Featured Interview With Jim Riley
Tell us a little about yourself. Where were you raised? Where do you live now?
I was raised in the cottonfields of North Louisiana, typical redneck country. In the fifth grade, my family moved to a suburb of Baton Rouge, right in the middle of the Cajun culture. We went from black-eyed peas to boiled crawfish.
I am now retired and writing full time. GumShoe, an imprint of Next Chapter, offered me a contract for sixty novels and short stories. I had written these while in federal prison with pen and paper. In the past year, I have transposed about thirty so far. I hope to finish the rest in the next twelve months.
At what age did you realize your fascination with books? When did you start writing?
I’ve always loved a mystery. Old television shows like “Murder She Writes” & “Columbo” were favorites growing up. The urge to create my own mysteries grew as I aged. Now that I’m retired, I can fulfil the desire to create stories that others will enjoy.
I am a pantser, meaning I don’t use an outline for my stories. I start with an opening scene and let the characters decide where to take the plot. In many instances, I don’t know which character will turn out to be the bad guy until the end. I let the characters define the pace and outcome of each story.
Who are your favorite authors to read? What is your favorite genre to read. Who Inspires you in your writings?
I love John Grisham, John Stanford, James Patterson, Sue Grafton, Michael Connelly, Janet Evanovich, Stieg Larsson, Robert Parker, Jeffery Deaver, Lee Child and several others. While serving four years in prison, I read over 600 novels. The author who caught my attention was Lee Child & his Jack Reacher character. I thought he brought a new dimension to the mystery genre.
The other author I truly enjoyed was the late Sue Grafton. She made Lindsey Millhone come to life in a down-to-earth reality. I believe Sue was a genius.
Tell us a little about your latest book?
I am in the middle of the Niki Dupre series, which consists of over twenty full-length novels and thirty short stories. Niki is a female private investigator in a male-dominated industry and society in South Louisiana. She is a Weapons Master in Kempo and uses this expertise in most stories.
She is assisted by an hour-glass blonde with a voracious appetite. Donna Cross can hack into any database in the world without leaving a trace.
The pair of ladies face the corrupt political environment embedded in the Louisiana culture as well as traffickers of drugs, sex and counterfeit money.
The novels took me about three weeks each to write and the short stories about four days. I wrote them on yellow paper pads and now am in the process of transposing them to computer text. I have arthritis and use a voice recognition software. With my redneck accents, it’s frustrating and sometimes hilarious how the system interprets my words. Needless to say, much editing is required to fix these errors. It is taking me longer to transpose and edit the works than it did to write them.
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