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     “There was a message here, but the targets were random.” The title Illusion of Truth is intriguing. Just the title pulls a curious reader to want to find out where you might go with the plot and how the title will work as a theme. How did you settle on the opening event? And why was this theme important to you when writing this novel?  
The opening scene in Illusion of Truth starts with a bang. Sacramento police officers are lured to a church where they are caught in a bombing. The church intersects rival gang territory, and many are quick to place the blame on one of the gang factions who have been vocal about over-policing in their community. Everyone is on edge, and one wrong move on either side will ignite a powder keg. Protests spring up, and Detective Emily Hunter finds the bomb targeted first responders, including her cop boyfriend, Brian Conner. Someone wants the city to burn, and Emily rushes to find them before more targets are hit.
 
There is a theme within Illusion of Truth that the truth might not be what it seems and may depend on who’s telling the story. Emily, fellow officers, gang factions, and community activists all have a lens through which they perceive the truth. It might not be as simple as they believe.
Do you start with the themes you want to get across to your readers, or do they occur as a process in working the plot?  
I find theme is the connective tissue that moves the story forward. For Illusion of Truth, the idea of hot-button issues of defunding the police, crime, race, trust, and revenge came together for a powerful theme based in the distrust of the police by certain communities. Once the theme began to gel, I developed the characters who would inhabit that world, and only then did I begin to write the story.

Without giving away spoilers, what did you most want readers to take away from this story?  
I think there are a couple of ideas I’d like readers to come away with. First is with Emily herself. She’s a woman working in a male-dominated profession. She’s had to endure harassment from men who don’t believe women belong on the job. She’s not only proved them wrong at every turn, she’s excelled in her challenging job as a detective while also serving as a caregiver for her mother with dementia. Trying to balance work and home is a challenge—something many of us can identify with.
 
Second, in today’s world, we are constantly bombarded with half-truths or outright falsehoods from social media to the point where we don’t know what to believe anymore. Often, it’s the loudest voice that gets heard. With tensions growing all around us, we need to be a little like Emily and find the truth, and it might not be what you want to hear.

Your background in law enforcement brings authenticity to your work and allows your work to be a wonderful police procedural novel. How much of your experience finds its way into your novels?  
You can’t help but pick up a few things spending twenty-nine years in prison. I don’t write dark, noir, prison stories, but some of those character voices just never went away. There have been events that triggered a story idea—the home invasion in Face of Greed, Emily navigating the homeless camps in River of Lies, and being lured into an ambush in Face of Greed, all had some origin story in working in the correctional system for nearly three decades.

As a crime writer, how do you balance procedural accuracy with keeping the story moving?  
Great question. It’s always a balance. Most of the procedures in the day-to-day law enforcement are often designed to comply with statute or regulation. And It’s not very exciting. Lots of real-world procedures don't make it into the finished novel because, while they're accurate and true, they can be sleep-inducing stuff. Much of that gets cut away in revision because it doesn't keep the story moving forward. That’s always where the focus must be.

How do you keep suspense building without giving away too much too soon?  
I like to turn up the pressure as the story unfolds. At first, the suspense is in place over an important point, but the stakes for the main character might not be life and death—a hit to their reputation, maybe, or a setback. As the story progresses, you reveal a bit more, and the character feels that added heat. Suddenly, the stakes are deadly, and one false move means it’s over.
 
You can’t have your pedal to the metal all the time. Readers need a chance to breathe. That’s where a subplot, or B story, comes in. For example, Emily deals with her mom’s dementia, and her declining health has made it impossible for the older woman to live independently. Emily must grapple with “putting mom in a home” and what happens in those facilities in terms of care and neglect. If the scene rolls out correctly, it gives the reader a break from the chase of the crime Emily might be working on, but it also builds another form of pressure in another part of Emily’s life. Separately you feel a decompression when Emily gets away from the job, but then you realize her world has even more demands than before. A little suspense sleight of hand, perhaps?

 What has changed most about your writing process since your first novel?  
I think I’ve become more disciplined in my writing. I’m firmly in the plotter/outliner camp. When I first started writing, I was more of an organic, seat of the pants kind of guy. But I found myself floundering and writing myself into corners. I needed a roadmap to get me from point A to point B. If you take a trip from, say, San Francisco to New York, you're going to head in that general direction. Sure, you might make a detour in the Midwest somewhere to check out the world's largest ball of string, but you're heading East to your destination. That holds true for my writing, too. I want to know where the story will end. All the storylines, subplots, and twists need to end up there. I’m not wasting time writing chapters that need to be deleted because they got lost somewhere on a road trip to nowhere.

 If readers could understand one thing about law enforcement that television gets wrong, what would it be?  
Television rarely gets it right. DNA results aren’t available at the snap of a finger. Because television needs to compress the timeline for the program, law enforcement processes are shortcut, and an investigation takes time—not everything can be solved in 48 minutes. Also, television is great at making villains into larger-than-life criminal masterminds. Truth is, most aren’t—and remember, prison is full of criminals who failed at their job.

What does a typical writing day look like for you?  
I’m a morning writer. The dogs, whom I’ve dubbed the Plot Hounds, make sure I’m up early. With their assistance, I’m at the keyboard by 5:00. I’ll write for a few hours in the quiet morning before the rest of the house comes alive with distractions. By 10:00 I’m done writing on the new project, so I switch over to the business side of the author game, with marketing, publicity, and noodling over what the next project might be.

Finally, what's next? Are there more stories on the horizon that readers can look forward to?  
Thanks for that! Up next is the fifth book in the Detective Nathan Parker series, Darkness Falls.
 
Thanks for the chat, James. I enjoyed this novel and look forward to reading more in the Emily Hunter series.
 
Thank you, I do enjoy writing Emily and company. We’ll see what comes next. There are a couple of new stories in the pipeline…

How wonderful of you to take time for us, Paula. I'll get right to it!

The title immediately caught my attention. How did you come up with Remote Control, and what does it signify in the story?
I often struggle to come up with the perfect title for a novel, but when I finished the first version of this book in 1997, “Remote Control” seemed like a great fit for a story inspired by the emerging field of surgical robotics. The surgeon operates at a distance from the patient.
 
When I rediscovered the manuscript in 2025 and decided to rewrite it, so many of the trends I predicted had come true in ways I’d never imagined. By then, the title had become a metaphor for changes in the healthcare system that have significantly distanced physicians from their patients, putting the profit priorities of large corporate healthcare systems ahead of patient care.
 
Was there one character you felt especially connected to as the story developed?
Not surprisingly, Alanna Davidson, the senior Ob Gyn resident, is my favorite character. I was relatively new in practice in the late 90’s and identified closely with the trials and tribulations, as well as the excitement of residency training.
 
  Every novel has its challenges. What was the most difficult aspect of writing Remote Control?
The biggest challenge occurred during rewriting. The novel has three separate plotlines, and I had to braid them together and make them converge at the end. The challenge was in keeping the reader engaged in all three plotlines simultaneously, and making sure the transitions between the chapters worked.

On the flip side, which scene or chapter was the most fun to write?
I had the most fun with the scenes at the end in which my heroine was in jeopardy of becoming the latest victim of the serial killer. I had to figure out how she could save herself. I never allow Prince Charming to ride to the rescue when my characters are in trouble.

How much research went into the story, and did you discover anything that changed your plans along the way?        
    For the first draft, when surgical robotics was in its infancy, I didn't have to do much research. I went to a conference, saw a demonstration of a prototype, and I invented the Dr. John robot. However, by the time I was rewriting, robotic surgery was in all the major hospitals. Not being a cardiac surgeon, I had to consult my medical AI for each step of the coronary bypass surgery at the beginning of the book. Then, I had to describe it in a way that a reader with no medical or scientific background could understand. 

Suspense requires a delicate balance of clues and surprises. How do you decide what to reveal and what to hold back?
Truthfully, it is instinctual. I don’t have a system, but in a thriller, I like to keep the reader hanging at the end of as many chapters as possible.
 
What do you think readers will find most surprising about the book?        
    I think the most remarkable technological aspect of robotic surgery is combining it with Telemedicine, so that operations by skilled surgeons could be done theoretically on patients in other cities, other countries, or on the battlefield. This was the aim of DARPA when it first started robotic development. A few cases using 5G technology have been reported by surgeons in Japan and China, but this technology has not yet been adopted widely due to the complexity of the logistics and the expense.

What do you hope readers are still thinking about after they turn the final page?
     I hope they figure out that the real villain in the story is not the serial killer, but corporate medicine.

 Are you a detailed outliner, or do you prefer to discover the story as you write?
     I don't outline. It feels too much like writing a term paper. I like to let my characters tell me what to write next and allow the story to evolve naturally.

What advice would you give writers working on their first suspense novel?
Short chapters, and leave them in suspense at the end of as many chapters as possible.

  Finally, what's next for you? Can readers look forward to another novel in the near future?
I’ve been working recently on some new short stories which I’ve submitted to anthologies and online magazines. I’m about ready to start the tenth novel in my Hannah Kline Mystery series.

I have been looking forward to speaking with you about this book...

What first sparked the idea for The Immortal—was it the concept of immortality itself, a character, or a "what if" moment you couldn't let go?
The question of immortality has always fascinated me. Not so much whether it will become medically possible (I don't believe it will), but rather what it would do to us as human beings. I have an academic background in psychology, so I'm primarily interested in the psychological implications. I explore that particular question — would we all become anxiety-ridden neurotics if we were immortal, terrified of dying in an accident? — in my novel "Singularity", which is being published in December. With "The Immortal", I was more interested in how we would deal today with someone we believed had been alive for 2,000 years.

Immortality has been explored across literature for centuries. What did you most want to say about it that feels new or relevant today?
Whether we would even recognise an immortal as such today, and how we would treat him. Would we want to exploit him in order to turn his "secret" into something marketable?

In a story built on such a powerful premise, how did you balance the philosophical weight of immortality with the emotional journey of your protagonist?
It was very important to me to leave the question of whether the immortal really is immortal unresolved until the very end, while at the same time making it the most pressing question for my protagonist, whose daughter's life may depend on whether the immortal genuinely exists. That's the dilemma. He has to believe in the immortal's existence if he wants to hold on to hope for his daughter — but how far is he prepared to go, should it turn out to be true?

Your novel suggests that immortality may not be the gift it appears to be. Were you most interested in its advantages—or its consequences?
I'm more interested in the consequences. I don't see immortality as a gift. Sooner or later, deaths will still occur — through accidents, for instance. But far fewer through illness and ageing. As a result, we would lose the capacity for healthy suffering, for the psychological resilience that is so essential, not least as a catalyst for our spiritual selves and our personalities. We simply wouldn't be ourselves any longer. To say nothing of the loss of that sense of urgency which spurs us on to the achievements and visions we want to realise in order to leave something positive behind.

How did you approach structuring a narrative that spans such an expansive sense of time without losing narrative tension? Do you plot fully before writing?
Yes. I always plot the entire story in advance, down to every individual scene, and ruthlessly cut anything superfluous. After that, I keep refining until I feel the narrative arc and pacing are just right. With a thriller in particular, that's absolutely crucial.

What kind of research—scientific, historical, or philosophical—went into shaping the rules and implications of immortality in your novel?
My father is a doctor and longevity researcher — and at the same time a practising Catholic. That obviously helped enormously :-).

The novel seems to straddle genres—science fiction, thriller, and philosophical fiction. Was that blending intentional from the start?
I didn't really think about it in those terms. I had a story in my head that I wanted to tell in order to explore certain philosophical and humanistic questions, and I constructed the story in whatever way served that purpose best. I'm fortunate enough to have a readership that has grown broad enough to come along with me on that journey, and I'm very grateful for it.

Every story needs resistance. Without revealing too much, what kind of opposition did you feel was necessary to challenge an immortal protagonist?
Since part of the story has a Christian background (although I'm not a practising Christian myself), it was important to me to align the villains' motives with the seven deadly sins — something the attentive reader will likely have picked up on as the plot unfolds. These deadly sins are ingrained in all of us as part of the "human condition", which means that even the villains in the book are ultimately a mirror held up to ourselves, and that even though they have to be opposed, they should also evoke a measure of compassion.

What do you hope readers question about their own lives—or mortality—after finishing this book?
That they reflect on what truly matters to them and where they choose to focus their attention. That it isn't so important why they believe something, or what others say about it, but rather what that belief does to them — and whether it brings light into their world, or darkness.

Endings in a story about immortality carry unique weight. How did you decide where—and how—to conclude the journey? Without giving too much away, of course.
It's very difficult to talk about the ending without spoiling it. I wanted an ending in the spirit of Inception, which I think is brilliant. The ending appeared ambiguous, with the spinning top — but anyone who paid close attention to the film knows that Nolan in fact provides a clear answer. I made mine a touch more obvious, but essentially I wanted to give the reader a satisfying answer without spelling it out in black and white, if that makes sense :).

How does this novel reflect your growth as a writer compared to your earlier work?
I plotted even more meticulously for this book, and I was even more disciplined about tightening the narrative.

After exploring something as vast as immortality, where does your imagination take you next? What subjects would you like to tackle?
It's about the technological singularity. The book is being published in December by Podium Publishing and, as I mentioned earlier, is called "Singularity". It deals with immortality once again — but in an entirely different way.

Few characters feel as real—or grab my heart—as much as Harriet did. Thank you for sharing her (and this story) with the readers of Le Coeur de l’Artiste.

What first inspired The Case of the Missing Maid—was it the mystery, the setting, or the desire to create Harriet herself?
The inspiration for The Case of the Missing Maid was the character Harriet Morrow. I grew up in a household with just my mom and sister, and I was eager to create a character who embodied my mom’s can-do, plucky spirit. The other two adult family members in my life at the time were Harriet Pruatt, my grandmother, and Vera Morrow, my great aunt. Harriet is three times an outsider. First, she is simply a woman in 1898 who aspires to a professional career outside the home. Second, she has the audacity to believe herself capable of performing a job nearly universally thought to be suitable only for a man. And thirdly, as a gay man, I was interested in having Harriet be a lesbian so I could explore what life might be like for a queer person at the turn of the twentieth century.

The premise taps into a classic trope—the missing domestic worker—but Harriet elevates it. She not only drives the investigation, she pulls the reader along with her. Was your intention to keep the plot simple and let the character carry the complexity? Do you see yourself as more character-driven than plot-driven?
At the core of every good mystery are a crime, suspects, and an investigation. While I expend much effort to create a solid mystery, it is the layers of supporting plot lines – filling out and completing a character’s world – that turn a good mystery into a good story. I have found that once I have dialed in a character, I can place them into a scene and follow their thinking, movements, and reactions. In sum, I am plot-driven from an outlining perspective, but character-driven from a storytelling perspective.

While the title suggests a straightforward mystery, the story offers deeper layers—beyond Harriet and beyond the case. What did you hope readers would take away besides a satisfying puzzle?
I have a two-part answer. First, with the series’ setting in the Progressive Era, a time when a stable middle class sought to address many of society’s most pressing ills, I hope readers will draw comparisons from then to now, both appreciating our progress and lamenting how far we still have to go. Secondly, I hope readers will root for Harriet and grow to admire her, while appreciating her queerness is only one of the many things that make Harriet Harriet; it alone does not define her.

Setting often works quietly in the background, yet shapes everything. How does the environment influence both the investigation and Harriet’s perspective?
At the time of the story, Chicago was home to approximately 1.7 million people, nearly three-quarters of them immigrants or the children of immigrants. The city was the fastest-growing in the world and America’s second-largest. The setting of Chicago gives Harriet a bursting-at-the-seams metropolis dotted with distinctive ethnic communities to explore and investigate. And with two thousand miles of flat, paved roadways, moving around by her trusty Victoria Overman bicycle made for efficient travel.

You clearly did your homework on household dynamics, and I appreciated the resource list you included. How did you begin your research, and at what point did you know you had enough?
I start by reading several books specific to the time period and to the issues addressed in the story. I supplement that effort with online research and outreach to organizations such as the Chicago Historical Society, specialized libraries, and subject matter authorities. I try to include only as much description as necessary to enable a reader to visualize the scene without burdening them with too much extraneous detail.

What was the most challenging part of structuring the reveal—deciding what to hold back and what to let slip?
 With any play-fair mystery, an author tries to give the reader just enough information to allow them to solve the case before or alongside the detective. I withhold what I can, but provide what a reader requires.
 
How do you balance planting fair clues while still preserving that wonderful sense of surprise?
I addressed this in the preceding question, but I’ll add that what is revealed along the way is often nestled among other information, and that by planting red herrings, sifting relevant information from the rest can be trickier.

What techniques do you use to maintain tension in quieter scenes where there isn’t overt action?
Human relationships are the source of all drama. I create tension between people on a personal level, be it family, colleagues, friends, or enemies.

Dialogue in your work carries both information and subtext. How do you craft conversations that reveal just enough—without giving the game away?
People often lie or withhold just enough of the full story to tell a tale they prefer to be true. Once I know a character’s motivation in a scene and how they want the information to land, I can craft dialogue to reflect that.

How do you decide which point of view best serves a scene, especially in a mystery where perspective controls what the reader knows?
I use close third because I want a degree of distance from Harriet. It is a story about her, opposed to her story.

In a genre with well-loved expectations, how do you push against clichés while still giving readers what they came for?
I believe it starts with reading enough in the genre to know the most common clichés. Only then can I try to avoid them. That said, certain genre cliches can be story elements that some readers find satisfying. When I do confront them in my writing, I strive to give them a fresh, unexpected twist.

What is your approach to writing an ending that feels both surprising and inevitable—the kind readers can’t quite predict but fully believe?
Most readers desire an ending that ties up all the loose ends, delivers justice, and leaves the hero in pretty good shape. For me, the ending is the easiest of all parts of a book. The hard work is done on pages one through 275, in which I’ve set up the mystery, introduced the suspects and other characters, planted clues alongside red herrings, layered in tension, conflict, ambition, and dreams. As the saying goes: “If you don’t know your destination, how will you get there?” With a series, however, the ending should signal a fresh beginning, leaning into the next book.

And finally—how many books do you see for Harriet? Can you give us a hint about what’s next for her?
There are six books under contract. The third, The Case of the Swindled Suffragist, comes out early next year, followed in early 2028 by The Case of the Silenced Stevedore.

Hi, Harry.
The Life and Death of Rose Doucette is such a well-crafted, interesting story. But what I liked even greater was the “voice” of your protagonist, Dylan—narrator—
“In addition to the fatigue, there was something else wrong that I couldn’t identify, an air about her that clouded the table like cigarette smoke. The way she held her arms, the angel of her head. The tendons along her jaw tight against her skin. With a start, I recognized what it was, an emotion I’d never seen before from her. Fear.”
Calm. Steady. Keen in observation. From the very beginning, I felt secure in his hands—and yours.
Now, on to the questions…
There is a great amount of emotional suspense in this story. Dylan (protagonist)  has personal reasons for needing to find the person responsible for Rose’s death— besides professional. How did you maintain the balance of this emotional suspense while laying out the plot?The story engine for the novel is straightforward—a detective is forced to partner with the man who broke up his marriage, both men trying to find out who killed the woman they loved. Because of that, the balance between emotional suspense and plot came together easily.

How did you decide to reveal the truth about Rose—deciding what the reader should know and when?That’s the point of the book, the big reveal, so I kept that for as late as possible. When I am outlining, I tend to think in terms of reveals—the nuggets that keep the reader turning the pages. So I try to space them out across the story.

I felt that at certain points, you were surprised as well as the protagonist, when aspects of Rose’s life came out. Were there times while writing that surprised you?
Not really. I had a pretty extensive outline for this book before I started. (That’s not always the case!)

What was the most challenging scene or moment?
Without giving away any spoilers, there’s a scene toward the end where a child is in jeopardy. I found that challenging to write.

What did you hope readers would feel when they reached the final pages? Did you have this in mind at Chapter One?
I hope they feel what Dylan felt—a catharsis.

What techniques do you use to keep the pacing tight without sacrificing the atmosphere—or even more importantly I feel, the voice?
I endeavor to follow the Elmore Leonard maxim: “Try to leave out the part that readers tend to skip.” Also, I like to end each chapter with some sort of cliffhanger if possible.

Many authors write, edit, rewrite as they go without a complete drafting type of process. Which are you?
I cannot move forward until every syllable of a chapter is perfect. That doesn’t mean I won’t make substantial revisions later on. But as I write the first draft, I strive for the writing to be the best it can be.

Do you find you have a clear idea of the characters and edit for plot more? Or since the voice of this story is so well done, do you edit more for language?
The plot stayed the same throughout. I tweaked the characters as I went. And of course I obsessed over the language.

Morality is a huge theme in this book. How did you want to approach this theme with such complex characters—especially in a genre where readers expect clear heroes and villains? And if you want, so as not to give away anything—you can address Rose, Tito, and the complex subject of mental illness here if you want.
I’m going to skip that last because if I answer, I’m afraid I’ll give too much away.
You are correct; morality is a huge theme. Or, as I think of it, immorality, especially the kind associated with extreme wealth. I was trying to bring the reader into a world where consequences have a different meaning than what most of us are used to. Think of the HBO show Succession. The rules are just different for people with that level of wealth. Until someone like Dylan Fisher comes along.

Looking back now that the novel is on the bookshelf and off your desk, what did the writing of The Life and Death of Rose Doucette teach you about storytelling that might carry you into your next book?
The power of developing a character to their fullest, spending time with them to really get inside their mind.

How would you advise a challenged writer with this type of story?
Focus on the character. The rest will follow.

Next book we need to watch out for? I know I hit “FOLLOW ” AUTHOR  on Amazon.
My tenth novel comes out in October 2026, just around the corner.
Mother May I is about a former CIA operative who learns her missing daughter may still be alive and the quest she embarks on to find her child. Think Taken meets John Wick.
 
It was so good to meet you, Harry, and to learn more about your crafting of story. I know I will get to read another sometime soon.
Great to meet you too! Hope to see you at the next conference!

Thank you, Nancy, for coming to speak to the Le Cour readers regarding your newest work. 

When you began A Spy in Saigon, what came first—the character, the setting, or the central conflict?
A Spy in Saigon is the 4th book in the Kat Lawson Mysteries series, so Kat Lawson obviously came first. Kat is a travel journalist working for Journey International, a travel publication that serves as a cover for journalists that the FBI uses for occasional special deliveries. To be clear, Kat is not an agent but a contractor, hired for those assignments where the FBI doesn’t want to risk exposing one of its own assets. If this sounds a little made-up, it’s important to understand that during the Cold War, the FBI and the CIA used civilians for just such assignments.
For the most part, Kat’s assignments are benign, relatively low-risk, and usually no more than the simple drop-off of a package or the whispered exchange of a message at a bar. Of course, if things were always as simple as designed, there would be no story, so I’m always looking for the unexpected opportunity to throw Kat into a spiraling situation for which she must do the impossible. 
 
Writing historical fiction set in Vietnam requires both accuracy and atmosphere. How did you balance research with narrative momentum?
I was trained as a journalist, I love research, and in addition to combing the archives for stories related to Vietnam and the war, I am a former military wife. I had friends in Vietnam, and during the war, I was a member of the Waiting Wives Club, and friends with MIA Wives, whose husbands, brothers, fathers, and sons had gone missing. Kat’s story, her backstory, and her connection to Vietnam were based on the stories shared with me by the wives I knew, and something I wanted to weave into the book. It was a delicate balance.

Your background in journalism and radio news informs your writing. How has that experience shaped your pacing, dialogue, or sense of urgency? 
I’m thankful I studied journalism, and I’m particularly thankful I spent most of my career in radio. That’s where I really learned to write. I’ll admit that after I graduated from college, I hoped for a career in TV, but that didn’t happen. Because it didn’t, I believe it helped me hone my skills in the written word. Working in talk radio taught me to ask questions, structure a story, keep it simple, and remember who my audience was. I think knowing what you want to write is as important as knowing your audience and crafting the message, so it hits home. That old acronym, Keep it Simple Stupid, works every time.


How do you build emotional stakes in a story rooted in political and military conflict?
I look for conflict: internal conflict, conflict between people, and conflict with nature. We all struggle with some form of conflict, and if a writer can key in on that struggle, I believe a reader will identify with it, which makes for a better story.
A Spy in Saigon is rooted in conflict. Kat’s torn between playing it safe or facing her fears and climbing into the Ch Chi Tunnels. Claustrophobia, fear of snakes and spiders verses saving the lives of the small children about to be trafficked. 

Did you outline A Spy in Saigon in detail, or did you allow the story to evolve as you wrote? 
I outline, but not rigorously. I have a more fluid outline that grows as I research and write, which I often do simultaneously. Invariably, I end up about halfway through a story, then go back and add more to my opening scenes, etc.

What techniques do you use to ensure that your setting—Saigon during wartime—feels immersive rather than merely described?
That gets back to show, don’t tell. I try to imagine what Kat must be feeling, what the weather was like, the sweat, the rain on her skin, the tires of her jeep slipping on the jungle’s muddy floor. I was fortunate to have visited Vietnam, so I know the weather and the torrential downpours that come with the monsoons, the darkness, and the hollow ghostly sounds of the jungle, and I tried to incorporate them into the story.

Spy protagonists often live double lives—as does your main character.  How did you explore the psychological cost of that duality in your main character?
It occurred to me that much of what I did as a journalist was to distance myself from the story so I could write it. Reporters can suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder just as easily as anyone on the front lines. In many cases, those who cover the stories develop a sense of gallows humor. It’s what I imagined my characters, like Davy Crockett or Eddie Charles, Rolling Stone’s first female war correspondent, would have used to survive the war. Their blind sense of duty, driven by their need to cover the story versus their suppressed reactions, created as much internal conflict as the story they reported. Making them complex characters, and deliciously fun to write.

How do you make secondary characters in a spy novel feel essential rather than ornamental—thinking both of your news boss and spy handler.?
Secondary characters, particularly when writing in first person, are essential. They allow the reader to enter a protagonist’s mind through conversation.
Sophie Brill, Kat’s handler, was entertaining to write because the two women are from different generations. Sophie is older and no longer able to be in the field, while Kat is her eyes and ears on the ground. Even as the creator of the two characters, I’ve never been sure whether Sophie is a bit jealous of Kat or just not ready to give up control. She doubts Kat’s abilities and probably has reason to. Kat’s not exactly by the book, and the conflict between them keeps the story going and deepens their relationship arc.

Were there moments when a character surprised you and altered the direction of the story?
There’s a big surprise in the second half of the book that was my ah-ha moment. I won’t get into it, but it required extensive research and interviews with vets and their families. I won’t say more, but I was proud of Kat.

Themes of trust, betrayal, and survival run strong in espionage stories. Which theme felt most central to you while writing this novel? 
Survival. I could say betrayal as well, but Kat learns we can’t rewrite history, but we can live with it. That said, what was most important in this story was that Kat accomplish her mission, and learn to live with a past that’s not as neat and easy to accept as she would have liked.

Looking back, what do you feel A Spy in Saigon taught you about your own craft as a writer?  
I believe writing is a gift, a form of divine inspiration, like a paintbrush to an artist or a musical instrument to a musician. We’ve all heard that old axiom; How do you get to Carnegie Hall? Practice. And just like any art, writing requires discipline. For that reason, whether I feel inspired or uncertain, I show up every day.  

And lastly, what can readers look forward to—a new book coming out?
I’m currently working on A Cold Case in London, book 5 in the Kat Lawson Mysteries. 

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Thanks for the chat, Anna,

The Borrowed Life of Frederick Fife blends warmth, humor, and heartbreak. This is an unforgettable character. How did his voice come to you, and how did you work to craft that POV on the page?
Although not a carbon copy, Frederick was inspired by my gorgeous, cheeky late grandfather and best friend, whose kindness genuinely changed the lives of those around him. He had time for everyone and an ability to make people feel seen. He also had a fabulous sense of humour and was honest to a fault—so honest, in fact, that he found it impossible even to play a card game that required bluffing. That unwavering sense of integrity sits at the centre of Frederick’s character and became the foundation of his voice.
Writing Frederick felt less like invention and more like listening. His perspective arrived early and fully formed, and I knew immediately that his inner life needed to be rich, observant and quietly funny, even as the world increasingly overlooked him. He understands himself through his values rather than through how others perceive him, which gives the voice both steadiness and warmth.

The novel explores aging, invisibility, and dignity. Why were these themes important for you?
Ageing, particularly in institutional settings, often comes with a quiet erasure. People are reduced to diagnoses, routines and risks rather than recognized as whole human beings with histories, humour and agency. Having worked in aged care, including dementia-specific care, I saw how deeply this invisibility can wound.
Dignity isn’t just about safety or cleanliness—it’s about being seen, heard and valued. I wanted to write a story that restored complexity and humanity to older people, and to challenge the assumptions we make about what someone is still capable of simply because of their age or diagnosis.

Did you set out to challenge assumptions, or did that emerge organically?
I’ve always been a positive aging advocate and so I think that emerges naturally in my writing. I wanted to question the assumptions we make about ageing and dementia—particularly the idea that a diagnosis signals the disappearance of a person’s inner life. Too often, people are spoken about rather than spoken to, reduced to what they can no longer do instead of recognised for who they still are.
Rather than confronting those assumptions directly, I let them unravel through Frederick’s lived experience. By staying close to his perspective, the novel invites readers to notice how easily someone can become invisible, and how much richness, humour and awareness can still exist beneath that invisibility.

 Frederick’s inner life contrasts sharply with how the world sees him. How did you approach writing that tension without slipping into sentimentality?
I approached that tension through restraint and trust. Frederick isn’t defined by a diagnosis; he’s defined by how the world responds to him. Much of the quiet ache in the novel comes from being misread, underestimated, and overlooked, despite his clear and richly inhabited inner life.
On the page, that meant staying close to what Frederick notices—tone, gesture, small kindnesses and casual cruelties—and resisting the urge to explain or justify him. I wanted his observations to speak for themselves, allowing the contrast between who he is and how he’s perceived to emerge naturally.
What anchors the story is the way Frederick meets others where they are. He responds with patience, humour, and unconditional kindness, even when that generosity isn’t reciprocated. By trusting his voice, I trusted the reader to see what he sees, and to feel the tenderness and injustice of that gap without it ever needing to be spelled out. By allowing the emotion to arise without explanation or embellishment, the tension could remain honest rather than sentimental.
 
 
Humor plays a crucial role in the novel. How plot in order to  balance humor with grief and loss in a way that feels earned rather than deflective?
For me, humour isn’t a way of avoiding grief—it’s a way of surviving it. I often think of the phrase, ‘when life gives you lemons, make lemonade’. To make lemonade, you need sugar, and for me humour is that sugar—making the bitter sweet and the unbearable bearable. Some of the strongest emotional moments happen when sadness and humour sit side by side; that’s how life often feels, particularly in difficult or uncertain circumstances.
On the page, that meant being deliberate about placement. Humor grows out of observation and timing rather than jokes or punchlines, and it never punches down or intrudes at the height of grief. Instead, it sits alongside the sadness, offering moments of light without cancelling the weight beneath. That balance felt true to life and allowed the emotional moments to feel earned rather than forced. Frederick’s humour is gentle and human, not performative—it gives the reader space to breathe, so when the grief arrives, it can land fully.

Frederick’s memories shape much of the narrative. How did you decide when to lean into the past versus staying rooted in the present?
Memory is where Frederick still has freedom. The past offers him agency, dignity and connection in ways the present often denies him. I knew the ending of the novel from the very beginning, and that knowledge shaped how and when memory appeared on the page. Each memory carries momentum toward an ending that was always waiting.

What were the hardest scenes for you to write—and why?
A scene that involves grief or the death of a character. I’m a deeply empathetic person, and I’ve realised that empathy doesn’t stop with real people—it extends fully to my characters! When they grieve, I grieve. When they suffer, I feel it. Those scenes often left me weeping at my computer.
As a writer, that emotional connection is also my most important compass. It’s how I know whether a story is working. Far more than word count, I pay attention to whether I feel something on the page. If I’m not moved, I can’t expect the reader will be either. Sitting with that emotion—however uncomfortable—felt essential to writing those moments honestly and with care.
Though their names were given to the characters of Fred and Dawn, my grandparents’ actual story more closely mirrored that of Albert and Val, with my grandfather living in a nursing home with dementia and my grandmother visiting him. They truly had a love story for the ages, so any scenes reflecting this carried a great deal of emotion for me.

How did you know when Frederick’s story was complete? Did you know the ending before you started writing, or did the ending evolve?
I knew the ending from the very beginning, and it was one of the first scenes I wrote. Having that fixed point gave me confidence as I moved through the story, even when the middle felt uncertain or messy.
I knew Frederick’s story was complete when he had come full circle. At the beginning, he is a man with love and care to give, but nowhere to place it. By the end, he once more has someone to give the froth on his cappuccino to. That small, ordinary gesture felt like everything to me—it signalled connection, purpose, and a life still being lived.
I also wanted the ending to hold hope, not just for Frederick but for all the characters. Each of them needed to be changed by what had unfolded—not transformed into someone else, but shifted. A little softer, a little braver, a little more open than where they began.

What craft lessons did The Borrowed Life of Frederick Fife teach you that you’ll carry into future projects?
To finish your first draft without looking back. That was the most important lesson for me. Stopping to polish prose while the story is still forming is like icing your cake batter.
Once the draft exists in full, the real work can begin. That’s where the magic happens: in the editing. Writing to the end gives you something complete to shape and refine, allowing themes to sharpen, characters to deepen, and the language to be polished with intention rather than uncertainty.

What do you hope readers take with them after closing the final page?
I hope readers come away with a renewed sense of compassion—an understanding that unconditional kindness, meeting people where they are without judgement or impatience, can change lives. In a post-pandemic world that continues to echo with fear, conflict and uncertainty, that feels more important than ever. I also hope the book encourages greater respect for older people, reminding us that ageing does not strip a person of depth, humour or emotional richness. Older people carry whole lives within them—histories, loves, mistakes and memories—and they deserve to be seen as complete human beings, not as problems to be managed or stages to be endured.
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For those living with dementia, I hope the story invites a gentler gaze. Even as memory changes, personhood remains, and compassion, patience and connection continue to have power.
Above all, I hope the book quietly ‘Spreads the Fred’—a spirit inspired by my grandfather, whose kindness shaped this story. To me, it means noticing those who are too often overlooked, choosing generosity where it might otherwise be withheld, and trusting that small, everyday acts of kindness can still have a profound impact. If the novel leaves readers a little softer, more attentive, and more willing to meet others with grace, then it has done exactly what I hoped it would.

 
You had me right at the beginning: “When you can’t control when you go, it’s nice to at least control how.”  How did you come up with the concept for this novel?
I was taking a walk past the stump of an old tree when the first lines of The Warbler came to me: “My mother is a willow. She stands by a stream that burbles like a toddler’s kisses, and her leaves dip into the water whenever the wind blows, to be nibbled by fish who don’t know any better…” These lines led me to Elisa, a woman who believes she is cursed to always be on the move, to never stay and put down roots. And I thought to myself, What if a woman who cannot stay comes to a town she cannot leave? This book grew from that single question.

Control is a huge theme. Is it also a theme in your other work?  And if so, how does this theme help create cause/effect in your work?
Control, power, choice – these are themes that show up in my work over and over again in different ways. I believe in the importance of chosing who you want to be and what dreams you want to chase. Loss of control, helplessness, powerlessness, having someone else shape who you are and who you become – that’s the nightmare.

How did you come up with Elise’s rules? She never stays longer than ten months anywhere. Why ten?
Elisa doesn’t have a rulebook for her curse, and neither did her mother, Lori. Lori invented the ten-month rule because she didn’t want Elise to have to move mid-school-year. If they stayed ten months, then Elisa could start a new school in the fall and then move again in the summer. Lori didn’t dare risk the curse by staying any longer than that, but she didn’t know for certain that was the limit. In fact, she didn’t know for certain that the curse was real at all… But she believed it was, and that was enough to keep them moving every ten months.

Elise is a protagonist wanting to not only establish the why over her life, but also some control. Yet, she is a traveler. Can you explain this irony?
One of the things I wanted to explore in this book is the idea that one person’s choice can be another person’s curse. Rose wanted to travel; Elisa is forced to travel. Having agency over your actions is sometimes more important than what those actions are. Being always forced to leave can be as much of a prison as never being allowed to go.

Mother-daughter theme is also another great theme. What do we inherit from our mothers--another of your reoccurring themes? Mother over father?
I do write a lot about family – how your family can strengthen you, damage you, shape you, free you, chain you. What’s meant as a gift can be a curse, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t given with love. We’re all trying our best.

All of the characters have great arcs. We want to follow and resolve all the history. However, Elise is a character that will remain in every reader's mind. How did you get into the “soul” of this character?
Every character’s voice has its own music – its own melody and its own rhythm. I can’t write a single page until I find that music. I found Elisa’s voice while she was packing to leave yet again – that moment was emblematic of all the times she’d left before, saying goodbye to who she was and moving on, and I knew it had to be the first chapter.

Which scene in the story did you hope would produce the most emotional impact on your readers?
I hope every reader finds the scene that resonates the most with them—reading is a highly personal experience. That said, I structured the novel to build, and I very much hope the moment near the end with the bird cages feels satisfying.

Which is your favorite scene?
My personal favorite moment is when Elisa realizes the bookstore has a cat.

The magical stone where wishes are made: I liked the paranormal used in this story. Is the paranormal something you enjoy placing in your plots? And this paranormal, making wishes, seemed something we might all do?
I do love to write about the impossible. I think it offers a way to bypass fact and go directly to truth.

I know it would be hard for me to pass up a new book of yours. What are you working on now that you think readers would enjoy with some of these same themes? Or are you working on something entirely new?
Right now, I am working on cozy fantasy – The Enchanted Greenhouse comes out on July 15, and it’s about a librarian, a gardener, lots of magical plants, and second chances. It’s a different kind of book from The Warbler, but I think you’ll recognize a lot of the same themes: choosing who you are and who you want to be, as well as finding strength through connection to others.
 
Thanks for the chat, Sarah.
Thanks so much for chatting with me!