 So, a little bit about Franco Smith. He is a book reviewer for the Portland Press Herald, which I'm sure you all have seen. His novel, Dream Singer, was a finalist for the Penn Bell Weather Prize, and he's a friend of the library. So, thanks for being here, okay. So, thank you all for coming. This is a real honor to be here at the library, and it's also really a great honor to be here with Bruce Robert Coffin. Fabulous Portland native, yes? Portland native, and becoming a very well-known mystery writer. He's got a great series, the Detective Sergeant John Bryan series, and we're gonna be talking today about his third book in the series, Beyond the Truth. Bruce was on the Portland police force for 37. 28 years. 28 years, started walking the beat, ended up as a Detective Sergeant, yes? So, he knows about what he writes, and one of his short stories in 2016 appeared in the Best American Mystery Stories, along with a couple other people you might have heard of, Stephen King and Elmar Leonard were also in there. So, he's in good company. We're gonna, I'm gonna ask Bruce a dozen questions or so, and then we're gonna have a Q and A at the end. So, you'd be stirred and don't be shy. So, let me bring this up. I think I have them in my mind. So, this is quite a book, Bruce. This is, I think, your most ambitious and your most densely plotted story, and you pluck from the headlines a handful of major stories in the country today, and this includes cop shootings, drug trafficking, help me out, what is it? Immigrant Tensions is a big part of the story and not to give anything away. One of the saddest and most tragic issues in our country today, and so I'm really intrigued. I was really intrigued when I was reading it, but I wanted to ask you this question. What stirred you to roll all these things together in one book? You know, actually, I think, like all of these, the books, I think, and anything probably that anyone who writes a series is about, they all start with what if, and I think like the rest of us I have looked on really has essentially since I retired in 2012, as things seem like they have devolved. You know, the relationship between law enforcement and society is definitely strained, and I look back historically, and I don't believe it's been this strained since probably the 60s. So for me, I really, I've gone out of my way to not, I don't want to be the law and order writer. I'm not just grabbing things out of the newspaper and then writing a book about them, but I see the same things that all of you do, and I felt like I had a story that was evolving inside of me that needed to be told, and it really stems from the what if, and I saw all those things, and I thought, well, what if that happened here in Portland? How would that go? You know, who would take which side and who would wait till the answers came out and who would jump the gun and who might try to take advantage of that situation? And that's really the book I wanted to write. So Beyond the Truth was born from that. Beyond the Truth. And what's really intriguing about what Bruce is saying is what if, Bruce had to ask that question repeatedly with each of these major storylines, and then once he got some clarity on that, he needed to weave all those together, and it just really comes together. It's a fabulous story. Thank you, thank you. So most readers are appreciative of the fact that mystery stories require strong plots, but what makes great mystery stories are great characters, and this is a great character. Detective Sergeant John Bryan, he's a cop's cop. He followed his father onto the force. He backs up and defends his team. He stands up to brass when they seem selfish or totally self-motivated in their own interests rather than the greater community or certainly the members on the force. And one of the things I love about Detective Bryan is he can be a cowboy at times, but he never does it out of ego. He always does it because it's the right thing to do, and it's one of the things that makes him really a wonderful character. I just got to jump in. You said Bryan and Detective Byron, and my autocorrect does the same thing when I'm typing the book. You wouldn't believe how many times I've gone back and either that or I'm doing it, I don't know which, but yeah, it's irritating when I do that. I'm thinking it would have been easier if I named him Bryan, right? Thanks for clarifying that, Tom. So Beyond the Truth brings to fullness the character arc of John Bryan that began in your first book, and these three books I see as there's a full arc here. Things that are introduced in the first book are picked up in the second, and then this, I think, is really a coming to fruition. What has been the guiding premise or principle in your developing this character? When I created Byron, what I really was hoping to do was to shine a light on and to give you as the reader a really good glimpse of what it's like to go through an entire career as a police investigator. The stresses that go along with that, the unhealthy ways that many of us, while fighting those demons, tend to cope with that stress and create a very realistic picture of what it's like to do exactly that job where he's investigating homicides and violent crime within this city. And in so doing, I kind of went against the advice. Everybody has advice for you when you first start writing. They all tell you when they find out you're writing a police procedural, and by the way, I hate that term. Should just be a police mystery, right? Procedural sounds boring. Like sign up for my class, Procedural 101. Downs clinical. Doesn't it? Yeah, very, very so. But I wanted to create a realistic character and the advice I was given right out of the gate was, oh my God, you can't write another police detective with a drinking problem. And you can't write a police detective with a marital problem. And I thought, well then I guess I'm not gonna be writing about a police detective. So, and I initially did set out to try and follow that advice and create a more quirky version of John. And I think he probably would have appeared to you similar to Monk, you remember the TV show Monk, or maybe Dexter without the serial killing bit. That's off-putting in a procedural. And then I realized quickly if the stories I wanted to tell and the information I wanted to put out in creating this story was to be even remotely realistic, then I needed to create a real character. And so I drew largely on the good points and the bad points of a number of the people that I worked with over the years and trained me to become a police officer in the first place in creating John Byron. And I felt like I really, the book before the first novel actually, Among the Shadows was the first and there was a novel before that, Death Watch, awesome, awesome. Awesome book that went right in the drawer after I finished it, which is where it belongs actually. After I died, they can put it out again as like was it Go Tell the Watchman or something right there, do one of those. But I really spent two and a half years writing that first novel. And although the novel didn't turn out very well, it was a chance for me to learn who John Byron was. And I really, he breathed life into himself as I spent time with him. And now he's really fun to write. I mean, I spend every day with him. So, and the whole team. And he's a paradigm of virtue. He's got a great marriage. He doesn't drink. Right, right, yeah, yeah. He is a great character. One of the, I think Among the Shadows, your first book is just an amazing book. And the first chapter in that book, I think is a peerless piece of crime fiction. And one of the things that's important to know is that first chapter is only 250 words long. And I was stunned when I was reading through Bruce's books and that where's the rest of the chapter? I mean, you're aware when you read it that you get to the end of what's going on. But what you pulled off there was just really an amazing piece of work. And I was curious to know, I'm sure you dashed that off in an afternoon. So, can you tell us a little bit about what went into getting that right? I really felt like the first, is anyone here read Among the Shadows? All right, quite a few of you. For those of you who haven't, after you leave here, I expect you to go over and see Ari. He's got a stack. I really wanted to, in the first novel, I wanted to establish the dominance of my character. I wanted you to care about John Byron. I wanted you to want to follow his exploits and see where his life was headed. And I wanted you to root for him. And I felt like really the first book in any series, although sometimes I tend not to read the first book in a series. I don't know about the rest of you. I do that once in a while. But when it comes to creating a character who will actually grow and develop as the series goes on, which is what I'm trying to do with John, I wanted to establish that dominance with the character right out of the gate. And in order to do that, the first book deals heavily with John Byron's history. Who he is, who his father was, his father was a Portland police officer before him. When I was thinking up bad things I could do to my main character, I thought, what's worse than making him grow up with a police officer father in the city where his father works? And so, and I had fun with that. So, but the first novel really, the history of John, the history of John's father and how he got to be where he is when we find him, when we first meet him, is what that first novel among the shadows is really all about. And I knew that if I could capture the reader's attention and make them enamored with John that the series itself would work. And that's really how that works. And I wanted to write that opening scene that grabbed you, not only for the reader, but any writers here or wannabe writers here? Look, no one ever wants to admit it. And then they'll ask questions about how you write and stuff. So I'll know later on, but the first book when you write a series you're trying to also sell that book to a publisher. And in so doing, you have to write an opening chapter that grabs the reader. That's the kind of book I wanna read too. So that's really what you're after. And then that opening chapter, I wanted to show you a little vignette of something that occurs, something violent that occurs to start this investigation off. And then hopefully you would read into what I had written and then maybe get it wrong. And that was really kind of the goal. But I want the reader to do that to themselves. I don't wanna trick the reader, so. One of the things, I won't say much. You said it starts out violently and it does. And I won't say much more about that, but one of the things I really loved about that scene was there's this amazing blend of terror and tenderness. And there's this line about the killer doing this one act with great tenderness. And it's gripping and it's chilling at the same time. Thank you. Nicely, nicely done. So along the veins of the first book, and certainly throughout, lawlessness of cops is a central theme in Among the Shadows. And I think it's an intriguing thing being given that you're a former cop. Why this theme? I felt like it was something that would rear its head sooner or later in the series. If I was gonna tell honest stories and tell stories about police officers, even fictionals, police officers, and show them as what they are, which is human beings, we're as flawed as everybody else. In spite of all the training that goes on and all the selection process screening that goes on, the reality is that every once in a while, a bad apple will sneak in. And also, after dealing with the worst of the worst over a career, you're rubbing up against evil on a daily basis. Sometimes that also rubs off on the police officers. So I felt like to tell that honest story and to have the stakes really be high enough for John to be invested in this thing and to have it be life-altering, I wanted to use that as part of it. And it's funny because I remember a reviewer was asking me out of the gate before they even read the book, whether or not I was just gonna be true to police and there'd be no bad cops. And I said, no, I don't think I'm gonna follow those rules. I wanted them to be exciting books. You can't always know who the bad guy is or who the good guy is. And I had one reviewer. I remember writers will tell you they don't read reviews, they're lying. We read all the reviews, actually. And I tried to only read the good ones before going to bed at night so that I can sleep. But I remember reading one reviewer and I think it was from Amazon and the gentleman that wrote it referred to me as a traitor for having bad police officers in the book. So I think that's more about him than it is about me but yeah, no, that was kind of weird. So I've got that out of the way now and we can move forward. Yeah, you're moving toward being a patriot now. A theme that runs throughout all three books in the series is how departmental city politics and the media make the job of being a cop so difficult and so frustrating. What's been the response of former colleagues to your series of books and the way you portray what they do? Actually it's been very positive which I guess in some ways when you read these books that might be a surprise to you. Because of the portrayal that happens and really me showing the reader the stress level and what drives that stress level. And more often than not, it's about difference of what the job description entails. The police versus the media thing has been a longstanding thing that people use and it's a very real thing. And it doesn't have to be a personal issue. As you might imagine, with three decades almost, I worked closely with a number of reporters over the years and some of them I actually felt like that we were good friends. But that didn't change the fact that we actually had different goals in mind. The bottom line is we as police officers trying to work an investigation try to keep everything close to the vest. It doesn't behoove you as an investigator to allow the information to get out while you're working a case and then possibly get into the hands of the people you're trying to actually convict for this thing. And so that's our goal, to try to hold everything tight. And the goal of the reporter, of course, or the television or news reporter is to come out with a story, to put the information to the people, the right to know. And they wanna do that quick. And they wanna do it before their competitors get the information. So it's really a question of differing goals. And the same thing holds true for the upper echelon within the police department. No chief becomes chief without having started at the ground level. Every chief is a police officer when they first start off. But as you go up through the ranks, you realize that what your goals are and what your bosses expect from you are not the same thing. And many of them look back that I've talked to actually at every of the books fondly on those earlier days because things change the higher up you go. But I just think that's the nature of the beast in any business. Whether you're a doctor or you're a nurse or you're an EMT or whatever it is or even an attorney, one day you find yourself in charge of the thing and not doing what it was you loved. Not doing that first job of investigating or being in the street cop. And you suddenly look back and you realize, my God, I've turned into a politician. How did this happen? So I think that's just the reality of the job. And I wanted to portray that in an accurate way, how hard that can be. So Davis Billings League is a pain in the butt, quite honestly. He is, he is, he's a writer. So your comments sort of echo in my next comment. You were a good cop. I mean, you put on special task force, inner department, inner city task force, New England task force. Why aren't you in the chief's office today? I spent plenty of time in the chief's office when I was still in the job. Wasn't always positive either. You know, I really had no desire to do that. I think I was one of the lucky ones that actually recognized that I enjoyed being at the lower level more. To me, I actually turned down the opportunity to become a lieutenant twice, much to the chagrin of at least one of the chiefs at the time. And for me, it was, I really paid attention to what the other people above me were doing. Because remember, we all start at the same time, really. And some actually started after me. And then proceeded to go up the rank to lieutenant and captain and all that other stuff. And I felt like one of the people that I really admired when I first started with the police department in my first several years was a gentleman by the name of Mike Wallace. And Mike was the detective sergeant who ran the homicide and violent crime detective unit. And he was exactly what we all wanted to be. He had a very prestigious job. He had a very important job. And yet he never forgot where he came from or who he was. And he always made time for the people that were around him and the up-and-coming people. And I just remembered that. I mean, we all learned from the people we worked for, whether they're good or bad. And Mike really had a huge positive influence on me. And when that happened, I kind of felt like the pinnacle for me of my career would be his job, and which is the job I ended up retiring from. And I think I had no desire to go beyond that. I could just see that it was further and further away from the job that I loved, which is getting down and doing the work and being part of the team of detectives that actually put these cases together and then take them forward to get justice. I don't know if this is a question exactly, but so my education is as a sociologist. And one of the things I always loved, sort of a hybrid writer, was participatory cases, books that I read, that where somebody goes in, a sociologist goes in and lives, Tally's Corner is one of the classics in the field, the sociologist went and lived on Tally's Corner in an East Coast city. I don't remember the one. And I don't mean this in any way, disparangely, but one of the things I love about your books is you have this ability to have that sharp eye for details and character that take the reader, sort of lifts the hatch down to the seller into what it's like being a cop. And it's one of the things I think that really makes your story so authentic and I appreciate that as a reader. Thank you, thank you. It's really a glimpse behind the curtain at how police officers think and how they see the world is kind of what I was after. Occasionally, especially in the case of my character, Mike Nugent, who was one of the detectives, it may be a humorous look on things that are occurring. A gallows humor, if you will. But it's really, it's an attempt to try and show the reader what it's like to think and be and act like a police detective. And I want to take the reader on the journey where you feel like you're climbing in beside Diane Joyner or John Byron or any of the other characters and you're part of the investigation, that they're having a conversation with you or that they're sharing their inner thoughts with you. I want the reader to feel that. So that's really what I set out to do and hopefully it's working, so. It's working. I think that in your third book, Beyond the Truth, you have a very different opening than the first two books and you do it in situ, which means in situation, right in the middle of something going on and the first book does that and you're right in the middle of this murder, but it's 250 words and it's really not, this current book, what it does is you're in the middle of a police situation, if you will. There's been a robbery in Portland and patrolling cop is in the area and he spots these two guys and he runs them down and ends up chasing them through the neighborhood and gets them blocked in a, I believe it's an alley anyway, it's a blocked passage. And they climb up on this car, I believe, to get over this fence and one of them turns around and fires a gun. And that's sort of the real heart of the setup for the story, it takes off from there. But I was curious, the next two chapters as well and even chapter four to a bit, inside to, you go into a very, and again, this is not disparaging, you go through a very methodical walk through what it's like, coming to a crime scene and assessing what happened and what a detective looks for and what they go about taking care of right in those first moments and then what goes on back at the police station as well. I think that my question is, is it may be an obvious answer, but why did you decide to do this rather than in a higher level expository narrative? Instead you took us down in, if you will, down into the weeds of police work. I think, and it's really from media, inaccurate media. We all watch the television shows, we all watch the movies and generally they don't come within acres of the way things really work. And my goal in the third book, because I had to set the stage for what was coming, is I wanted to, I had actually mentioned this to somebody, when I envisioned how that first scene was going to open, I wanted to even more, I think, even more so in Beyond the Truth than the first novel to grab you where you couldn't let go. I mean, anyone here remember seeing a movie where you barely got sat down at the movie theater and suddenly you're squeezing the popcorn bag and you're all tense and you're thinking, oh my God, I can't take two hours of this, right? I was envisioning when I thought about writing the opening scene, specifically, the movie Cliffhanger, anybody see that, was Sylvester Stallone and he's a rock climbing guy, wears a t-shirt, it's winter time, very realistic. But the opening scene, it grabs you. I mean, you don't even have a chance to get seated before things go sideways. And the other one I was picturing was Shane Black's characters which were the impetus for what became the Lethal Weapon movie series. Did anybody here see any of those movies with Mel Gibson and Danny Glover? So the second movie, after we've already got introduced to the characters and we love the characters, the second movie starts off immediately in the middle of a high speed chase and they're in Danny Glover's wife's brand new station wagon with wood grain paneling and they're in a high speed chase. And Mel Gibson's pounding the roof and trying to talk on the radio and hide his accent and it's just, it's crazy, there's all kinds of stuff going on. And I wanted to do that because I remembered how that made me feel. And I knew the importance of that opening scene. And so that's what I wanted to write. But then after I've given that to you and you've crinkled up your popcorn bag, it's time to take it down and I wanted to show the reader exactly what it's like to be called into a scene like that where everything has exploded, everybody's all cranked up, things are crazy, it doesn't get any worse than that. And as an investigator, you can't get caught up in that. It's almost like you have to come in and put a cone over yourself and literally walk through the scene and try to block out all that stuff. I would imagine it would be very much like trying to pitch in a big game or the World Series or something. The crowd's going crazy, everything's at stake and yet somehow you still have to stay centered and internal and focus on the things that matter and not get caught up in the melee. And that's really what that is about. I wanted to show you how that works, how you take that down, how you have to force yourself to do your job and not get caught up in what everybody else is caught up in. So. Yeah, it's very effective. That would be the procedural part of that. There it is, there it is, but it's not clinical. So one of the things you have a scene in that opening set of chapters, actually in the first chapter, Brian tells all everybody else. Byron, Byron, Byron, Byron, Byron, Byron, Byron. I'm gonna have shirts made. Byron. Byron. Byron tells everybody on his team, I want you all to go, who's not working on something in the moment, I want you to go door to door in this neighborhood on the bang on doors and I want you to interview everybody and I want you to get their eyewitness account about what happened and this is what they do. And the reason for this comes out later and he says, I don't want down the road somewhere, somebody coming out of the woods and saying, well, I was there and what I saw was completely different and so we wanna have it really nailed down. So later in the book, there's a Perez, I think his name is. Did I get it right? Yes, yeah, yeah. Okay, yeah. Perez, a new story comes out, media television I believe it is and he says, I was there and what I saw was these two kids and they raised their hands in the air and this cop shot and killed this kid. And I could not help but, and this creates a firestorm as you can imagine, this is the headline of the city and the mayor is screaming and the chief is screaming and the cops still have to go on and do their job but I couldn't help but think of Ferguson. I believe it was Ferguson. Yes. You draw that out of a distant memory or were you aware that that was so similar and the effect of that? No, I think that was just really from what I was attempting to do, I wanted to show how one incident like that happening after the scene that's really unrelated, how much damage somebody can do by making a comment like that and it doesn't matter whether, if later on you found out that was true, then it's all for naught. But if you find out that wasn't true, it's impossible to walk that back. Once that's out there, it's out there. You've heard it and so everybody who watched the television news that noon time on that day now believes that that's part of what happened and so it's ingrained on the psyche of everybody living within the city or everybody that has a vested interest in determining how this case turns out and it's impossible to take that back. Once you've heard it, there'll always be doubt in your mind and somehow it always seems to be when the correction is finally made, it always seems to be in smaller print and usually we don't find it. That's the problem and I think not, yes it obviously did occur in Ferguson but that was all part of the what if. To me that's one of those things that makes it almost impossible to get a fair shake and to do the investigation that needs to be done when the public has already arrived at a decision, a preconceived decision on how things went and that makes the job of the investigator very difficult so there's no real way to vet that so what John was attempting to get those detectives to do was to go out and cameras the entire neighborhood searching for the most elusive person, the most least likely to even have seen it to nail down everybody because once you've locked them into statements, the best evidence is the stuff that they remember that just happened versus what's gonna happen when they realize they can get their five minutes in front of the camera and then everything changes so I just thought that was a very accurate way to tell that story and to show the pressure that really mounts up quickly as the detectives have to deal with something like that. And you can imagine it totally changed as it does on the street, it totally changes the trajectory of what comes after that. You brought this up earlier and I'm not gonna be able to capture it quite the way you do but I've always struck by it when you had mentioned it a month or so ago, you say something to the effect and correct me, you're better at distilling this that you never wanna lead, you never wanna mislead your readers, you wanna take them to a certain point and leave them to make their own assessment and that's your job as a writer to do. Talk about that. I think it's an interesting observation. You know to me I think that's the most important part of writing a mystery series and anytime I get too close to what would be easier to figure out, my editor gives me that slap in the back of the head and says you need to stick with what you do that works so well. If I've written it properly and it doesn't matter whether we're talking about a short story or a novel, if I've written it well, I've given you what you need to solve the mystery but I also will play on what I hope are your experiences, your biases, your jumping to conclusions, the things that we all do and get you to guess wrong. I don't wanna mislead you. If I've done my job, you will mislead yourself and then when you get to the end of the book you'll be like oh my God, I should have seen that coming and the example that I love to give is, I should be writing movies because that's always my example but the same thing gets done actually better in books but the movie has that visual quality where you can really play with the audience. M. Night Shyamalan who I am a huge fan of, another person I'd like to meet at some point but he did a movie with Bruce Willis called The Sixth Sense and I don't know if you did what I did. I've watched that movie now probably 15 times to see all the little nuances that he built in but I loved the fact that he allowed me to mislead myself and I was convinced that I had been played. The one scene that really jumped out at me when the big reveal happened and I almost said bullshit, I call bullshit on that because I remembered Bruce Willis holding his wife's hand at the dinner table right when they were in the restaurant and I was convinced that that's what happened and then he gives you the little vignettes back to what had occurred earlier in the movie and as Bruce reaches out to touch her hand she pulls back. They never actually made physical contact because of the way it had been written I made the link that they were out there and that he was talking with her and all this stuff happened. You go back and look at it and that's not what happened at all and so as a writer of mystery novels I want you to misdirect yourself. I don't want to be doing the cheap trick. Like a bad one where the bad guy shows up in the next to last chapter and there's no way you could have ever solved it. I give you what you need and it's just a question of where you go with it. I think that's always the trick. My editor at Harper, Nick Amflit that's how we always judge is that he's still scratching his head. He goes, I read these all day long and he goes, you have fooled me repeatedly on the first two books and I have no idea how you're doing it. He goes, I'm convinced, all right, at page 100 I know who did it and then he's like, damn it, it page 200 now I know who did it, this time I got it and it just keeps working that way so hopefully I can continue to do that. You do it quite well. Thank you. You fooled me and I'm a pretty sharp reader. I mean, that's one of the things I think is so fascinating about the genre is one of the challenges for the reader is to figure out who did it, you know, so the worst thing is to be able to figure it out somewhere maybe past halfway but well before the end of the book. That's just, you know, it's like time to end. So I love titles of books and I'm really intrigued by your three titles and one of a couple of things that I think are really interesting. I talked earlier about inside to that you're right in the middle of something, you know, beyond the truth or among the shadows, beneath the depths. So I was thinking about this and it popped into my head that all three of these are prepositional phrases and are we to read anything into this in terms of the trajectory that your stories are gonna take? You know, yes, I guess the real answer is that we have very little control over the titles. That's one of the lessons, everything has been a lesson as this goes on. God knows what I'm gonna figure out in the next book but I was convinced that I could just name my book and they would publish it and it would be a great title and I spent all this time thinking about it. The first book among the shadows was actually written under the name The Reaping and for those of you that have read the book, it's a real good fit. I mean, it's a very apt title for what the story is about. And then my editor got back to me. The book was already, I was just waiting on copy edits so really the first book was just about done and I felt like great. I'm already writing book two, we've moved on, I don't have to think about it anymore and he got a hold of me and said, hey, we don't really like this title. And I'm like, well, what does that mean? I go, it's exactly what the book is about. He goes, yeah, but it conjures up images of supernatural and this is a mystery book. And I argued, I said, well, yeah, but To Reap means exactly what the book is. He goes, yeah, I know, but we're trying to sell this too. It's about marketing. And I thought, okay, now I'm in big trouble. So, and to let you know what this felt like, you think about this, I spent all that time writing this book under The Reaping. It would be like sending your kid off to the first day of school, right? They get on the bus and it's, her name is Michelle and she gets on the bus and she comes home and she's all excited with a note from her teacher and she tells you that they're gonna call her Diane. And you're like, how do I live with that? Like, seriously, five years and it's been Michelle. So I'm in full panic mode. This is my baby here and they're telling me I gotta rename it. So I have no idea what to do. It's never happened to me before. So I get ahold of a friend of mine, Alamonda, who is a great writer who, a former New York, another transplant up to Southern Maine. And I said, what do I do? I didn't expect this. I'm not prepared for this. And he said, don't worry about it. He goes, it happens to all of us. He said, sit down with your wife, come up with a list of five titles that you like that you could live with and just give that to them and let them pick one. And he said, whatever you do, do not send them a title you don't like, like I did, because that's the one they'll pick. So we came up with this list that we liked that still, I wanted it to have a double meeting. All of the titles have a double meeting. And Among the Shadows was my favorite and my wife's favorite. And I thought, well, I'm gonna have to play reverse psychology like you do with a kid, right? So I buried it. It was down at number four on my list. And then I sent it off to them and I had to wait. And they had a meeting. That's what publishers do all day long as they have a meeting. On everything there's a meeting. I said, Jesus, like the police department was. And they got back and they said, Jesus, everybody really liked Among the Shadows. And I went, well, that's nice. And I thought, that's it, I'll low ball it so that they don't get too, I think I'm excited they may wanna change it. So we ended up with Among the Shadows. And I was happy with that. And then I thought, I started having people ask me, so is this gonna be the shadow series? And I thought, oh my God, stab myself in the eye then write the shadow series. Cause I'm thinking, how many titles could I come up with? In my mind, I'm picturing Sue Grafton, right? I'm gonna have to come up with an alphabet title for every book and you know, for those of you that read Sue Grafton, where does the alphabet end now? The letter Y, very good. So I didn't wanna get stuck in that. So I thought, I'm gonna outsmart these guys. So the second title, the second novel I wrote with two titles in mind. I couldn't come up with one that was perfect. And I came up with either Beneath the Surface or From the Depths. But neither one of them really did it for me but I knew that's what I wanted to say. I just couldn't think of any other way to say it. So they had a meeting and they got back and they said, what about Beneath the Depths? And I thought, okay, I mean it sounds catchy and it kinda goes with the first one. What does it mean exactly? Where would that be from a quantitative level? Below the surface? And he said, it doesn't matter. It just, it goes good, it sounds good. I said, all right, I see where we're at. And then by the third book, I realized that I hadn't outsmarted anybody. I'm now the prepositional phrase author. So that's, you know, Sue Grafton and I, I guess we're locked in, so. But I'm happy with that but it definitely will be a challenge going forward. Won't you do that? I'm working on book four right now, which is tentatively titled, Within Plain Sight. So God knows what that'll end up being. Thanks, Bruce. We're gonna open it up to questions from the audience, anybody? At the end of your career as a police officer, did you finally click to make sure that you could perfect a police officer in a novel because you never couldn't realize it? Wow. Can we get security in here? No. Next question. That might be the best question I've ever had. That's very good, thank you. Next question. Did you run any of the early books or the later books? Any books in the series by former colleagues, by a trusted former colleague, just to get there, anyone? I really didn't with former colleagues. I have, well I shouldn't say that, a couple of times I have Peggy Greenwald who used to be the chief medical examiner for the state of Maine. Peggy is a good friend and we have talked about some things. Actually, she may actually have a bigger role in an upcoming book because she, as the medical examiner, actually is fascinated by cool ways to try and fool the police detectives as a medical examiner. So that would be the Quincy in her, I guess, and we may end up coming up with something that'll be difficult for you in future books, but not police officers. I think the first time that I've actually done that where I reached out and asked for some help in regards to the psyche was the third book would be on the truth. I intentionally got into, as the story lends itself to being very, an emotional story. It was an emotional story to write and it's an emotional story to read and there were aspects of that that I wanted to get right. One of the things that I know very well would be investigating police shootings, but I, my limited exposure to that was as the investigator following up to find out what happened, but I'd never been the shooter so I had no idea what that would actually feel like to be the officer involved in that. Beyond what I could see. And so I engaged the help of a friend of mine who very candidly shared an emotional recounting of what that has been like, what it was like and what it has been like every day since. And I am forever indebted for them doing that. I mean they really exposed the whole thing to me and it was eye-opening and it was needed to tell the story properly. And then the same thing was done with me with the alcohol part of John's life. I wanted to get a real good, accurate portrayal of what that was like for the person battling alcoholism. And so I, again, I reached out to another co-worker and they were very candid and very open and I'm forever grateful. I think it makes it a much better book. So, thank you. Second, I'm back. It seems like today's protagonists, mystery stories like yours, cop stories, the hero always has to be seriously flawed either Byron or Paul Darwin's Wharton, like Lord H. or James Haylund's cop, McKay. Is that becoming almost an essential portion of putting out or creating a protagonist today about the genre? Did everybody hear the question? I'll repeat it back for the camera anyway. The question was whether or not, John Byron is very flawed, whether or not that is a necessary component, I think, in telling today's stories. And I think it is, you know, they don't have to be overly flawed, but I mean, you stop and you think back to the classic stuff we were all forced to read back in the day, right? You know, Shakespeare plays and all your flawed heroes and, but I think that just makes it more interesting. For me, I think it's almost a cultural thing where you can't identify with the main character if they're so heroic that they don't have anything that you can connect with. Jack Reacher, which is the Lee Child series, the reason I think Jack Reacher works is because he is flawed, he is troubled, he is suffering from PTSD. He's brought his career home with him and carries it around as an invisible duffel bag. You know, and I think were it not for that component in those stories, Jack Reacher would be, who would care? I mean, the only thing missing is the cape and his ability to fly, and we'd be looking at Superman, right, in black and white again. So I think it is necessary, and I think I wanted to write John Byron in a way that people would identify with him. You know, and here's another example for you. The Sopranos was wildly successful. And you stop and you think about the Sopranos and really, at its core, it's a stereotypical story, a modern day story of the Godfather. You know, he's running a trash company down in New Jersey and it's a front for all this other stuff that's happening. And were it not for Tony's failed things that were going on? You know, he's going to see therapists, he's got anxiety attacks. You know, the guys are stone cold killer, but they put ducks in his pool and it messes with him. And they've got, his own guy's trying to kill him and that's stressing him out. And his daughter's got to get into this high-priced college and that's stressing him out. And Karm wants a new car and that's stressing him out. And suddenly Tony's not a cold-blooded killer, he's just a guy trying to get by. He just happens to be a mafioso boss. But I think that has to happen if we are to connect with a character, you know, to really care about them. There has to be those flawed things that we can all see within ourselves to be able to enjoy, so. Yes? And even going back in history on Sherlock Holmes, the great, the wonderful was an addict, a reckless, neurotic, just on and on. Absolutely. There's probably never been a more flawed character than that character. And yet, we were fascinated by his ability to be able to break down and take apart all these crimes with seemingly unconnected events or clues or evidence. And yet, there it is, he paints a perfect picture for us. I mean, and if that wasn't, if that wasn't an engaging character or somebody that we were really enthusiastic about following, they wouldn't continue to write books about that character. They wouldn't continue to make television shows about that character. I think that's long-standing. I think that's why that works. It's getting old a lot. Yeah, I mean, Harry Bosch. Harry Bosch is very flawed. I mean, that's another example in that regard. There's a difference between the television series and the books where one of them is about his experiences in Vietnam. That's what the series is about, the novels. And then the television version has been updated. So we're talking about Afghanistan and that kind of stuff. But I think that the thing still holds true. I mean, we all have flaws, whether we are willing to admit them openly or not. We all have them. And so if you paint a picture of somebody who really is the choir boy and doesn't do anything wrong, no one's gonna wanna read that. I wouldn't wanna read that. So to that point, just real quick. So I had a first reader read one of my stories early on. And their comment about the protagonist was, he's really boring. So that's to the point. You, ma'am? Yes? I was just wondering, you spoke earlier about walking around with the characters in their lines every day. And I wondered if there was a character, or a sub-character in the Byron series, who was kind of finding the gap with a box and being your own book. I feel that's happening. Ooh, I don't know. I guess anything's possible. You know, I always, it's funny. I think about that stuff. I definitely think about that stuff. Because each of your characters, when you spend enough time with them, have their own story to tell. And they have their own personality to develop and lives, whether they're all on the page or not. They're still there for me. You know, who knows? You never know. Jim Heyman has done that. And I still have no idea how he did it. As a writer and a reader first, I love to try and analyze something that's unusual that a writer has pulled off effectively. And Jim Heyman's series, set right here in Portland, his protagonist is the protagonist of the series, McCabe. But McCabe is the primary detective in the first two books. And Maggie Savage is really kind of number two. He's sort of my Diane Joyner. And yet, the story he tells, and I think it's book three, actually occurs outside of Portland, Maine. And Maggie is dragged back up north to a county where her father is the sheriff. And McCabe really has just a small role in that whole novel. And it's the Maggie Savage story. And she goes up to investigate the death of a friend of hers from school. And she inserts herself in the state police case, which you might imagine doesn't go over well. But he does it very effectively. It's a great story and it's almost a seamless transition. And I think, to say I would never do that obviously, I wouldn't say, but I think I would have to be much more comfortable with that idea than I am right now. I think that's just gonna take me developing as a writer before I would dare to do that. But that would be interesting. Diane is a character I really enjoy writing. And she would be a possibility for that. I think if the right story crept into my head, I could make that work. So. Thank you all. We need to wrap up. We need time enough for the long line to get all their books signed here for Bruce. Thank you all for coming. Great questions. And I know Bruce is very appreciative of you. I wanna say real quick, just as a reminder for those of you that don't know, the third novel will be released on October 30th. Again, it's called Beyond the Truth. And on that very day, we will be having a launch party down at Tamillo's. We've taken over the second floor. So it's Tuesday night, October 30th, from five to nine. Long fellow books will be there selling copies of the new novel and the first two. And we will be also raising money that night for a program called Canines on the Frontline. And I will tell you, before anybody in social media world knows, one of the other things we're going to do that night is we will raffle off or auction off your name as a character in a future novel. So. There you go. Thank you guys very much. Thank you. Thank you.