Interview with James Ponti, Author of Hurricane Heist (The Sherlock Society #2)

Welcometo Smack Dab, James! Please tell us about Hurricane Heist.

So niceto be here! Hurricane Heist is the second book in the Sherlock Society mysteryseries. The series is about Alex and Zoe Sherlock, a brother and sister who forma detective agency with their grandfather, a retired journalist from the MiamiHerald, and their best friends Yadi and Lina.

 

In thefirst book, they search for Al Capone’s buried treasure in the Everglades onlyto uncover some environmental wrongdoing that needs immediate attention. Inbook two, they look reopen a cold case from 1964 when a Miami Beach resort wasrobbed during Hurricane Cleo. (The Capone story was real, but I made up theheist in book two.) What’s especially fun about this is there are threechapters set in 1964 and we get to see Grandpa when he was twelve years old.

 

Eachcharacter has distinct skills. Lina’s the bookworm, Yadi’s the aspiringcinematographer. How did you make sure each team member would have meaningfulcontributions to solving mysteries?

 

Myfriends and I have a lot in common, but we each have specific passions. Iwanted the same for the kids in these books. For example, I always loved movies,so much so that I majored in filmmaking in college. I gave that to Yadi. I’vemade so many little films that I know what he’s dealing with and theworkarounds that come with trying to make a movie with no money and onlyfriends for a crew.

 

I cameup with something for each of them, picking the interests first and thenfiguring out how those interests might factor into solving a mystery. Thatapproach seemed more organic than starting with a list of mystery needs andthen reverse engineering interests that went with them.

 

Howdid you come to choose Miami and South Florida as the setting, and how did youresearch famous people and events like Al Capone and Hurricane Cleo that play arole in the books?

 

I grewup in a Florida beach town and wanted a book series that reflected my youth.The problem with my hometown, though, is that it’s a little sleepy. That’swonderful for growing up but a little less useful when you’re trying to createmysteries. (I was always confused by that fact that in Murder, She Wrote, CabotCove seemed like the murder capital of the US.) With that in mind, I moved mychildhood the Coconut Grove neighborhood of Miami. The beauty of the city isthat it’s so diverse and a gateway to so many cultures that I have really largepalette to work with.

 

As forthe research, Miami has such a rich – and at times checkered – history. There’sa great saying about the city that I incorporated into the series, “Miami is asunny place for shady people.” I look to real things that took place there andtry to figure out how those might still come into play. Like in the first book,Al Capone really did bury a treasure that was never found. I think he buriedsafe deposit keys, but I made it money to streamline it a bit.

 

Thebooks with corporate corruption and environmental themes. How important was itto weave these real-world issues into a middle-grade adventure?

 

Environmentalismwas always part of my life because I grew up at the beach, where the issue remainsin the forefront. There’s a reason environmental issues play such a big role inbooks by Florida writers like Carl Hiaasen and John D. MacDonald.

Moreimportantly, the environment is a key concern for young people and an arena inwhich they see that they can have an impact. I also think young readers are deeplyconcerned with the concept of fairness and like to see the corrupt get theircomeuppance.

 

You’vebeen open about hating reading as a kid and being “terribly slow” at it. Didthat help contribute to the development of such a conversational tone? It didsuch a great job of drawing the reader in. It’s almost like listening tosomeone rather than reading!

 

Ialways struggled with reading as a kid and I try to keep that in mind while Iwrite for young readers. My natural writing style is conversational, which alsomay connect to my background at the beach, where everything is laidback. It’sespecially conversational in this series because it’s narrated by atwelve-year-old boy. Mostly, though, I think my style is the byproduct of yearsand years of working in television on scripts that were centered on dialogue.

 

Iwas a huge Nancy Drew fan growing up. What do you think makes mystery such aperpetually great middle grade genre? 

 

I thinkthe not-so secret sauces of middle grade mysteries is that they’re sointeractive. More than any other type of a book, a mystery asks the reader tobe a participant. There’s an implicit contract with the readers that I willgive them fair and honest clues so that they can try to solve the puzzlealongside the characters. The trick on my part is that I don’t want them tosolve it before the book reveals the answer. Then I want them to think thatthey should’ve seen it all along.

 

Thepremise hinges on the idea that having the surname “Sherlock” almost destinesAlex and Zoe to become detectives. Did you always know you wanted to explorethe theme of whether we’re shaped by others’ expectations or whether we canforge our own path? Or did that come about as you were drafting?

 

I don’tthink I did that intentionally, but it’s a core issue for me, so it may havewell been subliminal. I was born in Italy and never met my father. That’s whereI got Ponti. For years, I went by my step-father’s last name, but he was out ofmy life by the time I was thirteen. I wasn’t his biggest fan and feltencumbered by that name. Legally, my name was still Ponti, so I went back tousing it in the ninth grade. Because my father never came to the states, Ithought the name was pure and had no baggage associated with it in America. Itwas mine and mine alone. I was determined that I was the one who would give itmeaning. That dramatically shaped how I lived my life. However, if my last namewas Sherlock, I would’ve definitely leaned in and become a detective.

 

Thekids uncover decades-old secrets that implicate powerful people. How do youexplore the theme that seeking truth sometimes comes with real consequences andrisks?

 

That’sthe core battle they face. I try to mitigate the risks by have the parents andGrandpa thoroughly involved. Ultimately, they are driven by the search fortruth and honesty in pursuit of justice.

 

TheSherlock Society features a unique three-generation team with Grandpa as bothmentor and active participant. What drew you to exploring how differentgenerations can work together, and what does Grandpa’s journalism backgroundbring to the kids’ detective work?

 

It wasborn from a very practical need. I wanted the team to travel throughout SouthFlorida, including the Everglades, the Keys, and Miami Beach, which meant Ineeded someone to drive them around. That led me to Grandpa, which led me to questionsabout what type of adult would help these kids. It shaped his personality andtheir relationship, which was also inspired by the fact that my mother livedthe last years of her life in our house and had a very special relationshipwith my sons.

 

When Icame up with the idea that Grandpa had been an investigative journalist whostill had a storage unit filled with old notes and interviews, I was off to theraces. I really like how young readers have responded to the fact that a73-year-old is a main character in the series. And I love that we get to seehim as a kid in Hurricane Heist.

 

What’snext for The Sherlock Society?

 

I’mcurrently writing Sherlock Society 3, in which the team gets caught up in amystery surrounding Miami’s dynamic street art and graffiti community.

 

Wherecan we find you?

The firststops are jamesponti.com, which is for all of my books, andsherlocksociety.net, which is more Sherlock-specific. I’m on IG(@jamespontibooks) and X (@jamesponti). I’m also doing a book tour and someother public events in the coming months. You can find those details on mywebsites or at linktr.ee/jamespontibooks.

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