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Richard Prosch

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An Interview With Paul Bishop

June 26, 2018 By Richard Prosch

Paul Bishop is an author, screenwriter, and 35 year-veteran of the LAPD where he was twice honored as Detective of the Year. Paul has written fifteen novels, a variety of scripts for television and film, and his latest book, Nothing But the Truth (Almost): Mostly True Stories From a LAPD Detective of the Year is now available from Wolfpack Publishing.

I caught up with Paul in June to visit with him about the new book and writing about a policeman’s life.

RP: Your new book from Wolf Pack—Nothing But the Truth (Almost)—is enjoyable for its immediate sense of intimacy. I really felt like I was there with you in the scenarios you described. How did it feel to recount those real-life experiences?

PB: It was cathartic. Putting true stories down on the page helps access my subconscious to process and understand how stressful events affected me, to learn from them, and move on.

I’ve always been a verbal storyteller, which is all about engaging your listeners and drawing them into your world. When I write, I try to capture the same voice and immediacy, as if we were trading tall tales around the campfire.

Cop stories are perfect fodder for this because of their inherent truths, drama, and hubris. But to make them accessible, you have to be self-deprecating, revealing your own flaws, in order for your listener/reader to relate to the situations you are describing. If you admit to being scared, angry, confused, or to making mistakes, your listener/reader is able to connect with you and see themselves in the scenario.

RP: At the conclusion of the New Year’s Eve story, you mention that the bad guy is on the street today. Have you ever had a run in with one of your old collars that shook you up? Ever have a reunion that went well?

PB: I arrested a twenty-five year old violent sex offender (let’s call him Joe for the sake of anonymity and clarity) who eventually confessed—in sordid detail—to a series of brutal rapes involving women in their seventies and older. Joe plead guilty in court and was sentenced to a hundred and twenty years in prison. He was sent to Pelican Bay, a facility for the most violent offenders where they are often locked down twenty plus hours a day.

Three years later I received a call from the Pelican Bay warden. He said they had an inmate, Joe, who was so insistent on talking to me, the warden felt he should at least give me a courtesy call. I agreed to talk with Joe having no idea what he could possibly want.

The following day, the warden allowed Joe to call me. Once I was on the line, Joe was polite, but clearly very agitated. He told me he had been receiving letters from his twelve year old niece who told him she was being molested by her father. Joe said he ‘knew’ if I investigated, I’d get the truth and save his niece. I assured him I would follow up on the information.

The niece lived outside of LAPD jurisdiction, but I was able to get cooperation from the local agency where she lived. Within short order, we had her removed to safety. We arrested her father who relatively quickly, and tearfully, admitted to what he had been doing to her since she was eight. He, like Joe, remains in prison.

It was an odd position to find myself in—being asked by a violent convicted felon to investigated a case involving one of his family members because he trusted me to get the truth.

RP: Putting away sex offenders for 30 years, you’ve seen some of the worst that humanity offers. How did you stay above it? What kept you happy, healthy, and functioning?

PB: There were plenty of positive factors in my life, including my wife and son. It also help that I didn’t hang out with cops off-duty. Instead, because of my concurrent career as a writer, my friends tended to be creatives, which was a great antidote to the stress of my detective career.

I read constantly, both fiction and non-fiction. I also ran…A lot…Sometimes sixty to eighty miles a week when preparing for marathons. I ran Boston for my 50th birthday. My knees are now, unfortunately, paying the price of all those miles—along with years of playing soccer.

RP: Do you approach non-fiction differently than fiction? Similarly, do you approach crime stories differently from westerns?

PB: With non-fiction, I spend more time researching and confirming the correctness of the subject matter. With fiction, I never let facts get in the way of a good story. However, working in either venue, I strive to make my ‘voice’ consistent. Westerns, crime, non-fiction, I approach them all with the intent of making my prose as straightforward and lean as I can. I work much harder on rewrites than on my first drafts.

RP: Three-part question: What does TV consistently get wrong with cop shows? What do they get right? Best police drama ever?

PB: Where to start…Seriously, most TV cop shows are laughable. The all have a computer nerd who can illegally hack into any system anywhere in a matter of seconds. The CSI shows all have cutting edge technology available all the time and can get DNA results back between commercials. And don’t get me started on interrogations—good cop, bad cop is illegal, folks. It’s a violation of our 5th Amendment rights not to be intimidated, yet you see it all the time on TV…And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

Shows like Justified and Bosch have such terrific character driven storytelling, I’m willing to cut them a ton of slack. Lazy storytelling relies on computers, centrifuges, and pinged cell phones to spoon feed information to their characters to resolve plots. Good storytelling allows clever, complex characters to use their own resources to earn the resolution to storylines.

Best police drama ever…Barney Miller…

RP: What’s the scoop on Calico Jack and Tina Tamiko?

PB: Hot Pursuit (originally titled, Citadel Run), my first Calico Jack Walker Tina Tamiko adventure was designed to be a standalone. It has a plot specific to LAPD legend, which still stands as a genuine original.

When Tor wanted a second book with the characters (Deep Water…originally titled, Sand Against the Tide), I had to come up with a story that could deal with the consequences dealt by the ending of the previous book. I again turned to an LAPD specific plot, which quickly blew up into a Stallone-worthy action flick.

I have a trunk novel half written for a third book featuring Calico and Tina (Dark of the Heart), which I really should drag out and finish now the books are finding a new audience via Wolfpack.

RP: In the book, you mention your consulting company, and the LEO education and training you offer. Do you also ever work with writers or lead writing workshops?

PB: I often talk to writers groups and even mentored a writing group for five years. I also teach extension classes for the California State University system.

However, the most fun is participating in the annual Writers’ Police Academy conference in Green Bay, Wisconsin. If you’re an established or a budding mystery writer and you can only attend one writers’ conference, make sure it’s the Writers’ Police Academy (upcoming in August 2018). I had the opportunity to be one of the keynote speakers at the 2017 conference—making a presentation on interrogation—and came away convinced it was the best writers’ conference or convention I’d ever attended…bar none.

An exciting, fully immersive long weekend event, the Writers’ Police Academy gives attendees hands-on law enforcement, firefighting, EMS, and forensics experiences. The professional staff of law enforcement instructors provided training on an incredible range of subjects and activities including: Long Gun And Handgun Live Fire; Emergency Driving; Traffic Stops; Pursuit Termination Techniques; Defense and Arrest Tactics; SWAT Explosive Entry; Death Scene Investigation; Building Searches and Room Clearing; Shoot/Don’t Shoot Scenarios; Taser Training; Police Dogs; Evidence Collection and Processing; Narcotics; Prison Gangs; Mindset of Cops; Serial Killers; Fake/Genuine Suicide Notes; Arson Investigation; and so much more. The four track programming was so comprehensive and densely packed, it was impossible to do it all.

My experience at the 2017 Writers’ Police Academy involved hanging out with 250 crime and suspense writers avidly participating in every scenario and skill thrown at them—including 20 of them who volunteered to wear a standard police utility belt with all the trimmings—gun, ammo pouches, handcuffs, CS gas, etc.—for the whole long weekend. I was also able to interact with twenty other staff instructors and a wonderfully uncountable number of volunteers (all in highlighter yellow T-shirts) who could have not been any friendlier. And all of this to help crime writers escape the Hollywood Effect of bad scenarios being perpetrated again and again—silencers on revolvers, anybody?

I was impressed by the high quality and professional résumé of the instructors. Most were attached to the Public Safety program located on the campus of the Northeast Technical College in Green Bay—used as an actual police academy by many local law enforcement jurisdictions. It was also the location of much of the provided training for the Writers’ Police Academy attendees, along with the nearby newly opened pursuit driving course, and the excellent conference rooms and facilities in the conference hotel.

RP: Music. What do you listen to regularly and when?

PB: Jazz and the great American song book are my go to musical choices for active listening. Instrumental soundtracks, however, work best when I’m writing. They tap into my brain’s alpha waves and act as white noise, blocking out any other distractions and helping to keep me focussed. Ennio Morricone, Hans Zimmer, Leonard Bernstein, John Barry, and Henry Mancini are all on my current playlist, which I access via Alexa.

RP: When you were a kid did you want to be a writer, a cop, or a cowboy?

PB: I wanted to be a writer since I read my first book.

When I was eight years old, I said I wanted to be a policeman and never changed my mind.

I’m a lucky guy. I’ve been able to do the two things I’ve always wanted to do with my life—put villains in jail and put words on paper for people to read.

I also got to be a cowboy, but only for a week. While researching my first Western, I took the opportuning to spend a week in the saddle moving several hundred wild horses from their winter to summer feeding ground. This involved three months of riding lessons prior to going (to ensure I didn’t fall off the first day), the beginning of a love affair with cowboy boots, and the search (still ongoing) for the perfect cowboy hat. It was a blast and I’d do it again in a heartbeat.

I’m not sure when I made the transition from being a cop who wrote to a writer who was a cop, but somewhere along the line it happened. Since the mindset of cowboys and cops are also interchangeable, all three professions have blended well for me.

—
Many thanks to Paul for taking the time to answer my questions, but more, for his continued good work with publishers like Wolfpack. Thanks again, Paul!

Filed Under: News & New Releases

Two For Midnight Short Stories in Print

November 1, 2017 By Rich

Echoes From the Grave

Like any all-American boy living in the early 20th century, Phil Dunlap wants to make money.

So when he sees an opportunity to sell phonograph records to his friends and family for profit, he jumps at the chance.

But the wrong Purple Oxford Record Labels aren’t what his listeners expect, and the voices in the grooves threaten an entire town with echoes from the grave.

Plus – Pap McGee spins a Christmas ghost yarn from Nebraska legend, gunplay, and restless spirits that walk the dark abandoned banks of Bitter Creek.

Available from Amazon in print and for Kindle.

Filed Under: News & New Releases

Fall 2017 – New Short Stories Published

November 1, 2017 By Rich

My short fiction is available this fall in two newly published venues.

First up, I’m happy to have a new science-fiction story published at the acclaimed webzine, Beat to a Pulp! Please check out “Nothing to Push Against.”

It’s a special story to me because it finds its roots in a near death experience I had a few decades ago. Thanks to editor David Cranmer for hosting me.

Second, “The Society of the Friends of Lester McGurk” makes its debut in a new western anthology from Sundown Press. This story about a team of secret agents working directly under the President is made for fans of The Wild Wild West and Mission: Impossible and is only the first in a new series.

Be sure to pick this one up. Along with my story, the rest of the book is bustin’ with acclaimed Western authors such as James Reasoner, Livia J. Washburn, Jackson Lowry, Kit Prate, Charlie Steel, Richard Prosch, Big Jim Williams, Cheryl Pierson, J.L. Guin, Clay More, and David Amendola.

Filed Under: News & New Releases

Five More Nebraska History Titles

March 5, 2017 By Rich

In the March, 2017 issue of True West magazine, I offered readers my five favorite Nebraska history titles in the “Building Your Western Library” column. From a teetering stack of dozens of paperback and hardcover entries (some no more than pamphlets, some the size of cement blocks) I pulled out my Top-20, then divided that in half. It took a while and a couple re-reads to whittle the stack down to five. Even then it was almost a coin toss as to which five made the final cut.

The runners-up follow here.

Some are harder to track down than others, but all are worth your time and perusal.

Oak View Park – Pinnacle of a Czech Legacy by Linda F. Wostrel

Born in 1859 to Czech immigrants in Iowa, had John Pospeshil not relocated to my hometown of Bloomfield, Nebraska in 1904, his name might well be forgotten. Inspired by the 1898 Trans Mississippi and International Exposition in Omaha, Pospeshil landed in Bloomfield in 1904, and one of his first endeavors was not just to build a new Opera House for the young community, but to fabricate its bricks with a machine of his own invention. The success of Pospeshil’s brick machine and the Opera House with its legendary shows and entertainments led the entrepreneur to found Oak View Ranch in 1908, a working cattle concern that eventually hosted Oak View Park in Venus, Nebraska. It was a modern amusement park with electric lights, baseball diamond, dance hall, Olympic-sized swimming pool, gas station and airstrip. Through the ‘20s, the Park hosted a variety events including the Mason Brothers’ Wild West Rodeo. Family member Linda Wostrel fills a historical void with a thorough, well-researched book that’s packed with vivid photos and other period visual treats. Information on getting a copy of the book can be obtained from the author at: Linda Wostrel, 7405 South 168th Avenue, Omah, Nebraska 68136.

Western Story – The Recollections of Charley O’Kieffe, 1884 – 1898  by Charley O’Kieffe, with an introduction by A.B. Guthrie, Jr., Bison Books, University of Nebraska Press, 1960

On the northern edge of Nebraska’s sandhills, Charley O’Kieffe saw the last days of the vast frontier and the taming of a wild west his settler parents were part of. Good natured recollections and humorous stories are punctuated with a poignant sense of nostalgia and loss for a time and place that O’Kieffe brings to life in splendid fashion.

The Luckiest Outlaw –The Life and Legends of Doc Middleton by Harold Hutton, Bison Books, University of Nebraska Press, 1992.

Hutton partially explored the horse-thieving days of Nebraska’s legendary James Riley, aka Doc Middleton (1851 – 1913) in his book Vigilante Days. A few years later the author produced this more in-depth exploration of the notorious character’s life and loves, motivations and ultimate legacy. To say Middleton was a complex man is an understatement, and Hutton’s profile manages to be both objective and warmly empathic. A fair look at a controversial figure.

Whit’s Town – A Pioneer Editor, His Newspaper & His Community by Ramon D. Hansen

A true labor of love and years in the making, Hansen packs the first half-century of Bloomfield, Nebraska’s history into one 700+ page hardcover tome. One of the first students at the nascent University of Nebraska in 1870, Whit Needham founded the Bloomfield Monitor twenty years later. The Monitor was the rural community’s first newspaper, and remains a weekly standard in Bloomfield. Hansen uses Monitor archives to immerse readers in another time, but with deft insight and precision manages to offer readers a clear sense of historical place and progress. From early “wild west” shootings and railroad concerns to World War One and the Flu Epidemic, through the dustbowl and America’s entry into World War Two, Hansen exposes the human side of history like nobody else. Write for information on getting a copy to:  Ramon D. Hansen, 109 Thorpe St., Carthage, NY 13619

An Unspeakable Sadness – The Dispossession of the Nebraska Indians by David J. Wishart, University of Nebraska Press, 1994

Breathtaking in scope, with stunning attention to detail, Wishart’s 1994 work about the Indians of Nebraska and the loss of their lives, cultures, and tribal lands is important for the scholar and layman alike. Chronological narratives, maps, graphs and first-hand accounts make the Ponca, Omaha, Pawnee, Otoe, and Missouria come alive. A revelation not to be missed.

 

 

Filed Under: Blog, News & New Releases

Protectors 2 is Anthony Award Nominee

November 23, 2016 By Rich

protectors_02_coverHappy to learn that an anthology collection of short stories I was included in was nominated for an Anthony Award. Voting will be at Bouchercon World Mystery Convention 2016 in September. Great to be in PROTECTORS 2: HEROES with such company as Joyce Carol Oates, Wayne D. Dundee, Andrew Vachss, Harlan Ellison®, Thomas Pluck, Hillary Davidson and others.

Read more about it here.

Filed Under: News & New Releases

Waiting for a Comet Audio

April 5, 2016 By Rich

51h8lw6pwil-_aa300_Good news for a new month! Jo Harper’s first adventure, Waiting for a Comet, is now available as an audiobook at Amazon/Audible, and I’m so happy with the way it turned out! Without a doubt professional talent Ashley Lucas of LucasImages is the voice of Jo Harper delivering an exciting, pitch-perfect narrative. Thanks to Ashley and producer Wade Lucas for a stellar job!

Buy at Amazon / Audible here.

Filed Under: News & New Releases

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Jefferson City, MO 65110
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