Snapshot Into A Killer’s Mind tells the true story of Billy Jay Cader through the eyes of an investigative reporter. What motivated you to write this companion to your thriller series?

I was wanting a new character that would be likeable to the reader in comparison to Billy Jay. A character the reader could make a connection with who was compassionate to Billy Jay because of background misgivings. While Billy Jay does inexcusable things that are horrible and violent, I wanted Amy Jo to coax a small dose of understanding to induce an inner battle of how to deal with and feel the possible why’s and how’s of what makes Billy Jay who he is.

I also liked the stark differences between Amy Jo and Billy Jay, yet they find an intriguing common ground between each other. Amy Jo missing her grandfather so much that she seeks to see similarities in the two.
I thought it would be a unique way to create the setting of reading Amy Jo’s published work as a different twist to the normal way of introducing the next in series. I tried not to repeat too much by having Amy Jo re-write or introduce what had already been hashed out in book 4-The Reclamation-Amy Jo’s introduction into the series. I knew there would be some rehashing since she was writing about the interviews from the previous book. It was a risk I decided to take because I really liked the concept of making this series feel like “real time” by appearing as if Amy Jo wrote book 5.

What excited you about revisiting Billy Jay Cader’s character from this unique perspective?

I liked the idea of it being a fresh and new perspective of telling a story. It also gave me a chance to write in scenes Like Amy Jo seeking out and visiting Billy Jay’s father. That particular chapter was one of my favorites to write. Billy John Cader was such a despicable character when Billy Jay was young. I wanted to show by having Amy Jo visit, that he was the type to never let himself be redeemed. He would be who he was until the day he died, seeing no reason to sorry for any of his actions. A true sociopath.

If Hollywood came knocking, who would you cast as the lead characters?

Wow! This is a very hard question and one that I’m certain every writer plays with in their mind after working on a project so long. I can tell you who I see in my head when I’m writing, but the chance of ever actually getting them is almost laughable.

Here are a few though.

Billy Jay Cader- I see Don Johnson. He played a barn burner once in a tv special that I can’t remember the title. The way he played that part and the constant five o’clock stuble, jeans, and t-shirt fit the image of Billy Jay to me. His voice is kind of gravely too, much like my narrator of the Audible version of the books. Mr. Paul J McSorley, a master at voicing stories. A quick shout out to him as I am also fortunate enough to be a major writing contributor to his YouTube based podcast named Fear From The Heartland, where short macabre horror stories are produced and aired every Wednesday evening around 5 p.m. Central. It’s a sub-channel of Chilling Tales For Dark Nights.

Amy Jo Whitenhour- I would love to see Sandra Bullock play her part. She is who I see when I write Amy Jo’s parts. She is capable of having the right amount of innocence and sex appeal wrapped up in someone I could see living on her grandparents orange tree farm, yet spunky enough to be an investigative reporter with a hard past.

When and where will this book be available?

It is heading into production for Audible in June, and I hope to have it in ebook and print released by Amazon-Kindle and Audible by the end of July or early August. It will be able to be purchased online at these two places and other online sites where books can be ordered.

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