Author Name: Thomas Shawver

Latest Book Title: Dirty Book Murder & Left Turn At Paradise (Rare Book Mystery Series)

  • What’s the story behind the story? What inspired you to write this book?
    • THOMAS: I wrote the Dirty Book Murder shortly after my wife and I closed our antiquarian bookstore after a rewarding (spiritually, if not financially) fifteen-year run. I drew upon the personalities of our lovably eccentric staff, erudite (mostly) customers, and the Bloomsday Barflies—first cousins to Sherlock Holmes’ Baker Street Irregulars.  The plot for DBM was inspired by an actual serial killer who was an art dealer to many ranking members of Kansas City society.  I also drew from the Kansas City Irish community, the habitues of the neighboring French cafe, and the wealthy denizens of an exclusive enclave on the Kansas side of the state line.  To this fictional plot I added a dose of mystery, a dollop of humor, a teaspoon of sex, and a bracing splash of horror.
  • If you had to pick theme songs for the main characters of your book, what would they be?
    • THOMAS:
      • Michael Bevan: Whiskey in the Jar by The Clancy Brothers. Or Funky Ceili by Black 47
      • Josie Majansik: Holding Back the Years by Simply Red. Or La Vie en Rose by Edith Piaf
      • Anne Bevan: Anti-hero by Taylor Swift. Or King of Pain by Sting.
      • Weston Preston: Ballad of a Switchblade Knife by Tom T. Hall
      • Phyllida Law: It’s Impossible by Perry Como
      • Robert “Long Bob” Bob Langston: Theme from Rocky
      • Denton Crowell: Ride of the Valkyries by Richard Wagner
      • Edward Worth IV: Take Five by Dave Brubeck
      • Rolf Kramm: Deutchland, Deutchland, Uber Alles
  • What books are on your to-be-read pile right now?
    • THOMAS:
      • Beheld by Tarashea Nesbit
      • The Code of the Woosters by P.G. Wodehouse
      • The Transmigration of Timothy Archer by Philip K. Dick
      • The Thin Man by Dashiell Hammett
      • Once Upon a Tome, the Rare Adventures of a Rare Bookman by Oliver Darkshire
      • Flashman at the Charge by George MacDonald Fraser
  • What scene in your book was your favorite to write?
    • THOMAS: Where Bevan meets the stately dowager Beatrice Land, a modern stand-in for Dickens’ Miss Haversham. She dwells in the Valentine District of midtown Kansas City, a leafy area where lumber magnates and grain traders lived in baronial splendor a century ago. These days the neighborhood has slipped a bit, but still retains an aura of faded noblesse oblige. Tendrils of ivy meander around and sometimes through the chimneys of the three-story mansions. Slate tiles fall from roofs onto untrimmed bushes below. Beatrice doesn’t seem to notice the decay. And perhaps that is just as well.
  • Do you have any quirky writing habits?
    • I rub a small black obsidian stone taken from Bryce Canyon in Utah before I begin to write on the computer. Then I stare at the screen. And stare. And…
  • Can you describe your writing process?
    • THOMAS: I take likeable lead characters and give them a difficult problem to solve. I create obstacles that continue to ramp up the tension. The story involves an item important enough for a person so inclined to lie, cheat, steal or even kill for. I like the plot to involve something historical so that the reader learns something interesting despite whatever mayhem surrounds the story. I also try leaven the grimness with occasional humor, usually in the form of banter between the leads or in the antics of an outlandish character.
  • What’s next for you?
    • THOMAS: I have recently completed a standalone mystery titled Achille’s Promise set in the Flint Hills of Kansas, where a deadly pathogen infects America’s cattle supply. I am currently working on a fourth in the Rare Book Series featuring Michael Bevan and Josie Majansik.
  • Do you have a motto, quote or philosophy you live by?
    • THOMAS: “Success is shambling from one failure to another without losing your enthusiasm,” said Winston Churchill. Or as Samuel Beckett put it: “No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.”
  • If you could choose one thing for readers to remember after reading your book, what would it be?
    • THOMAS: Love, laugh, and live in the moment like Bevan and Josie.
  • Are there specific types of scenes you struggle with?
    • THOMAS: Getting a character from point A to point B without numbing the reader. That and the ever-difficult historical background dump.
  • Where did you get your inspiration for your amazing characters?
    • THOMAS: It has been said that the book trade is a floating world for people of intelligence unsuited for anything else. Much of the Dirty Book Murder was inspired by my employees and customers at Bloomsday Books, as well as the people at the French bistro next door. Every day in that corner of shops I observed mini dramas (tragedies as well as comedies) flitting across the stage.  For all the seeming benevolence of the trade, book dealing has its share of thieves, connivers, and downright villains. My travels to the beautiful South Island of New Zealand where my wife and I witnessed the sometimes-fractious relations of Māori with their pakeha (European New Zealander) neighbors formed the background for Left Turn at Paradise. To write The Widow’s Son I drew upon the Kansas City Irish community as well as a contingent of The Latter-Day Saints.
  • What drew you to this genre in the first place?
    • THOMAS: Like they say, “Write what you know.” I was a fan of biblio-mysteries long before I owned a used bookstore. The stories had an intellectual whiff without being too stuffy, and a macabre criminal aspect without too much gore. It’s a genre where you can stuff historical intrigue, international travel and a bit of sex along with learning something about 14th century vellum bindings. It’s also where you’ll find authors as diverse and talented as John Dunning (Booked to Die), Lawrence Block (Burglar in the Library), Penelope Fitzgerald (The Book Shop), Umberto Eco (The Name of the Rose), and Isaac Asimov (Murder at the ABA).
  • An author or authors who inspire you and you look up to?
    • THOMAS: In no particular order:
      • George MacDonald Fraser (The Flashman series)
      • Charles Portis (True Grit)
      • Daniel Woodrell (Winter’s Bone)
      • S. Byatt (Possession)
      • Ernest Hemingway (For Whom the Bell Tolls)
      • Rafael Sabatini (Captain Blood)
      • Diane Gabaldon (Outlander)
      • Wallace Stegner (Angle of Repose)
      • Bernard Cornwell (The Last Kingdom)
      • Patrick O’Brien (Master and Commander)
      • Joseph Conrad (Lord Jim)
      • Hermann Hesse (Steppenwolf)
      • Ian Fleming (James Bond)
      • Dashiell Hammett (The Thin Man)
      • Raymond Chandler (The Long Goodbye)
      • James Joyce (Ulysses)
      • John Le Carre (The Russia House)
      • John Steinbeck (East of Eden)
      • G. Wodehouse (The Code of the Woosters)