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The Crime Cafe

The Crime Cafe

著者： Debbi Mack
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Interviews and entertainment for crime fiction, suspense and thriller fans.© 2015 - 2021 Debbi Mack アート 文学史・文学批評 社会科学
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  • Interview with Matt Witten – S. 12, Ep. 6

    Interview with Matt Witten – S. 12, Ep. 6
    2026/09/06
    Hi there! 🙂 On the Crime Cafe this week, we have my interview with Matt Witten, who’ll tell us all about his latest novel, 51%, which will (with any luck) be adapted, produced, and distributed to a television set screen near you. He is also optimistic in the face of the insanity we’ve all been subjected to about the future, which is somewhat reassuring. For a copy of the transcript, click here. Debbi (00:54): Hi everyone. My guest today has worked in a wide variety of media, from writing novels, writing for television, writing for the stage, and producing film. His latest novel, 51%, has the most intriguing concept, which I will let him tell you about. As of this moment, it’s still science fiction, I believe, I hope. It’s my pleasure to have with me the author of 51%, Matt Witten. Hey Matt, how are you doing? Matt (01:25): Great. Thank you, Debbi. It’s so good to be here. Debbi (01:27): Excellent. It’s great to have you on. Oh, you look so relaxed and happy out there on that porch. That looks nice. I should be on my porch right now except that it’s kind of sweltering out there a little bit from what I understand. Where are you located? Matt (01:42): I’m in the Adirondacks. I used to live in Los Angeles and our house was in the Palisades Fire last year, so we were very fortunate that we had this small second home in the Adirondacks. So this is where we live now. Debbi (01:55): Oh my gosh. Well, that’s nice. Very nice. Tell us about your latest book. I am so hooked on the concept already. Matt (02:04): Thank you very much. It’s called 51%. Here’s a picture of the cover. And it’s about a world 20 years from now. I used to say 30 years, but after one year of Trump, I’ve decided that it’s more like 20 years. And sometimes after I describe the concept to people, they say, “Oh, it sounds more like 10 years.” Anyway, it’s a world where the big six corporations, they own just about everything. They own schools, they own parks, they own the post office, just about everything’s been privatized and they even own people. So our hero, our two heroes are homicide detectives for the New York Police Department Incorporated, because in this world, even the police department is private. So for instance, if you want to investigate a murder, you have to raise money to investigate the murder because you got to raise money for your own salary and half goes to you and half goes to the corporation that owns the police department. (03:01): So you raise money from the victim’s spouse, their partner, their friends, their neighbors, their family. You might do a Kickstarter campaign in order to raise money for the murder. And so yeah, we have two heroes. One’s a homicide detective and the other is his partner and she’s a crime marketing expert. She’s the one that raises the money. Debbi (03:28): Wow. Interesting. It’s just so intriguing to listen to you describe this concept because it’s so similar to something I’m working on in certain ways. Matt (03:36): Okay. All right, good. Well, we should join forces. Debbi (03:39): I’m a little more optimistic in terms of when this happens in the future. Matt (03:44): You put it further away? Debbi (03:45): I’m being a little more hopeful, I guess. Matt (03:48): Yeah. Debbi (03:49): Let’s give us a minor bit of hope here. Matt (03:51): Well, I try to be hopeful in this in the sense that I describe them as the two main characters, but really the homicide detective’s ex-girlfriend is leading the resistance and the resistance is fighting the forces of evil. And she’s got this big action that she’s going to do on Saturday night at midnight, and hopefully it will jumpstart a revolution against the forces of evil. So there’s a lot of hope and love stories to give us hope also. I try to be hopeful in this in the sense that I describe them as the two main characters, but really the homicide detective’s ex-girlfriend is leading the resistance and the resistance is fighting the forces of evil. Debbi (04:22): Well, that’s great. That’s wonderful. And I understand that you will be writing an adaptation of this for somebody for television? Matt (04:29): Yes, I did. Yeah, I wrote an adaptation of it for TV, co-wrote with Charlie Greg, a showrunner for NBC. So that was very exciting. And we have some meetings scheduled the next month, so we’ll never count our chickens too quickly, but— Debbi (04:48): Oh, absolutely not. Matt (04:49): That’s exciting. Debbi (04:50): That is an amazing bit of news though. Matt (04:53): Yeah. Debbi (04:53): And it sounds like things are progressing as opposed to stalling. Matt (04:57): Yes. Well, yeah, I think so. Yes. Debbi (05:01): That’s fantastic. Congratulations. That’s a big win for you. Matt (05:05): Yeah, thank you. Debbi (05:07): I really want to see this thing. I want to read this book too. Let’s see. What really inspired you to write this book? She said somewhat like a dumb ...
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  • Interview with M.M. DeLuca – S. 12, Ep. 5

    Interview with M.M. DeLuca – S. 12, Ep. 5
    2026/08/09
    My guest this week on the Crime Cafe podcast is crime writer and screenwriter M.M. DeLuca. Among other things, we discussed what it was like for her to study with a Pulitzer Prize winning writer. For a copy of the transcript, click here. Debbi (00:54): Hi everybody. Today my guest is the author of five critically acclaimed suspense novels, including her latest novel, The Divorce Party. Originally from Durham City, England, after studying at the University of London Goldsmiths College, she moved to Winnipeg, Canada, where she worked as an English literature teacher, then as a freelance writer. (01:20): It’s my great pleasure to have with me Marjorie DeLuca, who writes under the name MM DeLuca. Hey Marjorie, how are you doing today? Let me see if I can get you in view. There you go. Awesome. Marjorie (01:35): It’s great to be here. Lovely to talk to you. Debbi (01:38): Well, I’m very pleased to have you on. It says, oh, how are things in Manitoba, anyway? How are things in Winnipeg? Marjorie (01:48): Hot and humid. Debbi (01:50): Hot and humid. Marjorie (01:51): Hot, humid, windy with periods of rain. Debbi (01:54): Oh my, that sounds like us. Marjorie (01:57): It’s greener. Greener than usual. Debbi (02:00): Well, there you go. There’s that. Marjorie (02:01): Yeah. Yeah. Debbi (02:03): Let’s see. Now in your bio, it says that you studied advanced creative writing with Pulitzer Prize winner Dr. Carol Shields. What was it like to study such a subject with a Pulitzer Prize winner? Marjorie (02:17): It was like meeting a rock star. It really was. We were her final class before she retired, and we were all sitting there that day in awe because she just won the Pulitzer Prize. We were sitting there just waiting for her to come in, and she slipped through the door. She was this very petite, quiet lady, and she was just amazing. She had a charisma about her, and she wasn’t just your teacher. She was a friend, a mentor, and she loved to meet with us outside of class and we’d all go for lunches and she’d say, “Tell me the gossip. Come on.” And she was just a wonderful teacher. And actually, a lot of the things that we did in class, I used as an English teacher, but she had a profound influence on my career. It was an amazing one year that we spent with her. (03:22): And after that, she moved away to the coast, to BC, and sadly passed away some years after that. But yeah, it was a fabulous experience. Debbi (03:36): Was this during, I assume these are graduate studies? Marjorie (03:43): Yes, it was, but you had to send in a piece of work or several pieces, and she selected the participants. So it was a one-year, just once a week course. Yeah. Debbi (04:00): Sounds very much like a fellowship or something like that. Marjorie (04:04): Yeah. Well, she was a professor at the University of Manitoba for many years. And when she won the Pulitzer Prize, I think she was the only female professor at the time. Debbi (04:15): Oh my goodness. Marjorie (04:16): The other male colleagues were a bit miffed, I think. Debbi (04:20): Oh, dear. Marjorie (04:22): She won the prize. But anyway, no, maybe that’s not fair, but she had been there quite a while as a teacher, a professor. Debbi (04:34): Well, that’s just extraordinary that you had that opportunity. That’s fabulous. Marjorie (04:38): Yes. Debbi (04:41): What genre would you say your writing falls into? Marjorie (04:45): I’m all over the place, really. I get bored in one genre. I started off in sci-fi, young adult sci-fi when I was teaching grades 10 to 12. And around that time, The Hunger Games came out and the kids just loved it, even reluctant readers. So as I was reading them, I thought, “I could write something like this.” And so that’s when I really started getting serious about putting something together. (05:18):And I wrote a trilogy called The Forevers. Here’s the cover of it. I couldn’t find a publisher, so I self-published the trilogy and actually did pretty well. And later on, I adapted it into a series, and I actually got shortlisted for a Netflix call for submissions with my pilot and pitch, but they didn’t pick it up, but I’m still hoping that someone will. So I started off with that. Then you can see I’m all over the place. (05:57): Then I went into historical fiction and wrote this family saga called The Pittman’s Daughter. And that’s based on my mother’s reminiscences as growing up in a culinary town in Durham, near Durham in the northeast of England. She was a Pittman’s daughter, a coal miner’s daughter. I couldn’t get that published by a publisher, so I self-published it. And then I really love historical fiction. The first book I got published was this, The Savage Instinct, which is fact meets fiction set against the trial of real life serial poisoner, Mary Ann Cotton. So that’s when I started getting into suspense. I wrote another suspense book called Lilah, and then began a string of ...
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  • Interview with William Stuart – S. 12, Ep. 4

    Interview with William Stuart – S. 12, Ep. 4
    2026/07/26
    This week’s guest is William Stuart, executive producer and director of the popular scripted podcast American Afterlife. Imagine, using a scripted podcast as a proof of concept. Because we talk about that here Download a copy of the transcript here. Debbi (00:54): Hi everyone. My guest is a veteran entertainment executive with extensive industry experience. As president and CEO of Aurora Productions, he oversees its slate of film, television, and podcast projects. He’s also executive producer and director of American Afterlife, a highly successful scripted podcast adapted from the best-selling YA trilogy. (01:23): It’s my great pleasure to introduce my guest, William Stuart. Hi William, how are you doing today? William (01:29): Very good. How are you? Glad to be here. Debbi (01:32): Very happy to have you on. I’m very interested in your podcast. I’m interested in scripted podcast in general, but what’s the logline for your show? William (01:43): Yeah, I don’t know that we fall quite in the crime drama, but we’re going to get there. Debbi (01:48): Okay. William (01:51): The idea is based on fact, but then becomes fiction. So Pedro Hoffmeister, who lives up in Eugene, Oregon, has been writing about the big earthquake in the Pacific Northwest, and everyone up there is sort of bracing for it. And as a writer like yourself, he sort of said, “How do I fictionalize this and what would happen if?” And he wrote his novel, his book based on the fact that the earthquake happens. And one girl, a 15-year-old girl decides she doesn’t want to get rescued by the National Guard and be skirted away, but she decides she has to look for her mother. And as you can imagine in this post-apocalyptic world where authority is gone, electricity’s out, dams have broken, that it’s a new world. In terms of visually, we’ve been talking about The Last of Us or Station Eleven, this sort of post-apocalyptic world where many of the rules are thrown out and you just have to survive. (03:15): And that’s what our heroine Cielo has to do or tried to do. Debbi (03:21): Yeah. Yeah. It’s a very interesting concept, frightening concept. William (03:26): Yes. Debbi (03:27): Also very suspenseful. I think it falls pretty well into a thriller genre in any event. William (03:37): Well, there’s two aspects to it. One, it’s certainly a thriller and even a bit of a psychological thriller with her, a young girl in this new world. But then it develops into a crime series. There’s been a number of murders and we don’t know who’s responsible. And at first she’s even blamed for them, but then we find out it wasn’t completely her doing, but she was involved. Debbi (04:10): Interesting. How does adapting something like that into a podcast differ from adapting for film and television other than the need for sound versus visuals? William (04:25): Yeah, it’s a very good question. Something that was a challenge for us, but we knew from the beginning this really had to feel like a movie. I hate to say that, or a TV series, as if you closed your eyes and were watching it. Debbi (04:42): Exactly. William (04:44): So the performances, and especially that of Scarlett Estevez, our lead, and Josh Mesnik and Ted Owens had to be spot on. And then with the soundscape that we designed, that brought the audience into it. So you can imagine Scarlett, who’s done a lot of voiceover and animation, was very comfortable with it because she’s usually just reading from a script and not acting with other people. But there is the advantage that usually they will show you the picture and the character you’re voicing, and you’ll look to that. In our podcast, I had to ask her to create a whole new persona. There was no Scarlett, no Cielo in real life. So Scarlett went away with the scripts and came back with what she thought the character should be and should sound like. And she was really great and I think got it 99%. And the other 1% or what have you, we worked on in the room, in the studio. Debbi (06:02): Wow. It sounds like you really had a collaborative process going with the actor, that actor at least in particular, and others, I assume? William (06:10): Yeah, all of them. Debbi (06:12): All of them. William (06:12): Yeah. It was an interesting process because of scheduling and such. In the beginning, they were all in the studio with us separately, and they were doing their own pieces. And I had heard obviously Scarlett’s piece, so then I could tell Josh what he was reacting to. And then we could tell Ted Evans where he had to be. And then eventually we thought it would be really cool to get all three of them in the room, which we did. And that was amazing. I mean, we went back and fixed some stuff. I was able to put Scarlett sitting opposite Josh, which is what they’re doing if you know the podcast. It’s an interrogation in that sense. So now they’re sitting opposite each other and we got even better performances, ...
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