Featured Interview With Martin Roy Hill
Tell us a little about yourself. Where were you raised? Where do you live now?
I’m the author of five books. My first book was Duty, a collection of previously published and new suspense short stories dealing with military service. That was followed by the military mystery thriller, The Killing Depths, then the noir mystery thriller, Empty Places. My fourth book was a sci-fi novella called Eden. My latest novel, due out in March, is a sequel to Empty Places called The Last Refuge.
I’m a rare Southern California native. I grew up in the beach community of Redondo Beach, just south of Los Angeles and, other than military service, have lived in SoCal all my life. I currently live in San Diego with my wife, Winke, son, Brandon, and our cat, Harry. I spent some 20 years in journalism as a police reporter, investigative journalist, and editor before switching careers and becoming an analyst in combat medical operations for the U.S. Navy.
At what age did you realize your fascination with books? When did you start writing?
Like most writers, I was an eager reader at a young age. However, I didn’t start writing until I was in high school when an English teacher who liked my classroom writing urged me to consider something like journalism as a career. I started taking journalism classes and writing short stories at that time. I eventually majored in journalism in college and launched a career in that profession. Besides the newspapers and magazines I worked as a staff writer or editor, I also freelanced for publications such as Reader’s Digest, LIFE, Newsweek, Omni, and so on. All the time, I continued writing fiction and honing my craft.
Who are your favorite authors to read? What is your favorite genre to read. Who Inspires you in your writings?
When I was younger, I was very much influenced by the writers of The Lost Generation — greats such as Hemingway, Remarque, and Dos Passos. I also enjoyed science fiction authors like H.G. Wells. But I also enjoyed the work of Ian Fleming and Alistair MacLean. Today, I read a great number of thriller authors like David Morrell and James Rollins. I’m very fond of stories that involve historic backgrounds, the kind of books Rollins, Preston and Child, and Bob Mayer write. My sci-fi book, Eden, was very much influenced by those authors. My books Empty Places and The Last Refuge were based on historical events.
Tell us a little about your latest book?
My latest book is The Last Refuge, the second in my Peter Brandt series of thrillers. It takes place in 1993, not too long after the First Iraq War—that is, Operation Desert Storm. Peter Brandt, the battle-scarred war correspondent hero of Empty Places, is trying to put his wars behind him when he lands a freelance magazine assignment to write a story on a lawsuit filed against the U.S. government by a widow whose husband, a civilian engineer, was killed along with several U.S. soldiers in a terrible friendly fire incident during the war. When Peter learns the government has not only classified the lawsuit but denies it even exists, his continuing investigation draws him into a world of betrayal, murder, and government secrets. The tile comes from Samuel Johnson’s rebuke of his fellow politicians who hid their corruption behind a veil of patriotic fervor: “Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.”
Connect with the Author on their Websites and Social media profiles