Author Interview with Theodore Jerome Cohen

Hi again Ted and thanks for joining us today to talk about your latest book.Lilith – Demon of the nightcontinuing the Detective Louis Martelli series.

TJC: Hi, Gary. It’s good to be with you again.

PBR: At first I thought the book would be difficult for readers to keep in a serious mood, with the undertone of vampirism throughout the book, but you stayed true to the characters and used the “ridiculous” beliefs as something the NYPD wanted. avoid exposing. Please tell us how you see the balance between the macabre and the reality of modern policing, and how you plan to play down the weird aspects.

TJC: There is no doubt that vampirism is as strange as it seems. And yet, as you know, you can find associated offenses cited in recent criminal case histories. So for me, it was simply a matter of treating what happens in the novel as you would any other crime I’ve written about. I did this using factual presentations and catchy dialogue sprinkled with graphic details. But… I wanted to be true to myself. I mean, you know that all my novels are a mixture of truth and fiction.

PBR: Tell me about it!

TJC: I didn’t say it would be easy to separate them. But in Lilith, I wanted to make sure I didn’t get sidetracked into fantasy. I think doing so would have destroyed the entire character and story of ‘Martelli’…maybe even the series. And it would have made me feel very uncomfortable. I do not write real fiction, but to enjoy taking something real and, shall we say, ’embellish’ it by taking it down new and different paths. So, to balance the macabre with the reality of modern police work, as you say, I used the pretext that the police didn’t want the story to play out in the media. This allowed me to play down sensationalism, to keep a check on things. It allowed me to focus on police procedures and, more specifically, on the work of Martelli and O’Keeffe.

PBR: Martelli joins O’Keeffe for this novel. Tell me a little bit about how you see your relationship. Where does it go from here?

TJC: That is a very good question. I was hit by Marty Shaw from reader views when he reviewed my latest Martelli novel, House of Cards: Dead Men Tell No Tales.

PBR: I checked that out too, Ted, and really enjoyed it. what it was its beef?

TJC: Well, Marty loved the novel too, but felt that O’Keeffe should have had a ‘more robust role’.

PBR: It certainly sounds like you took Marty’s comments seriously.

TJC: Absolutely. One of the best things about being a novelist is being able to create characters from scratch and, once created, bring them to life. And so it was with ‘Sean O’Keeffe’. For all intents and purposes, neither of Martelli’s previous two novels said much about the man. All readers knew about him was that he was Martelli’s partner, he was a pretty smart guy and, to Martelli’s benefit, he was a crack shot with a pistol. Beyond that, his life was a mystery.

PBR: But after reading Lilith, it is no longer a mystery.

TJC: You’re right. I think readers will enjoy learning about his background and how he came to be the person he is. In some ways, he is Martelli’s alter ego, but in others, the two have a lot in common. It is clear that they care about each other and, more importantly, they work well as a team. Both are reckless to some degree, but in different ways. And that makes writing about them fun because I can put them in situations where they ‘work’ with each other.

PBR: I liked the references you made to your other books on vampirism within the story. What were your thoughts when you mentioned this type of dialogue when writing the scenes?

TJC: The references, in these particular cases, were added for various reasons, one of which was to add credibility and embellish the story. But they also dropped as clues, so maybe that’s where we should leave it. As for dialogue, I really enjoy writing exchanges between people. The lines between Martelli and Missy Dugan, a senior information technology specialist for the New York Police Department, are among my favorites, as are those between Martelli and his wife, Stephanie. And in Lilith, of course, several exchanges between Martelli and O’Keeffe left me laughing at the keyboard.

PBR: Your research on police policies and procedures is very impressive. How did you learn so much about the law enforcement “industry”?

TJC: an expert today. You have to remember that you are talking to someone who has been watching private eye and detective shows on TV since 1948! I mean, he was watching shows like Boston Blackie-“Enemy to those who make enemies, friend to those who have no friends”-before you were a twinkle in your father’s eye. And even before that, he listened to radio shows like Gang hunters. These days, I love to see CSI Las Vegas Y NCIS. Now, this is all fiction, of course. So for a real ‘ground truth’, Officer Sy Nankin of the Essex County (NJ) Sheriff’s Department keeps me posted. He has read all of Martelli’s books and provided me with the “fine-tuning” I needed in certain areas to ensure police procedures are portrayed more realistically than I could show if left to my own devices.

PBR: The way the “perpetrator” was found was really a slow and methodical effort by many talented investigators. How do you imagine advances in CSI, biometrics, and computer databases will affect our society over the next decade?

TJC: It’s going to be awesome. See how genetics changed the entire area of ​​forensic science. The problem, of course, will be the need to educate the public about the new technologies being employed and build the foundation for their acceptance. Without an educated public… one that accepts what science has to offer… the ability to employ new technologies in the prosecution of crimes will be hampered in the courts.

PBR: What’s next for our favorite detectives?

TJC: I have no idea. Really. I literally don’t know what I’m going to write about until I wake up one morning and say, ‘Hey, this or that could be an interesting story.’

PBR: Is that what happened with Lilith? I mean, what at work sparked a story about vampires, other than the fact that we seem to be bombarded these days with all sorts and forms of vampire books and movies, the Twilight Sagaperhaps, being the best known?

TJC: Actually, I was exchanging emails with Irene Watson from reader views one morning last November about the book sale. She had noticed that the sales of house of cards had not reached the level that the sales of death by wall street had reached when it was first released. We think it could be the result of two factors. First of all, there are a ton of new books published every year, maybe a million or more in 2011, so the competition is great. Second, in case you haven’t noticed, the economy isn’t exactly flying high.

PBR: You don’t have to tell me.

TJC: Anyway, Irene says, ‘What you have to do is write a teen vampire romance novel. That will sell. And I’m thinking, ‘Right’. But then I heard about one or two cases of actual vampirism that had appeared in the press, and I got to thinking, “Why not a Martelli book based on a vampire cult in New York City?”

PBR: And that was it?

TJC: That was it! And here we are.

PBR: We wish you the best of success, as always, and look forward to much more from your prolific keyboard. Happy New Year to you and your family from all of us.

TJC: Happy New Year to you, Nicole, and also to Sophia, Gary.

(This book contains adult language)