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I have something very special to share with you today. It’s a brand-new, never-before-seen short story featuring the hero of my crime thriller series, Parker Hanson, which I wrote in response to a call for submissions to a crime fiction anthology.

The theme of the anthology is “crime without corpses,” and I chose to write about an investigation that takes place early on in Parker’s career as a private detective. In this story, he’s still stewing about losing his reporting job and bitter about...

If your books were adapted into a movie, who would you like to see cast to play your lead characters?

I was asked this question as part of an author Q&A by a book reviewer recently, and it’s such a fun question to think about. For this month’s newsletter, I thought I’d share my responses.

(FYI, you can read the full interview here.)

Parker Hanson, the former journalist turned private investigator at the center of my mystery series, is in his mid-40s, so maybe somebody like Jake Gyllenhaal...

There’s a long tradition within crime fiction of “badass” sidekicks who not only help the lead detective, but keep them out of danger and serve as enforcer when needed.

Think of Hawk, the mysterious mercenary and former French Foreign Legion member who’s like a brother to Robert B. Parker’s hard-boiled detective, Spenser. Or Mouse, the raging psychopath and childhood best friend of Ezekiel “Easy” Rawlins in Walter Mosley’s books. Or Joe Pike, the strong and silent assistant to Robert Crais’...

When I set out to create the character of Parker Hanson, the hero of my private investigator mystery series, I didn’t intend for him to become my alter ego.

But “write what you know,” the experts say. So that’s what I did.

As a result, whether consciously or not, I’ve imbued Parker with many of the same interests, experiences, and personality traits that I possess.

That’s not to say he’s a stand-in for me. Just that I see a lot of myself in him.

For instance, we’re both former journalists. We...

“How did you come up with that story?”

As an author, I hear this question a lot. So I thought I’d give a little insight into how my two mystery novels came together.

The idea for my first book, Swinging for Power, began with a single line.

As I’ve mentioned before, I’m a big fan of Robert B. Parker’s Spenser series of detective fiction. But Spenser is a tough guy, an ex-cop who’s a boxer. I wanted to write about a private investigator who’s much less physically imposing, a former journalist...

As a writer, I often have people asking me what my favorite books are or what got me interested in reading.

I’ve loved books from a very young age. My first relationship with a story that resonated deeply was hearing Stuart Little by E.B. White read aloud to us in the second grade. (Fun fact: I have a copy of Strunk and White’s The Elements of Style signed by E.B. White himself, as my mother worked with Mr. White’s niece many years ago.)

There was a road that was visible from the window of my...

Writing a novel is hard work. But it’s also fun work—or at least, it’s supposed to be.

To keep it fun, I played a little game with myself as I was writing my first novel, Swinging for Power. I decided to see how many 80s band names and musicians I could sneak into the text.

And now, my little game has become an Easter egg hunt for readers.

Why 80s bands? I’ve always been a big fan of the music from that decade, and I decided to make it a character trait in my novel’s hero, former investigative...