Double On The Murder follows a private investigator who gets pulled into a missing persons case that engulfs everyone connected to it in violence, secrets, and grief. What attracts you to the hardboiled detective tradition?

My father was a fan of noir / hardboiled detective movies. That’s where my exposure to the genre came from, when I was a kid.  And being a photographic artist, I was drawn to the shadowy, high-contrast look. I liked the way the men and women dressed, too, especially the sexy femme fatales.  As for the violence, secrets, and grief, that’s part of what makes the genre tick. By the time I was in my twenties, I had read Hammett’s and Chandler’s works, along with many other writers of the genre, which amounted to more influence and inspiration. 

How much of the plot was planned in advance, and how much developed as you wrote?

For DOUBLE ON THE MURDER, the plot developed on its own. I wasn’t looking for it. I didn’t plan it. Didn’t have notes to follow. Didn’t have a storyline. I got the characters talking and moving around and they told me what they wanted to do, where they wanted to go. As a first time novelist it was an exciting process, that is, the challenge to finish a crime novel and to have it make sense – without days or months of planning it. As the novel developed, and seeing the style that was evolving, my aim then was to incorporate that classic crime noir format into the story without being too cliché, while manipulating that style into a more cinematic-poetic form, and then adding as much originality as I could conjure. I never stressed over having to complete the story, though. Either I finished it or I didn’t. It was that simple, that relaxed.  

Despite its violence, the book pays close attention to grief and loss. Why was that emotional dimension important?

It wasn’t important to me other than the fact that I had experienced a good amount of loss in my life, starting at an early age. So I know what genuine grief and loss feels like, which made it effortless for me to write those feelings into the story.  

What is the next book you are working on, and when will it be available?

Novel Two is another Joe Stone mystery. I’m thirty chapters into that story. The title of the book is under wraps until it’s published, maybe in late 2027.

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