The other day, my good friend and fellow writer Frank Zafiro sent a newsletter titled, “Why Do We Rewatch the Same Shows?”

 Most of us have a show or movie we’ve seen more than once. Usually more than once by a lot.

 It’s easy to call that nostalgia, and sometimes it is. But I think there’s more to it than that.

 Some stories become familiar territory. We know the people. We know the rhythm. We know what’s coming, and that’s part of the appeal. In a world that can feel noisy and unpredictable, there’s something to be said for returning to something that already fits.

 Sometimes we revisit stories because they changed us. Sometimes because they remind us who we used to be.

 And sometimes they’re just good company.

  He went on to mention a few of his (the first season of True Detective. Tombstone. Heat) before asking what his readers always come back to.

 For me, that’s a loaded question. I even have a schedule for some movies. For example, the night before the Super Bowl we watch The Drop. On my birthday, Get Shorty. Christmas Eve: The Ice Harvest. (The climax of a run of “Christmas movies” that includes Bad Santa, Bad Santa 2, Die Hard, The French Connection, and LA Confidential, though the latter is subject to review at any time. And, of course, Elf and A Christmas Story.) New Year’s Eve always features The Big Lebowski.

 There are others I re-watch randomly. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. The Frends of Eddie Coyle. The Wild Bunch. Appaloosa. Open Range. Unforgiven. The Usual Suspects. Miller’s Crossing. Chinatown. In the Electric Mist. The Nice Guys. And don’t forget the cult classics: Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Animal House. The Princess Bride.

 Why do I rewatch these? Some are comfort food, things I know I can rely on for a pleasant evening no matter what else is going on. (Butch Cassidy, The Nice Guys, Monty Python, Animal House, The Princess Bride, Get Shorty, The Big Lebowski, The Ice Harvest.)

 Sometimes I want to remind myself how good stories are properly told. (The Drop, Appaloosa, Chinatown, In the Electric Mist.)

  Sometimes I just want to be swept away in the scope of a story. (The French Connection, LA Confidential, The Wild Bunch, Open Range, Unforgiven.)

 What makes all but the comfort food examples stand out is that every time I rewatch something like LA Confidential, The Drop, Unforgiven – or the greatest TV series ever made, Deadwood – I see things I’ve not noticed before. They’re such layered entities there’s always something to catch, even after repeated viewings. (I’ll include The Wire in there, too.)

 I’ve written about this before, so I won’t go into detail here, but when I was working on my Master’s, one of the best teachers I ever had (Benjamin Zander) told us that, since we had chosen to dedicate our lives to music, we could no longer listen purely for entertainment. That didn’t mean we couldn’t enjoy it – of course we could, and did – but our listening had to be deeper. Why did we enjoy it? Why did we not enjoy it? What can we learn from an artist’s interpretation? I became a much better musician than my meager talent gave me any right to be, thanks to studious application of this admonishment.

 The same is true of my reading and viewing now that I’m a writer. Movies and TV have to pass the So what? Test, and I need to be able to justify why they did, or did not, if only to myself. That’s where the bulk of my repeated re-viewings earned their stripes. I’ll never get tired of them because the more I know, the more I learn; it’s an endless cycle. It may be a point of craft, or it maybe when it’s over I sit back and tell myself That’s what you aspire to. It doesn’t matter that I know I’ll never attain the heights of my favorites; I’m newly motivated.

 One’s reach should always exceed their grasp. That’s why I watch these over and over again. To remind me.

(Disclaimer: My experiences with the publishing industry have not been such I wish to repeat them. Take my comments below as honest appraisals from an admittedly biased point of view, which doesn’t make me wrong.

That said, the five books we selected were all worthy of winning the award and might have won in a year when the competition was not as strong.)

I was recently a judge for the Private Eye Writers of America Shamus Awards; the results will be announced at Bouchercon in Calgary. Our panel received 34 novels, several of which reminded me that, while my experiences with small publishers were less than optimal, the big boys aren’t much better.

I’ll leave aside marketing campaigns, or the lack thereof. We all know that ship has sailed and sunk. The big boys are sloppy even with the most targeted of marketing, such as submitting for awards.

Here are the requirements to qualify for a Shamus Award:

Eligible works must feature as a main character a person PAID for investigative work but NOT employed for that work by a unit of government. These include traditionally licensed private investigators; lawyers and reporters who do their own investigations; and others who function as hired private agents. These do NOT include law enforcement officers, other government employees, or amateur, uncompensated sleuths.

Succinct and clearly written. Yet half a dozen publishers sent books that didn’t qualify. One book overtly stated the protagonist was a government employee, though this was left murky until the last few pages. Is reading the requirements too much to ask? Or maybe they didn’t read the book? Or ask the author?

The most egregious example of sloppy work came from the publisher of a well-known author whose name often appears on award lists. We were tasked with evaluating books published in 2025; the publisher’s cover letter indicated a January 2026 release. I suspected a typo, so I checked. Sure enough, January 2026. This is your job, people. At least pretend to make an effort.

One day each judge received a box, sans cover letter or packing slip, with 12 books in it. Maybe that was all we were supposed to get; maybe not. There was no way to know. Another box arrived the day before the deadline containing two books and a cover letter that mentioned three. I sent him an e-mail to point out the error; he apologized profusely and overnighted the missing book. It worked out, but why wait until the day before the deadline?

A friend I trust recently pointed out that my cover descriptions could be better. Since I had 34 examples written by experts sitting in my reading room, I figured I’d not get a better resource.

This is why I don’t get paid to figure.

Almost without exception they give away too much of the story, including the first big reveal, which spoils whatever tension the author intended. The prose is too often not just purple but lurid, leading people unfamiliar with the author to potentially false conclusions about the style and quality of writing inside. Several have spelling, usage, and grammar errors. I can’ t decide if the people writing them were incompetent, or if the text was produced by AI and not proofread; I also can’t decide which is worse. A publisher’s lifeblood is clever and literate use of the written word. Such amateurish dust jacket blurbs are akin to Weyerhaeuser setting forest fires.

Things aren’t much better inside the book. Authors who write hardcover novels are under enormous pressure to meet deadlines and word counts; rarely is what they turn in isn’t as clean as they’d like it to be. That shouldn’t be a problem, as the publisher who pushed them so hard for the deadline has editors and proofreaders to tidy up after them. The author’s job is to be creative and on time.

Well, Maxwell Perkins* is dead and his descendants aren’t doing so hot themselves. Many of the books I read were filled with

·         The same word used too often and too close together.

·         Flabby writing. I realize not everyone wants to write as sparely as I do, nor should they; that’s a stylistic decision. Still, the amount of time spent on things that do not matter – say, two full paragraphs describing a waitress who will take an order and never be seen again – is mind numbing. Readers are busy people. Don’t waste their time.

·         Unnecessary repetition. I was taught, if I wrote the same thing three ways in hope of getting through to the reader, to pick the best and cut the others. This no longer appears to be the case, as the practice is clearly endorsed by publishers who must believe their readers are so stupid they need things explained multiple times.

The philosopher Tom Waits once said, “The world is a hellish place, and bad writing is ruining the quality of our suffering.” There is a lot of good writing out there. There’d be even more if the publishing industry held up its end.

(* - If you don’t know who Maxwell Perkins was, or have not seen the movie Genius, rectify the situation immediately.)

 Today marks the launch of the third book in Rob Hart’s Assassins Anonymous series, Three Hitmen and a Baby. I’ve known Rob for several years and was a little surprised when it dawned on me I’d never had him on the blog. Today’s interview corrects that oversight.

For those who don’t know, Rob worked as a publisher for MysteriousPress.com and was a class director at LitReactor. He is the author of The Paradox Hotel, a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award that was named one of the best books of 2022 by NPR; The Warehouse, which sold in more than twenty languages around the world; the Ash McKenna series of private eye novels; and more other woks than space permits, and, since this is the Internet, space permits a lot.

One Bite at a Time: Welcome to the blog, Rob. I was at Yonder the night you test drove the first chapter of Assassins Anonymous. Like everyone else there, I was blown away. I know better then to ask an author where they get their ideas, but I need to know how you came up with a twelve-step recovery program for professional killers.

Rob Hart: For a very long time I had an idea on the backburner of my brain, about a bunch of assassins in some kind of group therapy setting. I thought it would be funny to take a bunch of characters like that and stick them in a circle to talk about their feelings. One day it dawned on me that I could do that with the recovery process—which includes both steps and an amends process, which creates a bit of a container for the story. As soon as I thought of it in those terms, pretty much the whole thing clicked.

OBAAT: The books are violent and laugh-out-loud funny, sometimes simultaneously. How are you able to combine the two without detracting from the effect of either?

RH: I just think that’s where my voice falls naturally. I like to have a good time and laugh, but I also like to consider things seriously. Sometimes it takes a little modulation in the editing process, but for the most part, these books are just a joy to write.

OBAAT: Among the many things that makes this series special is how Mark keeps finding himself in mortal danger and has to get out of it without killing anyone, yet you never ask the reader to suspend too much disbelief. Do you outline those scenes, storyboard them, rehearse them, consult with martial arts and weapons experts, meditate, what?

RH: That part is a ton of fun. I do have a fighting background—I train in Muay Thai, but also previously trained in Krav Maga, and dabbled in BJJ and boxing. So in terms of how to choreograph a fight scene, what happens to the human body, etc… that’s all me just pulling from experience.

I do occasionally storyboard stuff, if it’s a bigger action sequence, because geography is important to a good action scene. And I do a lot of research, both on lethal and non-lethal weapons. But that’s the thing: the more limitations you have, the more creative you have to be. Shooting someone in the head is easy; sending Mark into a room full of people wielding guns, and he has to make it out without dying and without killing anyone? That takes some effort. But it also makes things way more fun.

OBAAT: On a panel at Left Coast Crime in 2025 you said you do an editing pass of your books working from the last chapter to the first. I’ve done that on my most recent books and now swear by it. What does the back-to-front approach accomplish for you and what made you think of it?

RH: I honestly don’t know; I can’t remember if I thought of it, or if someone suggested it to me. But, yes, starting with the last chapter and moving through to the front of the book is something I usually do on the third of fourth pass of editing. It puts fresh energy into the ending, and it helps to see things out of order sometimes, so you can think differently about how the plot fits together.

OBAAT: As a PI fiction guy, I have to ask what the deal is with Ash McKenna. The books are clearly collectors’ items, as I see them online with prices ranging from $30 to almost $60.

RH: I’m not sure anyone is actually paying that, but god bless ‘em if they are…

When Polis folded I held onto the rights. We poked around a little, and a lot of places interested in putting out a five-book backlist also want a new book to go with it. I’m not interested in writing more Ash at the moment—I like the ending I gave him—and my other stuff is already tied up.

But also, the books are being developed for TV. The team behind it is brilliant, the pilot script is amazing. So I’m going to hold onto them a little while longer. They’re a scratch-off lotto ticket at this point. If the show moves forward, they could be worth a lot more.

Those books will be back eventually. I’m just not currently in a rush.

OBAAT: What’s next for you? Will there be more in the Assassins Anonymous franchise?

RH: Indeed! So the third book, Three Hitmen and a Baby, comes out imminently. (Editor’s Note: ‘Imminently’ = today.) The fourth is called City of Killers. It’s set in Bangkok, and it’s a very fun premise, plus has a very cool payoff for people who’ve read all the books. That should be out in June 2027.

After that, I’m out of contract. If the series continues to do well and there’s an appetite for more and I still have ideas—sure, I’d love to write these characters for a long time. But the market dictates. So if you really want to make sure Mark and his friends stay alive, buy multiple copies, give them as gifts, tell friends, leave reviews… every little bit helps.

I’ve been wanting to dip my toe back into the blog pool for a while now, but blogging is much like exercising: the longer you go without doing it, the harder it is to start again.

Tidying my hard drive in anticipation of a new laptop, I was surprised to find how many writing tips from my betters (read: just about everyone who can spell)I have compiled over the years.

Thus was born as misguided an idea as you are likely to find on the Internet outside of anything posted by Donald Trump. Using these tips from famous writers as fodder, I’m going to post my own thoughts about them, mostly how they relate to my writing, if at all. This could be an educational exercise, in which case yay for me. It could also be a catastrophe, in which case yay for you, as it’s always fun to watch someone else crash and burn when it’s their own damn fault.

 Today’s installment looks at six writing tips from John Steinbeck.

 Abandon the idea that you are ever going to finish. Lose track of the 400 pages and write just one page for each day, it helps. Then when it gets finished, you are always surprised.

This is a variation of the dictum The Beloved Spouse™ taught me years ago: eat the elephant one bite at a time. I don’t think I could have written seventeen novels any other way.

Write freely and as rapidly as possible and throw the whole thing on paper. Never correct or rewrite until the whole thing is down. Rewrite in process is usually found to be an excuse for not going on. It also interferes with flow and rhythm which can only come from a kind of unconscious association with the material.

This may be the one tenet I observe most religiously, so much so some first drafts look more like screenplays, as I leave notes for what needs to be filled in so I don’t lose momentum.

Forget your generalized audience. In the first place, the nameless, faceless audience will scare you to death and in the second place, unlike the theater, it doesn’t exist. In writing, your audience is one single reader. I have found that sometimes it helps to pick out one person—a real person you know, or an imagined person and write to that one.

This is something I learned as a musician when a performance wasn’t going as well as I liked. I’d pick a single person in the audience, typically in the back row, and play just for them. As a trumpeter, this made me project, which forced me to breathe and phrase properly regardless of the volume. It works just as well for writing, even if the single person in my imaginary audience is me.

If a scene or a section gets the better of you and you still think you want it — bypass it and go on. When you have finished the whole you can come back to it and then you may find that the reason it gave trouble is because it didn’t belong there.

See my response to Number Two above. It’s not unheard of for me to go back, complete the chapter, then throw it away in a later draft.

Beware of a scene that becomes too dear to you, dearer than the rest. It will usually be found that it is out of drawing.

Steinbeck’s version of ‘kill your darlings.’ I cut a whole chapter from the final draft of the work in progress, even though I really wanted it in there, so much so I made excuses to keep it in all previous drafts. Reading through it this time, knowing it was my last chance to make changes, forced me to realize that, while well-written and entertaining, it did not move the story and did not tell us anything about the characters we didn’t already know.

If you are using dialogue—say it aloud as you write it. Only then will it have the sound of speech.

It used to scare The Beloved Spouse™ when she’d hear me arguing with myself behind a closed door. It probably still does – as it should – but even she agrees it makes the books better.

I enjoyed this exercise more than I thought I would. I hope you did, too.

 This is a shorter quarterly list than usual. That doesn’t mean read any less, or that I didn’t like as many books. I’m a Shamus judge this year, so my reading time has been consumed by award submissions and I don’t think it’s appropriate to single any of them out until the short list has been announced. Those books will be noted in a future “Favorite Reads” post.

The Blooding, Joseph Wambaugh. An examination of the first homicides solves through DNA analysis. Two young women were brutally murdered in only a few minutes from the English university where the scientific breakthrough was made, allowing their cases to be used to prove the theories. Fascinating from start to finish and told in Wambaugh’s avuncular yet riveting style. I never met the man, though we corresponded once, but I was truly sad when I learned of his death last year. He was a national treasure for both his fiction and non-fiction writing, and the crime writing community owes him more than can be expressed.

The Fatal Saving Grace, Jim Nesbvitt. It took nerve to reintroduce loose cannon private eye Ed Earl Burch into a formal law enforcement setting, but Nesbitt shows the inevitable friction while also displaying the ways in which Ed Earl was a stud cop in his day. The supporting cast plays well off of the protagonist and the dialog is always entertaining without drawing attention to itself. Nesbitt also creates a sense of place reminiscent of the movie Hell or High Water, though this story takes place farther west. I’m going to have to go back and look into some of the books I missed in this series while I wait for the next one, and I am waiting for the next one.

Hang on St. Christopher, Adrian McKinty. Book Eight of the Sean Dufffy trilogy. (That was the author’s original plan. The first three went so well he couldn’t stop, and we’re all better off because of it.) Duffy is a Catholic cop in Northern Ireland during The Troubles, which means he has to check his car for bombs every time he gets in. The friction between Duffy and the protestant cops has pretty much died down, but no one else he deals with during an investigation trusts him, including Special Branch. McKinty creates a sense of time and place like few others, and Duffy is a fascinating and always growing character. Let’s hope the author has at least one more of these in him.

The Last Exile, Sam Wiebe. Book Five of the Wakeland series picks up where Sunset and Jericho left off, with Dave Wakeland having left the agency he was running with partner Jeff Chen. The book starts with Wakeland living in Montreal and returning to Vancouver to help Chen’s cousin, lawyer Shuzhen Chen. What starts as a protection job soon enmeshes Wakeland with a ruthless motorcycle gang as he learns the agency is in the midst of going under, due in large part to an unscrupulous real estate developer. Wiebe always makes the Wakeland novels about more than the case, and The Last Exile is no exception.

 It’s Friday the Thirteenth, and what better way to show this blog is uncowed by superstition than by having our favorite guest, another man uncowed by anything, although much of that has to do with how much younger and inexperienced he is than me. of course, I’m talking about the Godfather of Mob Fiction, Charlie Stella.

One Bite at a Time: Welcome back, Charlie. You’re one of the most popular interviews we do here at OBAAT, both with readers and with me. It’s always good to chat with you.

Raskin’s World is a bit of  departure for you, as none of the primary POV characters are ‘criminals’ in the way most people think of the word, though one is a serious grifter. Why the change?

Charlie Stella: I’ve worked in law firms most of my word processing life (about 41 years) and I always found it interesting how lawyers, for the most part, are a lot more like the rest of us (good and bad), than some of them like to think. Many assume they are above and beyond because of that degree, and that they are protected by a shield, a legal degree, that is respected for all the wrong reasons. Raskin’s World isn’t a condemnation of lawyers. It’s more a reality check. I guess it’s my verismo opera. Some of those MF’ers should be slapped once in a while to bring them back around. I’ve met a few who are very decent people and not ideological morons.

OBAAT: Looking at it from the writing side, did you have to change anything about your approach or process for Raskin’s World?

CS: I had to rely on a bit more narrative than I’m used to using. I changed the ending several times at the suggestion of my wife and publisher. It was much darker originally. I couldn’t escape the mob after all, but that Chekhov bit about using something that is introduced early to be used at the end worked for me. One gun is introduced late in the novel, but early enough in a scene toward the end to think, “Chekov.” I probably liked that particular Carol ending (I just had to make sure I had her name right) more than I probably should, but I did enjoy writing it.

OBAAT: You mentioned how long you worked in law firms. How much of that experience is depicted in Raskin’s World, either directly or by influence?

CS: A lot of it. One place went through a Jerry situation (had to check for his name too—what happens almost immediately after I start a new project, I forget the old ones). It’s really no different than what happens everywhere. Again, verismo opera.

OBAAT: Near as I can figure, Raskin’s World is your fourteenth novel, plus a non-fiction ‘as told to’ book. (Dogfella.) What keeps you going, and how many books are stacked up in your imagination waiting for you to find time to write them?

CS: I’ve got at least that many that were total failures, about 3 or 4 now that have been rejected, etc. Moving away from mob exclusive novels seems to go with the times. The more irrelevant the mob becomes, and we realize how much worse a government is regarding all matters of corruption and violence, the less interesting the mob is to me (and the more I want to write more Declan type novels). There are some truly horrible people within the mob world, but they collectively can’t hold a jockstrap compared to a government that would arm a genocide.

OBAAT: I don’t know if I’ve ever asked you what got you to start writing for publication in the first place, so here goes: What got you to start writing for publication in the first place?

CS: Dave Gresham. My English teacher in Minot, North Dakota, where I went to play football. He was so smart, so charismatic, so interesting, I thought: Maybe I shouldn’t be a dumbski the rest of my life. He entered something I wrote into a college magazine or something. It got an honorable mention, I think, which had to make it a charity project, probably by Dave. Anyway, I probably started getting serious after that and I remember him telling me, “Once you see your name in print, you’ll want it forever.” Something like that. He was right. Getting published for me was a goal at first and I didn’t think I had a prayer at it. Then it became an obsession … and the right thing happened at the right time in my life. I was seeking an excuse to get out of a bad marriage and a bad lifestyle … and I took a job at a Manhattan law firm working midnights and crossed over with my wife (she was working a split shift). Luckiest thing that ever happened to me. I wrote Eddie’s World (my first published novel) to impress her. Ann Marie puts up with my insanity, but she’s no fan of dumbskis.

OBAAT: Dave Gresham got the ball rolling and we’ve spoken before of the influences of Elmore Leonard and George V. Higgins. Who else has been influential in inspiring you and developing your style?

CS: Writers who were so impressive to me are the guys and gals I could never be as good as (FACT), and that goes back in time to the present. Steinbeck, Dostoevsky, that Chekov fella, Roth, Updike, etc. and today I’d say guys like yourself (talk about great dialogue), Lynn Kostoff, Michael Harris, Ben Whitmer, Merle Drown … more, I’m sure, but I’m brain farting right now. Edibles are taking a toll on my memory, but they do keep me calm watching football and they help me sleep.

OBAAT: Following up on the previous question, who do you read and why?

CS: It’s been a big change in my life. The MFA program was worth gold to me for who I was introduced to as a reader. I’d get a suggestion to read a book or two by a specific author, and I’d read as many of their works as possible (Alice Munro, Raymond Carver, Patricia Highsmith, Richard Bausch, that Chekov fella again, Hemingway, etc.) I read my ass off for a few years after the program. Then, a few years ago, I switched over to my political heroes and their writings. I did a TON of research on Zionism (several years). These days I’m reading a lot of leftover New Yorker articles on the throne because I’m too busy writing Declan (new novel) and researching, plus Facebook posts that keep me engaged. Last week I read one about that psychotic lunatic, Laura Loomer. Sweet Jesus, what a fucking nutjob.

OBAAT: The inevitable final question for any interview: what’s next?

CS: It’s called Declan and I owe you and the great Irish author Declan Burke for the title. I was fishing for a title, and you had him up on your page. It is an anti-ICE novel/get off your asses America novel, and I’m just beyond the halfway point. It’s about the American people finding the stones to do what is necessary to end this fascist bullshit in the streets. ICE thugs are nothing but bottom of the barrel losers with a passion to fulfill their racist, macho, misogynistic fantasies out in real life, and they’ve been granted that ability, with immunity, to beat on women, the elderly, and everybody else. How many “proud boys” and “oath keepers” are working as ICE thugs? Punks with badges. Declan features an actual resistance the likes of which we’ve yet to see in America, except for the Black Panthers who have armed themselves and are daring the punks with badges to give them a try. Declan starts with some Native Americans taking it to ICE thugs, and their actions begin to resonate with others. An Irish American family is the focal point (the Doyles) and how they are affected by it all (one of their sisters is killed by a reckless ICE agent trying to kill someone else, and her sister is wounded). That’s the start-off point. It’s been a lot of fun to write, and the research has been so enlightening, including what a Browning M2. .50 can do. (smiley face). I thought I might finish it before the Super Bowl, but it’ll take another month or so. As a change-up, I’m having my daughter give me feedback as I write it. My wife and my personal editor, Merle Drown, will get it when I’m comfortable with an ending.

Thanks for this. Always appreciated.

OBAAT: No more than I appreciate you taking the time. I’m looking forward to Declan and hope you’ll come back to talk about it when it’s out.

Raskin's World drops on April 3.

 One Bite at a Time: Criminal Econ 101 is your seventh Nick Forte novel. How long do you think you’ll continue to write this character?

Dana King: I have another in progress now. After that he’ll appear in at least one of the upcoming Penns River novels. Beyond that, we’ll see. A few years ago I didn’t know I’d write as many Fortes as I have already. It all depends on what ideas I get that are best suited for him and how long I continue to write. I am seventy years old, you know.

OBAAT: Forte is a throwback, tough guy private investigator. Why not make him more in line with the recent zeitgeist of more woke, less violent detectives?

DK: Because the PIs I read that made me want to write these stories were in the classic mold. Sam Spade, Philip Marlowe, The Continental Op, Spenser, Patrick Kenzie, Elvis Cole. They all have unique personalities and handle many things differently from each other, but they’re all guys who will talk a problem out for only so long. It should also be pointed out that Forte is not insensitive. He’s just willing to tune up those who need it.

OBAAT: You didn’t mention Mike Hammer.

DK: Mickey Spillane had a lot to do with me starting into writing, but as I developed novels I found Hammer’s approach and Spillane’s style had become stereotypical and hard to write around without sounding derivative. I haven’t read a Hammer novel in a long time. The last one I read seemed stylistically dated, but that’s the fault of all the imitators since. I also tried to watch Hill Street Blues and Moonlighting a few years ago and couldn’t get into them. Other shows have taken what they did and refined it to the point where some things in the originals seem almost primitive. That doesn’t mean I love and respect those shows any less. Same with Spillane and Hammer.

OBAAT: You said Mickey Spillane had a lot to do with you starting to write. Where did the idea for Nick Forte come from and how did Mickey Spillane influence that?

DK: I used to be a professional musician. Trumpet player. My career, such as it was, ended and I was looking for a creative outlet when a good friend complained about an audition being rigged. Understand, that doesn’t mean anything underhanded went on. Mostly it meant some people thought the orchestra already knew who they wanted and went through the motions of holding auditions, which meant a hundred fifty trumpet players had to pay to fly in from wherever to audition for a job they had no chance of getting.

Looking at such things from the outside as I was after quitting, I thought of an idea for a private eye who was knowledgeable about the ins and outs of the instrumental music business, called in to investigate a shady audition; my closest friends got thinly disguised characters based on them.

For the detective’s name, ‘Forte’ was an obvious choice. It means ‘loud’ in music, but is literally ‘strong’ in Italian. I chose ‘Nick’ because I needed a name that worked with an Italian surname and had the punch to it a hard consonant provides.

I spent a weekend binging the first three Mike Hammer novels and wrote the story in a week as both an homage and a satire. It was so well received by my friends I wrote another for the job I was working at the time, then another for the job I went to from there. A few people encouraged me to try my hand at a novel. As almost all writers do, I wrote a couple that will never see the light of day, though one was able to garner me an agent. The third was A Small Sacrifice, which earned a Shamus nomination, so I figured I knew what I was doing.

OBAAT: Readers tend to give Forte a pass for some of his more egregious transgressions thanks to the relationship he has with his daughter, Caroline. Was that something you deliberately set out to do?

DK: It’s a funny thing, how writing works sometimes. I didn’t set out to do that, but as I revised the book I saw how a close relationship with his daughter leavened Forte’s character. I’, a divorced father myself and used that to add some depth and occasional lessening of tension. Almost everything Nick and Caroline do in the books is drawn from things I’ve done with my own daughter, Rachel. I chose the name ‘Caroline’ for Nick’s daughter because it was first runner-up for a middle name for Rachel.

OBAAT: I asked Nick Forte in a recent interview how he “reconciled the loving father [Caroline] knows with the violent man others may see and she’s learning about through the Internet?” He told me I should ask you. Okay, I will. How does he do it?

DK: Forte doesn’t need to reconcile a thing. He is who and what he is. Like anyone else, he conducts himself differently in different situations and he takes those situations, and the people in them, as he finds them. When he’s with Caroline, he’s a loving father. When he’s with someone who needs sorted out, he’s more than capable. We all have multiple sides to our personalities.

OBAAT: Forte ‘guest stars’ in a couple of your Penns River novels. (Grind Joint and The Spread.) How did that come about and what makes it work, in your opinion?

DK: In Grind Joint I needed a character to color outside the lines a little so that the lead detective in Penns River, Ben ‘Doc’ Dougherty, could remain true to himself and still get the book to come out right. I’d written four Forte novels by that time, and Nick was perfect, so I made him Doc’s first cousin to make the relationship closer and explain how this Chicago PI comes to a little town in Western Pennsylvania precisely when they need him most..

OBAAT: You’ve twice been nominated for Shamus Awards by the Private Eye Writers of America, and this year you’re on one of the awards committees. What does PWA mean to you?

DK: Private eye fiction may be the most uniquely American literary genre. The Irish author Declan Hughes – creator of the Ed Loy books – gave an impassioned speech at Bouchercon in 2008 about how, when done right, the PI novel is the highest form of crime fiction. Declan made me proud to write PI stories.

What Bob Randisi began with the intent of keeping the genre vital is, to me, a noble thing. The annual banquets were special, and I miss them since they were discontinued after COVID. They were opportunities for the True Believers to get together and celebrate what their peers were doing to keep the genre alive. I hope someday they’ll start up again.

As for the awards, Bob was open to self- and independently published writers submitting when no one else was. MWA wouldn’t consider me for membership and I had two Shamus nominations.

The Shamuses are also among the few awards that are not popularity contests, as they are decided by an author’s peers. It’s an honor to have been asked to serve on an awards committee. It allows me an opportunity to give back to the genrewhile acknowledging I have been a worthy contributor to it. That’s something sales alone cannot deliver.