Jerry Amernic Author of The Last Witness in Writers’ Roundtable Discussions

Jerry Amernic will be one of the featured novelists taking part in writers’ roundtable discussions for the International Thriller Writers over the next three weeks.

Topic for the week of December 1-7 – Is fear the most common emotion in a thriller? What other emotions run through your favorite thrillers?

Topic for the week of December 8-14 – For many, it takes months to draft a novel and consistency can suffer. Names, vehicles, time required for a familiar walk may vary. How do you organize the details to ensure consistency?

Topic for the week of December 15-21 – Did your editor insist on a title change? Why are some titles magic and what are some of your favorites?

Over 9,000 downloads of The Last Witness in one week

In a one-week promotion offering free Kindle downloads of Jerry’s latest novel The Last Witness, more than 9,000 people took up the offer.

The Big Thrill Interviews Dennis Palumbo author of The Phantom Limb, A Dennis Rinaldi Mystery Thriller

By Cathy Perkins

Palumbo’s fourth novel in the series, PHANTOM LIMB, opens with psychologist and Pittsburgh police department consultant Daniel Rinaldi’s new patient: Lisa Campbell, a local girl whose lurid, short-lived Hollywood career sent her scurrying back to the Steel City. Now married to one of the city’s richest tycoons, she comes to Danny’s office with a challenge: talk her out of committing suicide. Though he buys some time, she’s kidnapped right outside his office. The search for Lisa pits the police—and Danny—against a lethal adversary. At the same time, he tries to assist a friend’s brother, a bitter Afghan vet who lost a leg in combat, whose own life now appears at risk. Or is it?

Formerly a Hollywood screenwriter (including My Favorite Year and Welcome Back, Kotter), Dennis Palumbo is now a licensed psychotherapist and author. His acclaimed series of crime novels (MIRROR IMAGE, FEVER DREAM, NIGHT TERRORS and the upcoming PHANTOM LIMB) feature psychologist Daniel Rinaldi, a trauma expert who consults with the Pittsburgh police. All are from Poisoned Pen Press.

You’ve had a fascinating career—screenwriter to psychotherapist to novelist. As a psychotherapist, do you find this background provides insights into human behavior and/or helps develop the hero, villain, and perhaps the victim in your novels?

Definitely! I think the merging of my two careers—seventeen years as a TV/film writer and nearly three decades as a psychotherapist—has benefitted both the writing in general, and my exploration of human behavior in particular. Certainly my ongoing study of trauma has contributed to my understanding of the psychological issues with which the crime victims in my novels grapple. As for my hero, psychologist and trauma expert Daniel Rinaldi, my experience as a therapist in private practice—as well as time spent working in clinics and a psychiatric hospital—has given me a unique perspective on what might motivate a guy like him. As it turns out, he and I share a lot of the same ideas about the flaws in the mental health system and how psychotherapy is practiced. Go figure.

Although officially set in Pittsburgh, your Daniel Rinaldi series has avoided the “Cabot Cove” (kill everyone in town) effect through varied locations for the four books. How important do you believe setting and secondary characters are to a series?

I’m glad that you noticed how varied the locales are in the novels, even though they’re ostensibly set in Pittsburgh. Over the course of the four books (so far!), the stories have taken readers to rural Pennsylvania, as well as parts of Ohio and West Virginia.

I think this gives me greater freedom in the writing, since I’m not forced to situate all the action in Pittsburgh proper. Especially since I believe setting is crucial to giving visual interest and narrative vitality to the story. Just as I believe having interesting, believable secondary characters are crucial to the success of any long-term series. They add realism and context to the world of the hero. In fact, their interaction with my lead character actually helps define him. Moreover, if the emails I get are any indication, readers seem to enjoy watching the series’ secondary characters grow and change. I know I sure do!

As a follow up, I noticed Rinaldi’s love interest has a background role. What place do you see for relationships in action adventures or in suspense in general?

Again, I think the exploration of relationships is crucial to giving any suspense novel realism, depth, and relevancy. If the characters, and the ways they interact, aren’t compelling, why should we care what happens to them? The way I see it, good writing of any type depends on conflict, which derives from the expression of strong emotions. Moreover, if the stakes aren’t high—personally or professionally—for your characters, the reader’s investment in the story won’t be very high, either.

Daniel Rinaldi is a non-law enforcement protagonist who often takes on an independent investigative role, generally chasing the villains in superb action adventure scenes. How do you balance the fine line between a driven character and a reckless risk-taker?   

In Rinaldi’s case, I’m afraid there’s not much of a fine line. Practically every person in his life decries his “hero complex.” One of his colleagues on the force, Sgt. Harry Polk, is constantly reminding Rinaldi that he’s not a cop. But one of the things I strive for in the writing is to show how his emotional wounds, his own personal demons, compel a good deal of Rinaldi’s actions. And how this behavior is the counterpoint to his clear professionalism as a therapist.

Your books are known for well-written action and pace. Do you find this emphasis the nature of the genre or do you think it reflects a larger society or perhaps today’s shorter attention span?

Wow, that question may be above my pay grade! I do think a modern crime thriller needs thrills as well as crime, as long as the action scenes are realistic and seem to emerge naturally from the situation. So as not to seem to dodge the broader question, I do think crime novels reflect society, and have always done so. When I think of 1880s London, my reference point is the Holmes canon. My image of the Boston underworld is half George V. Higgins, half Dennis Lehane. The author Tom Wolfe said that the novel—any novel—has always served to describe a culture’s “status details,” the issues, trends, and mores of the society that the particular novel depicts. This is as true of crime novels as it is of general fiction.

Going back to your psychotherapist role, I found you’re described as a specialist in creative issues. Could you expand on that role?

After all my years as a TV and film writer, as well as a novelist and short story writer going back to the 1970’s, I figured that specializing in creative issues made sense when I started my therapy practice. Though most of my patients are writers in the entertainment industry, I also have novelists and journalists in my practice. As well as some musicians and actors. In my experience, creative people all tend to struggle with the same kinds of issues, regardless of medium or genre: “blocks,” procrastination, fear of rejection, anxiety, depression, and so on. Not to mention the havoc that having creative ambitions can play on relationships! As Robert Frost said, “The one thing all nations on earth share is the fear that a member of the family is going to want to be an artist.”

Tell us something about PHANTOM LIMB that isn’t mentioned in the publisher’s synopsis.

The character of Skip Hines, a returning vet who lost a leg to an IED in Afghanistan, suffers from “phantom limb” syndrome: the strange sensation that his missing limb is still there. That it itches sometimes, and feels the cold. As I got deeper into the writing, I realized that his phantom limb symptoms were a metaphor for the felt sense of loss we all experience sometimes in life. The death of a loved one, a painful divorce. That feeling that the person is not really gone from our lives. That their presence is still with us, as though a tangible thing. Given that Daniel Rinaldi’s wife was murdered, and his father died of alcoholism, he can really relate to Skip’s feeling that something that is gone is still, uncannily, there. At least in his mind.

Okay, enough with the business questions! How about some fun stuff? You know, just between the two of us. If you could travel anywhere in the world, all expenses paid, to do onsite research, where would it be?

Easy. Two places I’ve already been and am desperate to re-visit. The first is Nepal, where I trekked for weeks in the Himals. The landscape is breathtaking, the Nepali people the kindest and most generous of spirit I’ve ever encountered. The second place couldn’t be more different: Oxford, whose history and architecture really speaks to the Anglophile in me. I’d love to spend my dotage sitting under a thousand-year-old gargoyle, in some shadowed, forgotten corner of some shadowed, forgotten gothic building, with a glass of Pinot Noir and a good book.

What are you reading now for pleasure?

THE GOLDFINCH by Donna Tartt. What an amazing writer!

What’s next for you?

Diving into the fifth Daniel Rinaldi novel. I’m looking forward to seeing what kind of trouble the poor guy is going to get into next.

Reposted from The Big Thrill

AEI Client Dennis Palumbo's Interviews on The Big Thrill Mystery Website

Night Terrors by Dennis Palumbo

By Sandra Parshall

Dennis Palumbo’s love of writing took him to Hollywood, where he enjoyed a successful career as a screenwriter, with credits that include the feature film MY FAVORITE YEAR. He was also a staff writer on the television series WELCOME BACK, KOTTER and wrote episodes and pilots for other series.

Eventually, his interest turned to psychotherapy, and after training he developed a private practice specializing in helping show business clients deal with creative issues. He never stopped writing, though. His first novel, CITY WARS, was published by Bantam, and his short fiction has appeared in ELLERY QUEEN’S MYSTERY MAGAZINE, THE STRAND and elsewhere. He contributes articles and reviews to national publications, and his popular Hollywood on the Couch column for writers and other creative artists appears on the PSYCHOLOGY TODAY website. He is also the author of WRITING FROM THE INSIDE OUT and the mystery short story collection FROM CRIME TO CRIME.

With MIRROR IMAGE (2010), Palumbo began his popular and critically praised thriller series featuring psychologist Daniel Rinaldi and set in the author’s hometown, Pittsburgh. BOOKLIST called the second in the series, FEVER DREAM, “a smart, strong read” and KIRKUS REVIEWS described Rinaldi as “Jack Reacher with a psychology degree.”

In NIGHT TERRORS, Palumbo delivers another compelling tale, as Rinaldi works with two difficult clients who couldn’t be more different: one is a former FBI profiler who is tormented by grisly memories and pursued by a murderer bent on revenge; the other is a loathsome confessed killer whose mother believes he is innocent and wants Rinaldi to prove it. PUBLISHERS WEEKLY calls NIGHT TERRORS “riveting” and KIRKUS REVIEWS notes, “Some thrillers are beach reads. Palumbo’s are strictly for late at night and for readers who have no pressing engagements early the next day.”

In a recent interview, Palumbo talked about NIGHT TERRORS, his protagonist, and his writing life.

First, the inevitable question: Is Daniel Rinaldi a fictional version of Dennis Palumbo? What qualities does he share with you, and how do the two of you differ? Does he have attributes that you envy?

Rinaldi both is and isn’t a fictional version of me. We certainly share biographical data—both Italian-American, born and raised in Pittsburgh, and graduates of the University of Pittsburgh. As therapists, we also share theoretical beliefs and treatment techniques, along with a fair amount of skepticism about much in the psychotherapy field.  Particularly when it comes to the pervasive use of diagnostic categories to label people: to try to define, limit or explain away every idiosyncratic or contrary response of individuals. As if anyone has a clue as to what constitutes “normal.”

But there, my similarity with Daniel ends. He’s a former amateur boxer, for one thing.

He’s also a lot more brave and resourceful than I am. Most of the things he encounters would have me running for the hills! So I guess I envy his courage, even though, in the books, his friends and colleagues consider some of his actions merely foolhardy.

When you decided to write a crime fiction series about a therapist, did you consider using Hollywood as your setting? Why did you rule it out and place Rinaldi’s practice in gritty Pittsburgh instead?

I never considered using Hollywood, because—much like the rest of Southern California—it’s been over-used as an arena for crime fiction. On the other hand, I feel that mid-Atlantic states like Pennsylvania, and mid-sized cities like Pittsburgh, haven’t been exploited as much as they could be. Of course, it doesn’t hurt that I love Pittsburgh, and have fond memories of the kind of childhood a kid could have in a tight-knit, ethnically-diverse community like that.

Moreover, there’s the wonderful dichotomy of the “old” Pittsburgh—steel mills, smokestacks, coal barges gliding along the Three Rivers at night—in contrast to the new, gentrified Pittsburgh, with its world-class hospitals and universities, its pioneering role in organ transplants and nanotechnology. As I like to say, it’s a shot-and-a-beer town colliding with the Information Age. Blue collars being exchanged for white ones, with all the unease and uncertainty that implies. It’s a rich, complex, vibrant setting for a contemporary crime series.

I assume you don’t have a lot of serial killers and outright psychopaths as patients in your Hollywood practice. How did you develop and deepen your understanding of such people and the crimes they commit?

Well, the joke answer is, after twenty years as a Hollywood screenwriter, dealing regularly with movie producers and network executives, I already had plenty of experience dealing with psychopaths. Seriously, I guess I’ve done a fair amount of research on the topic. Though I’ve always maintained that every type of character, no matter how heinous or irrational, that a writer can imagine is already inside him or her. Within every writer, I believe, is a nun and a serial killer, a hermit and a vampire, a faithful spouse and a callous infidel. Everything encompassed by the human condition is available to the writer, is something to be acknowledged and explored. A good writer, to borrow a phrase, “contains multitudes.”

In NIGHT TERRORS, you explore a topic that many people probably wonder about: How do criminal profilers, who crawl into the minds of the world’s most repugnant killers, live with the things they’ve seen and heard? How did you learn about the emotional burdens of their work? What do you think sets them apart from other law enforcement personnel?

I’ve read interviews with profilers, and also read memoirs that a few have written.

There’s no question that the work comes with its full share of emotional burden, and burn-out is a significant issue. But curiosity about the human condition, as well as a desire to excavate evil to its very roots, tends to be the overarching motivation for those called to this work. Of course, as is also true about therapists, it would be a mistake to overlook whatever unique, perhaps dysfunctional childhood dynamics fed this desire to explore the darkest corners of the human mind. I won’t presume here to discuss what these dynamics might be, and I’m sure they are as different as each profiler is different from one another. But I feel pretty confident they’re there. As to what sets them apart from other law enforcement personnel, that’s a tough question. The simple answer is: cops and Feds want to catch the bad guy, profilers want to understand them.

You construct complex plots – all those twists and turns that readers love — without sacrificing a satisfying psychological depth. How does a story take shape for you? Do you spend a lot of time on pre-writing planning? Are you ever surprised by unexpected developments or revelations that crop up in the course of writing?

I have to confess—I never plan or outline a novel. I start with characters who seem to come to me, people with significant issues, for whom large things are at stake. Which means I’m not only surprised a lot by unexpected developments and revelations, but I also go down blind alleys and make wrong turns. But I don’t mind this. I like the discovery inherent in that kind of writing.

The truth is, I rarely know who the victim is when I start a new novel, and never know the identity of the killer or killers until far into the book. Then I have to go back and plant the appropriate seeds, red herrings, and misleading conversations. So there’s a lot of groping when I write, if you know what I mean. But I suppose I’m used to it. I also like something the novelist E.L. Doctorow once said about writing a book. He said it was like driving down a dark, twisting road at night. Your headlights only show you ten feet ahead at a time, but sooner or later you get home.

Readers have grown used to seeing corrupt cops and psychopathic psychiatrists in novels, movies, and TV dramas. Do you think writers are playing on the reader’s natural fear of being betrayed by someone they trust? Or do these characters reflect a genuinely negative public opinion of police officers and therapists?

I think both notions have some truth in them. We’re certainly a more cynical culture now, with pretty low expectations of our authority figures. Especially of the male persuasion. The days of unquestioned patriarchal authority are over. We don’t much trust male politicians, doctors, shrinks, and—let’s face it— priests. But as women assume greater positions of authority, they’re also being routinely looked at with suspicion. Take bankers and hedge fund managers, for example. Whether male or female, we don’t trust them. So, for a writer, detailing how people in positions of power betray the trust of those around them is a sure-fire way to engage the reader’s interest and understanding.

One interesting side note: When it comes to the police, as well as firefighters and other first responders, I believe there’s been a renewed respect and appreciation for their efforts. Certainly with regards traumatic events like terrorist attacks and mass killings.

Unlike almost every other governmental or civil authority, we’re glad they’re there.

Your novels are complex, atmospheric and richly descriptive – very different from screenplays. But do you use some screenwriting techniques in your book-length fiction? Can you give an example of how screenwriting has influenced your books?

First of all, thanks for the kind words about my work. As to using techniques I learned as a Hollywood screenwriter, the two aspects of that form that come to mind are a respect for pacing, and a love of good, realistic dialogue. I hear from readers all the time that one of the things they like about my books is the verbal jousting that often occurs between my characters, and particularly the use of humor. I owe much of that skill, such as it is, to my years in television and film.

How do you manage a full-time practice, personal appearances, and a prodigious writing output of both fiction and nonfiction? What is your schedule like?  If you had to give up one thing for the sake of your personal life, what would you sacrifice?

Who says I manage it all? Ten minutes after I wake up in the morning, I already feel like I’m three hours behind. To be candid, my life is a real balancing act, one that I don’t always handle with aplomb. But I like being busy, even a tad over-committed.

In terms of schedule, I have a full-time private therapy practice, seeing patients every day from 8 AM till 6 PM. But I also write every day, usually at lunch, and, very occasionally, in the evenings and on weekends. Which is why, unlike most other series novelists who churn out a book (or two!) a year, each new Daniel Rinaldi book takes at least a couple years. Somehow, I also manage to sneak in the occasional blog for THE HUFFINGTON POST and the PSYCHOLOGY TODAY website.

And while I do book signings and whatever media I can get when I have a new book coming out, I only attend a few writing conferences a year. I’d like to attend more, but my life doesn’t make much room for them. My personal life includes a wife, a teenage son, a neurotic though loving Doberman, three cats, and an addiction to watching depressing
documentaries on PBS.

Finally, as to what I’d give up for the sake of my personal life, I’d probably just try to cut back a bit on everything. I love being a therapist, so I guess I’d see fewer patients. I love writing, so I guess I’d just do less of it. I suppose I’d also be willing to skip a depressing documentary or two, but only as a last-ditch measure

What writing projects do you have in the works now?

At the moment, in addition to providing some blogs for mystery sites and doing Q&A sessions like this one—all in support of NIGHT TERRORS—I’m also noodling ideas for the fourth Rinaldi book. As I mentioned, I don’t start until I get a sense of some of the characters, and how they might intersect with Rinaldi’s world.

Plus I always like to explore certain issues in the psychology field. Schizophrenia, suicide, sleep disorders, the current state of mental health treatment. These issues, and what I think about them, provide the background for whatever story I want to tell. Who kills who, and why, all comes later.