Interview with Wayne Zurl,
Author of A Leprechaun's Lament
(Sam Jenkins Mystery)
Questions:
R. Murry
Can
you tell me a little about yourself?
Shortly after World War Two I was born
in Brooklyn, New York. Although I never wanted to leave a community with such
an efficient trolley system, I had little to say in my parents’ decision to
pick up and move to Long Island where I grew up.
Like
most American males of the baby-boomer generation, I spent my adolescence
wanting to be a cowboy, soldier, or policeman. Those aspirations were based on
perceptions fostered by movies and later television. The Vietnam War accounted
for my time as a soldier. After returning to the US and separating from active
duty, the New York State Employment Service told me I possessed no marketable
civilian skills. So, I became a cop.
That was as close to military life as I
could find. Now that I’m retired from the police service, I still like the
cowboy idea, but have interrupted that aspiration with an attempt at being a
mystery writer.
Years ago I left the land of the Big
Apple, to live in the picturesque foothills of the Great Smoky Mountains of
east Tennessee with my wife, Barbara.
Twenty (20) of my Sam Jenkins
mysteries have been produced as audio books and simultaneously published as
eBooks. Ten (10) of these novelettes are now available in print under the
titles of A MURDER IN KNOXVILLE and Other Smoky Mountain Mysteries and
REENACTING A MURDER and Other Smoky Mountain Mysteries.
My first full-length
novel, A NEW PROSPECT, won Indie and Eric Hoffer Book Awards for best mystery
and best commercial fiction in 2011 and 2012, and was a finalist for a
Montaigne Medal and First Horizon Book Award. My other novels are A LEPRECHAUN’S LAMENT
and HEROES & LOVERS. A fourth book, PIGEON RIVER BLUES, is under contract
and tentatively scheduled for release around June 1st, 2014.
Do
you remember the first story you wrote?
As
a schoolboy, probably something about what I did on my summer vacation. But as
a newly retired adult, I volunteered at The Fort Loudoun State Park and wrote non-fiction
magazine articles relative to their living history program. The first one
published (where I got paid by the magazine) was about how a detachment of New
York volunteers from Rogers’ Rangers fought in the Anglo-Cherokee War of 1761
after the massacre at Fort Loudoun in what today is Vonore, Tennessee.
Were
you inspired by someone or something?
I
wrote non-fiction for ten years, was lucky enough to get twenty-six articles
published, and I thought getting paid for writing was pretty cool. When I couldn’t conjure up any new and thrilling ideas on the 18th century
French and Indian War in Tennessee, and experienced that old burned-out
feeling, I passed the torch to another volunteer. But I had time on my hands
and liked the idea of having a creative outlet. I thought if I could sell
articles to magazines, how difficult could it be to get a novel published? That
was in 2006. I was sixty, but obviously, in the world of big-time publishing, I
still thought like a child. I had just read Robert B. Parker’s first Jesse
Stone novel, NIGHT PASSAGE.
Stone was a former L.A. detective who became a
small town police chief. I liked the premise. I liked how Parker wrote. I
thought: Parker was never a cop like me, why can’t I make a retired New York
detective a Tennessee police chief? I grabbed a yellow pad and pen and started
writing—incorporating elements of my old cases and assorted vignettes into a
fictionalized and embellished police mystery. Originally, I called it MURDER IN
THE SMOKIES, but when I decided it should be different than the average murder
mystery where I needed a body and the start of an investigation by page three,
I changed the title to A NEW PROSPECT and tried to sell the book as a character
driven police procedural.
What
do you like about writing a story?
There
is a lot of ego involved with me. I readily admit, I’ve got a better memory
than a vivid imagination. I based all of my early stuff on cases I
investigated, supervised or just knew a lot about. Police fiction that veers
far from reality or even plausibility drives me crazy. I stop reading when it’s
too incredible to possibly happen. I’m all for suspension of disbelief, but
some writers should abandon the mystery genre and call their work cop fantasy. I
enjoy taking the reality of true police work and adding those little
necessities to make a good story and tell readers like it really was. I first
envisioned my target audience as cops or ex-cops or hardcore fans of police
fiction. I figured if any one of those readers said, “Hey, this guy got all the
details right and told a good story,” I’d be happy.
Can
you tell us about your book?
A
LEPRECHAUN’S LAMENT is based on the most frustrating and bizarre case I got
involved with during my twenty years of doing investigations. It started out
innocently enough, but soon escalated into something no one saw coming. In the book, I incorporated the modern
Patriot Act to provide a reason for doing a background investigation on an
employee who worked for the city of Prospect for almost thirty years. In
reality, it began when a man’s budget position was changed from General
Services to the Police Department. Most of the dialogue and action is as I
remember it actually occurring. That disclaimer on the frontispiece about “Any
similarity to real persons or events is purely coincidence,” is hogwash.
This
is what happened. I transplanted it from New York to Tennessee, added a little
spice, and because Sam Jenkins is who he is, I thought a beautiful girl would
keep him interested and on his toes. Paraphrasing Jack Webb’s statement from
every episode of Dragnet, “Only the
names have been changed to protect the guilty—and keep me out of civil court.” Here’s
the dust jacket summary. It tells all the basics:
A stipulation of the Patriot Act
gave Chief Sam Jenkins an easy job; investigate all the civilians working for
the Prospect Police Department. But what looked like a routine chore to the
gritty ex-New York detective, turned into a nightmare. Preliminary inquiries
reveal a middle-aged employee didn’t exist prior to 1975.
Murray
McGuire spent the second half of his life repairing office equipment for the
small city of Prospect, Tennessee, but the police can’t find a trace of the
first half.
After
uncovering nothing but dead ends during the background investigation and
frustrations running at flood level, Jenkins finds his subject lying face down
in a Smoky Mountain creek bed—murdered assassination-style.
By
calling in favors from old friends and new acquaintances, the chief enlists
help from a local FBI agent, a deputy director of the CIA, British intelligence
services, and the Irish Garda to learn the man’s real identity and uncover the
trail of an international killer seeking revenge in the Great Smoky Mountains.
What
genre best fits for the book?
This
one is pure police procedural with more than its share of thriller tossed in.
Are
you working on something new at the moment?
I’m
expecting a full-length novel, PIGEON RIVER BLUES to be published around June
of this year. It’s Sam’s first foray into the world of country and western
music. He certainly doesn’t perform on stage, but reluctantly accepts an
assignment of acting as bodyguard for a beautiful singer who’s received threats
from a group of right-wing weirdoes. More of Sam’s back-story comes out when he
meets up with characters he worked with in the Army.
A
new novelette, THE SWAN TATTOO, has just been recorded and will be produced as
an audio book and soon published as an eBook. That one is about
Chinese/Malaysian organized Crime in the southern US. Also in the works for the
future is a novel called, A TOUCH OF MORNING CALM, about Korean organized crime
in Knoxville and Prospect, Tennessee.
Do
you have any tips for aspiring writers?
Having
my stories produced as audio books taught me a lot about the sound and cadence
of what I write. I would suggest that everyone read what they consider a
finished product aloud—as if you were acting the parts. If what you wrote
SOUNDS good, you should be okay. If you experience awkward moments in the
narrative or dialogue, revise it until SOUNDS smooth. If there are any bumps,
smooth them out. If everything sings to you, you’re there. For a guy who doesn’t
dance very well and can’t sing a note, I’m very concerned with rhythm.
Where
can people go to read your work?
My
stuff is available from all the usual sellers in print, eBook formats, and some
in audio. Here’s a list of links where you can find me and the books on the
Internet.
Do you have anything to add?
At the risk of sounding like a broken
record, I’ll again mention my obsession with the reality of police work. If
you’re looking for Sam Jenkins to pull a ‘James Bond’ and shoot an arrow
attached to a steel cable from his wristwatch while he’s chasing a felling
felon, you won’t find it in something I write. I try to incorporate all the
elements of a good story, but avoid mindless conflict, meaningless action, or
any senseless fantasy element used only to dupe a reader.
Real police work
includes frustration, sorrow, regret, tension, action, fear, and lots of humor.
