Interview with Reed Farrel Coleman, author of Hurt Machine

Hurt Machine by Reed Farrel Coleman
Named one of the ten best mysteries of 2011 by Publisher’s Weekly
Pre-order at Amazon and Barnes & Noble

We’re big on Moe. That’s Moe Prager, the Brooklyn private investigator in Reed Farrel Coleman’s private eye series for which he’s won the Shamus Award three times for Best Detective Novel of the Year, as well as the Macavity, Barry and Anthony Awards. A few days ago, Publisher’s Weekly named Hurt Machine one of the top 10 mysteries of the year. In a starred review, Publishers Weekly called Hurt Machine a winner (compete review posted below interview). To us, it’s not only a winner, it sprints way ahead of the competition.

Moe has always been philosophical, intelligent, sometimes downright funny. In Hurt Machine, Coleman digs deeper into Moe, taking us on a journey into the darker truths and wants and regrets of a man facing his mortality.

Thank you to Reed Farrel Coleman for being our guest interview today at Gums, Gams, and Gumshoes where he’ll be answering a couple of real-life PIs’ questions about their favorite fictional PI.

Question: Tim Hallinan called the Moe Prager series the “great undiscovered American private eye series.” Jack Bludis put it more bluntly (“How do you feel about being as good as you are and…the world at large, not even those who read mysteries, not knowing much about you and your writing?”). To paraphrase, you answered that it was frustrating but not so frustrating as to stand in the way of your writing. Since that interview, what’s hovering on your career horizon?

Coleman: Where to begin … Let’s cover Moe first. There’s a new Moe in the pipeline for next year. It’s entitled Onion Street—a title lifted from one of my poems—and I guess you’d call the book a prequel. In the previous seven Moe books I have only vaguely alluded to how Moe became a cop in the first place. Onion Street is that story. After Onion Street I think I’m planning one more book in the series.

On November 8, 2011, my stand-alone novel Gun Church debuted from Audible.com as an exclusive audio download—it will eventually be traditionally published and be available as an e-book. It’s the story of a former literary wunderkind, Kip Weiler, fallen on hard times. He’s teaching creative writing at a rural community college and prevents his class from meeting a violent end. Not only does he get a second fifteen minutes of fame, but the urge to write again. As a result of his heroics, he falls in with a cult-like group that worships the intrinsic nature of handguns. Things really get weird when the lines between Kip’s life and his art blur. Think Fight Club meets Wonder Boys with guns.

I have also signed a deal with a Canadian publisher to do at least two novellas featuring a PI named Gulliver Dowd. Gulliver is a pretty bitter fellow, a dwarf (his description, not mine) who becomes a PI after his adopted sister, a cop, is murdered. It’s an interesting thing to write a new PI series and Gulliver is such a different character than Moe. I’m having great fun with it.

I’m working on a sci fi YA novel as well. Otto Penzler is publishing a short story of mine called “The Book of Ghosts” and an essay on Robert B. Parker. I also have short stories coming out in Long Island Noir, in a Bob Randisi anthology called Crime Square, and one edited by Gary Phillips called Scoundrels. Other than that, I’ve got nothing going on.      

Guns, Gams, and Gumshoes: In that same interview with Bludis, you said, “The very basis of the hard-boiled tradition is the reckoning of inequities.” That rings true for the real-world of private investigations, too. Which brings us to this question: how do you nail the real world of a contemporary private eye? Trust us, we’ve read plenty of PI genre novels that don’t.

Coleman: I take that as high praise coming from real PIs. Thank you. It’s in the nature of my connection to character, I think. To me, it’s never so much about the mechanics of being a PI, but about expressing the feelings and thoughts a genuine PI might have in any given circumstance. If you get the feelings right, you get the character right. If you get the character right, you’ll hook the reader.

Guns, Gams, and Gumshoes: You made the comment that you don’t outline. So after you nail the first 50 or so pages, you let Moe lead you into the mist?

Coleman: I let Moe lead from page 1. It’s just that I edit the first 50 pages like mad to make sure I have a solid base on which to build the structure of the novel. If you don’t have a good book by page 50, you don’t have a good book. But generally, I follow the story where it takes me in the same way I listen to what the characters have to tell me.

Guns, Gams, and Gumshoes: What do you think are three critical elements for a great private eye story?

Coleman: A fascinating protagonist, a world that conspires against him or her, and a meaningful crime to solve. Also keep Joseph Wambaugh’s brilliant advice in mind at all times. “It’s not how the detective works on the case. It’s how the case works on the detective.”

Guns, Gams, and Gumshoes: You’re one of the instructors for MWA University, as well as being an adjunct professor for Hofstra University. For young writers itching to write a private eye novel, what advice would you give them?

Coleman: Write a vampire romance instead. Just kidding … sort of. My advice to someone who is determined to take on the a PI novel is simple: Character, character, character. As long as your protagonist is someone the reader can inhabit, you’ve got a chance. Also, don’t avoid cliches, but use them to your advantage. Play with them, tweak them, turn them on their ear.

Guns, Gams, and Gumshoes: As you know, the L.A. (one time Brooklyn) Dodgers are up for sale. Should the Dodgers return to Brooklyn, would your life be complete?

Coleman: You know, that’s a fascinating question because I was born the year before the Dodgers moved to LA. For me, their loss was never something I felt directly. It was more about how their loss hurt my family and all of Brooklyn and how that hurt became background noise in my life. The Brooklyn I was born into was a place of once was and what used to be. I never knew Brooklyn in its glory, only its decay and I think that comes through in my writing. So no, LA can keep the Dodgers. I have too much fun being a miserable Mets fan. PS Screw the Yankees.

 

Bio: Reed Farrel Coleman

Called a hard-boiled poet by NPR’s Maureen Corrigan and the noir poet laureate in the Huffington Post, Reed Farrel Coleman has published fourteen novels. He is the three-time recipient of the Shamus Award for Best Detective Novel of the Year and a two-time Edgar Award nominee. He has also won the Macavity, Barry, and Anthony Awards. He was the co-editor of the poetry journals Poetry Bone and The Lineup. Reed was the editor of the short story anthology Hard Boiled Brooklyn. His short fiction, poetry, and essays have appeared in numerous publications. He is an instructor for MWA U and an adjunct professor at Hofstra University. He lives with his wife and family on Long Island.

Praise for Hurt Machine

“Razor-edged contemporary whodunits don’t get much better than Shamus-winner Coleman’s seventh Moe Prager mystery (after 2010’s Innocent Monster). Shortly after the Brooklyn PI learns that he has stomach cancer, Carmella Melendez, his ex-wife, asks him to look into the stabbing murder of her estranged sister, Alta Conseco. Two months before her demise, Conseco and a fellow EMT, Maya Watson, became the subject of international outrage after failing while off-duty to help Robert Tillman, a cook who suffered a fatal stroke at a Manhattan bistro. Prager pursues the obvious course of seeking a link between Conseco’s and Tillman’s deaths. Watson has become an uncommunicative recluse, who provides little help, but the owner of the restaurant near where Conseco died is an old friend and an ex-cop, happy to help in any way he can. Logical and surprising plot twists combine with Prager’s world-weary narrative voice to produce another winner.”
—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

Mark Your Calendars: November 9 interview with Reed Farrel Coleman, author of Hurt Machine

Mark your calendars to drop by Guns, Gams, and Gumshoes on Wednesday, November 9, for our interview with Reed Farrel Coleman, author of Hurt Machine, which Publishers Weekly just named one of the top 10 mysteries of the year.

Here at Guns, Gams, and Gumshoes, we’re big Moe fans. Hurt Machine is the best of Moe, the one that will catapult Coleman into the public eye as one of must-read authors in the mystery genre. Never heard of Reed Farrel Coleman? Time you did. We added his bio below. You can pre-order Hurt Machine at Amazon and Barnes & Noble

Bio: Reed Farrel Coleman

Called a hard-boiled poet by NPR’s Maureen Corrigan and the noir poet laureate in the Huffington Post, Reed Farrel Coleman has published fourteen novels. He is the three-time recipient of the Shamus Award for Best Detective Novel of the Year and a two-time Edgar Award nominee. He has also won the Macavity, Barry, and Anthony Awards. He was the co-editor of the poetry journals Poetry Bone and The Lineup. Reed was the editor of the short story anthology Hard Boiled Brooklyn. His short fiction, poetry, and essays have appeared in numerous publications. He is an instructor for MWA U and an adjunct professor at Hofstra University. He lives with his wife and family on Long Island.

PRAISE for Hurt Machine

“Razor-edged contemporary whodunits don’t get much better than Shamus-winner Coleman’s seventh Moe Prager mystery (after 2010’s Innocent Monster). Shortly after the Brooklyn PI learns that he has stomach cancer, Carmella Melendez, his ex-wife, asks him to look into the stabbing murder of her estranged sister, Alta Conseco. Two months before her demise, Conseco and a fellow EMT, Maya Watson, became the subject of international outrage after failing while off-duty to help Robert Tillman, a cook who suffered a fatal stroke at a Manhattan bistro. Prager pursues the obvious course of seeking a link between Conseco’s and Tillman’s deaths. Watson has become an uncommunicative recluse, who provides little help, but the owner of the restaurant near where Conseco died is an old friend and an ex-cop, happy to help in any way he can. Logical and surprising plot twists combine with Prager’s world-weary narrative voice to produce another winner.”
—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

See you Wednesday, Writing PI

Private Investigator Technique: Canvassing Neighborhoods

What Does “Canvassing a Neighborhood” Mean?

Canvassing a neighborhood (also referred to as simply “canvassing”) means checking a neighborhood for:

• Evidence of someone living or visiting the area (such as locating the person’s vehicle).
• Verification from a neighbor or family member that someone lives at an address or may have recently visited there.
• Suggestions from friends or family members as to where a person might be.

Often, a PI will be straight-up and say she’s an investigator looking for an individual (this is what Dog the Bounty Hunter does—although some people he interviews will refuse to give up information about the skip (person being located), he usually convinces others it’s in the skip’s best interest to be found, and they give him the information he needs).

On the other hand, a PI might use a pretext (a story) or another identity (for example, pretend to be an old friend) to get people to divulge information.  In our business, we once pretended to be taking a survey (we showed up at every door in the neighborhood with our clipboards and pencils).  In the course of conversations with people who answered their doors, we slipped in questions about a particular person we were skiptracing (who used to live in the neighborhood) to see what information we could mine to his current whereabouts.

A Pet Investigation: Canvassing the Local Parks

We’re not pet detectives, but once we fell into just such a case.  A client lost several (three or four) Norwegian Elkhounds and asked if we could please help.  Our first thought was to do what we often do to find people: canvas the neighborhoods.  But instead of local residential streets, we canvassed parks.  And guess what.  We found the Norwegian Elkhounds in a park that had an undeveloped wildlife section and a lake.  In this case, canvassing neighborhoods worked.

How to Remove Your Name Being Tagged on the Internet

You idly looked up your name on Google, curious what links and images display — and surprise! There’s an article or photo linked to your name and you have no idea why. Maybe you check out the article/photo, see nothing unusual, and let it go. But what if the article is on a topic that’s embarrassing or humiliating to you? Or a photo associated to your name is one from your past, one you never agreed could be published? Or what if the photo is of someone you broke ties with long ago — or worse, a stalker — and that person has ensured your name is now linked with him/her on the Internet?

You’ve been tagged without your permission. Meaning, your name has been inserted as a tag to that computer item.

What do we mean by “tag”?  A tag is a keyword or term (such as your full name) assigned to a piece of information, such as a computer file or digital image. Basically, the purpose of tags is twofold: they help describe an item and they allow others to find that item (such as a blog, article or photo) by using that keyword or term in searches. Tags are generally inserted by the item’s creator.

Unless you are the subject of the article or photo, why would a person use your name as a tag? Maybe it’s a mistake or an oversight. Maybe you have a significant following on the Internet and that person is trying to take advantage of searches on your name, which is a cheap tactic at best. Or the person’s intentions could be darker.

So how can you go about getting rid of your name as an unwanted tag? Below are a few tips:

1. To delete a name tag in Picasa, Picasa Web Albums, or Google+, click here

2. To delete a name in a photo tag in Facebook, check here

3. Contact the organization directly. For example, if your photo is tagged in a website, contact the website developer/owner (whose contact information is typically on the home page, often at the bottom of the page), explain your name has been incorrectly used as a tag, provide the link or reference, and insist the tag be removed immediately.

4. Contact the individual. If you know the person who created the tag (such as the writer of an article), contact that person and request your name be removed. Often, writers’ contact information is at the bottom of their articles. If there is no contact information, contact the publisher directly.

Have a great week, Writing PIs

Denver’s Nick and Nora: Real-Life Private Eyes in the News

You know us as the Writing PIs. In this week’s Westword, Denver’s weekly independent newspaper, we’re also “these married Denver detectives” in the paper’s cover story:

That cover is pretty cool (see above). They made it look like a beat-up dime novel with a tough, noir-ish private eye in a fedora and trenchcoat, holding a gun. The top right “page” corner is folded over, like you’re keeping your place in the paperback story. The reporter, Melanie Asmar, met with us between three and four times for interviews…toward the end she told us of her vision for the story (layering a writer’s PI story, based on one of our cases with us as the story’s protagonists, with interviews with us). She did a fantastic job.

To read about our cases, how we became PIs, and more than you probably ever wanted to know about a couple of married Denver detectives, click on the below link:

Westword: The Plot Thickens

Have a great week, Writing PIs AKA Denver’s Nick and Nora

Motivations and Power Plays in Murder

 

On Thursday, August 18, we’re guests at Handcuffed to the Ocean, a blog about “crime, mysteries and adventures on the high seas.” One of the blog authors is our friend and peer, Steven K. Brown, author of The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Private Investigating. Steven Kerry Brown began his investigative career as a special agent for the FBI. For the past 18 years, he has successfully managed his own private investigation firm, Millennial Investigative Agency. He’s also appeared on such television programs as Hard Copy and 60 Minutes, and speaks frequently before civic and professional groups.

On our guest blog at Handcuffed to the Ocean we’ll be discussing several real-world examples of motivations for murder, along with our lessons learned as PIs. Because mystery writers sometimes use organized crime as a tool for creating compelling plots, characters and conflicts, our case examples focus on organized crime and how it employs power plays in murder.  Click below link to read the article:

Handcuffed to the Ocean: Motivations for Murder

 

Have a good week, Writing PIs

From Guns, Gams, and Gumshoes: Three Nonfiction Books on Private Investigations

Hello readers,

Here at Guns, Gams, and Gumshoes we enjoy blogging about private investigations, many of our topics geared to writers writing sleuths/private investigators. We also walk the talk as we co-own a legal investigations firm. If in the near future one of us returns to also practicing law, we still plan for both of us to conduct investigative work, too.

How to Write a Dick

As our motto says, we also happen to be writers. A few months ago, we finally published an ebook that’s been in the works for years: How to Write a Dick: A Guide for Writing Fictional Sleuths from a Couple of Real-Life Sleuths. This was truly, as they say, a labor of love. We’ve enjoyed answering writers’ questions over the years, presenting workshops at writers’ conferences, writing articles about investigations and crafting plausible PI scenarios…and all that and more went into How to Write a Dick.

Currently available on Kindle and Nook.

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How Do Private Eyes Do That?

As we’ve compiled dozens of articles here at Guns, Gams, and Gumshoes, we imagined it’d be kinda cool to put “the best of Guns, Gams, and Gumshoes” into a book, too.  But we’re not going to call it “The Best of…” because maybe some of those “best” ones are still to be written. After we pondered what the title should be, we decided something straight-forward and to the point was best…something like How Do Private Eyes Do That?

How Do Private Eyes Do That? Articles on the Art of Private Investigations, available October 2011 on Kindle.

How to Be a Lawyer’s Dick

We have a third book we’re working on, geared to legal investigations which is our field of expertise. What do legal investigators do? We specialize in cases involving the courts and we’re typically employed by law firms or lawyers.  We frequently assist in preparing criminal defenses, locating witnesses, gathering and reviewing evidence, collecting information on the parties to the litigation, taking photographs, testifying in court and assembling evidence and reports for trials.

When it came to a title, How to Be a Legal Investigator was too boring, Legal Investigations 101 was too obvious. Then we decided to follow-up our first Dick book with a second one: How to Be a Lawyer’s Dick.  Definitely eye-catching.

How to Be a Lawyer’s Dick: Legal Investigations 101 will be available spring 2012 on Kindle and Nook.

Have a great weekend, Writing PIs

How a Private Investigator Conducts Surveillances in the Country

Today we’re guests at Terry’s Place, writer Terry Odell’s blog, where she’s posted our article “Writing Rural Surveillances.”  Writing a sleuth who needs to conduct a stakeout in the country?  Curious how a private investigator might prepare for such a surveillance? Drop by and check out the article.  We’re also giving away a Kindle version of How to Write a Dick: A Guide for Writing Fictional Sleuths from a Couple of Real-Life Sleuths.”  If you don’t have a Kindle, no problem.  You can download a free Kindle app for your PC or Mac.

Terry’s Place “Writing Rural Surveillances”

 

Have a great week, Writing PIs

Investigating Fraud: Answering Writers’ Questions

Available in July 2011

(Excerpt from our upcoming book How to Write a Dick: A Guide for Writing Fictional Sleuths from a Couple of Real-Life Sleuths, available July 2011 on Kindle and Nook)

Writer’s Question: What makes fraud different from an average garden-variety argument over a broken-down business deal?

Answer: We look for signs of one person (or several persons) who hide important information or who abuses his/her position in a business relationship.  An example of this would be an accountant who knowingly misrepresents the financial condition of a company.  Another example is a business manager who willingly hides lawsuits against his/her company from a potential purchaser.

Writer’s Question: Can someone be guilty of fraud in a divorce proceeding?

Answer: Yes.  When one partner hides income or assets, or even hides the fact of remarriage (when that remarried partner is still receiving maintenance from the former spouse), you find fraudulent misrepresentations that can be the subject of a separate civil lawsuit for fraud.  Keep in mind that any divorce proceeding is the dissolution of a marriage partnership that mimics a business partnership.  In both instances, you can have misrepresentation and reliance on those misrepresentations.

Writer’s Question: As investigators, what do you look for when you are asked to find fraud?

Answer: Like most investigations, a fraud investigation begins in public records, where we look to uncover business acquisitions and acquisitions of personal property that show an unusual amount of income that the partner investigated is otherwise unable to access.  For example, if a business owner who is selling a corporation that’s in financial trouble, has recently purchased a new car, a new house, and a boat — information we’ve dug up through property, vehicle and boat ownership records — we know that he/she is likely to have emptied corporate assets to make these purchases in his/her name.  What did the owner think h/she was accomplishing by purchasing these personal property items?  Hiding money.  Why didn’t h/she think they’d be caught?  Well, sad to say this, but often people just do dumb things, probably because they’ve gotten away with such acts in the past, too.  The flip side is people often don’t think someone else, such as a law firm/investigator, is going to dig for this information.

Have a great week, Writing PIs

Health Care Fraud and Organized Crime

This article now available in How Do Private Eyes Do That? available on Kindle and Nook.