THE LAND OF MAKE-BELIEVE

The Classmate Murders is the first in a series of books by author Bob Moats, featuring the oh-so-funny "senior citizen" Jim Richards. Richards, who has just quit his job as a security guard, finds himself embroiled in trying to solve a string of murders of cheerleaders he was in high school with. Investigating on his own, or with his trusty sidekick Buck, he sets out to try to catch a killer, while the local police are definitely not amused by his detective antics. Along the way, Jim falls in love and the race to find the killer, who is murdering women right under the nose of the police, becomes even more desperate. This book was a real page-turner as I couldn't wait to find out what would happen next. Who would the next victim be, and could Jim Richards solve the case before he ran out of time? If you enjoy a suspenseful read that is laced with humor and wild car chases, tinged with romance, then this is the book for you. Read it to find out! It also has a wonderful twist at the end. I'm certainly looking forward to reading all of Bob Moats' other Jim Richards crime novels to see what he gets up to next.

You can find Bob Moats here : http://magic1online.com/NewBlog/MNBlog.html

INTERVIEW WITH BOB MOATS, MURDER NOVELS AUTHOR

Q. First, tell us a little about your books.

A. They are a series of murder/mystery novels featuring a senior citizen sleuth named Jim Richards, who in the first book is involved in a series of murders involving classmates from his old high school. He goes out of his way trying to help the police find the killer and along with a friend, Buck, they eventually do solve the case after a number murders, kidnapping and wild chases. The rest of the series of books takes Jim and his new girlfriend, Penny, a childhood crush and the only survivor of the classmate killer's victims, along with Buck and a few other characters out to Las Vegas twice, to a magic convention and out to New York, finding murders along the way. Readers have told me they like the interaction between the characters, I try to make them human and have feelings. I have seven books so far and working on the eighth, slowly, which is making a few of my faithful readers mad as they want a new book. It usually takes me a month to write a book, but this last one, I'm taking my time.

Q. What made you decide to write murder novels?

A. I've always been interested in writing and wanted to be a writer, and wrote a number of short stories throughout the years. I even wrote a fantasy novella called "Crystal Prison of Kyr". I had the desire to be a writer but never did anything about it on a grand scale, to write a full blown novel, let alone seven of them. I even wrote a three act comedy play "Happily Ever After" that ran for sixteen sold out performances back in 1985 in Detroit. In 2009, I became unemployed and then one day, I was sitting at my laptop when a thought came to me, it was the first paragraph of the book. They say once you get the first line the rest is easy and it was. I wrote that book in one month and had a few friends read and comment, which were good comments, but one woman sent my book back to me with punctuation corrections on just about every page, I sat and did the corrections and printed the book out. I write crime stories because I love that genre of books. I read a couple of books a month in e-book form on my Palm TX. I've read just about every Alex Cross book by James Patterson and I've read all 30-something books of the "in Death" series by Nora Roberts writing as J. D. Robb about the futuristic police detective, Eve Dallas. My other crime heroes are Spenser, Sunny Randall and Jesse Stone in separate books by Robert B. Parker, Travis McGee books by John D. MacDonald and Harry Bosch books by Michael Connelly.

Q. Who are the characters in your books?

A. Well, Jim Richards is the hero, I guess you could say he's a lot like me; Penny Wickens is his girlfriend, who he lives with since the second book, she is a local Detroit TV talk show host until the third book when her show goes to national TV after a convention in Vegas. Penny loves driving Jim crazy with her antics of bringing home strange things from her show guests, it's a running gag through each book. Then there's Buck, Jim's friend and co-crime fighter, he's a big biker and adds a lot to the plots. Buck is based on a real friend of mine, he is much like his book alter-ego. Then there's Will Trapper, a police lieutenant and a funny guy if you understand his sarcastic humor. Barry Becker, a young, innocent police officer who has a good deal of plot action along the series. Coming in and out of the books are Deacon, a big cop who showed up in the first book and moves out to Vegas to be with Lynn Carter, a police lieutenant with Vegas Metro police who Deacon met during the "Vegas Showgirl Murders". I write in a good number of minor characters, that add a great deal to each book.

Q. You made Jim a senior citizen, most writers stay in the younger vein, no more than fifty-something, why a senior?

A. I'm a senior citizen. I get tired of all the good looking handsome hunks on TV and movies portraying detectives, so I wrote what I know, old age. Besides, all the baby boomers are now in their sixties, and they may enjoy seeing someone struggle with age while trying to chase criminals. Besides I like to frequently mention that Jim and Penny have a healthy and frequent sex life, who says old people can't do it. I've had a few people ask me to not promote Jim as a senior, but why not, we all get old and I make it fun in my books to see Jim occasionally realize he is getting old. Of course there was Jessica Fletcher from "Murder, She Wrote" who was a senior but I don't think it was made a big deal.

Q. Do you have a favorite book of the series?

A. They are all my favorites, but I like the plot and action of the fifth book, "Bridezilla Murders". Jim and Penny finally decide to get married and go back to Vegas for the ceremony, taking their family and friends with them, but get involved with a series of murders of Bridezillas. I got a little crazy with a subplot involving Trapper and Becker who pull frequent pranks on a police captain on Vegas Metro police. It's one of the books I like the most.

Q. Two of your books take place in Las Vegas, but Jim and his friends are from Michigan, why?

A. I lived in Las Vegas for about a year and a half, I loved it, but came back to Michigan due to my dad's health and my son and I were a little home-sick. I write what I know and I knew a bit about Vegas, enough to write about it. I may even have Jim and Penny move to Vegas in later books, but it is still open. Most of the Vegas Showgirl Murders explains a bit of my life in Vegas and what I went through out there, most of the things I mentioned actually happened. I use a lot of my life as a back story for my books. I hope maybe someday I can move back to Vegas, maybe when I start collecting social security so I don't have to find a job, if my books don't make me rich. I can dream.

Q. Your sixth book was about magic and magicians at a magic convention, how did you come up with that premise?

A. To explain, so people don't think I'm writing about spooky, real magic, I wrote about magicians who do "tricks" and I have a background in magic. I was a performing magician for over forty years and even had a magic shop near my hometown in Michigan and I did a good number of shows in Vegas. Every year there is a magic convention in Colon, Michigan and I went there years ago. I came up with an idea to kill off a few magicians while Jim was there helping a friend to receive an award. So the book was born. This book also has a sad ending, so have tissue handy.

Q. What is your writing process?

A. Honestly, I don't have one. Please don't take this as the right way to do it, just my way. Okay to explain, when I want to start a new book, I think up a title and premise first. Like "Magic Murders", I thought about my experiences in magic and the title followed. Then I sit down and write that first paragraph. I don't have any idea where I'm going (most people would agree), with the story, I don't outline or make a draft. I can't explain it, but the words and sentences just flows out of my head as I type. Most the time I don't even know who the killer is yet, I solve the case as I write and the plot follows, I make it up as I go. I will re-read a paragraph to see if I had any errors or confused statements, but that's about it. I run the thing through two spell checkers and a grammar checker on my desktop publishing program. I don't have the cash to pay a pro to edit so I let my readers check me. I write until I'm happy with it and I don't like changing my plot or story to please anyone. I've had a couple people comment about minor details, nothing that would change my story but just little things that are minor. Ever since I was young I would make up elaborate stories in my head, daydreaming, so I guess I had a lot of training.

Q. Have any advice for writers?

A. If you haven't done it, WRITE! Write a lot, all kinds of stuff. Just get the practice. Don't do like I did, and wait till you are sixty to start, I should have made the effort I put into my writing back then, that I do now. I was lucky and got on the social network bandwagon of Twitter and met some really great people who are writers and a few literary agents who have taken an interest in my work. It helps, and Facebook has been good too, to promote my books, but it is limited to your immediate friends, where Twitter has many links to others who follow you making your tweets read by a huge number of people. I'm not one to give advice, but don't wait around, do it, write. Just don't expect miracles, I'm not being mean, but not everyone has a story in them that they can put on paper, accept your limitations and listen to people's comments.

Q. Any closing comments?

A. Sure, buy and read my books.