The Crime Cafe

Debbi Mack
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Interviews and entertainment for crime fiction, suspense and thriller fans.

  1. MAR 15

    Interview with Graciela Kenig – S. 11, Ep. 19

    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. I forgot to ask about translations! 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 is so cool. I love what you’re saying. That is just fantastic. What inspired you to write your novel? What inspired the idea for it? Graciela (05:32): I knew somebody who had put off, reconnect them with their best friend back in the time when you didn’t have easily, you couldn’t send faxes. I mean, that kind of stuff, you just sent—snail mail was the only way to communicate or calling, and that was expensive. And so it was put off. And when they were about to get together, this other friend had died. And so that was the seed of this. But, in big part, I used that for, I was taking a writing class and that was a prompt. And it was something like I wrote one scene and then the next assignment was write it from the other person’s point of view, which is so me because I think I like writing and I think a lot of us in the arts tend to … You have an artist sensitivity when you can see things from different perspectives, when you can be an outsider. (06:33): And within your thing, it’s very hard to know your own culture, your own … Everybody does the same thing in your little life. Debbi (06:42): Correct. Yeah. Graciela (06:44): You know what I mean, in your circle of friends and acquaintances. And so I’ve always felt somehow, especially after we moved to the United States as an outsider. So you observe things in very different ways. You notice things other people don’t. And that’s really … And that’s what I liked about the idea too, is I developed the protagonist, Kate, being a journalist. I had all that experience myself, but she was an outsider. She’s visiting London in a country she doesn’t really know, which also was helpful to me because that way I could look at London, not as the expert that I’m not. It was just like, okay, how did she see it as having been a journalist and a writer when she’s there trying to find who killed her friend? I mean, the inspiration, the person that I knew did not … was not killed. She was in an accident. Debbi (07:44): Right. Graciela (07:45): You take your, what do they call your literary? Debbi (07:49): Exactly. Graciela (07:50): Yeah. Debbi (07:51): It’s interesting how things like a prompt and then twisting it around, changing the perspective can really make you think about it and the possibilities. Graciela (08:03): Yeah. Debbi (08:04): Good, good, good approach there. Great stuff. What was it that made you choose the thriller genre? Graciela (08:12): In a sense, it was organic as well. I was taking … A few years ago during the pandemic, I became involved with this group, StoryGrid, which most people think of StoryGrid as an editing tool, but they did start something where we had these groups and Sean Coyne, who’s the founder who wrote the book, basically would have these workshops. And so I started to realize that what I was thinking about really was very much in line with a thriller. It wasn’t what I intended to do. And although I had never been a real avid reader of thrillers, I had watched a lot of thrillers and movies and that kind of thing in both worlds in Argentina and Spanish and here, because my dad loved that stuff. He loved detectives. He loved police procedurals and all those kinds of things. And I just watched them because he liked them and I liked them too. Debbi (09:12): Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We watched a lot of those in our house too. And I remember distinctly when I was growing up, there was a show called Honey West about a female private eye, and it lasted for one season. I was so angry when they took it off. I said, I don’t believe they took that show off. The one show where I get to see a woman do something really cool. Graciela (09:40): It’s pretty rare back. Debbi (09:42): Exactly. Early ’60s, that was almost like a bizarre event, but it was really just a great show. And then The Avengers came along and filled that hole for me a little bit. Emma Peel was my heroine. Graciela (10:02): Yeah. I liked the visual part about the movies showing action. It’s always a lot harder to describe action in words, but— Debbi (10:11): It is, yeah. Graciela (10:12): Punching. And I mean, I do thrillers, but I don’t like horror. It can be part of a thriller thing. And I also, I guess because of my upbringing, thrillers usually have to be political in nature, have some political thing. Debbi (10:28): I get it. Graciela (10:29): Yeah. Debbi (10:30): I totally get it. Graciela (10:31): There were like 15 political parties in Argentina, and even [inaudible] knew about them. It’s crazy. So yeah. Yeah. Debbi (10:39): If we could only come up with a third one here. Graciela (10:43): Yes, it would be helpful, wouldn’t it? Yes. Yes. Debbi (10:46): A little balance somewhere along the line. Let’s see. You described yourself in another interview as a slow writer, primarily I think due to a lot of research that you do? How much research do you do before you start writing or while you start writing or while you are writing? Graciela (11:06): I like doing research. It can be a rabbit hole. If I don’t stop myself. But I tend to just … With this one, and I’m writing a second novel now, with The Plans because I was still working full-time, it took me a long time to write it. And there I went to London to see that. And when I was in there, I came up with other ideas. I thought, oh, what happened that year in London? And there’s a chapter when it all has to do with President George W. Bush who was visiting there. So I thought he was here. So I like the idea of having … It’s not a historical novel, but I like having historical places, placeholders, so to speak. And that is how the story devolved in a sense. And I like that a lot because I do research a little before, but I also do a lot when I discover that I’m missing something and I don’t know. Debbi (12:14): Precisely. Yeah. Graciela

  2. MAR 1

    Interview with Joy Ann Ribar – S. 11, Ep. 18

    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 those mysteries, and it really gave the characters a chance to evolve even within their own relationships and in their own maybe quirks and obstacles in life. Debbi (05:50): It’s really fascinating because this is the first time I’ve heard somebody talk so much about setting, the setting as a part of the story. Joy (06:00): And I think for me, because it’s a cozy series, it was so important to have that setting become a place where maybe people wanted to come and visit and escape. It became a central part because it was a small town or it is a small town set in a tourist town, and everybody knows everybody. And so all of the shops have their own kind of personalities, and the people come and go, and they’re recurring characters. So it almost is kind of like a TV series in a way where people can come in and they know exactly what to expect. They come to that town, they come to the bakery, they come to the wine lounge, they go to the waterfall park. They just know what they’re going to get every time they come and visit. Debbi (06:54): Yeah, yeah, that’s really cool. I think our environments do affect us as people, so definitely living in Wisconsin would have a different effect on people than say a person living in Arizona, their environment. Joy (07:11): Definitely. And I think the more I travel, certainly the more I am aware of how local things really are in this really huge country that we live in. And I talked to so many readers who have never been to Wisconsin, and you get your own conception of a place. I mean, I think of Florida and the first thing I think of is Disney World. So people think of Wisconsin, and what I hear from people is, oh, it’s cold there, but it’s not cold all the time. It does get cold, but that’s only part of Wisconsin. And I really wanted people to see that there were so many layers in Wisconsin and so much different kinds of beauty, because again, I think people also think farmland. And there’s a lot more than farmland in Wisconsin too. There’s many different landscapes. Debbi (08:11): Well, Madison is a really nice little town. I went there for a Bouchercon once. I really loved it. It was so walkable. Joy (08:20): It is, and it’s such a popular community. It’s very artsy and cultural and yeah, I love Madison. That’s where I went to college, so it’s kind of one of my favorite places too, to be in Wisconsin. Debbi (08:36): Kind of like the old stomping grounds. Joy (08:38): Yes, indeed. Debbi (08:41): You had, I think, mentioned in one of the descriptions of this series that they’re kind of like standalones in the same place. You could start with any of them? Joy (08:52): What I would say is, I mean, you actually could, but what I would say is there’s a definite arc in my main character. She very much changes from somebody who is very unsure of herself in the beginning because she starts doing this amateur investigative reporting, and she doesn’t know how to ask questions. She doesn’t know who she should talk to. She certainly knows she shouldn’t cross police tape, but she does anyway. And she knows some things about the law because she herself had worked in the legal field for a time before she decided to run a bakery in a wine lounge. (09:40): But there’s a definite arc to her character. Her character changes quite a lot and evolves quite a lot from being that uncertain person as she goes through a lot of different things throughout the series and also even in her relationships. Those change as well. Be that, and after having said that though, I’m a person who, I read series sometimes and there’s 25 books, and I’m not sure I’m going to commit to 25 books. And if I see something and I pick it up and I say, this catches my eye because of the plot line or the concept, I read the back of that book and I tell people the same thing. If you read the back of my book and you say, oh, this is cool. This is about a legendary curse, which is my second book. Oh, this is really cool. This is about birding. If somebody is really into that and says, I just want to pick up book three or four, I say, go for it. Debbi (10:45): But you still have a protagonist who is, I take it a reporter or a … Joy (10:50): She is. Debbi (10:50): Kind of a newbie reporter, Joy (10:52): A newbie reporter. She has a lot to prove. In the first book, she conveys to the readers that she wanted to be an investigative journalist, and the local newspaper editor would not hire her. Instead, he wanted her to hire her to print stories about her winery and recipes from the bakery and things like that. And she took that, took that as a little bit of an insult, like, oh, maybe you’re not taking me seriously because I’m a woman, or maybe you’re just not taking me seriously because you think I just bake for a living. And so it’s an opportunity that happens with her in the first book, is she stumbles upon a crime scene or a suspicious murder. It isn’t even a crime scene, but it’s a suspicious death. And she says, it’s January in Wisconsin. There’s not a lot going on at the bakery. I think I’m just going to poke around a little bit and ask some questions. And so she evolves in the newspaper reporting sideline that she has, and eventually she gets hired by a regional paper to just be an occasional reporter. But lucky for her, even in this beautiful cozy town, there seems to be a lot of murders. Debbi (12:20): Nobody’s immune from murder, even small towns. Joy (12:24): No, exactly. Debbi (12:27): Let’s see. So how is the Bay Browning series different? I noticed that it tends to be more literary focused. Joy (12:36): Yes. So for me, the series was born out of the fact that I was missing teaching literature. I actually really loved teaching literature. I loved having discussions with my high school students about classical books and poetry, and I was missing that. And I

    33 min

  3. FEB 15

    Philip Marlowe in ‘The Dancing Hands’ – S. 11, Ep. 17

    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 broadcast replay.  It’s called “The Dancing Hands”, which doesn’t sound particularly on-brand.   Enjoy the show! Perhaps someday, I’ll be able to afford making transcripts of all these episodes! Hey, I can dream … 🙂

    31 min

  4. FEB 1

    Philip Marlowe in ‘The Grim Hunters’ – S. 11, Ep. 16

    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 broadcast 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, said the New York Times bestselling author? 🙂 PS: I just blew through finished this book. I think I’ve been as direct as humanly possible. 🙂 Every writer on the internet should read this book.

  5. JAN 18

    Interview with Author Ryan Steck – S. 11, Ep. 15

    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 to read. And I love the West and I love lone wolf operators. And I felt like, man, we haven’t seen a lot of that. What does Jack Ryan or Jason Bourne look like out West? And I wanted to explore that. So I was very blessed to have a literary agent. And I said to him one day, “I think I want to write Jason Bourne.” Or I said to him, “I want to write Vince Flynn meets CJ Box, two of my all time two favorite authors.” I remember my agent at the time said, “What’s that look like? ” And I said, “I don’t know, give me a year. I’m going to figure it out. ” And I wrote my first novel, Fields of Fire set in Montana starring a former Marine raider named Matthew Redd and have been fortunate enough to write three books that are already published after that. (05:32): And I’m under contract for two more with the next one coming out this year called Target Down. Debbi (05:40): Wow. So you have something coming out this year, and what are you working on now? Ryan (05:48): Yeah, so it’s actually a big year for me. I have three books out this year. Debbi (05:52): Wow. Ryan (05:53): So I have my second Alex Hawk novel that again, I took over for the late Ted Bell, who’s a mentor and dear friend of mine. Ted Bell’s Warmonger comes out March 31st. And then sometime this summer, my fifth Matthew Redd novel, that’s my own series. And then the franchise I’m most passionate about comes out … I would think we’re targeting July, August, September range. I don’t think we have a pub date just yet. And then my third book is … Actually, the second book I co-wrote with a friend of mine named Simon Gervais. Our first book, The Second Son, is published by Thomas and Mercer. And that book came out officially December 1st, 2025. Already has been a bestseller on Amazon overall and has 6,000 reviews so far and growing in just over a month. So we’re really psyched and our second book in that series will come out in November. (06:50): It’s called The Marked Sun. So it’s a three-book year for me. And I’ve been mostly storing up energy to get ready for this year because of it. Debbi (07:00): Yeah. Wow. Well, congratulations. That’s absolutely fantastic. You’ve had some amazing success with Substack too.That’s really something. Ryan (07:11): Thank you. Debbi (07:14): What do you ascribe? What do you think has led to getting so many subscribers so quickly? Ryan (07:22): Well, I think with The Real Book Spy, there was just really no one-stop shop for all things thriller, and people were hungry for that. (07:32): I didn’t initially launch the site on Substack. It’s just therealbookspy.com still exists. We moved to Substack last August as a way to just build on what we’re doing. And it’s been a great move, not only for us, but for our audience, I think, and a better way to communicate and connect with people. But I look at it as my wife watches the Oscars every year, and I don’t. I’ll look and see who won Best Picture and this and that. I’ve never heard of any of the movies that win, by the way, let alone seen them. I’ve never even heard of them. And it’s funny to me that those are the ones that win, but I’ve seen every billion dollar franchise. I’ve seen every Fast and the Furious or Mission Impossible or the Marvel movies, and those never win awards or accolades. And I really think that in our business and publishing, the equivalent of that is the thriller genre. (08:27): So they go out and sell really well and millions of readers, but they don’t ever win awards. They don’t win literary awards and things like that, but yet people love them. So I think just launching something to give readers more inside access, that was really my approach was to bring you an insider’s perspective to everything happening. So cover all the books for sure. I want you to know what books are coming out, but I also want you to know when authors sign new book deals and interview those writers and cover things a little differently than what anyone else was doing. And I think that really helped us take off for sure. Debbi (09:06): Yeah. Yeah. Doing something a little bit different than everybody else. Ryan (09:11): Yeah, that’s right. Debbi (09:11): Very specific too, for a specific audience. Those are good insights. Let’s see. How often do you publish Book Spy? Ryan (09:26): Frequently. I mean, whenever we have news, we’re trying to put something on Substack every day, every other day at the minimum. Sometimes maybe there’s not enough news going around. So a few times a week, but definitely with Substack, it’s a subscription model. If people are spending $8 a month or $80 a year, I want to make sure you get most bang for your books. So we are for sure rolling out content there. Big things too. I think we’re the only source on the internet that has a full lineup of 2026 releases, every mystery, every thriller in one spot. So it’s content like that. Sure, we’re doing reviews, book announcement, cover reviews, author interviews, but also different type of lists. Again, the goal is always to help good readers find good books. Debbi (10:15): How do you find the books that you feature on your Substack? Ryan (10:20): Oh man, I have a great relationship with a lot of the publishers. That’s required. Yep. I need to know them, trust the marketing teams and the publicists when they send me something, they think it’s probably a fit for our audience and then we need to evaluate is it? I would say that I’m not going to review books I don’t like. So the one thing I don’t do is a lot of bad reviews. And I know that there’s been times in the last 10, 11 years where people have said, “Man, do you just love every book you read because you post a lot of good reviews?” And I said, “Well, no, but I don’t finish books I don’t like.” There’s really no value in it. Writing a bad

  6. 12/28/2025

    Philip Marlowe in ‘The Old Acquaintance’ – S. 11, Ep. 14

    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 broadcast replay. This episode is called “The Old Acquaintance”. As in, happy new year! Get ready for 2026!

  7. 12/14/2025

    Philip Marlowe in ‘The Friend from Detroit’ – S. 11, Ep. 13

    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 broadcast 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.

  8. 11/23/2025

    Interview with James Polkinghorn – S. 11, Ep. 12

    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. You can download a copy of the transcript here! Debbi (00:54): Hi everyone. My guest today is semi-retired litigator and trial. He was a semi-retired litigator and trial attorney, is a semi-retired litigator and trial attorney. One of those tenses. And while he was based in Miami and Fort Lauderdale for 39 years, he handled some very interesting, a variety of cases of highly complex matters sometimes. He is originally from Pittsburgh, which fascinates me because I lived in Monroeville for a while. You probably know where that is. Jim (01:31): Went to the Monroeville Mall. Debbi (01:32): Oh, yeah. I remember the Monroeville Mall. It was a big deal when I was there. It was new or something, but he moved to Florida when he was 14 with his family, of course, and he now lives in Key West and is working on a follow-up, as I recall, reading from another interview on your novel, Liquid Shades of Blue. Am I correct? Jim (01:56): That’s right, yep. Debbi (01:57): Excellent. Very good. It is my pleasure to introduce the author James Polkinghorn. Hi Jim. How are you doing? Jim (02:05): I’m doing great. How are you? Debbi? Debbi (02:07): Oh, I’m hanging in there. I’m busy. Busy, but I’m hanging in there and glad to hear you’re doing well. I like your shirt. It goes really well with, even though you’re not in Key West at the moment, you’ve brought a little of that with you. Jim (02:21): Yeah, believe it or not, this was work attire for me for probably the last 15 years of my career. I sort of stopped wearing suits in the office if I could avoid it. It worked out for me. Debbi (02:36): Excellent. That is an excellent choice there. Who needs suits? I’m always happy to meet another lawyer turned crime fiction writer. What was it that made you turn to crime fiction as a way of expressing your stories? Jim (02:54): Well, I’ll tell you, Debbi, for me, it all really goes back to college, when I sort of dabbled with the idea of becoming a writer. I took the usual classes. I was an English joint major. I also majored in political science. But what really happened was my family circumstances at the time were terrible, and I made a conscious decision that I didn’t want to be poor anymore. (03:32): And so for me, the quickest way to an actual paycheck that was substantial was by going to law school. And so I made that conscious decision to go to law school, and I started that career and God knows it all turned out just fine. I had a long and good career, made money, did all that, and throughout all of that, I was thinking to myself, I always had this idea for a novel in my head, and I never wrote it. And I went on 40 years and finally it was I was about to turn 60 and I was thinking about retiring. I’d had the idea of retiring by age 60, and I was thinking to myself, if you don’t write this novel, if you don’t do it, you’re never going to do it. If you don’t do it now, now’s the time. And so that’s what I did. So I retired and the first thing I did upon retiring was write this book. And it was fairly well received and I enjoyed the process, all of that. And so after it came out and I started writing another one, and so I’ve done that and that’ll be out next year. Debbi (05:01): Excellent. Jim (05:04): So anyway, that’s how it all started. Debbi (05:07): Wow, very interesting. You still are doing the legal work? Jim (05:13): Well, I have a relationship with my law firm. I don’t actively practice anymore, but believe it or not, this is a national law firm. We’ve got, actually, it’s an international law firm now. We’ve got 35 offices all over the place, and I am now the ethics partner for the whole firm. And so I handle any ethical issue, any lawyer anywhere has, they will call me and we’ll work it out one way or another, conflicts, issues that arise and other things. If they’re accused of unethical behavior in a given case, they’ll call me and we’ll figure out what to do. Debbi (05:57): This is fascinating. Jim (05:59): Yeah. Well, I mean, it is a function. Every law firm of our size has somebody like that. (06:04): So anyway, so that’s what I, since I retired, that’s the role I’ve taken on. And plus I also do some training. I do litigation training, trial trainings, things like that. Mostly in the Fort Lauderdale office, but also elsewhere. But the ethics thing, that’s really the primary relationship that I have with the firm now. Debbi (06:29): Well, that’s very interesting. Thank you for sharing that. That might be a subject worth exploring, a whole nother podcast maybe because I feel like people don’t know enough about the law and the way lawyers work, Jim (06:45): And also the ethical challenges that lawyers face really almost every day when they’re dealing with clients, the pressure clients are putting on you. Particularly, I was a defense lawyer. The pressure you experience from clients asking you to do various things and the expectations that clients have for you, it can force you to make some tough decisions. And so I’m there to sort of guide lawyers when they’re faced with those sorts of conundrums. Debbi (07:16): Well, that’s a good position to be in. It’s good that somebody, they’re doing that. Tell us a little about Liquid Shades of Blue. Your ex-lawyer protagonist turned bar keep in Key West. So this book is clearly not about going to court and being Perry Mason. Jim (07:36): No, no. I mean, there’s a little bit of legal stuff in there. There’s a case that he has, but it’s really not about that. The book is really about Jack’s quest for redemption and his own desire to regain the self-respect that he lost when he made a fateful decision working for his father, who was a big time plaintiff’s lawyer in Miami. He made a decision after he was accused of wrongdoing. Basically, it was a scheme of double billing in a case that actually was perpetrated by his father. And the father made Jack take the fall for it, and rather than stand up for himself, Jack swallowed it. His father wrote him a big check. He was suspended from the practice of law for six months, and during that six months he left and he went to Miami and he bought this bar. And so then once his suspension was up, he thought about going back to Miami but didn’t, stayed in Key West, ran the bar, and then things happen. And in this case, the big thing that happens is his mother dies of an apparent suicide and his father calls him and basically orders him back to Miami to sort things out. And that’s where it really takes off. Debbi (09:16): Yeah. Now, your protagonist also has kind of a drinking problem, right? Jim (09:24): Well, he did. His mother, I don’t know if these things are inherited or not, maybe they are, but his mother had an issue with alcohol and drugs going back to her childhood, and he worries that that’s him. But really, he was one of these guys that, because he was an athlete also, he ran track in college and was also a good football player in high school and all that. He always stayed in a certain shape. And so that always acted as a governor on his worst instincts. And so he always kept his drinking under control, but when some of these bad things happened, he would find himself drinking a little more than he should. And that’s sort of where he was on that fateful morning when his father called him and told him his mother was dead. Debbi (10:20): Yeah. Yeah. I noticed in your excerpt that you mentioned him waking up kind of groggy. Some woman is next to him. Jim (10:31): Right. Exactly. Exactly. Debbi (10:33): Discombobulated to say the least. Jim (10:34): Right. It was a shocking morning for sure. Debbi (10:38): I was wondering if that was him as him or kind of a product of where he is, kind of the Key West lifestyle. Jim (10:51): Well, I think, I don’t say this explicitly in the book, but I believe that that’s true. And I mean, having lived in Key West for a long time, I know how that goes. And people do go there with the idea of, I can keep a handle on this. And they just get caught up in the lifestyle and it churns some people out, so he could have fallen into that trap. But the events of this book actually save him from that. And that’s sort of the redemption he was looking for. And he ultimately, I think, finds it. Debbi (11:30): Just out of curiosity, it’s been a while since I’ve read the book. What era, when is this taking place? Is it contemporary? Jim (11:38): It’s fairly current. It would’ve been maybe seven years ago, something like that is what the current time would’ve been. Maybe a little newer than that. Debbi (11:48): Yeah. Yeah. I was just wondering because a lot of what goes on in Florida is affected by so many things through the decades. I wasn’t quite sure. Jim (11:59): Yeah. You would say that this was just before COVID is really what this was, because COVID isn’t mentioned. Debbi (12:08): Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Before all that became a concern. Let’s see. How much do you weave in things about the law and how far in the background do you go with that, or how much do you bring them out? Jim (12:25): Well, the legal part of it is not particularly important except to explain the way Jack thinks about things. As you well know, one thing a legal education does is it teaches you how to think analytically. That’s really like the cornerstone of a legal education is that ability and the development of it. So he has that, and also his father does. There is a pretty good, I think, description of the father’s legal ability in the book. And we all know lawyers like him who are essentially amoral, who can take any position, argue it effectively, and persuade juries. And

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About

Interviews and entertainment for crime fiction, suspense and thriller fans.

Information

  • Creator
    Debbi Mack
  • Years Active
    2015 - 2026
  • Episodes
    252
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © 2015 - 2021 Debbi Mack
  • Show Website
    The Crime Cafe