『The Crime Cafe』のカバーアート

The Crime Cafe

The Crime Cafe

著者： Debbi Mack
無料で聴く

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
エピソード
  • Interview with Doug Kari – S. 12, Ep. 9

    Interview with Doug Kari – S. 12, Ep. 9
    2026/10/18
    This episode of the Crime Cafe podcast features true crime writer, Doug Kari. A writer who isn’t just Googling to get answers. 🙂 Check out the episode. How often do you get to hear stories from an actual “boots on the ground” journalist, these days? Well, their numbers may be dwindling, but they still exist and here you go! And for a PDF copy of the transcript, click here! Debbi (00:52): Hi everybody. I have with me today a fascinating guest for you. He is a true crime writer known for his hands-on investigative approach to research and writing. His work has taken him to places like shallow graves. He just lies in the shallow grave and kind of gets a sense of what it’s like to have to be in a shallow grave, maybe avoiding gunfire or avoiding something. (01:22): And he also has followed leads on missing persons through Death Valley and Mexico, among other places, I assume. Anyway, he was an English major at UC Berkeley and received his law degree—All right, lawyers!—from UC Law, San Francisco. His latest book is called The Berman Murders. It’s my pleasure to introduce Doug Kari. Is it Kari? Doug (01:54): It’s Kari. And thank you, Debbi. It’s a pleasure to be on your show. Debbi (01:59): Well, it’s a pleasure to have you here. Thank you so much for being here. I do appreciate it. And your work just amazes me. I’m just blown away by it. How did you get involved in investigating the Berman murders? Doug (02:13): For the Berman murders case, that was one that was really near and dear to my heart because of the location where the crime took place. It’s a desert valley that’s very difficult to access, that’s in between the Sierra Nevada and Death Valley in Eastern California, and it’s quite inaccessible. To get there, you have to follow a 50-mile dirt road. You have to cross mountains that are sometimes impassable depending on the time of the year. And once you’re in the valley, it’s like being on another planet. It’s the kind of place, Debbie, that attracts counterculture types, the kind of folks I hung out with when I was a student at Berkeley, the hippie crowd, the seekers, and word of mouth, people have come into this valley and they travel there to hang out at Hot Springs. It was sort of like a mini Burning Man before Burning Man ever existed, a very eclectic crowd. (03:18): You might find firefighters mingling with people from a magic bus. Everybody seems to share the same vibe, the same energy, the same aura. So it was quite stunning, quite shocking when in January 1986, a couple of nondescript hippie campers walked off on a morning walk and never came back. And three years later, their remains turned up miles away in a shallow grave. They’d been murdered. Debbi (03:58): Yeah, that had to be kind of shocking. It was in 1986 that they disappeared? Doug (04:08): January 1986. And that was a time period when myself and others that were into mountaineering out there and exploring the desert, we would go to these hot springs. I took my kids out there. In fact, or January 1986 was just a few months before I brought my newborn daughter out there for the first time. So to have a crime like this occur in a place that you think of as being completely off the beaten path, very laid back, peaceful, beautiful, to have people turn up murdered was just outside the realm of what most people could comprehend. And because of that, it was a real shock for those who frequented this valley. And it nagged me for years, Debbi. And finally in 2014, I decided I was going to investigate what happened, because there had never been an arrest or a conviction in the case, and I wanted to see if I could figure out what happened to these people and why. Debbi (05:24): So how much research did you do to create the book? How many hours of research and how many hours of going through doing interviews and going through those interviews and that research before you were able to write the book? Doug (05:42): It was a very lengthy process. I started with a real intense push in the first year, and that resulted in a cover story for LA Weekly about the case. But then off and on, I continued to work on the case over the span of about nine years, interviewing people, trying to gather information. Debbi, information gathering was really tough in this case. Some of the people that I wanted to talk to wouldn’t talk to me, and it took years and repeated efforts for them finally to soften up and agree to tell me what they knew. Tracking down, getting the case files from the sheriff’s office took time. Everything was really difficult in this case. There are cases where there’s a wealth of information available. This wasn’t that kind of a case, but slowly the facts began to emerge. I began getting cooperation from people, locating people. (06:39): I got the records from the sheriff’s department. I went to the scene multiple times, and I already had a lot of knowledge of the area, and I started ...
    続きを読む 一部表示
    1分未満
  • Interview with Charles D’Amico – S. 12, Ep. 8

    Interview with Charles D’Amico – S. 12, Ep. 8
    2026/10/04
    This episode of the Crime Cafe features my interview with crime writer and independent publisher, Charles D’Amico. His Neil Baggio series has a villain, who’s got his own story, too. And you can learn more about that here! And you can download a PDF of the transcript here. Debbi (00:55): Hi everyone. My guest today is originally from Metro Detroit. He writes the award-winning Neil Baggio suspense series. In 2020, he founded the small press Blue Handle Publishing. It’s my pleasure to introduce Charles D’Amico. Hi, Charles. How are you doing today? Charles (01:16): Good. How are you doing? Debbi (01:18): Oh, I’m hanging in there. Not bad, considering I’ve been kind of nonstop all week doing something crazy of some sort, either editing a film, doing a book signing or being at someplace or other doing something that I haven’t. Charles (01:34): It’s always good stay busy though, right? Debbi (01:36): I suppose. Charles (01:37): Because some of us when we get quiet, we don’t know what to do. Debbi (01:40): Oh, I always know what to do if I’m quiet. That way I can pick up a book or watch a movie. It’s like, at last a quiet moment. I can read. So I was going to ask you about the Neil… Is it Neil Baggio? Charles (01:57): Yeah, Neil Baggio. Debbi (01:59): Baggio. Charles (02:00): Yeah. The original framework for what is the book I have coming out in November, Why I Kill is called the Neil Baggio series. And that started as an FBI agent, Neil Baggio, whose mentor goes on a killing spree. And the book picks up four years after that, the first one, where he didn’t catch him. He leaves the FBI and it picks up with that broken down anti-hero. He was piecing everything back together. The killer comes out of hiding and now he’s got to find that lane, work with the FBI. They have to work with him and figure out how he’s going to catch his old boss. And that’s the first book Veritas, and it kind of goes off from there, the next three books. And then for years people would ask me, “How does an FBI agent become a killer?” So I wrote it, which is Why I Kill, the Cappelano journals that comes out in November. (02:46): And it used to be actually really thick, but I was like, “To be that dark and that thick might not be the best idea.” So we kind of trimmed it. Debbi (02:54): Yeah. Kind of gradually get there? Charles (02:57): Yeah. If it kicks off, we’ll really see an unabridged version. Debbi (03:02): Wow. Yeah, I noticed that. I noticed those Frank journals and I was like, “Oh, what is this?” And I’m looking, I’m like, “Oh, how interesting. Okay.” Charles (03:14): I had a son who read the first version of that years ago and he kind of ducked my call for like three months. I was like, “Everything okay?” And he’s like, “Honestly, man.” He goes, “Didn’t know what to think that you thought of that stuff.” Debbi (03:29): Well, you got to come up with a reason why they turn out to be a villain. Charles (03:33): Exactly. It’s just a thought process. Debbi (03:37): Yeah, it’s just a thought process. Exactly. It’s a hypothetical exercise. Charles (03:42): You hope that an FBI profiler can think and understand the way a criminal does without being a criminal. Debbi (03:48): Exactly. Charles (03:49): I get it. Yeah. Debbi (03:51): Yeah, exactly. Yeah. It’s not like hearts and flowers stuff, if you’re going to write about killers. Which was very interesting because it makes me think of the old adage, every villain thinks they’re the hero of the story. So wouldn’t it be interesting to go back, look at all of my antagonists, my major ones, my killers and so forth, and just figure out what their story really is, go deep into it. That could get a little depressing, if I do it too much. Charles (04:20): I started off with him being reluctant and then him rationalizing certain decisions and certain things that he wouldn’t say. And I’ve talked about this before, so it’s not like it’s an Easter egg or anything, but in the first volume, he doesn’t say kill. He doesn’t want to admit that he’s killing people. He keeps rewording it. He’s just removed people from the mathematics of life. And he’s rationalizing these crazy ideas on what he’s actually doing. And then eventually there’s a turning point in the middle that really flips the switch and he goes all in on it and he’s even aware of the moment. In these testing moments where he’s cognizant enough of what’s going on and he’s like, “If I was normal, I should feel something here.” And I don’t. It’s kind of cool to just think through what someone who’s rational enough, but even admitting, “Well, there might come a time I won’t be.” And there’s a couple moments where he, because it’s told from his perspective where he’s having the thoughts that there will come a time where I’m not rational about the irrational decisions I’m making. Debbi (05:27): Yeah. Yeah. ...
    続きを読む 一部表示
    31 分
  • Interview with Phil Halton – S. 12, Ep. 7

    Interview with Phil Halton – S. 12, Ep. 7
    2026/09/20
    This episode of the Crime Cafe podcast features my interview with crime fiction and nonfiction author, Phil Halton His website poses a question: How do we create meaning in the face of chaos? Riddle me that, eh? 🙂 You can download a copy of the transcript here. Debbi (00:52): Hi everyone. Today I have a guest who says he didn’t plan to become a writer, but as a soldier and later a security consultant, he’s traveled extensively throughout the world to most places and situations that very few people get to witness. What better background for a writer, I say. (01:16): It’s my pleasure to introduce my guest, Phil Halton. Did I say that right? Phil (01:22): Perfect. Debbi (01:23): Phil Halton? Phil (01:24): Perfectly. Debbi (01:25): Excellent. Good. Good to have you here, Phil. How are you doing? Phil (01:29): Good, good. It’s good to be here though as it’s odd to be here on the 11th of September. Debbi (01:35): Yes, it is. Very odd indeed. The whole day has felt slightly strange for that reason, that it’s the 25th anniversary and all, because I remember the day it happened a little too well for comfort. So you didn’t plan to be a writer, so what made you decide to be one? Phil (01:59): In some ways I kind of fell into it. I identify I think more as a storyteller, and so I was always the guy who had the stories. I had a bunch of experiences that I didn’t want to write about directly, but I though, oh, I can rework some of this and tell some stories that I think are actually of use as well, of value. Because my first novel in some ways is kind of the origin stories of the Taliban. It ends when the Taliban begins and it’s based on my experiences working with former Taliban and others in Afghanistan. And so I had things I wanted to say, I had things I wanted to express, and so that’s how I decided to do it. Debbi (02:43): Sounds like you got some very interesting inside information in your work. Phil (02:49): Yeah. Well, I think too that when I dig and dig and dig and dig in these things, I always find humans at the base of it. And so I think of my stories as really human-centered stories, even if they’re in strange places and with strange customs and strange. It doesn’t matter. You can always find the human element of it. Debbi (03:12): Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I think that’s absolutely true. I think that’s what draws us into reading the books. If you can’t find the humanity in the character, how are you going to care? Phil (03:23): Yeah, I think so. I think so. And I think in the end, that’s a positive message that we all have this common humanity and perhaps aren’t so different after all. Debbi (03:35): I love that message. I wish there were more of that out there. Were there certain steps you took to get started as a writer or did you just fall into it naturally and know how to tell a story from the get-go? Well, Phil (03:51): Well, I don’t know about that, but yeah, certainly I started with writing screenplays and I worked with an established screenwriter, and so we partnered up on a couple projects that actually didn’t really go anywhere. People loved them and didn’t want them. And so we did that a couple of times and I decided I’m going to write my own thing here, my own screenplay. And again, people loved it, nobody wanted it. And so I realized this might do better as a novel, so I rewrote it as a novel and wouldn’t you know that I sold the novel and the screenplay within a week of each other. Debbi (04:32): Wow. Phil (04:33): Yeah. Debbi (04:34): My goodness. That is remarkable. Phil (04:38): It is. The screenplay was never produced. It died in production hell, but that’s okay. I got paid and the novel was published and became This Shall Be a House of Peace. Then from there I just kept building on my experiences and kept working at it, though my military background really gave me a mindset about professional development, that that’s important. I pursued that as well as a writer. I just finished a doctorate in English literature and I see it as my development as a writer. Debbi (05:17): Well, that’s going to develop you all right. That sounds like quite the program. A lot of people don’t go through that kind of rigorous development for sure. How do you choose your particular topics and your particular characters? Are they based on people you’ve known, situations you’ve been in or just made up? Phil (05:45): Well, I think like a lot of writers, I’ve got 20 stories in my drawer here that I’m trying to pick which one I’m going to do next. So it’s never a shortage of stories. It’s always like will I live long enough to tell all these stories? And they’re typically not drawn directly from any experience of mine. The characters are often kind of a hybrid of people I know, and sometimes it’s kind of surprising that there’s a villain in a book and someone’s like, “Well, who are they based on? They seem really realistic.” And it’...
    続きを読む 一部表示
    1分未満
adbl_web_anon_alc_button_suppression_t1
まだレビューはありません