The Broken Detective
by Joel Nedecky
Season 2 Ep. 1

TPP Episode 26 with Joel Nedecky

Mark: [00:00:00] Coming up on the Thriller Pitch podcast.

Joel: it is a story about redemption. When you’ve made mistakes for a long time, when you’ve lived a certain way for a long time, is it even possible to come back from that?

Mark: What makes a great thriller tick, and what does it take to write one? Welcome to the Thriller Pitch Podcast, where bestselling award-winning and emerging thriller authors share the craft research and real world experiences that power today’s most gripping stories. I’m your host, mark p Jay Nadal.

Whether you’re writing thrillers or can’t get enough of reading them, this show takes you inside the minds of the authors, behind the twist. Characters and moments that keep us turning the page.

This week I’m joined by Joel Nki, author of the Broken Detective. We talk about crime fiction that resists easy redemption, writing protagonists who don’t get clean arcs, and why some stories are more interested in understanding [00:01:00] people than in saving them.

Joel shares how he approached writing addiction consequence and moral uncertainty, how place shapes character, and why he believes not every story needs to offer comfort at the end. If you’re interested in crime fiction, that asks hard questions and lets the answers stay unresolved this is a conversation worth hearing. Joel, welcome to the show. Thank you so much for being here today.

Joel: Yeah. Thank you for having me.

Mark: I am very excited to talk about your book, the Broken Detective. Let’s get started with the book pitch.

Joel: Okay, so the broken Detective, is about a private investigator named Jake Jolson and the book is for fans of people who love, mysteries, thrillers, noir, crime novels, people who love to read the books of Dennis Lehan, George Pelicano, people like that. And the story is about Jake and how he is going to prison.

[00:02:00] He knows he’s going. It’s just a matter of for how long. And thanks to a suspended sentence, he has two weeks to earn as much money as possible so he can support his mom, who is, not very well while he’s, while he’s inside. And during those two weeks, he gets hired to find a missing woman. So he takes the case.

The story is set in Winnipeg, Manitoba, my hometown. And I, I think it’s a story that fans of thrillers will enjoy.

Mark: Thank you. And why set it in Manitoba?

Joel: Well, I, I guess the main reason, well, there’s a couple, but the main one is that’s, that’s where I’ve always lived. Well for the, for the majority of my life anyway. And I also think, you know, I, I read books from crime authors, people who read, uh. Who, who reads stuff like, James Lee Burke or Michael Connolly, you know, and, and the settings in those places are so important.

And I’ve read other Canadian authors who have [00:03:00] set their books in other Canadian cities, but there’s not very many, crime thriller books set in Winnipeg. So I, I thought that, you know, gimme a chance to write about my city and, and then as a, as a third reason, I guess I, I always find it fascinating just where people are from and how.

You know, a city has so many good things, so many positives. But then at the same time, there’s these like problems, issues that people who live there seem to always come back to. And Winnipeg has a few, few very particular ones that people, always talk about when they talk about Winni.

Mark: How do you balance in your story telling place with moving the story forward at the same time? Because you did spend chunks of space to describe it and it was well done, but I’m just curious how you chose that. Okay. Here’s an exposition where I want to talk about Winnipeg to bring it to life versus moving the plot forward.

Joel: Yeah, I think, [00:04:00] I think one of the things I tried to do it is just not be heavy handed with it. Like try to layer in the details about Winnipeg, either like you said, during short passages of exposition or even even from characters in dialogue. There’s one conversation I can remember right now where Jake is talking to sort of like his mentor figure, I guess a character named Katz and Jake is telling him how he how he hates Winnipeg, how there’s so many things about this city he doesn’t like, from the crime to the cold, to the poverty, and just all these, these things he doesn’t like. And then in that conversation they, they start talking about, you know, some of the good things about the people who, who live here and some of the things the city has going for it.

And I think through dialogue is maybe a, a way to get setting across to the reader without, like I say, being too blatant about it.

Mark: How much of Winnipeg ended up in the book as far as like you mentioned, like some of the problems and things that happen, there’s obviously a lot of problems that happen in the book as well. [00:05:00] How many things correlate between what you know of Winnipeg versus what was been put in the book?

Joel: You know what I, I, what I tried to do with that, um, I tried to make it like, I don’t know if it’s necessarily an accurate reflection of Winnipeg, I think. I think parts of it are, but I also think, you know, a person’s perspective on a place depends on who they are, where they live, what they do for a living, what their family’s like, where they’re from, maybe originally.

So I, I think it’s, I think it’s the character the protagonist Jake’s, I think it’s his version of the city. But at the same time, there are some details that have played prominently in the news here in the last probably 10 years for sure is just how, you know, Winnipeg in Canada anyway, had the dubious distinction of being the murder capital of Canada.

So. I believe we’ve lost that title. I, I think another city a little bit to our east has that title now, but, I, for a long time [00:06:00] we, we had the most murders per capita in the country. So a detail like that is something that’s, you know, taken right from, from real life. Uh, As far as the communities and such, most of the streets, most of the neighborhoods are, are true to, to reality. With a couple businesses and places like that. I just made up just to, sort of fit the story.

Mark: Yeah. Okay, so if I, if I look at the streets and stuff, I could take your book down to Winnipeg and find my way around.

Joel: To a certain point. You probably, you probably could, but a couple places, you know, I, I changed details and that, but yeah, there’s, there’s definitely, many, many real, real streets and such. I,

Mark: So what did the idea for the broken detective come from?

Joel: You know what, that’s a good question. I was looking at your like your your introduction for the guests before I came on to just see what the questions are gonna be like and, and whatnot. But, so I, I thought that one was coming. Um, I think for me, I, I usually start with character and I’m interested in this, so I read a lot [00:07:00] about, you know, how people create stories and whether they start with a plot and then they get to the character later or however it works.

And I was just reading an interview, or No, I was listening to a podcast with a guy I think his name’s Brad Inglesby, who has done two really good shows. The first one was Mayor of East Town, and the second one just came out this year, a couple months ago, called Task, starring Mark Ruffalo. And both are sort of crime thriller stories.

Awesome, awesome, awesome writing. And he was talking about how he starts with character and I, I think that’s exactly, you know, what I do is I, I have an idea for, for a, for a person who is probably down and out in some way. And I didn’t know exactly what that was gonna be for Jake, in particular, but I started with that idea and then I, I wanted to, to take him through the process of of changing, you know, whether it’s for the better, whether it’s for the worse, I guess people will have to read the book, but, maybe it’s a little bit of both, you know, maybe, like all of us, we. Uh, [00:08:00] we have things in our life that are hard and we start somewhere, and where we start brings us to you, you know, a certain way of living. And for Jake, he struggles with, with alcoholism. His mom is an alcoholic as well. I think I just started with that, idea and then, and then it came from there.

Mark: So do you consider yourself a plotter or a pants when it comes to having put the story down? You had the character in mind. Did you start the story with just that character and then you went to see how, what happened from there?

Joel: I would say I am a little bit of both. I heard the expression planter one time, which is a terrible word, but I, I write out one sentence for each of my chapters, and I, there’s a certain structure I stick to as well, like a three act structure. And then it changes as I go. So I, I need to have a little bit for each chapter. I, I, I find it sometimes it’s just an image or like a phrase or a, a sentence or, or something that I, I come up with. I see. And then I start with that. But no, I, I don’t just sit [00:09:00] down and write. I, I have a plan, but the plan does change.

Mark: Okay. How much did this plan change as you were writing it?

Joel: A lot from the very beginning of writing this thing to where it is now. I’d say quite a bit. It took me a while to figure out what I, what Jake’s backstory was gonna be like. I had the mystery in place. I, I. I hope it’s a compelling mystery that, you know, for people who like reading mysteries, there’s, there’s clues, and Jake is a detective, so he follows the clues, but his backstory, I, I went, you know, in so many different directions I had him.

At first he was gonna be a former athlete, like a, somebody who may be retired from playing pro hockey or something like that, and had nothing to do with his life. At one point, he was going to be. Oh, what was the other idea I had? I forget. But there’s a couple other ones before settling on you know, his current backstory, which is that he grew up like in and outta foster care. He, [00:10:00] he had a mom. His, his dad disappeared when he was younger, but he lived with his mom until he got to be a certain age when he fell into the care of, of the province.

Mark: At its core, what would you say? What kind of story this is?

Joel: I think it’s a crime story. I think it’s a mystery. I also think it is a story about redemption. At its core, I think the question is asked, you know, when you, you’ve made mistakes for a long time, when you’ve lived a certain way for a long time, is it even possible to come back from that? And that’s the question that, that I, I hope gets answered at least somewhat in the, in the book.

I also think at its core, it’s a family story. I think we all have. Families, you know, I mean, most people do. And even if you, you don’t know your biological [00:11:00] family, you’ve probably, you know, been in a family of, of sorts or adopted or on a team that it’s like a family or a workplace that’s like a family.

So I think, I think it’s also a story about family and just why we need people around us who have our back.

Mark: Do. Do you think about these themes as you’re writing the book as themes that you wanted to aDD, or this just came as part of the back figuring out the backstory.

Joel: You know, I, I think it just comes as, as I write. I honestly don’t know if, I mean, I, I guess some writers can start with a theme that they want to communicate, like an idea of sorts. F for me. I, I have questions I think be before I write, and then I think as I write, I sort of figure out what the theme is.

But I, I don’t write with the intention of sharing a specific message or anything like that. I, I try to tell a good story first. I try to make it [00:12:00] exciting, interesting, fun for readers, but also thoughtful. I, I hope there’s parts of the book that make. People stop and think about themselves, you know?

So, no, I don’t write with theme in mind a topic. I definitely have topics and questions, but not a message.

Mark: and this is your debut thriller. Is this the first full length novel you’ve written?

Joel: It is, yeah. It’s my first book. So it is, it is my debut, it, I actually wrote it a number of years ago. So the, the book came out just in October, but. I wrote most of it probably 2021 and 22 I would say. And then it was nominated for best unpublished manuscript for an award, from Crime Writers of Canada and, crime writers as a group.

They include like noir and thriller and mysteries all in that same category. And then after that, that was 2023 when I was nominated for that award, it took me, it took me a while to find a publisher, [00:13:00] so a few months to find someone, you know, willing to publish it, to work with me. And then it just came out this year with a small publisher, a small press.

It’s, it, it takes a while just for everything to line up. So yes, it is my first book.

Mark: Oh, congratulations. That is a big accomplishment. I think I had wrote like four or five books before I had one that, that I felt was actually deserving of going, even considering publication. So to do it on your first one is very impressive.

Joel: Well, thank you. Yeah, no, I appreciate it.

Mark: You’re a you, you mentioned you’re a teacher. What subject do you teach? Do you feel like that has helped you with the skill at writing?

Joel: I think it has, like I teach high school English, so I’m always like, my, my day consists of a lot of reading and, and writing and just talking about books and movies and TV shows those are areas that I, I love. So I think in talking about something and just working with it all the time, I think you do get better at it.

Has it helped my writing? Like on a prose level? I, [00:14:00] I don’t think so, but I, I think I’m around a lot of people and talk to people from all walks of life. That’s, that’s for sure. Teaching a very diverse high school, so I think that can help but broaden your horizons a little bit and just open you up to I don’t know. Different ways of looking at things.

Mark: Nice. I feel like you’re live, you’re living the dream that I wanted to live at one time before I

Joel: Oh yeah,

Mark: decisions. yeah,

I wanted to teach, I wanted to teach English and then and then I eventually published books, but

Joel: yeah. Absolutely.

Mark: Oh, oh, that’s awesome.

Joel: And you, you run a business now as well, right? In addition to the podcast, you have

Mark: Yeah. Fitness. Yeah. Yeah.

I got into fitness instead of, I got into teaching coaching fitness instead of. F instead of English. So

Joel: it’s similar in a way. I mean, I, one of my one of my kids, the father of one of my son’s buddies, they’re just, they’re young. They’re nine years old now. But, he, he is a personal trainer and he owns a, a business too, and he really is, it’s funny ’cause we talk about this [00:15:00] stuff, but he, he really is a teacher.

That’s what he is. He’s always showing people what to do. He’s always trying to build rapport with people. He’s, he’s got an expertise in the area. Like, so there are a lot of, I think, similarities in the fitness world. I think people who are really passionate about it, I think there are similarities to teaching in a school.

Mark: yeah. When readers finish this book, what are you hoping they’re gonna be thinking or feeling as they put it down?

Joel: I hope that, I hope they’re surprised. Okay. I hope they’re surprised ’cause I did work hard to to make the ending strong. But on a deeper level, I guess maybe maybe it puts them in a in a spot where they’re forced to think about people who they, write off, you know, people who they, uh, who we all, I shouldn’t say they, but we, we all, sort of judge, I guess, right?

Like, you, you meet somebody and it’s within a few [00:16:00] seconds you’re sort of making all these interpretations and that’s fine. But I, I also think it’s, it’s, it’s a good thing for a person just to go back and, and think about the people you meet and what their lives are like and where they come from and what their, what their motivations are, and, and then, you know, look at yourself as well.

I, I think it’s a book that can keep you entertained, but also at the end of it, I hope it, it has made you, made you think a little bit as well.

Mark: I just finished it yesterday and it did, it did have that effect on me. I really enjoyed, I really enjoyed the story, really enjoyed the ending. And there were some deep messages we’ll talk a little bit about too during the story that certainly had me thinking at the end, and it reminds me of that you never know what someone else has been through when you see them you know, you can see someone at a grocery store who’s really upset, but you don’t know why they’re upset or what their day was like. And I think this story it helps reflect that in a way because of what [00:17:00] he’s going through and, and everything and, and the perspective of all the different characters in their lives and even to the very end, which we can’t talk about right now, but what we’ll get into a little bit later.

Joel: Sure. Yeah, no, thank you for saying that. I appreciate it. I, I, I think what you said is absolutely true. It’s, it’s, everyone has a story and you know, when you get to know someone’s story, I think you, you maybe, you maybe don’t like something they’ve done. And I, I also think that’s okay as well. You know, you don’t have to like what somebody’s done to maybe empathize a little bit or understand them a little more. You know, I think that’s that’s maybe where fiction and, and stories in general, whether it’s a thriller or a different novel that I assign to some of my students in high school. Maybe the that’s where stories can help a little bit with that empathy piece.

Mark: Yeah. What research went into this for you?

Joel: I had to learn a lot about like extremist groups and just the [00:18:00] thinking. So I’ve, I’ve read a couple different books, along the way Under the Banner of Heaven is one I can recall by John Krakauer, just to try to get into that mindset and understand a little bit more about fundamentalism. By no means do I think I’ve covered it all or anything like that, but I, I think during the writing, it put me in the head space to try to understand the characters. I also did quite a bit of research and, and spoke to people about, like group homes and foster care and just what some of those, experience of experiences have been for people and, and how, I mean, there’s, there’s no one experience for any of this stuff.

People have their own, you know, situations, but I think there are some common threads, that people do experience when they go through something like being removed from their home, taken from their parents. And when they grow up in a foster care system, I think it’s, Uh, like I say, I think the experiences are different, but I do think there are some, some similarities as well.

[00:19:00] So yeah, I did did research on those two areas most. And then just tons of reading, like I love crime thrillers, I love reading. In general, to be honest, and just reading some of my favorite authors work is I think one of the best ways to figure out how you want your own stories to be.

Mark: When you’re creating these characters, even the side characters, do you have like a chart or something of their names and like the traumas they’ve been through and how they’ve dealt with those traumas? Because there’s a lot of, there’s a lot of overlap in traumas kind of a theme throughout the book. The different types of trauma, whether it was sexual or through with the church or or with alcoholism. Like there’s a lot of trauma and everyone has dealt with it differently.

Joel: No, that’s a good question. I think, um, I do keep track of the characters. I, I don’t put everything in, in like, it’s a Word document where I have [00:20:00] a picture of what I think the person looks like, on the one side, which is some details, their name some of the stuff they’ve been through, like you say. I, I also think that during the process of writing it, I’m, I’m a very routine person so I write every day, even if it’s for a very short amount of time. So I think when I’m in the process of writing, I live with the characters enough that I can usually remember, you know, who they are. What I found to be a major challenge is after not having worked with the book in a while in between, like my award nomination in 23, and then revisiting it this year to do the final edits with the editor from Runamok.

That was a, a new experience, having to reread it and, and just remember and learn the characters again. It did feel like a little bit of. I don’t know if a challenge, but it, it definitely took me some time to get back into it and, and just to keep everything straight, just from one scene to the next, from one character to the next. [00:21:00] Trying not to repeat the same, the same story or the same, background, although some of them are definitely similar.

Mark: Why first person point of view instead of third, instead of telling us. ’cause in, I mean, I guess I don’t read a whole lot of detective stories, but I’ve read some, and a lot of times you get a chapter from the villain’s point of view or you get a chapter from someone else’s point of view, but that’s usually a third person told story. You went with first person. Just curious how that decision came and why.

Joel: I, I think because it’s my first book and for whatever reason, I was actually talking to somebody about this the other day too they messaged me and just kind of asked about it. But for me, it’s easier. And honestly, that’s the, that’s the real answer, is I just find first person easier. Since I’ve written a book in third person, like with multiple points of view and such, and I, I think, I think it’s harder, I think it really is harder [00:22:00] to, to, for me to write in third person.

The person who I was talking to said the opposite and said they just can’t write in first person. They feel like they’re being pretentious or something, like always talking about them, but they said third person is just more natural. And for me, I think first person is even though. I, I, I really enjoy reading third person.

So in the future I’ll probably do both, but that’s how it came about. Honestly, it was just my, my first, I guess, book. So that’s where I went with it. I didn’t even think about it to be honest. I, I thought, you know, I, I, so many detective novels, so many crime novels, thrillers, I’m trying to think of a good thriller that’s in first person. I, it’d probably take me a while, but I, I think a lot of crime novels are in first person, especially the first book of a, of an author.

Mark: I was thinking, I think that Michael Connolly in that has done a lot of third right

Joel: Yeah. I think Connolly probably has with his Harry Bosch. He’s actually done both. I can remember he switched like Mider, then he went back [00:23:00] to. The original, which maybe was third person, but yeah, he’s, he’s definitely used third.

Mark: yeah. Okay.

Joel: Okay. Yeah.

Mark: When you were crafting Jake’s character as a broken detective, how did you not make him unlikeable? Balancing the line between, ’cause there were moments in the book where I borderline didn’t like him, but then he kinda redeemed himself almost immediately after. But it was like, it was a struggle at times. It was real, which is what I liked about it. ’cause I was, you know, those struggles were just real coming across. But at the same time, there’s a risk of this behavior is borderline unlikable the way he’s acting.

Joel: Yeah. I, I think what I tried to do with that, I, I tried to, with the character, with his mom, I, I tried to make the scenes between Jake and his mom show that he, he is a kind, loving person, and [00:24:00] even though he does some things that are unlikeable, you know, whether it’s his drinking or just some of the, the violence that’s in the book and, and things like that, I hope that what shines through more is the fact that this is a loyal character who if you’re on his team, if, if he cares about you, he’s, he’s gonna go through anything for you. And at one part of the book he says something like I, if you, if you hurt people I care about, then I will hurt you basically. And I, I think there’s always been kind of this idea, you know, I’m thinking about for some reason John Wick just popped in my head right now, the mo the John Wick movies of how, you know, at the beginning of that first movie, anyway, you can, I think it’s his dog that gets killed at the beginning, right? And he goes on this [00:25:00] like rampage, but. I mean, I, I like him, I like the character, even though some of the things he’s doing, of course they’re, it’s terrible.

Now that’s a, an action movie where you can see the character and you get more of that, like the actor’s performance, of course. But I, I think characters can do unlikeable things if, if the, the baseline of the character is, is still good. And I, I hope Jake reads like that. I, I think he does. That he is a good person.

The way he grew up living in survival mode for a good chunk of every day of his life, I think hardened him and I, I think he had to do things that, he felt were necessary for survival. And sometimes when people cope with, with, with life, they don’t do it in the right way. So I think there’s some of that in there too. But I hope at the end of the day he still is somebody that you see as, as if not likable then, then maybe. Understandable,

Mark: Yeah. Relatable for [00:26:00] sure.

Joel: perhaps. Yeah, in some ways.

Mark: Yeah. I have a question from Karen Osborne, who was the last guest on the show. She wants to know how your book cover came together.

Joel: Interesting. The book cover came together because I wanted to have and I was allowed input too. I, I have to say, I had quite a bit of input. I wanted to have my f my first idea was a character w was like, not the silhouette, but just somebody sitting at a bar and you see their back straight on with the bottles behind.

And then the yellow, I wanted the yellow on black. I thought that would be good. The, the person who did the cover at trouble lights, sort of came up with some photos and it, it has the same idea with the character or the image. Just slightly turned just a little bit. So you can see how you, you get, he’s not directly, it’s not straight on, but it’s just from the [00:27:00] side.

But that’s how the, the cover came to be. And I, I think it fits the genre, the crime, thriller, noir, mystery type genre. So I was very mindful to try to make it as. Not unique as possible, to be honest, but I wondered when you look at it, you know, okay, that’s, that’s a, a book in, in this particular genre.

Mark: Yeah. Cool. Thank you. What advice would you give someone who just published their first or second book?

Joel: The advice I would give somebody who just published who that’s, I would say that the the best thing you can do or my, I guess advice, my advice would be not the best thing, but my advice would be to, make sure your perspective is playing a long game so that if you come into this thing thinking you’re gonna sell, 10,000 copies or [00:28:00] make a million bucks or something you, you should probably, you should probably rethink that and try to build an audience slowly with every novel, with every book. And if I had to give a second piece of advice, it would be to connect with other writers. I think one of the best things for me about this whole writing gig is just like meeting people from all over the place, usually on social media, who after a few years, you know, we edit each other’s work. We communicate by email or we help each other out with blurbs. And you, you do have a little community where it doesn’t feel like you’re doing it on your own. And I, I think those would be the two pieces of advice. Just make sure we have like the right mindset. Like go into this thinking, you’re gonna write 10, 15 books and build slowly. And then the second one is just connect with people. Try to help them. And if, if you help somebody, they will definitely pay it back. At some point,

Mark: Yeah, thank you. Your long game. Have [00:29:00] you started another book and is it gonna be a series from the broken detective or are you going somewhere else?

Joel: I, I’ve written a couple since, since I wrote the Broken Detective, so the second one in the series is done, but it’s, it’s just a first draft, so there’s a lot of work that would still need to go into it and that, that I hope to have out. It’s probably gonna be a little bit of a weight, but, at, at some point in the next year to two years, I think the sequel will be out.

I’ve also written another standalone that’s the one that’s in third person that, I think is, is probably a, a thriller. It is more of a, it, it happens in a, a shorter period of time and. I’ve really tried with the different perspectives to push the speed of it and to try to just get that momentum with regard to, to, the characters trying to s solve the problem.

I guess the, the the conflict in that story. So, yeah, I’ve written a couple books since then. Um, [00:30:00] and I’m always working on something where they’re gonna come out or when is, is the question? It’s, it’s a very I think, interesting time in publishing because there are so many, so many books out there, there, there are so many authors, there’s so much content in social media and, and streaming services.

So it really is I think a challenge and it’s, it’s probably harder than ever to find readers. Right? So that’s, that’s really what I’m trying right now, is just to find people, to get the book in the hands of, of podcasters like yourselves to try to get on to talk about it and just to, you know, kind of build that, that audience one person at a time.

Mark: Yeah, I will happily be talking about it. It was a great book. So

Joel: Oh, thank you very much. I appreciate it.

Mark: where can readers find your.

Joel: You can go to, if you go to my website, which is j the letter j neti.com, there’s links to the different places you can buy it. I mean, there’s, there’s always Amazon, which [00:31:00] is, which is, which is probably the most convenient place to get it. In Canada, you can also go to like a McNally Robinson, like a local bookstore.

Like that, we’ll have it. Or some of the indie bookshops will be able to order it for you. In the states you can get it from Barnes and Noble as well. It’ll be available there as well.

Mark: All right. That’s great. I’ll link to that in the show notes. Thank

Joel: Okay, thank you.

Mark: Thank you for your time. This is the end of the main show. I really appreciate you taking the time. If you don’t mind sticking around, we’re gonna do a quick spoiler, full section, ’cause I wanna ask a couple of questions about the end of the book so listeners know. Stop here. This is where you don’t wanna listen. If you wanna read the book first and then have a couple additional questions, and then we’ll get into the after show.

Joel: Yeah, absolutely. That sounds good. Thank you.

Mark: right. Thank you. So spoiling the end again, listeners, if you do not want to know how this book ends, do not, do not listen to this part of, of the of the show. The ending was quite sad when you crafted it. [00:32:00] The was, it told this way the first time with. I was almost expecting the judge to almost give like a leniency or something to, to come back and say like, oh, you did all these things i’m so impressed maybe we’ll give you a few months and, and your, you can be with your mom or probation or something, but you didn’t, you didn’t go that route. You went, you went with like, okay, here’s what I mean. Here’s what you did.

Joel: I, I had a couple people comment on that. Like I, I had an agent actually contact me talking about the book. Like this is before I signed with Run Amuck even. And they wanted me to change it to to a story about how. The character Corey Francis, who is not really in the book at all, but that’s the person who Jake assaulted, you know, who he has to write this letter of apology to, just to get the suspended sentence and the shorter sentence.

The, the agent thought that it would be a better story [00:33:00] if, if that guy had had come back to sort of try to get revenge against Jake and if, if something happened with that at the end, or like, if I would’ve earlier in the book, had Corey Francis be a character, then he could have come back at the end and maybe it would end on some kind of a showdown between these two.

Mark: yeah.

Joel: And the other thing I could have done is, like you said, let the character off and, and not send them to prison. The reason I didn’t do that is because book two opens. I thought it would be interesting to open book two, like 13 months down the line where he gets outta prison and now he’s got all this money because he, he was forced to take the money at the end of the broken detective as well.

And I just think that’s interesting. You got this guy who, who, is trying to get sober. Maybe he is, maybe he isn’t after prison, and then he’s now got all this money. He’s got no job, he’s got very little family. And I, I just thought that was interesting to see what he would do with the money. So as far as it being sad, I, I think, I think I think that’s [00:34:00] true to life.

I think a lot of things are sad, but I also, what I’ve noticed as I’ve gotten older is that sometimes I feel sad, sometimes I feel sad, but I also kind of feel good at the same time. And it’s a weird balance where I think, Jake, I think it is sad, man, he’s going to jail. I mean, that’s one of the worst places a person can go. But at the same time, if it gets him to, to stop drinking and to try a different way of living, then I, I think there’s some, some joy in that as well.

Mark: Yeah. Well also at the end, ’cause I’ll, I’ll add more sadness to the,

Joel: Okay.

Mark: Question is cats. Cats losing it and, and crumbling in the end. And that killed me too. ’cause seeing it, I know he lost his, he lost his wife and he’s at the funeral and I get it. So you set it up. To make total sense and be within the book, but at the same time, I was like, damn, really? Why cats? Why did you do it?

Joel: I, I think why, the, why I did it is. [00:35:00] I always like things when they get reversed, like in a story, like what I try to teach students too, and they have these ideas and a lot of them, like they’re smart people, but they, they come in with like a almost a cliche idea or an idea we’ve sort of seen, and I’m like, okay, like flip this around.

So the idea for me that I thought was interesting is like, okay, you got this character Jake, who’s a drunk, who, he is not been sober for very long. And then you have his mentor, who is many, many, many years sober, who is smart, who has found a good way of living for like 20 years or whatever it is.

And now you have the newly sober person mentoring the older, like that’s interesting to me. So I really try to take the idea and just like flip it for the ending. And also, I like the idea that, that you never get there in life. Like we’re never gonna, like fitness for example too, right? To get back to that. Like you could be in the best shape [00:36:00] of your life one day. And I know many actors talk about getting in shape for a role, and then I think it was Jake Gyllenhal who said something like, you know, he did that boxing movie and it’s like two weeks later he hadn’t worked out or whatever. And it’s al already, his body is so different in two weeks, and I think you have to keep doing the thing. And that’s just like being sober is the same. If you want to keep living sober, you gotta sort of put in the work, I guess you could say. And I, I think that’s interesting,

Mark: I, I also like that it humanized cats in a sense

Joel: right?

Mark: That it’s like even though he had gone 20 years, that doesn’t mean all our demons are gone and everything is fine and happily ever after. That was a, That was good too. I was still sad, but it was good.

Joel: No, I agree. I, I think you’re, I think you’re, it’s like all of us, like it’s, it’s. Life is awesome. It’s very exciting and it’s, it’s interesting and some days are boring and everything else, but it’s hard and there are sad things in the world, and I think that maybe the book taps into that a little bit.

Mark: Thanks for listening to the Thriller Pitch Podcast. If you enjoyed this conversation, make sure you’re following the [00:37:00] show, and if you can leave a rating and review, it helps the podcast reach other writers and readers.

In the next episode, I’m talking to JL Hancock, author of the Hawk Enigma. We talk about grounding high stakes thrillers in real world detail, balancing technology with character and how much research actually makes it onto the page.

If you’d like to go a little deeper, there’s a short after show available right now on Patreon. It’s where authors answer rapid fire questions they don’t get asked anywhere else. Questions like thrillers that inspire them to write their weirdest Google searches guilty pleasures, and then note they’d leave on your nightstand. It’s free to listen to and you don’t need anything to access it. You’ll find the link in the show notes