Christopher H. Jansmann's Blog, page 4

Conversational Companions

One of the most amazing positions I ever held was as the head of technology for the career center at the University of Arizona. It was a chance opportunity that came out of the blue back in 2005, courtesy of a campus friend who knew I was looking for a change; when I met the team during my interview, I immediately fell in love with the work they were doing and was incredibly intrigued with how I might be able to play a role in making it happen. That began a ten-year gig working side by side with people who were completely dedicated to ensuring students had the best options possible once they graduated; it was hard work, nearly round-the-clock work, even, but the colleagues I got to know during that decade became trusted friends I remain in contact with to this day.

The office we once worked for has long since shifted to a new role more reflective of the current realities surrounding student placement; it’s a bit hard now to accept that none of the old gang I knew are there, for all of us moved on to new positions elsewhere on and off campus. Much of the work we did — and many of the tools I helped to create during my time there — have ultimately been lost to history at this point, save for the memories I still have of what we did back then.

One of the many cool things we pioneered nearly twenty years ago now was a weekly podcast filled to overflowing with tidbits designed to help students land on their feet once they graduated; while I originally intended to only be the technical wizard making and then publishing the episodes, I wound up also becoming the main voice of the series when our planned host was unable to participate. There’s some solace in knowing no one can hear some of those early recordings now, for I know I was insanely nervous and pretty tight with my delivery; over the course of the four years we produced not one but two different series, I grew into my role and somehow managed to find my NPR Voice. While it was most definitely not something I ever expected to do as a software developer, the experience introduced me to other ways of being creative beyond writing code; I am relatively certain now, looking back on it, that having to craft more than fifty scripts a year uncorked my desire to get back into writing in general.

I know that sounds a bit antithetical, but I learned a long time ago that writing begets more writing; once the monster is unleashed, there’s no telling how far that creativity will go. My podcast scripts were a fertile training ground for finding my unique voice, a way to practice how I wanted to sound with a willing audience that provided nearly immediate feedback. All of those lessons — the hard trial and error we went through producing that content — formed an invaluable education that I’d never have gotten anywhere else. There are a few duds in there, of course — when you do a weekly podcast for a full academic year, you’re bound to fall flat every now and then — but there were also a number of truly cool episodes I still think about. We did one where it sounded like the interview was taking place in a casino (it wasn’t), and another where I had the chance do an interview with a rep from the Disney College Program. My favorite, by a long shot, was our own take on the classic Who’s on First? skit, which wound up being our most downloaded episode. (If I can find the audio — and get permission from the colleague I recorded it — I’ll try to post it here.)

The work I did on those podcasts years ago came full circle when I decided to launch a podcast tied to my books. I thought it would be cool to have a way to provide some extra color to each novel, and loved the idea of it being a casual conversation between myself and a fellow reader. My goal is to have a podcast specific to each release, but as you can imagine it takes a bit of effort to pull something like that together. So far, I’ve managed to post material for my most recent books, and the long term plan is to go back and add content for my earlier ones. Unlike the work I did at the career center, these are far from scripted; while it’s true that my friend has a specific set of questions she wants to ask, I don’t always know what the topics are going to be. That’s led to some very organic revelations about my characters, my writing process as well as the overall scheme I’ve got planned for the both series. I hear something new each time I listen — and that’s saying something, since I was there for the recording in the first place.

Check them out if you can and let me know what you think. I have at least four podcasts planned for 2025, so your feedback will get incorporated into a future episode. I’m also open to any questions you want to hear answered, too — drop me a line and you might get to hear my response.

Where Can You Get The Podcast?

The main page for the podcast is at https://novelconversations.podbean.com. You can also find it on most major podcast platforms:

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Travel Anxiety

There was a time in my life when I used to look forward to jetting off to far away places — a time when getting there was nearly as romantic as the actual destination itself. I don’t quite know when the bloom fell from the rose, as they say, but suspect it happened the day my flight out to Arizona to interview for a new job was cancelled in Boston, beginning a frantic twenty-four hours that included being stranded overnight in Dallas and showing up a half-day late for my appointment. Fortunately, a friendly traveler with a then-unheard of national cellular calling plan loaned me her phone long enough to clue in my prospective boss to the troubles I was enduring; he was flexible enough that he took the whole thing in stride (and still offered me the job).

Me? I was scarred for life. That incident precipitated a whole slew of neurosis that I fear have only grown worse with age; they include manically checking the weather along the proposed route my flight might take as well as constantly tracking the actual aircraft that will be taking us so I know where it’s coming from — and why it might be delayed. My long-suffering wife has tried to help me come to terms with the notion that just about everything outside of actually buying a ticket are out of my control, and that worrying about any of it is pretty much an exercise in futility. I know that, deep down; I truly do. Still, I always seem to drag her to the airport two hours in advance on the off chance security is having a bad day.

You’d think with all of the conferences I’ve flown to, or trips I’ve taken to see family and friends across the country, I’d be over this. And yet, the examples of why I continue to obsess keep piling up. Did I mention the time I was standing in line at the counter at Tucson International, and the ticket agent couldn’t check me in for my flight — because it had been cancelled? Or maybe that summer I was flying back from seeing my father in Maine — and wound up spending a night in Philadelphia, then another in Los Angeles, stretching the return trip to three extra days. My favorite pre-departure fiasco (if I can call it that) was when a certain airline shifted my flights such that I landed in Atlanta two hours after my flight to Portland took off.

So this is what is running around in the back of my head as my wife and I gear up for a Christmas visit to family in Florida; I’ve tried to assuage some of my concerns by ensuring we have a direct flight, and, honestly, that has tempered a fair amount of my anxiety. It also helps that I’m flying with my wife; having a sane, compassionate and frankly, imperturbable companion that will be able to take charge when I begin to babble incoherently is a solace in its own right that I wouldn’t trade for anything.

That, and a backpack full of chocolate that I can dive into the moment the monitor at the departure gate begins to show scary words such as late or really late or better call our customer service number.

I’ll get through it, of course, and the payoff for swallowing my panic is seeing loved ones that I dearly miss; that, alone, is worth going over the hills and through the woods — even it if it’s not quite the experience it once was. If you are traveling yourself, I hope you have a safe and merry holiday — and we’ll see you on the flip side of the calendar.

Creating – and Sticking To – Canon

First off, a bit of context.

I was asked a while ago how the two shorts I wrote — Baubles and Snow Drifts — fit into the overall canon for what I’ve been calling the Windeport Universe. Canon, for those of you who might not know, is a term often used to encompass the known “givens” of a story, i.e. where a particular character might have grown up, their favorite food or the place where they proposed to a future spouse. They are considered items that are inviolable, much as any item in our own actual histories, and are used to give the reader a consistent backstory from which to just the current narrative.

I was struck a bit by the question, for while I had thought about it, I didn’t have a ready answer. Truth be told, even though I’m an unabashed Star Trek fan — and one who regularly howls when the show strays from what I consider to be its canon — I was a little embarrassed to to express my surprise at just how hard it is to actually keep to said givens. It’s one thing to laugh at Spock suddenly gaining siblings, and quite another to realize you, as an author, might have accidentally written in a non sequitur that will come back to haunt you during a later edit.

In the beginning, as with most things, I found it fairly easy to stick to my basic understanding of Sean Colbeth and his universe; the same was true in the early books for Vasily Korsokovach. But as each have progressed, the accompanying notes have burgeoned to include some of the tiniest of tidbits, helpful reminders for when I’m in a future story and want to make sure I stay consistent to the vision of my overarching world. And that, essentially, is where these two short stories came from.

The first, Baubles, came out of what I’d thought was a toss away conversation Vasily had with his favorite millionaire, Rosie Frankenhoffer, in Mirage:

“No kidding,” she laughed in that Lauren Bacall laugh of hers.  Rosie paused for a second and got that thoughtful expression that I knew meant trouble.  “You know, I could use him for a fundraiser I’m thinking of holding later this fall.  I bet people would pay real money to see him dive.”

Mirage, Chapter Six. Copyrighted material (c) by Christopher Jansmann.

At the time, it was intended to underscore Rosie’s unrelenting mission to give back to her community, but for whatever reason, the line stuck with me long after the book was published. I wondered — would she actually have gotten Alejandro, Vasily’s diver boyfriend, to participate in such a fundraiser? And if she had convinced him, how would he have felt about doing such a thing? The more I turned it around and around in my brain, lines and scenes and a possible bridge from the next Vasily book I had planned to the one where his wedding (might) finally take place formed. And it started, appropriately enough, with a dive:

The splash from the diver ahead of him entering the water was Alejandro’s cue to climb the final flight of steps to the very top of the diving tower; he waited until the polite applause from the crowd had waned before stepping out onto the platform.  It was hard not to see the scoreboard mounted on the far side of the pool, nor the slightly less than impressive scores his only real competitor had put up; as he slowly walked to the end of the concrete, Alex did a quick mental calculation to ensure that the dive he’d selected as his finale would ensure he remained atop the standings, then checked to confirm the tape tightly wrapped around his wrist hadn’t come loose.  Now that he was just shy of his thirtieth birthday, Alejandro had begun to note with some alarm that his body didn’t bounce back from injuries quite as quickly as it once did; a few months earlier, he’d felt something pop in his wrist while doing a typical handstand-to-back-flip dive.  Despite Vasily’s gentle encouragement that he take a break and let his body heal, Alejandro had stubbornly soldiered on right up until it had become too painful to ignore.  The tape was a tacit acknowledgement he could no longer ignore what his body was telling him, as well as a reminder that his healthcare plan through California State University, Irvine, had never contemplated a former Olympian needing the services of a high-priced specialist.

Baubles, The Dive. Copyrighted material (c) by Christopher Jansmann

So I guess, in the end, the short answer is that both of these books are part of my overall canon. Baubles is designed to give a small peek into our California couple’s first Christmas together; Snow Drifts took a slightly different backstory element, fleshing out the hints that Dr. Suzanne Kellerman dropped to Sean during their initial encounter in Blindsided about just how bruised and battered her heart was after her disastrous marriage. Many of the details I sprinkled into Snow Drifts have spun themselves into full plot threads in future books of the Sean Colbeth Series, enhancing — and, unfortunately, complicating — his relationship to the physician.

I’d originally planned on adding to my library of short stories, but ultimately didn’t have enough time to get anything completed for this holiday season. The ideas are still there, though, including my backstory for one of the characters in Reflection in the Shadows, coloring in some of the areas that the first book isn’t going to have time to address. We’ll see — keep your fingers crossed.

Get Solitude today!

It’s not too late to order your copy of my latest book and get it in time for the holidays.

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Solitude Q&A

We’re within ten days now of my latest Sean Colbeth Investigates novel hitting bookshelves, so that means I can tease you with some tidbits from the story — without, of course, spoiling anything. It will be a challenge, of course, but one I am up to (I hope!).

A mystery on an island, eh?

Yes! I mentioned in my last post that one of my favorite Agatha Christie Poirot mysteries is set on one, so I’ve long wanted to stage my own take on such a story. This particular island is one that has actually been hanging out in Windeport Harbor for some time — though only in my location notes. Sean hasn’t had much reason to visit any of the (several) small communities hiding out there in the harbor, so this was the perfect opportunity to introduce Carpenter’s Island.

Is there an actual “Carpenter” behind the name for the island?

Funny you should ask. I do have something of a backstory to the original inhabitants of the island, dating as far back as the late 1700s (when Maine was still part of Massachusetts). My sense of it is that the Vikings might have been the first to stake a claim there, something I based on an amazing book I read years ago about evidence they had settled along the Maine coast decades before the Pilgrims even thought about sailing for the New World. The actual Carpenter family brought the first wave of lobstering folk to the island; though that occupation has faded in favor of tourism, the island’s name keeps the history alive for Windeport.

Things seem a bit frosty between Sean and Suzanne.

They are, which is why Sean is on the island in the first place. Which is total Sean — he wanted to get away, but only so far; leaving Windeport is not something he’s constitutionally able to do. (Yet, the author cackles quietly.)

Wait — what do you mean, yet?

I can’t tell you that — but mostly because I’ve not written far enough into Sean’s future to accurately predict what he might or might not do. However, I can say that life as an employee for the State of Maine isn’t quite what he expected, which will lead to some difficult questions in the next book, Belie.

Not the answer I wanted.

Sorry.

What else is different in this book?

One of the more interesting changes I made this time out was to force Sean into a situation where he works the case solo. While we usually get the story from his perspective anyway, often he outsources key parts of the investigation to other portions of his department — but since he’s stuck on an island with really bad internet, he sort of has to do detective work the old fashioned way. I don’t let him hang, though; help comes in the form of a friend he consulted for many years earlier. Fun fact: when I was thinking about torching Reflection in the Shadows, I recycled the main character from that story as Sean’s friend in the first draft of this novel. (Spoiler: she didn’t make the cut.)

Okay, that’s it for now. Just a quick reminder – you can preorder almost any version of Solitude right now and get it fairly close to the release date. My thanks to everyone who has already done that.

Solitude (Book 7)

There’s Nothing Quite Like A New Book

Well, we’re just a few short weeks away from Solitude becoming available to download. I have to admit, this is the part of the process where I’m always just a bit manic. It’s hard not to be incredibly excited — getting to share the next stages of my character’s journey with you is always something I look forward to, but that excitement is tempered by the fear that I might have missed something, or that this time, the plot will fall flat (or worse, will be loathed by my readers). I’m certain I’m not the first author to experience this sort of rollercoaster in the days leading up to release, and I have to say, almost four years into my time an an author has not helped me to cope with this at all. I’ve talked about this sort of anxiety before in this space; maybe, someday (and with enough books under my belt) it will get easier.

One can hope.

Doesn’t that look nice…

Setting all of that aside, I am truly grateful to those of you who have already preordered your version of Solitude; it hasn’t been lost on me that each successive release in the Sean Colbeth Investigates series has garnered more interest than the last, a leading indicator that maybe, just maybe, I might be on to something with this character. I still have dreams and schemes and grand plans for where we are going to go with Sean, and honestly, I’m glad to have you along for the ride.

I’ve tried to make each novel in the series slightly different, both thematically and in terms of the particular puzzle Sean faces. Not repeating myself is a mantra that I take seriously, especially since I want the overarching series to be one where the reader can return over and over again as though you were visiting with an old friend — and, in the return, find something new, something unexpected that you might not have noticed on first read. I generally go back and re-read the prior novels before embarking on writing a new one, and even I see things that make me step back for a moment; events from those early pages shift subtly in meaning, enriching my perspective on Sean, Suzanne and the entire gang. There is a lot to mine there, intentionally; the relationship between Sean and Suzanne is especially complicated, in ways that I’d not initially seen back when they met in Blindsided. I’d always intended for her to be Sean’s main love interest, but as she has developed — as their relationship has matured — I’ve come to understand just how difficult it is for the two of them to reconcile their feelings for each other, and their fears of love ultimately going wrong. This shouldn’t be much of a spoiler if you’ve read Vengeance or my holiday-themed short, Snow Drifts; for the sake of those who might need to catch up, I’ll only say that the road is long, and might not always lead to the destination we’d hoped for.

Yes, I even read them in hard copy.

After what happened to Sean in Vengeance, I think both of us needed time and distance; part of the genesis for staging Solitude on an island heretofore unmentioned as being in Windeport Harbor was to provide a safe place where we could find solace. I’m also a huge fan of one of the better Agatha Christie movie adaptations, the 1982’s Evil Under The Sun, which is set on an exotic island somewhere in the Adriatic. It’s a classic version of the so-called “locked room” murder mystery, where all of the major players are stuck in the same location, with the killer hiding in plain sight among their victim(s). I love the form, but until the main themes for Solitude began to coalesce, I’d not had a viable reason to place Sean into such a situation. I think my version has a unique Chris Jansmann twist that my readers will appreciate, but as I said at the top of this blog, my anxiety over how well I hit the mark won’t abate until I get past the release date and the first responses begin to appear.

As with my prior releases, I am planning on posting a podcast for this book; I’ll also do my standard Q&A blog posts as we get closer to release. If you have a specific question you’d like me to answer as part of either the podcast or the Q&A, please send it to me or post it on my Facebook, Instagram or GoodReads pages. I’ll try to answer as many as I can — without spoiling too much of the story.

Related Reading

Snow Drifts is being included in a several holiday-themed giveaway promotions this month.  Some are romance, others are just wonderful short stories from writers you may not have heard of — yet!  I love to discover new authors  — and who can resist a free read?  If you are so inclined, check out what’s available using the links below.

[image error] Enjoyable Holiday Stories

Looking for something to curl up with beside the roaring fire?  Some great options here, spanning both romance and mystery genres.

[image error] Sweet / Clean Holiday Romance

A wonderful collection of pitch-perfect holiday romance stories that will go well with your eggnog.

And Now For Something Completely Different

I’ve started work on my newest novel, tentatively titled Scission. It’s something of an experiment for me, a chance to give my usual mystery genre a gentle touch of fantasy. The idea isn’t entirely original, for I’d begun a similar project a few years ago that wound up not feeling quite right; after sitting on the half-completed manuscript, I decided to do something of post mortem to figure out why the story just didn’t work for me.

There were a bunch of tiny things that bothered me about the story, but the largest one was my choice of how to write it; for this particular story — or, at least, the way I’d originally wanted to tell it — I’d decided to do it from a third person perspective, rotating the point-of-view between the two main characters with each chapter. I’m not averse to writing in third person, but for some reason, the mystery writer within me just didn’t like the format. First person has always felt like it put the reader at the center of the action; you learn the clues right alongside Sean or Vasily, giving you an equal chance to solve the puzzle before they do. I’ve never liked the format where the omnipotent navigator knows more that the detective; in those tales, the reader shifts from a position of trying to solve the case to one of rooting for the main character to simply be more observant.

It’s not a problem with the third person format, really, for I’ve read plenty of well-written mysteries where the investigator is not boxed in quite that way; in fairness, I suspect my comfort level with first person was probably the biggest impediment to pulling off the original concept. I have learned to listen to my instincts, though, so deciding to stick with what has worked well for me as a writer wasn’t much of a stretch.

The secondary issue with the original concept didn’t become clear until after I’d finished Belie. Normally, my stories have a pretty clear “A” storyline (usually the murder) with one or two “B” plots that help advance the development of my characters. Belie was the second time I attempted to have two “A” plots and multiple “B” plots, which made for a very difficult writing project overall. In the end, the story came out pretty close to what I was hoping for, but it also made me cast a critical eye back on what I’d attempted to do with Reflections; that original concept had three major plot through lines, all of which converged in the final act. Audacious? Quite. Achievable? I learned a lot in Belie, not the least of which was the important discovery to not try and do too much. Two through lines nearly killed me; three would likely have been the end of the universe.

So back to the bubbling cauldron I went; mixing in all of the things I adored about the original concept, including some very unique new characters, I stirred the frothy brew and came up with something completely different. Kathryn Oliver changed a little bit between her original concept and the version that emerged, lady-in-the-lake style, from the mix; she wound up a bit older and more haunted by her past than the original. In the new version, her fiancé disappears on the eve of their wedding, never to be seen or heard from again; it’s a loss that flavors how she looks at the world, and why she’s so eager to leave the past in her rearview mirror.

Magic is still in this version, and I’ve kept in the Mesoamerican mythology; now, however, I’ve added a fun twist where a realm of god-like entities intersects with our reality, creating a space where magic could plausibly exist while still allowing a traditional police procedural to unfold. Mix in a mysterious masked stranger who seems to have an unusual interest in Kate’s wellbeing and you have all the makings of something truly unique — something that I am extremely excited to be working on.

Fear not – Vasily and Sean have more books to come, but this little side trip is a healthy one for me, a chance to stretch my creativity just a bit. I mean, if Isaac Asimov could write a police procedural that took place in a very futuristic science-fiction version of New York, the least I could do is add a little touch of magic to my tales.

Stay tuned! I’ll update my progress as I write this novel through November.

Related Reading

Snow Drifts is being included in a giveaway promotion featuring authors you might not have already heard of across all sorts of genres.  I love to discover new authors — and who can resist a free read?  If you are so inclined, check out the listing of short stories and full-length novels available using the link below.

Belie Completed

That was painful.

I started writing the next novel in the Sean Colbeth Investigates back in March, fully expecting to be able to complete it during the two-month window I’d allocated for it. Little did I realize my professional life would suddenly be upended by a series of changes — some of which I’ve already gone into elsewhere on my blog (here and here). All of that turmoil required more of my attention than normal, so as these things usually go, my time in front of the computer consequently suffered. Chapters that normally took hours to write stretched into days; plots began to shift, reflecting my dark thoughts about what was going on at my day job. For the first time since I began this journey as an author, I found it nearly impossible to keep the two parts of my life separate.

So, I did the only thing I could: I embraced it.

The end result is an unusual story where Sean finds himself dealing with multiple cases while treading awfully close to that grey area where lawfulness can become something else entirely. Turmoil was the order of the day, and over the course of the novel I watched as Sean changed and adjusted and rolled with the punches much as his creator was forced to do in realtime. It also opened the door for me to consider a breathtaking third act twist that still has me a bit shocked; my instinct is to erase it from being, but to protect it, I’ve slipped the manuscript onto a shelf where it will sit for a bit avoiding my attention. And that, as they say, is that — at least until it comes time to edit it early next year.

Now I turn my attention to what’s next.

What is next? That turns out to be a solid question, for I am torn between tackling the next book in the Vasily Korsokovach Investigates series or (finally) finishing my fantasy mystery, Reflection in the Shadows. I shouldn’t be torn, for the very fact that Shadows has been languishing should tell me something; then again, ever since my friend introduced me to the romantasy genre, the idea of stepping back into fantasy has become ever more compelling. More so, perhaps, given how dark and unsettling Belie turned out to be; a healthy dose of magic might be just what I need, creatively speaking.

Stay tuned.

Related Reading

Baubles is being included in a giveaway promotion featuring LGBTQ+ Romance stories during the month of September; even though Romance isn’t my true genre, I love to discover new authors  — and who can resist a free read?  If you are so inclined, check out the listing of short stories and full-length novels available using the link below.

Location Scouting

I’m just back from my annual whirlwind visit to Disneyland with my buddy; it’s become an annual trek to get my Disney fix since the year we decided to celebrate our mutual milestone birthday at the Happiest Place on Earth. This year I managed to stretch the overall trip from one day to three — mostly due to a scheduling snafu on my part that landed me in Southern California longer than normal. The weather was beautiful and, frankly, I needed the break from reality far more than I realized; leaving the world behind began nearly immediately during breakfast on the first day, when this little character decided to interrupt my first cup of coffee.

Chipmunk Attack!

It kind of went downhill from there, but in a good way.

In two days at the Disneyland Resort, we managed to crisscross both parks and experience almost every attraction I’d hoped to get onto, including the recently reopened Haunted Mansion. Ranking only second in my book to Pirates of the Caribbean, the Haunted Mansion is a classic that I never get tired of riding, especially when it gets the special Nightmare Before Christmas overlay.

The Haunted Mansion at Disneyland in Anaheim, California

As I wandered around the park, I kept thinking about how Vasily and Alejandro might experience it; more than once, I wondered if Vas had a particular approach to going through the park, or specific rides he’d hit first each time he entered the turnstiles. I’ve never gotten into that level of detail with him — yet — so this particular trip turned into far more of a scouting trip than I’d initially planned. (For the record, I think he’d probably dash straight to Soarin‘ at Disney California Adventure, but only if the original version is playing.)

Soarin‘ at Disney’s California Adventure – sadly, not the original, though Patrick is still (thankfully) the Chief Flight Attendant

As with everything else travel-related, food is always a huge source of fun for me; this trip was no exception, especially when I decided to get one of these little beauties right after getting off of Soarin‘. (Yes, that is a joke – IYKYK.)

Oops – I did it again

Since I had an extra day with my friends, I begged one of them to accompany on a dream tour through Paramount Pictures movie studio in Hollywood, California. I didn’t realize until fairly recently that such things were available to everyday people, and have been kicking myself for not trying to get out there when Star Trek was still in active production on the lot. Still, the wait was well worth it; we spend half a day with an incredibly knowledgable tour guide who gave us an incredible rundown of the historic studio — the last one remaining in Hollywood. Multiple shows were actually filming while I was there, too, though I wasn’t lucky enough to see any actors.

The Bronson Gate at Paramount Pictures in Hollywood, California. If you look very closely you can just make out the Hollywood sign in the distance.

It’s hard to say what the best part of the tour was — all of it was fantastic and beyond my wildest imagination — but seeing the Blue Sky tank where they filmed the climax of Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home has to have been close to the top. By day, it looks like an ordinary parking lot with a strange white wall behind it:

The Blue Sky Tank at Paramount Studios in California; it can get up to five feet deep when filled.

But let a producer get ahold of it and it can become something quite extraordinary…

I love the magic of Hollywood!

What made me even happier was the fact that they had a multiple-story archive facility filled to the rafters with an amazing cornucopia of film, scripts and other related items spanning the history of the studio. We had time to walk the aisles and marvel at what was available to anyone at the studio; the focus on preservation was somewhat unexpected for me, especially given how many other studios had liquidated such assets when their finances became strained.

A reel from a version Star Trek: The Motion Picture that had been adjusted for broadcast on television on a shelf at the archives for Paramount Pictures

After the tour concluded (and once my wallet had been fully depleted by a visit to the Company Store on the lot), my friend and I had a few hours to kill before I had to catch my flight back to Tucson. Santa Monica was just a short drive from the studio and technically was on the way to LAX; walking along the beach was a fabulous way to end the trip, while also giving me a chance to update my mental map for one of Vasily’s favorite surfing spots.

Santa Monica Beach, California.

While it’s true that the beach in Santa Ana/Newport is the one that Vas tends to frequent in my novels, the wide, sandy spot by the pier is such a wonderful place to set a scene that I can’t help but have him appear there from time to time. No matter when I’ve visited, I’ve found it to be a vibrant hive of activity, from surfers out on the waves to bikes riding up and down the paved path to couples casually sitting beside each other, hands entangled while they gaze out toward the horizon. Beach volleyball always seems to be in session on any of the many courts there, and invariably someone is providing street music as a background track to the day.

The Santa Monica Pier, Santa Monica, California

And then, just like that, I was off to the airport, destined for home. I had an amazing time, took a ton of photos and maybe — no, probably — found some incredible inspiration for my upcoming Vasily Korsokovach Investigates novels.

Second Start

I had one of those moments today, one that I presume most authors have from time to time: if suddenly gifted the magical ability to go back in time and rework any of my manuscripts prior to their publication, would I use it? I think — no, I know — the introspection was triggered by the recent anniversary for the release of Pariah, the first novel in the Vasily Korsokovach Investigates series. It’s hard to believe it’s been three years since it appeared on bookshelves, and nearly four since Vas figured out how to step out of Sean’s life and into a series of his own.

Quite a bit has changed for both of us since I wrote that initial scene between him and Sean; eight books later, I’m not sure the Vasily appearing in Masks is entirely the same character who stepped off a plane at John Wayne International hoping to put Windeport and his broken heart in the rearview mirror. Knowing that, I found myself looking over those early books in the Vasily Korsokovach series and wondering, not for the first time, what I might change about them if given the chance.

(Now, have no fear: I’ll stipulate from the outset that I have no plans to make any changes to anything. I’m of a mind with several notable Hollywood directors who take the view that once it’s on film — or in my case, in print — it’s final. Think of this as an informed thought experiment, one that might fill in some of the blanks about how I got from point a to b.)

Vasily’s first book, Pariah, was something of an experiment for me. Let me be completely candid: when I began that book, my intention was to write a one-off and have Vas return to Windeport after realizing he’d made a horrific mistake. Except as I got further and further into it, I began to find little reasons why that plot didn’t make any sense; reasons why Vas needed to, somehow, remain in California. The original ending for Pariah was quite different than the one that ultimately appeared; so was the second ending. And, oddly, the third; it wasn’t until the fourth and final version of the ending came to life on my screen that I realized Vasily had become something far beyond a person willing to play second fiddle to Sean Colbeth.

I absolutely adore Pariah, but looking at it now, I think it’s too short; there is so much about Vasily I now know, I could easily see multiple ways to expand him as a character in that first book. Vasily’s second book, Ditched, did quite a bit of that, but as I’ve said elsewhere, I ultimately decided I needed something of a bridge between the character we see in Pariah and the one that lands in California (again) at the end of Ditched. Peril was intended to be that book, and rounds out what I now think of as the first trilogy of Vasily’s solo career.

It’s pretty clear to me now that these first three books — Pariah, Peril and Ditched — serve more as the backstory for Vasily than anything else, the overarching explanation underpinning the actual adventures he’s now having in Southern California. I love them to pieces, but were I to do it over again, I strongly suspect I would have launched his career with Bygones instead. I don’t make this statement lightly, but it does resonate with me — especially since the man we see in that novel is, truly, the version of Vasily that has always been in my head. He’s fully formed and firing on all cylinders, living the life he should be living on his own terms and in his own inimitable way.

And he’s definitely not playing second fiddle to Sean.

So in that sense, I find myself now thinking of Bygones as the proper start to the Vasily Korsokovach Investigates series. There’s enough of his backstory sprinkled into the plot that you can jump in with the fourth book and not miss a beat, but I’ve also given readers the roadmap should they want to back up and see how Vasily got to Rancho Linda in the first place. Would that make those first three books a prequel trilogy, then? Maybe — and perhaps that’s how I should market them moving forward.

Anyway: enough ruminating! Time to buckle down and close out Belies — because there’s another Vasily novel waiting to be written right behind it.

Polos & Khakis

There are a lot of elements that go into each character I write. The main ones have pages — literally pages — of material that undergirds their personalities; the minutia is incredible, and for the most part will never make it into the formal narrative of any novel. But to me, as the author, that level of detail helps to keep the characters from seeming unidimensional; it’s part of the secret sauce that makes Sean, Vasily and the rest of the cast from both series feel as though they live just a few doors down from me.

For example, did you know that Vasily has a weakness for macaroni and cheese? And not just any version, but the one that comes in a particular blue box. Having grown up in the rarefied air of Orange County, California, Vas had never been exposed to the joys of over processed food — at least, not until he met up with a certain green-eyed future police chief, one who had an unfortunate superstition that not eating an entire box prior to a championship swim meet would lead to doom. (Vas picked up that habit, too, and routinely downs an entire box the night before any of his Masters competitions — much to the chagrin of his fiancé.)

Or how about Sean’s fear that someone might catch him wearing glasses? He more or less admits to that when he meets Suzanne in Blindsided, and over subsequent novels have seen him furtively sneak on a pair of cheaters when he thinks no one is looking. While he endlessly ribs Vasily over his best friend’s anxiety at hitting thirty-five, our intrepid investigator is privately hiding just how uncomfortable he is about the growing signs time is beginning to catch up to him, too.

So, yeah, there’s quite a bit lurking in those character sheets.

Which brings me around to a popular question I often get when speaking with readers, and that is why we often see Sean and Vasily in business casual when they’re in the throes of a case. It’s a fair question; when I was doing my initial research for Blindsided, I went in with the assumption departments had a standard dress code for their officers. And while that turned out to be mostly true, I also discovered post-millennium that hard-and-fast rules had adjusted as ever younger generations joined the force.

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Line officers — folks out on patrol or in formal settings — tend to wear the standard uniform as mandated by their home department, which varies immensely depending on where said department is located (and the kind of beat the individual is working). Senior staff — people at the level of Vas and Sean — more often than not break down into two camps: the ones wearing the sort of business suit that would be perfectly at home in the C-suite of a Fortune 500, and then those who rock polos-and-khakis. (I should note that they wear their formal uniforms when required.)

Having existed in both camps myself, I know which end of the spectrum I’d prefer; besides, it has always seemed silly to me that an experienced detective would have to wear something needing dry cleaning to a crime scene. I mean, can you imagine the bills Sean or Vas might have wracked up? That, and I could never write in good conscience a scene where they get blood on their good suit. For both of these characters, wearing something a little bit more casual suits their personalities (pun intended). In Vasily’s case, it has an extra dimension as he intentionally wears polos that showcase his physique; for Sean, it’s just far simpler to toss on something that doesn’t require ironing — something I can completely relate to myself.

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It occurred to me while I was writing Mirage that Alex seems to prefer suits for some reason; while we often see him in his off-duty compression muscle t-shirt and microfiber shorts combo, my notes indicate that he takes his job as a Career Counselor seriously enough to model the proper business formal attire to the students he’s working with. This aspect of his personality comes directly from a dear friend of many years, one who continues to pour every ounce of his compassion and expertise into his daily interactions with students. Alex’s penchant for business formal also seem to be his way (or mine, as the author) for compensating for the fact that Vas seems to find excuses to work his cases in his fresh-from-the-pool workout gear.

As Alejandro seems to have a far more refined sense of fashion than his fiancé, I suspect there might be some in-depth conversations in the future about the contents of their master bedroom closet…