Everywhere That Tommy Goes follows a young man accused of being a serial killer who has to uncover the truth about his mysterious friend and troubled past before he discovers whether he’s innocent. The novel is inspired by actual events. How did those events influence the story, and how did you determine where to introduce fictional elements?

The inspiration for Everywhere That Tommy Goes came, in part, from the horrifying discoveries surrounding the Gilgo Beach murders on Long Island, New York. Having lived on Long Island for many years, I found the idea that such terrible crimes could occur in seemingly ordinary surroundings both fascinating and deeply disturbing.

But I never intended to write a fictionalized account of those actual murders. Instead, I wanted to explore something that I found even more unsettling: What happens when someone is accused of horrific crimes and can’t be entirely certain of his own innocence?

That’s where Tommy Sullivan’s story began. I took the atmosphere of fear, suspicion, and mystery surrounding real events and built an entirely fictional psychological thriller around it. Tommy’s troubled childhood, his mysterious friendship with Troyer Savage, and his increasingly disturbing memory lapses all became pieces of a much larger puzzle.

As a novelist, I believe reality provides the inspiration, but fiction gives us the freedom to explore the darkest corners of human nature. My goal was to create a story in which readers would constantly question what was real, what was imagined, and who could ultimately be trusted.

How does the contrast between Tommy’s insecurity and Troyer’s confidence shape the power dynamics of their relationship?

I think the relationship between Tommy and Troyer is one of the most intriguing psychological elements of the novel. Tommy is a deeply troubled young man, emotionally vulnerable and haunted by experiences from his childhood that he doesn’t fully understand. Troyer, on the other hand, appears self-assured, charismatic, and completely comfortable in his own skin.

That contrast creates an immediate imbalance in their relationship. Tommy sees in Troyer many of the qualities he wishes he possessed himself. He’s drawn to Troyer’s confidence, and that admiration makes him particularly susceptible to Troyer’s influence.

But there’s an important question running beneath their friendship: Is Troyer genuinely trying to help Tommy, or is there something more sinister behind his interest in him?

I wanted readers to recognize how easily admiration can turn into dependence and how someone searching for friendship, acceptance, or answers can become vulnerable to manipulation. As the story progresses, the balance of power between these two characters becomes increasingly complicated, and readers begin to realize that appearances can be dangerously misleading.

Of course, saying much more would risk giving away some of the novel’s biggest surprises, and I certainly don’t want to do that!

What do you hope readers consider about the reliability of memory, the nature of innocence, and the assumptions people make about others?

One of the central questions I wanted to explore in Everywhere That Tommy Goes is whether we can always trust our own minds. Most of us take our memories for granted. We assume that what we remember is what actually happened. But memory is far more complicated than that. It can be fragmented, distorted, suppressed, or influenced by experiences we don’t fully understand.

Tommy’s dilemma takes that uncertainty to a frightening extreme. Imagine being accused of murder and not being able to remember enough of your own past to confidently defend yourself. How do you prove your innocence when you can’t even trust your own recollections?

I also wanted to challenge the assumptions we make about people. We’re often quick to judge someone based on appearances, behavior, or circumstantial evidence. An awkward, troubled young man like Tommy can easily become an object of suspicion, while someone charming and confident may receive the benefit of the doubt.

After more than three decades practicing law, I’ve come to appreciate just how different perception and reality can be. What appears obvious on the surface isn’t necessarily the truth, and the most convincing explanation isn’t always the correct one.

Ultimately, I hope readers finish the novel questioning not only what they believed about Tommy and the other characters, but also how quickly they formed those beliefs in the first place.

And, naturally, I hope the ending catches them completely by surprise. After all, what good is a psychological murder mystery if the reader figures everything out halfway through?