faculty.  Our perspectives allowed us to bring a realism to our fictional Ivy League campus, and to describe the challenges of surviving in an environment where “Publish or Perish” has, in tragic cases, become literally true. Additionally, many of us had friends whose children were leaving for college. Saying good-bye to your son or daughter is difficult, but you hope that his or her college experience will be safe. What if it isn’t, and what if the people responsible are the very ones to whom you entrusted your child? Add a look at cutting edge medicine and modern university politics and you have the seeds of our collaboration.

Deborah: We felt that in the context of a novel we could expose some of the corners that academic researchers are willing to cut in order to gain fame and fortune.  I think there has been some slippage in morality and how people see “crossing over the line” in society in general. Unfortunately, since doctors are human like everyone else, they, too, may fall prey to the temptations of fame and fortune. The other issue is funding of research. As in our story, Dead Air, more and more research is funded by private interests. Consequently, at least the possibility of allowing bottom-line pressures to creep into the picture exists. Our character in the book, Dr. Palmer, is a well-known, respected scientist who has always had access to university and/or government research monies. When the university decides to co-venture with a Japanese biotech company, he is suddenly faced with some significant moral and ethical dilemmas.

Linda: Economic constraints on physicians lead them to make difficult choices, but, on the whole, most physicians practice a high standard of both medicine and ethics. The potential for larger scale abuse of ethics in medicine and society is there today, however, because of economic pressures and is facilitated by the improvements in science, technology, and communications in our global economy and world that allow a greater use and misuse of power.

Mike: Tell me more about your protagonist.

Deborah/Linda: Sammy Greene shares some traits with both her creators, but is her own young woman, who now tells us what she is going to do and say.  We started to develop her as a voice for the moral, political, and ethical concerns we wanted to address in the book, and she grew to be a fully fleshed out dynamo bursting with passions, energy, and joie de vivre.  Sammy has elements of each of our personalities, but is much more courageous and outspoken than either of us felt we were at her age.  In book two, and now book three, it’s Sammy who is writing her own life script and we, Deborah and Linda, are taking notes so we can share Sammy’s adventures with all her readers and friends.

Mike: That’s a nice perspective on your character…seems to be writing her own story for you as the authors!  Describe Sammy more.

Deborah/Linda: Sammy is a bright, dedicated young woman who grew up in Brooklyn under the strict tutelage of her loving grandmother, Rose, from whom she learned the Yiddish that she sprinkles into her exclamations.  She is five feet tall and slim, with curly red hair and green eyes. She has a crackling personality—never afraid to dive into adventures, experiences, new directions.  That strength can sometimes lead her into danger—her determination, feistiness, and curiosity can annoy or even alarm those running from her quest to pursue “Truth and Justice.”

Sammy’s father left her mother when she was a child—her mother’s subsequent suicide has scarred her deeply.  Sammy hides her vulnerabilities and fears behind a tough exterior; as love knocks on her door, will she have the courage to let emotional intimacy enter her psychological firewalls?  Readers will find out in Dead Air.

Mike: I imagine with your plot, about an Ivy League campus and all the intrigue you described, that you must have one or two particularly evil antagonists that Sammy must deal with?

Deborah/Linda: Everyone at Ellsford University is a suspect in the disappearances and murders of students and faculty.   Corrupt University administrators, ambitious professors, unethical researchers, jealous students, and politically manipulative outsiders could all be playing a role in the conspiracy that Sammy uncovers step by step.  Even the Chief of Campus Police isn’t beyond suspicion.  Sammy’d better find out who’s behind the campus murders before she herself becomes the next victim and her radio show is silenced—Dead Air.

Mike: You mentioned books two and three.  What are they about, and does Sammy come back for more adventures?

Deborah/Linda: We have finished the sequel to Dead Air and are currently plotting our third book in the Sammy Greene thriller series, an international thriller.  Meanwhile, Deborah and Joel Shlian are working on a sequel to Rabbit in the Moon, and Linda is working on a sequel to Where Angels Fear to Tread and writing for newspapers, magazines, and blogs.

We expect Sammy has lots of exciting adventures in store ahead.  Police Chief Gus Pappajohn will join Sammy again in Devil Wind, and she is likely to re-kindle (no pun intended) her romance with Dr. Reed Wyndham.  With each book, we’ll learn more about Sammy and thrill to watch her grow.  In Devil Wind, for example, we witness her rocky reunion with her estranged father and his third wife.  Readers love Sammy and want to share her life, including her joys, challenges—and thrills.

Mike: Dead Air has already had some great success and wonderful book reviews.  I’d like to finish your guest-blog with a list of those and anything else you want my readers to know.. Before I turn it over, I want to encourage everyone to visit Deborah Shlian and Linda Reid at their website: http://www.sammygreene.com/Sammy_Greene_website/THE_BOOK.html

Deborah/Linda: Thank you for the opportunity to introduce you to Sammy Greene—we hope your readers will love her as much as we do.  Dead Air has had wonderful reviews, and was selected as the Best Adventure/Thriller in the 2009 USA Booknews Best Books Awards.  Some comments from Sammy’s fans below:

“A brash college talk-show host uncovers a terrifying conspiracy as she seeks the killer of an esteemed professor.”

San Diego Union Tribune

“A fascinating reveal about the dangers that arise when big business influences medical research.”

Mystery Scene

“Both authors have medical backgrounds, and the story reflects this. The characters are interesting, and their intrepid heroine, Sammy, looks as if she’s ready for a sequel.”

The Oklahoman

“A fascinating read, full of action. Dead Air is a breath of fresh air—well written, riveting plots and subplots, and enough action to keep the reader interested until the end.”

I Love a Mystery

“Dead Air is the perfect prescription for readers looking for a good medical mystery with a little Yiddish and Greek mixed in for good measure.”

Review the Book

“A series-worthy heroine. Fans of light mysteries with a hard edge will enjoy this one.”

Booklist

“Dead Air is a chilling tale guaranteed to keep you on the edge of your seat.”

Midwest Book Review

“Shlian and Reid have created a plausible, plucky amateur detective in this fast-paced medical murder mystery.”

Monsters & Critics

“Excellently written, Dead Air ratchets up the suspense from scene-to-scene with twists and turns beyond the usual medical or campus mystery.”

Fresh Fiction

“(Shlian and Reid) have done for academia what Patricia Cornwell did for forensic science. A great book.. Dead Air is sure to be in high demand this season.”

Blogcritics

“A lively novel of secrets, lies, and betrayal, Dead Air captures the very essence of college life and mixes it with a plausible conspiracy.  This one is sure to make the dean’s list among avid thriller fans.”

Vicki Landes

“Excellent and will keep you turning pages all night long.”

Mainly Mysteries

Given your academic background – forensics and criminology, criminal profiling, is it safe to assume you’ve worked professionally in some aspect of law enforcement?

JC: My working background has been primarily in the corporate world of accounting and business management.  I’ve had experience in screenwriting and article writing in the past, but I’ve really wanted to write novels for some time now.  My interest in forensics and criminal psychology drove me to go back to school to earn a bachelor degree in police forensics and a master’s degree in criminology.  I felt that going back to school helped me to begin a writing career in crime fiction.

MA: I’m surprised to hear you have worked in the corporate world and not in some dimly-lit police department, in a stale interrogation room trying to sweat out confessions.  It sounds like your academic interests intersect more with your writing, as opposed to your other career interests.

JC: I’ve loved writing and books for as long as I can remember.  Reading novels has always been a big part of my life.  I’m a fan of thriller, mystery, and suspense stories.  It wasn’t until a personal experience of living next door to a violent sociopathic individual that I decided to write my first novel.  It seemed to be a perfect time for me to write my first novel.  With the academic background along with some much needed confidence helped to propel me through my book projects.

MA: Tell us about your stories.

JC: I have two thriller novels out, Compulsion and Dead Game.  In Compulsion, Emily Stone doesn’t have a badge. But that hasn’t stopped her from tracking down some of the West’s most dangerous child-killers. Armed with a digital SLR camera, laptop computer and her trusty Beretta, Stone uses her innate gift for detective work to identify the perps — and then anonymously e-mail the evidence to the cops.

Now, the hunt for two brazen serial killers on the loose right in her own coastal California town threatens to expose Stone’s identity — unraveling her carefully constructed cover and jeopardizing her life’s work. But when she gets too close to the action, this razor-sharp hunter becomes the hunted. Cooperating with the handsome local police detective could be the only hope for stopping the rampage directed at unsuspecting young women — and saving herself. Can they piece together the clues in time?

Compulsion mixes CSI-style investigation with a ripped-from-the-headlines plot and a dose of romance for a keeps-you-guessing, fast-paced and savvy thriller, right up until the shocking finale.

Dead Game is another Emily Stone Novel.  In her independent efforts to catch child killers, Emily Stone discovers the evidence that the cops can’t—or won’t—uncover. Now, this covert investigator is back on the hunt for the world’s most sick and twisted murderers. But even with help from ex-police detective Rick Lopez, this time she’s facing her most dangerous opponent yet.

The headlines in the San Jose Mercury News blare updates on a serial killer who seems able to slaughter with impunity. Men, women—it doesn’t matter; the victims serve only to satisfy a perverted need to kill.  The killer watches the moment of death on multiple computer screens, over and over again. The only connection is that they’re all devotees of the latest video-game craze—a sophisticated brain-puzzler called EagleEye.

When the killer goes after Lopez’s law-enforcement mentor, Lopez and Stone decide to give the cops a little extra, unsolicited help. What follows takes them deep inside a shocking high-tech world, a kind of social-networking community for serial killers. But when they start getting too close to the truth, all hell’s going to break loose.

Now, Stone and Lopez become the killer’s next target as Stone must make a difficult decision to leave the ones she loves in an all-or-nothing effort for survival. Can they stay alive long enough to blow the whistle on this unlikely perpetrator?

MA: EagleEye? That sent a chill down my spine.  When I was a Special Agent with the Air Force Office of Special Investigations, we had a special program called Eagle Eye.  Too coincidental!  How did you create Emily’s character?

JC: I wanted to create a character that would hunt down serial killers and child abductors in a way where she would be completely anonymous.  After I saw the startling statistics on missing children in the US every year, I decided to make her more proactive in tracking down child abductors.  This is what drives her character.  My heroine Emily Stone evolved from this concept and I wanted to up the stakes by having her as a petite, clever, and capable woman hunting the most hideous criminals in our society – alone.

I know that many police departments are overworked, understaffed, and underfunded, so I thought that creating this fictional character would help to assist the police behind the scenes and would create some suspense with a thrill quality to it.  She is a type of phantom detective helping the police without their knowledge and then she emails the information directly to the detective in charge.  However, she does get into some scary situations along the way, while catching these killers before they are able to strike again.

MA: Emily sounds like a tough woman.  What else should we know about her?

JC: Emily Stone is a strong and noble character.  She gets things done and uses her natural ability and instincts to catch killers and pedophiles.  She knows the psychology of criminals and uses it to her advantage.  Her weaknesses are her vulnerabilities of being alone in her quest as well as her drive to push her abilities to the limits tracking killers.  She wavers between justice and vigilantism.

MA: Sounds like you have a full cast of antagonists for Ms. Stone to go toe-to-toe with.  Are there any in particular that seem to give her a greater challenge than others?

JC: Dead Game has a high-tech serial killer stalking victims through the video games they play on computers and cell phones.  He’s a bit of a unique serial killer because he craves the images of his victim’s deaths on video over and over again.  He doesn’t get his hands dirty, but can relive their deaths any time he wants.  He hasn’t had to meet up with Emily Stone yet and that’s when everything changes in this story.

MA: I’m almost afraid to ask if you had any personal experiences that helped shape your writing, especially since your professional life has been in the corporate world.

JC: I can’t say that I’ve had any experiences with serial killers, but I did have a neighbor who was definitely a violent sociopath that threatened my life for several years.  It was bad enough for me to have to move.  This experience made my writer’s imagination kick into full gear and that’s how Emily Stone was created.

MA: That had to be creepy, and I’m glad you were able to get away from him.  Do you have any more Emily Stone Novels planned, or perhaps a whole new line of mysteries?

JC: I’m currently in the process of writing a suspense thriller with a working title, Silent Partner, from a screenplay I wrote about a K-9 cop that becomes involved with an agoraphobic woman accused of murdering her sister.  He finds himself caught in a web of lies and deception that leaves him wondering if he can protect her from her fears, both real and imagined, before it’s too late.

I’m having a great time writing the Emily Stone series and I will continue with this character for other books.  Also, a character from Dead Game by the name of Jordan Smith seems to be receiving quite a bit of attention.  I’m toying with the idea of writing a book with him as the main character.

Finally, I’m outlining and researching the third Emily Stone Novel that I will begin writing before summer.  She will be tracking down a serial killer on the beautiful garden island of Kauai. The story will answer the question of how Emily will stop a diabolical serial killer on the quiet island paradise.

MA: Sounds like that will require some field research in Hawaii…to get the setting just right for the plot, of course!  Thanks for visiting with us today.  Please visit Jennifer Chase’s website to learn more about her and the Emily Stone Novel series: http://jenniferchase.vpweb.com/default.html

by

Mary Deal

Author intrusion is something I saw a lot of in new writers’ manuscripts when I did a lot of editing.

A story is usually told through the mind of one or more characters. It’s known as the story’s point of view (POV). The reader is only allowed to know what the point of view character perceives and experiences.

Here’s a correct sentence written through a character’s mind, told in 3^rd Person POV:

“Sara watched with nerves on edge, unsure of what she was seeing.”

Now told using author intrusion:

“If we look at Sara, we see that she is hesitant about getting involved.”

In the 3^rd Person POV, we are in Sara’s mind experiencing hesitation with her.

In the author intrusion example, the author stopped the story to speak directly to the reader, telling the reader what Sara experiences, instead of letting the reader be Sara.

In the past, many stories were told in this manner. The author seemed to speak directly to the reader, as if the writer were addressing a group of people. This method of storytelling has become passé. Readers want to become their favorite characters and experience with them and not simply be told by a narrator.

Author intrusion is easily avoided if the writer stays in the mind of the point of view character. The character will not stop the story to speak to the readers.

Mary is the author of four suspense/thrillers. She can be contacted through her website writeranygenre.com

MA: My very special guest today is Dr. Ellen Kirschman of Redwood City, California. Dr. Kirschman is a licensed clinical psychologist who has specialized in police and public safety since 1978. She is the author of two books I Love a Cop: What Police Families Need To Know-Revised (Guilford, 2007) and I Love a Firefighter: What the Family Needs to Know (Guilford, 2004).

Dr. Kirschman is a member of the psychological services section of the International Association of Police Chiefs, the police, public safety subdivision of Division 18 of the American Psychological Association, the Society for Police and Criminal Psychology, the International Law Enforcement Trainers Association, the Public Safety Writers Association, and Mystery Writers of America. She has published more than a dozen articles and book chapters about police stress, the psychology of recovering from critical incidents, and strategies for consultation to organizational issues in law enforcement. Her essay “Bare Butts and Bare Souls” was included in the anthology What Would Sipowicz Do? Race, Rights and Redemption in NYPD Blue (Ben Bella, 2004). She and Dr. Lorraine Greene are co-developers of www.policefamilies.com, named web site of the month by the American Psychological Association.

She provides psychological consultation and peer support training to many local and federal public safety agencies, police, fire and probation. She was co-facilitator of the Trauma Team Training Institute for the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) from1996-2008.

Dr. Kirschman has appeared on a number of national radio and television programs. She has been an invited guest at four national conferences on police psychology sponsored by the FBI Behavioral Sciences Unit. She is listed in Who’s Who in American Women and was once named Woman of Distinction by the Police Chief’s Spouses Worldwide.

Dr. Kirschman currently devotes her time to training and public speaking, including guest lectures at the Hong Kong Police Department and the Singapore Police Force. She volunteers at the West Coast Post Trauma Retreat, a peer-driven, clinically guided retreat for first responders with PTSD.

You certainly have some extensive credentials with respect to the behavioral science aspects of the law enforcement community. I tend to focus my blog on fiction authors, and I understand you’ve got a novel WIP right now. But I’d like to hear more about your work with law enforcement and the non-fiction books you’ve authored.

EK: I’ve been a working police psychologist for most of my career – long before I had any gray hair. These days I spend my time giving workshops worldwide and locally, writing, and volunteering at the West Coast Post trauma Retreat for first responders with work related traumatic stress. I wrote I Love a Co because it was clear to me that officers and their families were unprepared for how much police work would spillover to their personal lives.

I wrote I Love a Fire Fighter and revised I Love a Cop after September 11th when the world changed dramatically for all of us, but especially for first responders. Writing self-help books is tough work involving a lot of research. The easy part was filling the book with real life stories from my files. The hard part was separating good science from junk science and condensing complex ideas into comprehensible, practical information. That’s when I became delusional and thought that making stuff up had to be easier. It isn’t. It’s taken me longer to write the first draft of my mystery than it did to write both books and the revision.

MA: Fiction can be tough! Tell us about your story.

EK: My mystery, working title Burying Ben, is still unpublished and in search of an agent. It features, Dr. Dot Meyerhoff, a police psychologist, whose job is a lot more dangerous than mine. Dot’s on the job one month when Ben Gomez, a rookie she is counseling, commits suicide and everyone blames her. At stake is her job, her reputation, her license to practice, and her already battered sense of self-worth. Refusing to be a scapegoat, she resolves to find out, not just what led this odd young man to commit suicide, but why her psychologist ex-husband, the man she most wants to avoid, recommended that he be hired in the first place. Ben’s surviving family and everyone else connected to him are just as determined to keep Ben’s story a secret, by any means necessary. As she pursues the truth, Dot discovers that no one is who they seem to be. Even Ben, from the grave, has secrets to keep.

MA: How did you develop your heroine’s character?

EK: Through trial and error. The more autobiographical I was, the harder it was to tell the story. I kept thinking “this wouldn’t have happened this way” or ” I would have reacted differently.” The transition from adhering to the truth as a non-fiction writer to creating a compelling story was a big shift for me.

MA: Tell us more about Dot’s personality and about the real “bad guys” in the story.

EK: She’s pretty funny and plenty gutsy, although her reckless pursuit of the truth gets her in big trouble.  She has several antagonists, including her ex-husband and his new wife. It’s hard for her to tell who’s on her side and who’s trying to destroy her.

MA: Considering your background, is there a little bit of your personal and/or professional life in the story?

EK: There are bits and pieces of my clients and colleagues in every character. Even my family pops up in surprising ways.

MA: Is this mystery going to be your only venture into fiction, and do you have any plans for more non-fiction works?

EK: I’m in discussion with my first publisher regarding another non-fiction book about treating police officers and their families. My files are full of amazing stories. Burying Ben is only the first in a series of Dot Meyerhoff mysteries. Some of the characters will migrate to future books, some will have dropped out of sight, and some will be lurking in the shadows.

MA: I love things that lurk in shadows – in the fictional world, of course.  Thanks for stopping by the Child Finder Trilogy. To learn more about Dr. Kirschman’s books and her workshops or to contact her, visit her website: www.ellenkirschman.com.

I understand you’ve been involved with writing professionally for a long time.  Tell us more about that.

WSG: I have always been making a living from writing. I went to Central Michigan University and walked away with a bachelor’s degree in Journalism. From there I worked at a half dozen newspapers for a decade, then came children whose schedule didn’t allow me to chase ambulances anymore. I moved into more public relations writing where I could control the schedule. Crime reporting always happened at the most inconvenient of times. During that time I also wrote speeches and that really helped me with dialogue. Getting into people’s heads and figuring out how they would word things. Four years ago I was recuperating from surgery and started on a book. This time I told myself I was going to finish it. I did and the characters in my head have never let me rest since!

MA: You’ve certainly dipped your toes in a few areas involving writing, but mostly non-fiction.  What brought you to write a novel?

WSG:  For as long as I can remember I have been a voracious reader. At many times I have started books and then life got in the way and I put them aside. It wasn’t so much as me choosing to write a novel, it was that I couldn’t not write a novel. Now the ideas just come. I could happily write 24/7. Then I would have to edit which I don’t find so much fun!

MA: It may sound crazy, but I actually enjoy the editing process.  I like to think of my initial draft manuscript as a simple black and white sketch, but it’s during the editing process that I add color and dimension.  Are your mysteries hard-boiled?

WSG: My stories are fun reads similar to a cozy mystery with an amateur sleuth named Mitch Malone. He has some issues and gets himself into trouble in my first book, A Case of Infatuation. Crime Beat Reporter Mitch Malone’s rules are simple: He never lets the blood and guts he covers bother him. He always works alone. And he hates kids. Mitch breaks all three rules when he unwittingly agrees to smuggle a potential witness out of a suburban Michigan home while police investigate a mob-style hit that’s left two dead bodies. Mitch sends his intern (a real hottie, but nonetheless an interloper) to interview neighbors, hoping to throw her off, but when he finds the pint-sized survivor the killer overlooked, he decides she might be helpful. When the FBI accuses him of the murder, Mitch goes into hiding with the bombshell intern who doesn’t talk and the precocious preschooler. Mitch works his contacts to regain his freedom from his roommates only to find they each hold keys to a bizarre story of disappearances, terrorists and the perfect hamburger recipe.

MA: (chuckling) I like Mitch and the story already…terrorists and hamburgers…I’m going to have to read it!  Where did your hero come from?

WSG:  Mitch came to me in a dream. I woke up with Mitch’s story buzzing in my head. I got up and six hours later I had half the rough draft done. Originally I thought the female in the book, Patrenka, would be the main character but Mitch just wouldn’t leave me alone and he took over the book.

MA: I know how a character can take control!  What makes Mitch tick, besides trying to avoid kids?

WSG: Mitch likes to think of himself as a real loner. He doesn’t need anybody. He’s a bit full of himself. In A Case of Infatuation, he has a major character change in that he stops going for the story to doing what is best for his source and realizes he can care about somebody. In the second book with a working title of A Case of the Accidental Intersection, Mitch again gets involved in one of his stories and an accident victim propels him to dig deeper. Even though Mitch is learning to care about other people, his “it’s all about me” attitude does get him into some funny situations.

MA: With a character as colorful as Mitch, does he have an evil doppelganger nemesis of some kind?

WSG:  There isn’t a reoccurring bad guy. In each of the books, the good guy (Mitch) wins and the bad guys go to jail. In book three, which is only in a rough draft phase, his love interest in the first book, Patrenka, returns. She is one woman who knows how to push all his buttons and walk away unscathed. Mitch struggles with trust issues and if he is ready for a full relationship. Every time he thinks he has her figured out, she throws him a curve and leaves him questioning what he wants.

MA: Does art imitate life in your stories?

WSG: Mitch is a crime beat reporter like I was for several years. Much of the background for Mitch came from my reporting days. Also some of the things he encounters are things I ran across while reporting. The beauty of fiction is I can take a kernel of truth and spin it to fit my purposes or make it worse than it was.

MA:  It sounds like your writing has kept you busy.  Are you writing more stories?

WSG: I plan on producing at least a book a year as long as I can get them published. I have a second mystery series featuring a female protagonist set in the nonprofit world that I will be marketing to agents and publishers shortly. I also have a great idea for a standalone book that isn’t a mystery. That one is just in the idea and notes phase but has really captured my interest.

MA: Will Mitch stick around and resurface in some of these new stories?

WSG: Mitch will stay in his own series I think and I have ideas for at least three more. In the second series that I call the Back Room Babes Books, each book will feature a different executive director from a different nonprofit organization and a major crisis and mystery for them to solve. Each book will have characters from the previous books in them. The stand alone book will not have any characters from previous books.

MA: What do you tell people about yourself and your writing, and what do you hope people gain from reading your stories?

WSG: In my writing, I try to not take it very seriously. That isn’t to say I’m not a dedicated writer but I like to keep my characters human. I want to provide a great story that you can’t put down but I also want to generate smiles and laughter with some of my character’s antics. My books are about dead bodies and mysteries that need to be solved but with unique characters that provide levity as well. I want people to be entertained when they read my books and walk away smiling.

MA: W.S., thanks for swinging by and guest-blogging today.  I encourage people to visit W.S. Gager’s website, and that of her publisher: www.wsgager.com, and www.oaktreebooks.com.

Welcome, Richard!  How did you go from the textile industry to writing?  Is there some connection to or inspiration from your years in the textile business to your fiction?

RB: I started writing as something to do in retirement.  But as friends and family said I should try to get them published, I became serious about writing.  Did my professional career inspire my writing?  Absolutely.  My novel, Silk Legacy, is set in early twentieth century Paterson, NJ in the height of the silk era which Paterson was famous for.  My grandfather started a silk business in 1904.  It is very, very loosely based on vignettes about his early years in the silk business.   And of course my years in the textile business helped me as I knew about weaving and selling textiles. If you go to my website www.silklegacy.com and click on the silk legacy tab you will see all the great reviews it has received.  Silk Legacy was the book published just before Beyond Guilty, my latest book.

MA: Tell us about your latest novel and some of its characters.

RB: Beyond Guilty is a high concept thriller where a wrongly convicted woman escapes from death row and fights to prove her innocence, and the development of the latest nanotech drug that has the potential to virtually wipe out all disease.  Again if you go to my website you can read reviews and more about the book.

Characters for Beyond Guilty?  This is really an interesting question.  My daughter is a lawyer at NBC/Universal in California.  She also writes scripts.  One of her scripts, Beyond the Evidence, (note similarity in the title) won a number of awards plus $1000.00 in a writer’s digest contest.  Despite her contacts she could not find a movie company to produce the movie.  The screen play has an African-American male as the protagonist.  I said let me write it as a book with an African-American female protagonist as there are many African-American actresses, but very few have leading roles.  Most are supporting characters.  So I did, but the book took on a life of its own.  There is no nanomedicine (see website) or island in her story (click on scenes from the book at the top of the home page in the website.)  She has now written a second screen play from the book and is showing it around.  The heroine’s strength is her strong female character, but causing the deaths of her sisters continues to torment her.

MA: It sounds like you’ve got a good corporate-conspiracy type of thriller, can I assume there’s a greedy tycoon antagonist of some sort?

RB: Yes, the CEO of the drug company that kidnapped her to experiment on her and others.  Also his henchman who chases her after she escapes the island. Both are antognists.

MA: Since you came from the textile industry, and draw inspiration at least from it and your knowledge of the silk industry in New Jersey, did any of your real-life experiences help fill in the plot?

RB: The only real life experience in the plot is the nanomedicine which is real.  See my website for Robert A. Freitas, Jr. who edited the references to nanomedicine and wrote an essay at the end of the novel explaining where the research on nanomedicine is today.

MA: What comes next for you?

RB: I have just finished another suspense novel about a conspiracy with the military/industrial complex.  I am now working on a conspiracy story involving Japan.  Although in my early writing career I wrote a series of three mysteries with the same detective set at the Jersey Shore, two of which were published by small presses, none of the characters in my latest novels will appear in future novels.

MA: Thanks for stopping by The Child Finder Trilogy today!  Folks, read more about Richard Brawer and his stories at his website: www.silklegacy.com.