BIO

I started writing thrillers when one of my then law partners complained to me about another partner. I told him we should write a murder mystery, kill the son-of-a-bitch off in the first chapter and spend the rest of the book figuring out who did it. So, I did and I never looked back. That was in 1992.

I became a ten-year overnight success with the publication of my first book, Motion To Kill, in 2002, introducing trial lawyer Lou Mason. Lou made his second appearance in 2003’s Edgar® nominated The Last Witness. He managed to keep getting in and out of trouble in Cold Truth (2004) and Deadlocked (2005), which was nominated for a Shamus award and has been optioned for film. I retired from my law practice in 2006 and still haven’t looked back.

The publication of Shakedown (2008) marks the beginning of a new series featuring FBI Special Agent Jack Davis. Jack’s world is coming apart and there is nothing he can do about it. One reason is a rare movement disorder that has come out of nowhere, causing him to shake when he should shoot. It’s something Jack and I have in common, his story providing me with a way of understanding mine.

I have learned some valuable lessons since I started writing. First, rewrite, but don't argue, when your mother tells you that your sex scenes are a little dry. Second, be nice to all your relatives. You never know when one of them will make a connection for you leading to a fantastic relationship with an agent. Third, when friends and strangers ask if they can be in your next book, tell them yes, so long as they pick one each from these three categories: hero or villain; living or dead; naked or dressed. I guarantee you that dead, naked villain will be the most popular choice.

For those of you interested in the statistical, my wife and I have three kids, all out in the world happily doing what they want where they want to do it. We also have two cockapoos, Roxy and Ruby, sisters born on Valentine's Day that may never grow up. I am a fourth generation Kansas Citian and am named after my great grandfather who came to the United States in 1881. Legend has it that he overheard his parents arranging his marriage and decided to take his chances in the New World, leaving under cover of darkness. I don't know whether the story is true but I subscribe to this quote from one of my favorite movies, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance: When legend becomes fact, print the legend.

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AUTHOR TALK

April 4, 2008

Joel Goldman is probably best known for his crime/thriller novels featuring trial lawyer Lou Mason. His latest work of fiction, SHAKEDOWN, is the first book in a new series centered on Jack Davis, an FBI Special Agent who suffers from a rare disorder that interferes with his ability to effectively do his job. In this interview --- consisting of a Q&A as well as a Note from the Author --- Goldman shares the story behind his new protagonist and describes the unique history of Kansas City, his hometown and the setting of his books. He also discusses current and future projects in the works and provides advice for aspiring writers.


Question: So what is SHAKEDOWN about?

Joel Goldman: Jack Davis is a 50-year old FBI agent who is haunted by the murder 20 years ago of his young son. His marriage is crumbling and his daughter is in love with an undercover FBI agent who may have crossed the line and dragged her with him. Kate Scanlon is an expert in the facial action coding system that reveals the truths hidden in micro facial expressions that flash by in the blink of an eye. When five people are slaughtered in a crack house Jack has under surveillance, his world explodes. He turns to Kate for help in tracking the killer and gets more than he asked for.

Q: Jack Davis is a departure from the Lou Mason. What makes him unique?

JG: Jack Davis is a man in mid-life whose mission is to give a voice to the voiceless victims of crime, to speak for the dead. In the midst of a murder investigation, he loses control of his career, his family and his body. He has to dig deep to hold on to the people he loves and the world he believes in.

Q: How does he do it?

JG: Jack only trusts the hard evidence. He has to open himself to the more subtle clues of human emotions that are hidden behind our facial masks.

Q: Is the facial action coding system real?

JG: Absolutely. Dr. Paul Ekman, a psychologist, developed it in the 1970s. Check out his website, www.paulekman.com, for more details.

Q: Will we see Jack Davis in another thriller after SHAKEDOWN?

JG: I'm working on a sequel to SHAKEDOWN titled THE DEAD MAN.

Q: Anything else in the pipeline?

JG: I wrote a short story titled “Knife Fight” that will be published in 2008 in a mystery anthology sponsored by the Mystery Writers of America. Linda Fairstein is the editor and I'll be in great company.

Q: You have a page on your website called Crime Scene. What's that about?

JG: One of the things that make any story come alive is where it takes place. That's certainly been true for me. My books are set in Kansas City, my hometown. Great writers make the setting where the story occurs as real and influential in the story as any character, whether it's a neighborhood, city, county or region. With Crime Scene, I'm going to explore those places and how writers bring them to life and ask readers to share their favorite character places with me.

Q: What drives your stories?

JG: That's a great question and it took me about two and a half books to figure that out. About midway through my third book, COLD TRUTH, I realized that I was writing about families and their conflicts as much as I was writing about murder and mayhem. The conflicts that stem from family relationships are textured, nuanced and varied. It's impossible to run out of ideas. All I have to do is ask myself what happens when things go wrong.

Q: Do you start with the characters or the plot?

JG: I start with the names. I create an inventory of male and female names, usually from newspapers and obituaries. Once I get started, I don't like to flop around trying to decide a character's name. After that, I focus more on the characters because their strengths, weaknesses and relationships will drive the plot.

Q: What advice would you give to someone who wants to be a writer?

JG: Just do it. The hardest thing for some people to do is to start. Writing a poem, a story, a play or a book seems overwhelming. Many people have told me that they want to or plan to write a book but they never do anything about it. If writing really is in your blood, the hard part won't be starting. It will be stopping.


CRIME SCENE

The crime scene is more than the chalk outline marking where the victim falls. It’s the world surrounding that pale silhouette, spreading out in uneven ripples from the perimeter cordoned off with yellow tape to the metes and bounds of the jurisdiction that investigates and prosecutes the offense to the ill-defined society that wittingly or not harbors a killer in its midst.

The place where these overlapping scenes congeal and conspire is as alive and organic as any flesh and blood character. It makes and breaks promises, rewards strength and punishes weakness. It fills hearts with hope and drains them without a backward glance. Done right, place becomes a central character, casting heroes and villains against a geographic backdrop, driving the action as surely as any twitchy trigger finger.

Los Angeles has been immortalized as a place character by authors from Raymond Chandler to Michael Connelly. Dennis Lehane created domineering characters in the Points and the Flats of Boston while Elmore Leonard gave Detroit a singular pulse. George Pelecanos made real Washington, D.C.’s struggle to provide justice for all. New York’s literary parents are legion and legendary. Fictional places are no less powerful characters as Scott Turow and Nancy Pickard proved with their creations of Kindle County and Small Plains, KS. Click here for a 4-part NPR series, Crime In The City. Read or listen as four of the best mystery authors writing today talk about the cities that are characters in their novels.

My books take place in my hometown of Kansas City where my family has lived for nearly one hundred years. One of my great-grandfathers left Poland in 1881 for the New World under cover of darkness rather than marry the girl his parents had chosen for him, settling in Kansas City for reasons lost to time. Another great-grandfather, also from Eastern Europe, ran a grocery store in Alaska during the gold rush, later deciding to move to Kansas City because it was in the center of the country. My grandfather and a friend, down on their luck during the Depression, asked Kansas City’s boss, Tom Pendergast, for permission to sell the scrap from the construction of Bagnel Dam at the Lake of the Ozarks, giving birth to a salvage business that lasted more than forty years.

Originally nothing more than a trading post at the confluence of the Missouri and Kansas rivers, in 1838 the founders decided against naming it Possum Trot, settling for the more visionary Town of Kansas, later incorporating it as Kansas City in 1850. Once a wide-open town known for speakeasies, jazz and corrupt machine politics, everything has always been up to date in Kansas City. Mindful of its wooly past, Kansas City has a hard edge and soft heart.

Today, Kansas City is home to more than two million people spread over 380 square miles, though less than a fourth of them live inside the legal boundaries of Kansas City, MO. The metropolitan area covers territory straddling the Missouri-Kansas state line, from the airport north of the Missouri River, to the NASCAR track across the state line in western Wyandotte County, Kansas, to the Truman Sports Complex in eastern Jackson County, Missouri. There are better than forty municipalities spread over five counties and two states, enough for everyone to claim a fiefdom yet many will tell a stranger that they live in Kansas City rather than Raytown, Prairie Village, Independence or Overland Park. The southern reaches aren’t identified with an iconic landmark. In Johnson County on the Kansas side, they are defined by large, new and expensive rooftops sheltering more per capita disposable income than all but a handful of the country’s zip codes, extending beyond the eye’s reach much as prairie grasses must have in another time. The rooftops on the Missouri side are smaller, older and modest, covering the working middle class. Despite its reach, you can drive from one edge of the metropolitan area to the other in forty-five minutes, sixty in traffic.


For more about Kansas City, click on http://www.kcmo.org/kcmo.nsf/web/kchistory and take a photographic tour here. Much of SHAKEDOWN takes place in Kansas City, KS. Learn more about it at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kansas_City,_Kansas

© Copyright 2008, Joel Goldman. All rights reserved.

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