Midnight Cranes sets the Polish Dragon on a new murder investigation in a manufacturing plant that leads to the Dragon Trail. What inspired the setup to this mystery story?

Years ago as a martial arts student and as an employee in the material handling industry I had thought about how interesting it would be to have someone like Chuck Norris be the hero and discover, as an undercover cop, a drug ring going on inside of the plant. I had outlined the story and sent it to one of his students, who also was making movies, to see what he thought of the idea. He liked the idea but said he was too busy and didn’t really have the time. Fast forward many years and now that I am an author I thought why not make it into a book instead. The only change was having the Polish Dragon P. I. be the one going undercover.

I enjoyed how well the story is developed in so few pages. Is it your intention to make your stories short, or is that just your writing style?

It is a little bit of both. My intention is to write the story in a novella so that it makes for a quick and easy read. Some of my fans have said how much they enjoy the shorter read as sometimes a full novel can be too long and filled with unnecessary information. So if you’re riding a train say from New Jersey into New York City you could finish half the book on your ride in and the other half on your ride home. I have noticed though, that each new book I write seems to get a little bit longer each time.

What were some new challenges you wanted Tom to face in this book that were different from the previous books?

I wanted Tom to face the challenge of going undercover and having to maintain the cover as long as he could. Another one was to have him finding help from one of his colleagues and not just for digging up information but actually working on the case with him. That is where Suzie Mandrake comes in, a detective on the Cleveland police force who aspires to be a private investigator like Tom. Her big dream is to be a partner with Tom in his Polish Dragon Investigations business.

What is the next adventure you have lined up for the Polish Dragon P.I.?

Tom will now have to partner up with Suzie again as a friend of hers has a 600 year old family bible disappear after his father was killed in a car accident. The bible may hold clues to a dark secret from the families past.

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