The JFK Conspiracy Few Know About is a Riveting Thriller You Won't Believe is True

By

Scott D. Parker

As a trained historian, I pride myself on having in-depth knowledge on certain topics of history and a general sense of a wide range of other topics. This book showcased an event I never knew about.

When I saw the title of Brad Meltzer and Josh Mensch’s new book, The JFK Conspiracy: The Secret Plot to Kill Kennedy―and Why It Failed, I’ll admit it threw me. Was this a heretofore unknown account of that horrible day in 1963? Not at all. This is a retelling of another attempt on JFK’s life, this time in the weeks right after Election Day 1960.

What? How did I miss this story in all of my study of American and presidential history? Not sure. I knew about the attempt on Abraham Lincoln’s life as he made his way to the Washington DC in 1861 (see Meltzer and Mensch’s second book). I also knew about the attempted assassination of Franklin Roosevelt in 1933, and even the failed attempts on Harry Truman and Gerald Ford.  But Kennedy?

Absolutely.

I’ll admit: I could try my hand at describing this book, but in this case, I’m going to let their words speak for themselves:

On December 11, 1960, shortly after Kennedy’s election and before his inauguration, a retired postal worker named Richard Pavlick waited in his car―a parked Buick―on a quiet street in Palm Beach, Florida. Pavlick knew the president-elect’s schedule. He knew when Kennedy would leave his house. He knew where Kennedy was going. From there, Pavlick had a simple plan―one that could’ve changed the course of history.

As they have done in their previous conspiracy books, Meltzer and Mensch use present tense as their prose of choice. It provides the book with an urgent momentum, especially considering the vast majority of readers (like me!) don't know the story and are breathlessly turning the pages to find out what happens next. And why what Pavlick wanted to do never happened

I mention "turning pages" but with this book, as I have with all the conspiracy books, I opt for the audio. Why? Because the great Scott Brick narrates this book. By far my favorite narrator, Brick puts special emphasis on certain words that have the effect of drawing you even more into the story.

Jackie Kennedy is Nearly the Star of This Book

Having just lived through our own contemporary presidential transition, I found myself eating up all the little nuggets of history about the transition from the Eisenhower Administration to Kennedy's. Key in these few weeks is Jackie Kennedy, the pregnant wife of the president-elect.

Meltzer and Mensch describe her health, the intricacies of what needs to be done--and what is expected by society and tradition--her budding friendship with Clint Hill, her Secret Service agent, and the birth of John Jr. during Thanksgiving week. I made a point not to jump on the internet and look up Clint Hill and read his story, but I knew he was the agent who jumped on the back of the convertible in 1963. I found myself loving every moment about Jackie Kennedy in this book, and even wanted the two authors to continue past the timeframe of their book.

The Final Chapter: Its Vision and Mandate

Meltzer and Mensch do conclude their book, recounting the events of the successful assassination in 1963. It bookends the opening which recounts Kennedy's heroic efforts in 1943 on PT-109. They've taken us through the transition, described the characteristics and foibles of JFK, Jackie, and others, and delivered a stark yet empowering conclusion.

Life is messy. Human beings are messy and laced with contradictions. Kennedy's soaring rhetoric can fill our hearts with pride even though we know he could be petty and cruel to those he loved. But that's everyone, right? We're all human. We're all imperfect. We all have flaws, but it's what we do despite of or because of those flaws that propels us forward. 

The final words Meltzer and Mensch put in their book is actually from President Kennedy himself: 

"All this will not be finished in the first one hundred days. Nor will it be finished in the first one thousand days, nor in the life of this Administration, nor even perhaps in our lifetime on this planet. 

But let us begin."

What Did Jack Do?

Over the past weekend, like many many people, I'm sure, I thought a lot about David Lynch. I had a busy weekend so really didn't have time to revisit any of his feature-length films, but I did go back and re-watch for the first time in a few years the last released film he made, What Did Jack Do?. Available to see on Netflix, it's a 17 minute black and white film he made that premiered at the Fondation Cartier Museum in Paris in 2017. 

I am sure all Lynch devotees have seen this, but for anyone who hasn't, I'll summarize it quickly. What Did Jack Do? is a two-hander that takes place in a locked-down train station somewhere, and in this train station a homicide detective (played by Lynch) interrogates a capuchin monkey named Jack Cruz who is a suspect in a murder case. The film has the look of a grainy film noir and uses a real trained capuchin monkey whose mouth is made to move through special effects as he converses with the detective and tries to ward off the detective's barrage of questions. 

To get to the point: this is 17 minutes of Lynch bliss. The film is at times absurd, at times serious, often both at the same time. Lynch is a such a master of dialogue made up of non-sequitorial language, and What Did Jack Do? is full of it. The detective and the monkey start their talk more or less answering each other directly, but as the conversation proceeds, the two employ more and more cliches and platitudes. Lynch in his performance is utterly deadpan and the monkey too is serious, but their exchange becomes increasingly farcical. They do anything but communicate in a meaningful way. At the same time, in its terseness, the dialogue sounds like a parody of every interrogation scene you've ever seen in a 1930s or 1940s crime film. It's very funny, but of course -- this is Lynch -- the emotion underlying what's funny is strong and genuine. If the capuchin monkey did commit murder, he did it driven by amour fou. He fell madly in love with a chicken named Toototabon, and this avian femme fatale apparently had something sexual going with someone named Max. It is Max who Jack Cruz may or may not have murdered. 

Is there coffee in this film? Check. Cigarettes? Check, smoked non-stop by the detective. And the combination of the monkey's real movements, head bobbing, eyes alert and darting, combined with the deepfaked mouth talking, makes Jack Cruz quite a compelling figure. He has a gravelly voice that fluctuates in tone from defiance to annoyance to pride to desperation. He's a suspect in pain, and his pain, resulting from love, is extreme. I won't reveal the ultra Lynchian thing he does towards the end to express in full his love for Toototabon, but it strikes a chord that is at once comical but also heartrending, a blending of moods that is vintage Lynch.

What did Lynch do with What Did Jack Do? In 17 minutes, he made yet another richly textured gem. And I'll tell you, short as it was, it really cheered me up.

What Saturday Night Live Can Teach About Failure

By

Scott D. Parker

Failure sucks, but failure isn't all bad.

After rehearsal on Thursday night, I came back home (with McDonald's food!) to find my wife watching a new four-part documentary on the history of Saturday Night Live. I missed the first episode and most of the second, but I ended up watching the last two.

The third episode is an entire deep dive on the Cowbell sketch. That was fun. The fourth, however, was brand-new to me. Entitled, “Season 11: The Weird Year,” it details the new-to-me saga of that year. And there was a lot I didn't know. Randy Quaid was a cast member?!

Full disclosure: I didn't start watching SNL regularly until my college years. Thus: the late 1980s and early 1990s. I was either too young for the show or didn't know it was on or whatever. 

This episode fascinated me. Everyone interviewed for this documentary talked about how they knew, in real time, that the season wasn't good. It wasn't connecting with the audience or even the folks working the show.

Yet they had to keep going. What other choice was there? 

By the end of the 1985-1986 season, rumors were rampant that SNL would be canceled. They even aired a semi-cliffhanger as the season finale, which is pretty interesting. 

The conclusion of the documentary episode has the same folks talking about the changes that were made for Season 12. They hired new writers, brought in new cast members skilled at sketch comedy, and, with an eye to what went wrong in Season 11, they moved forward.

And never looked back.

What Can We Learn?

We creatives not working in front of a camera like to hide our failures. Especially writers. All of us have drawers full of finished manuscripts that may not deserve to see the light of day and that's fine. 

But what about those completed stories that we're just too scared to share? What's holding you back? Fear of failure? 

Get over it.

Unless you are in the business of just writing and never selling stories, get your work out there. Get it out in front of readers. Let them read it.

Yeah, they may hate it and you'll have to deal with their reviews, but how else are you going to learn? Those same readers also might love what you wrote, and how good would that feel?

The Writer's "Five Minutes"

Episode 1 of the documentary features cast auditions. My wife said it was fun to see the younger versions of these actors we've come to know and love being given five minutes to prove themselves. Five minutes. In front of Lorne Michaels and others. Could you do it? 

You can, and you should. The writer's version of those five minutes is the preview chapters, the book description, and the cover. Make them the best that you can, get it out to the public, and then move on to the next project.

And if one of your books turns out to be like SNL's Season 11, suck it up, figure out how to fix it, and move forward. 

COVER REVEAL and Chapter 1 - Dark Neon & Dirt by Thomas Trang

 One of the best things about contributing here at Do Some Damage is being asked by publishers you love to spread the word about books you're guaranteed to love. 

Today, it is my pleasure to bring you the cover reveal of Thomas Trang's Dark Neon & Dirt. 

Not only that, we're also bringing you the first chapter. 

I've been hearing about this book for a while now; a few friends were asked to blurb it, and, in our texts, the one thing I've heard over and over again is how incredible it is - a high concept book that seamlessly melds character to plot, pushing both in to impossible situations before wriggling out in to new, totally unexpected areas. I'm so exited for this book I was just about to email my friends at Shotgun Honey to ask for an arc when, lo and behold, they appeared in my inbox, asking me if I could do a cover reveal. 

And then I saw the cover and read the first chapter and, let me tell you, there's no way I could say no. 

We'll get to the cover and chapter one in a minute, but first, let's find out what Dark Neon & Dirt is all about: 

Shaun Nguyen is a Vietnamese war orphan who made it to America. But danger was never far behind – from the Chinatown gangs he ran with in New York, to his years in Iraq dodging bullets and defusing bombs. Nguyen learnt how to survive. By all means necessary.

Now he’s a high-end thief in Los Angeles. One of the best, but smart enough to know he’s living on borrowed time. Then a job goes sideways, leaving bodies on the Hollywood Freeway, stolen diamonds in his pocket, and a target on his back.

Which gets the attention of Thomas Monroe, an LAPD lieutenant who’s been hunting Nguyen for years. Captain Ahab with a gun and badge, plus his own dirty secrets closing in on him fast. The two of them are set on a collision course – a thief who won’t be caught and the cop who doesn’t miss.

Not exactly the quiet life Nguyen is after, especially now he’s met a mysterious woman who’s landed in town. They fall for each other hard. A gallerist living in France who used to be with the FBI’s Art Crime Team. Able to spot forgeries a mile off, but she hasn’t figured him out yet.

So once he wraps up this business with the diamonds, Nguyen is done with the game. The problem is she’s not quite done with the FBI.

Welcome to the City of Angels – where everyone has an angle.

That sounds amazing, doesn't it? And I know you're primed to read chapter 1, but before we get to that, let's check out this beautiful cover: 

I'm pretty sure you're already sold, in which case, I'd suggest you swing by Shotgun Honey's site and pre-order this novel as soon as possible. But when you're done, come back, because we've got Chapter 1 of this absolutely incredible novel below. 

DARK NEON & DIRT - CHAPTER 1

Nguyen stays quiet. He doesn’t look like much, and now the two guys sitting across the table are wondering if he’s ready to take down an armored truck.

One of them says to Podesa, “This ain’t rocket science but we’re on a tight clock. There’s the driver plus three guards in the back. You pull out in front and cut them off. We’re right behind you in the tail car. Two minutes and we’re gone before they know what happened.”

Then he glances over at Nguyen. “Charlie Chan here wigs out and our whole plan goes to shit.”

The other one chuckles to himself like Muttley.

Podesa sticks his hands up all defensive. “Hey, you’re the one who called me last minute saying we need the extra muscle. Don’t worry about Shaun. We’re good. The two of us can manage crowd control.”

It’s 3:29 a.m. and they’re at the NoHo Diner on West Magnolia. It’s close to empty—only a couple of people by the counter, plus the four of them at a table next to the wall of black-and-white movie-star photos.

The one in charge waves for the check. He looks Nguyen straight in the eye and says, “You better hope so. This ain’t folding fuckin’ laundry.”

***

Now they’re parked on Figueroa below the Hollywood Freeway overpass.

Two cars. Podesa rolling solo, Nguyen half a block north in the back seat of a grey Honda Civic that smells of old menthol smoke and grease. The other two are sitting up front.

When they peeled out of the diner car lot earlier, the one in charge introduced himself as Rick then nodded at his partner riding shotgun and deadpanned it. “This is Morty.”

Switchblade grins from both of them now.

The radio’s playing softly—Billie Eilish singing about how she’s the bad guy.

Rick runs through the game plan one more time, his voice muffled by the foam earplugs they’re wearing. “Once we load the shaped charge, the door’s gonna come off quick. What you need to do is watch the guards when we pull them out. Keep ’em on the ground. Make sure you take the guns and any comms they got. Pass me those bags there.”

Nguyen hands him two large nylon carryalls from the back seat.

“I was just fuckin’ with you before. Stay cool, okay? Don’t screw up, and you’ll make some money. You do good on this, there could be more work down the line.”

Morty checks his watch. “We’re up. They should be coming off Sunset now.”

Rick turns the music down and gets on the walkie-talkie to Podesa. “You ready?”

He slides a magazine into the AR15 sitting on his lap. Morty does the same, handing it to Nguyen then loading up another for himself. Thirty seconds later, an armored truck comes cruising past the Civic and they ease out behind it. The rest of the street is deserted. Podesa backs out across the empty lanes where Dewap bends around onto Figueroa and boxes it in.

The masks go on and the three of them are out of the car. Rick is up on the rear doors attaching the shaped charge to them, Morty ducking to the side as it detonates.

Nguyen holds back as the explosion rattles the truck with way too much force. But it stays upright and they’ve blasted through the lock, so once the smoke clears Rick yanks the door open. He storms inside with Morty right behind him.

They shove the guards out and Nguyen lines them up by the side of the truck, taking their guns and scooping them into a pillowcase.

Podesa comes around from the front with the driver. Nguyen gets all four of them face down on the concrete, fingers laced behind their heads. Podesa moves into position at the back of the truck and scans the area. He looks at his stopwatch. “Forty seconds.”

The job’s running smooth. The target is neutralized and they’re moving on schedule. Rick tosses one of the black bags out the rear door and it lands at Morty’s feet.

It all goes sideways when he comes out with the second bag.

Rick grabs the pillowcase with the weapons, pulls one out and checks it’s loaded. Then he turns and shoots Podesa. The bullet sends him stumbling backwards. He falls over, eyes wide, and makes a sharp wheezing sound.

Nguyen moves to react but Morty hits him with the stock of his gun. It puts him on the ground. He picks up Nguyen’s AR15 and fires it into the side of the truck.

There’s a lot of noise but no bullets. Blanks.

Morty smiles and slings the nylon bag over his shoulder.

Rick comes over to Nguyen splayed out on the concrete, aiming the guard’s weapon at his head. “Your friend, he was already a dead man walking. You’re just in the wrong place at the wrong time, hermano. It’s nothing personal.”

Nguyen has a detonator up his sleeve.

He slides it down and hits the switch with his thumb. “You got that right.”

The carryall on Morty’s shoulder explodes and takes his arm clean out the socket. One side of his face is sliced open with the blast and it looks like the inside of a pomegranate. He stands there for a moment surrounded by a confetti shower of greenbacks then drops.

Nguyen rolls across the ground in one fluid movement. He grabs Morty’s weapon and gets up in a shooter’s pose before Rick has even thought to react. He’s standing there covered in blood and small pieces of his partner when Nguyen shoots him in the torso.

Pop pop. Double tap, center mass.

He looms over Rick’s body then finishes it with a shot to the head.

A brief spasm of life then nothing.

Nguyen looks over at Podesa to confirm he’s dead, then picks up the black bag.

He shoots Morty twice as he walks back to the Civic. The engine is running.

Nguyen fishtails south on Figueroa then up the off-ramp, turning right onto Temple.

The guards are still face down on the street—what the hell just happened?

Again, there's no way this book won't be one of the standout releases of an already packed year, and when you read these blurbs, your hype is going to climb as high as mine: 

“Thomas Trang has written a gritty, action-packed tale that will hook you right from the start. The writing is sharp as a broken bottle, and Trang’s characters shoot hardboiled dialogue until the chambers are dry. Dark Neon & Dirt is a visceral and unforgettable debut!”—C.W. Blackwell, author of Hard Mountain Clay

“Fast and smooth as a greased .45 slug, Dark Neon & Dirt is an incredible heist novel that recalls the finest works of Don Winslow.”—Nick Kolakowski, author of Where The Bones Lie

Make sure you order your copy of Dark Neon & Dirt today, and look for Thomas Trang here at DSD as the book gets closer to its release! 

 

Give Yourself the Grace to (re)Start a Habit

 by

Scott D. Parker

How are your New Year’s Resolutions coming along?

Yesterday was Quitter's Day 2025. It's the day when a shocking 80% or more people who made New Year's resolutions have tapped out. These are the same folks who made decisions so fervently at midnight on 1 January.

I'm one of those folks who always uses a new year (or month or week or day) to reset myself and my habits. Because that's what resolutions really are, habits. Some of these habits have become embedded in my internal hard drive. I no longer need to keep track of my daily flossing because, years ago, I created the habit. Ditto for my daily readings. This year, I'm reading The Daily Pressfield and Ryan Holiday's Daily Stoic Page-a-Day calendar.

Some habits are easier for me than others. I've not picked up my guitar every day, but I've done it most days.

The other habit that I wanted to get back on the menu was writing. My writing goal was simple: restart a project I set aside and move it forward. The longer goal is to complete the novel in Q1.

Here's the challenge: I haven't been in a regular writing routine for a little while now. My fingers were out of practice. My imagination muscle might have atrophied. When I'm really in the zone, I can knock out 1,500 to 2,000 in a session.

But with so much time elapsed since I last had a regular writing schedule, I made a choice: give myself grace.

Translation: I knew I could not begin New Year's Day with 1,000 words. If I had set that word count as my benchmark, I would have failed. And that failure would have discouraged me. The challenge to get back in the swing of things would have been more difficult.

So I told myself to simply start writing on New Year's Day. I did. A whopping 189 words. Shrug. I had started. The next day was 459 while January 3 was 714. I topped 1,000 words on 4 January...but fell under that mark the following day. 

The shocker was this past Monday: barely 298 words. I thought I was on a roll! What the heck? Then I remembered a theme for the early part of January: grace. Yes, 298 was under what I thought I should be able to do--and it was--but I was also 298 words closer to the end. More importantly, closer to knowing what kind of story this novel is going to be.

So if you gave yourself a new resolution--a new habit--to start this year and you've struggled, give yourself the grace to stumble.

Then start again. Seriously, it's that simple. Just restart. 

Life is going to throw you curveballs. That's just life. You know you want to create that new resolution, that new habit. I’m here to tell you that it’s never too late.

But if you want to start that habit of writing, of calling your friends and family you haven't spoken to in years, of learning a new language, or learning a new skill, of exercising to get yourself healthier, the do the simplest thing possible.

Start.

An Old Old Favorite

A gift I bought myself for Christmas this year is a book I used to own when I was a kid. If I remember correctly, it's a book my mother bought for me for Christmas when I was about 10 or 11 years old. As I recall, I loved this book when I first read it - over 50 years ago now - but over the years the book got lost in the shuffle of many moves from place to place. I don't know exactly what it was, but something prompted me to think of the book recently, and after searching the Internet, I found affordable used copies available. I thought, "What the hell? Why not buy it again just to have it and to spend some time revisiting the stories that gave me so much pleasure as a kid."

Now I don't remember whether as a kid, I really thought Alfred Hitchcock had written these stories. I did know Hitchcock was a film director because I'd seen some of his films. The book has an introduction written by Hitchcock and little individual intros to each story in which "Hitchcock" addresses the book's intended audience, young readers, and tells them a little about the mystery they are about to read and will try to solve. Did I take these little snippets as actually written by him? I don't know. But I do know that I just loved the stories, all of which feature young protagonists caught up in mysteries they try to solve. And you as the reader, after completing each story, get a little pause in which to have time to try to figure out the mystery. Then "Hitchcock" speaks to you again and asks you whether you have figured out the puzzle. He then tells you the answer to the puzzle, in case you haven't solved it. In that moment it gives you to stop and think before you learn the mystery's solution, the book is not unlike the Encyclopedia Brown stories, another very old favorite of mine. After five decades plus, I can't remember now whether I did solve any of these stories, but I'd bet I did not, or at least not the majority of them, since, mystery lover though I am, I have always been terrible at figuring out the solutions to these things. 

So who did write these stories? Who was the ghostwriter? It was Robert Arthur, an author who over several years wrote a bunch of books and also wrote for radio and TV. He wrote scripts for The Twilight Zone and wrote and edited scripts for Alfred Hitchcock Presents. He created The Three Investigators series, in which three young friends use logic and teamwork to solve mysteries, and became the main writer/editor/anthologizer of the various Alfred Hitchcock-branded collections that came out during the 1960s, books with titles like Alfred Hitchcock's Ghostly Gallery (1962), Alfred Hitchcock Presents Stories Not for the Nervous (1965), Alfred Hitchcock Presents Stories They Wouldn't Let Me Do On TV (1968), and Alfred Hitchcock's Daring Detectives (1969).

Arthur died in 1969, at the age of 59, which is unfortunate. But he'd made his mark.  His popular Three Investigators series was continued by other writers. The man, clearly, was a consummate pro, and I look forward to re-reading the stories in the Alfred Hitchcock's Solve-Them-Yourself Mysteries collection now that I know who he is. I wonder too, having forgotten the solutions to the stories, whether I'll be able to solve the puzzles this time around.

Burl Spoon returns

By Steve Weddle

The year 2025 opens with a bang, as THEY ALL FALL THE SAME, Wes Browne's wonderful follow-up to HILLBILLY HUSTLE, drops January 7.

Cannabis kingpin Burl Spoon has reigned over the Jackson County area for three decades, building a powerful backwoods empire. But behind a well-run organization, his personal life is crumbling–his daughter can’t stay clean; his son has hated him since coming out; and after enduring years of infidelity, his wife is straying too. The only person not on his payroll who still adores him is his six-year-old granddaughter, Chelsea. 

When his daughter overdoses on heroin laced with fentanyl and one of his employees is murdered, Burl’s retaliation against Clovis Begley, the patriarch of the heroin-dealing family involved in both deaths, is inevitable. As Burl’s plan spirals into a firestorm of vengeance that threatens the safety of his granddaughter, his drive for revenge conflicts with his longing for redemption.

On the brink of losing everything, Burl must find a path between retribution and protecting what’s left of his family.

“Browne writes like the smart-talking, card-shuffling, 

bullet-dodging, bourbon-soaked loved child of Ron Rash, 

Elmore Leonard, and the Coen Brothers.”

—Benjamin Percy, author of The Dead Lands

Wes Browne at Noir at the Bar, B'con '24

I met Browne in back of a bar in Nashville, which sounds like the start to an explosive and unapologetic short story. 

Later, I had the chance to read THEY ALL FALL THE SAME, Browne's first from Crooked Lane Books. 

We recently chatted over email about the new book and how it grew from 2020's HILLBILLY HUSTLE, published by West Virginia University Press. We also discussed good bad guys, bad bad guys, heroin, dialog, and Ben Percy. Buckle up.

Steve Weddle: How long have you been living with Burl Spoon? What's his pull on you?

Wes Browne: I conceived Burl Spoon as a side character in a novel writing class at the Appalachian Writers’ Workshop in 2014. I sketched out something like six characters that week and he was one of the more peripheral ones. Burl wound up being a side character in my debut novel HILLBILLY HUSTLE. I pretty quickly noticed that people who loved that book tended to mention Burl early.

I had no interest in revisiting HILLBILLY HUSTLE after it was done. I not only wanted to write something new, but I wanted to write something more serious. Something darker. But I kept thinking about Burl. The dark moments in HILLBILLY HUSTLE that people responded to were all him. So I picked him up and took him out of there and started over with something new that I called SPOON. SPOON wound up becoming THEY ALL FALL THE SAME. When my agent signed me after reading the SPOON manuscript she had no idea Burl appeared in another book. It’s that self-contained.

I’ve practiced criminal law for twenty five years, and I’ve seen people do a lot of bad things. I’ve seen very few who didn’t have some good in them. That’s the pull of writing Burl. To make that case to readers. Burl’s objectively not a good person, but there are good qualities hidden within him. He’s capable of love. He’s capable of empathy. The rare instances when it comes out, it’s other characters in the book who draw it out of him. Walking that tightrope of constantly reminding readers of who they’re dealing with, and getting them to stay with him anyway, is the whole trick. That’s what I find most satisfying.

SW: You seem to have set up a family war between the Spoon family and the Begley family here. Aside from marijuana versus heroin, how do these families differ? How are they the same? Why root for one over the other?

WB: Clovis Begley and Burl Spoon are two versions of the same thing. Both fancy themselves family men, but one key difference is that Clovis’s family fear him to the point they’ll do almost anything he says, and Burl’s family have ceased to obey him. In Burl’s world, his family are the only people who don’t, and he struggles with it. It’s the erosion of Burl’s family that ultimately begins to undo him.

Heroin and marijuana are also somewhat representative of who Clovis and Burl are at heart. Clovis knows how destructive heroin is, but as long as it benefits him, he doesn’t care. Burl, on the other hand, doesn’t look to hurt people if he doesn’t have to, and he regards cannabis as harmless. Burl’s more than willing to resort to violence, but if he does, it’s going to be calculated, and it’s going to be targeted. It’s Clovis’s total indifference to the wellbeing of others—and specifically Burl’s daughter—that incites the conflict in this book.

SW: How important is it that you get the setting "right"? Would you move a courthouse across the street if the story demanded it?

WB: I choose to write about real places—mostly in Kentucky—and that creates the burden of being accurate. I visit my locations in person if I can, and on Google maps if I can’t. I know that many of the people who read what I write are going to know the places, and I hate for them to call bullshit. That said, if you look very closely, I might make small concessions if it serves the story. For instance, Greens Crossing is a real place in Madison County, but the fictional Begley Turfgrass Sod Co. is wedged into a place that kind of defies the real map. Burl’s farm is similar. It’s funny that you mention a courthouse. The old courthouse in McKee, Kentucky sits across the street from the new one, but I have been known to gloss over that fact.

SW: THEY ALL FALL THE SAME has been sold as "perfect for fans of S.A. Cosby and Eli Cranor." The gritty, southern crime fiction connection there is clear, but what else does this book share with their work? And how is it different?

WB: It’s funny that you ask that because I think about it a lot as the book release gets close. It’s nice from a marketing perspective for things like that to be said about your book, but it also sets up some pretty difficult expectations to meet. Some people are hyper-critical because they read “perfect for fans of” as “the same as,” which doesn’t make a lot of sense, because those are two different authors and their books aren’t the same. What it’s really saying is, “If you like Snickers bars and Kit Kats, you might also like Twix.” I embrace the comparisons because I admire the hell out of both of them. If I’m even in their ballpark, I’m happy. I have a whole lot of influences, and those two are definitely among them, but I’m striving to be the best me I can be, and tell the kinds of stories I like to read.

I do think one thing our books share, aside from Southerness and grit, is depth of characters, attention to setting, and nuanced storytelling. I think we all try to write multi-faceted, realistic characters, and we strive to be genuine with regional dialogue, and human nature. Another similarity is the story momentum. There are necessary ebbs and flows in the action, but both of those two grab hold of readers and don’t let go. I try to do the same.

As far as being different, there’s only one S.A. Cosby in a whole lot of ways, but I’ve specifically been told my writing isn’t as funny as his, and I’m sure that’s true. Especially this book. However, when I am funny, I tend to be very dry. There are a few deadpan lines in THEY ALL FALL THE SAME that I find hilarious.

I think Eli is a good bit more complex in style than me. He’s more lyrical and weaves more nuanced phrases. There’s also traces of what I’d almost call mysticism in his work. I’m pretty cut and dry. I’m not as spare as Elmore Leonard, but there’s some of his influence in my style.

SW: Chris Offutt called this novel a "high-propulsion narrative." What makes this book move? Why does the reader keep turning pages?

WB: I’ll blame that on two things. My ADHD and Ben Percy. I have a famously short attention span, and I write to hold attention. I also studied for a little bit under Ben Percy, and he changed the way I think about building tension and suspense. I’ve had a bunch of great writing teachers who’ve taught me all kinds of things, but he’s specifically a guru at that.

Not all action has to blow your hair back, and not all tension has to make you clutch the arms of your chair. Some of it hopefully does, but not all of it. Sometimes you just have to tickle the brain into anticipation. I come from a literary background, so I really sweat setting and writing well-rounded characters. So I try to start with that. Because the fact is, you can have all the action you want, but if readers don’t care what happens to the characters, what difference does it make? So you go at a steady pace and let readers keep their breath, you develop your characters, then you get on the gas a little bit. Build action, build tension, create a set piece, pay it off, then slow it back down. Once you’ve cruised for a bit, gradually start building up speed again on the way to the next payoff. Whenever something gripping is in the rear view, be thinking about putting something new on the horizon through the windshield. You do that again and again until you reach that final big set piece. Ideally that’s the peak of a larger arc you’ve been building the whole time.

SW: We already mentioned the Cosby and Cranor feel that people get with your work, but what author has been a surprising influence on you, someone most readers wouldn't expect?

WB: That would be Richard Russo. He writes novels set mostly in the Northeast. They’re character driven books that mix drama and humor. He writes some of the cleverest dialogue you’ll read anywhere. I started reading him in college and I’ve never stopped. I used to write everything in first person, and I haven’t abandoned it, but I started having more success after I read one of his books and decided to change what I was doing. Russo writes what I call voice-heavy third person. I rewrote an entire manuscript from first person into more of his style, and suddenly it worked, and the next thing I know, I published my first book.

***

THEY ALL FALL THE SAME

January 7, 2025 

304 pages

Crooked Lane Books

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Favorite Books from 2024

By

Scott D. Parker

The year 2024 turned out to be one of my best reading years in quite awhile. Granted, I kept pace via audiobooks, but since that is my go-to, I don’t even count it.

The Stats

Overall, I got through 34 books in 2024, and I was 45 minutes (2 chapters) from finishing a 35th on New Year’s Eve. My science fiction book club (now entering its sixteenth year!) can account for at least eight books most years. Yeah, I don’t finish a book I don’t like. Long ago I realized it is better to pull the ripcord on a bad book and read something I enjoy versus slogging through a book I don’t enjoy. 

Four of the books I read last year were non-fiction, including a Top 10. I discovered Harlan Coben’s Myron Bolitar, reading the first two entries in that series. I also read a pair of Agatha Christie’s novels as part of the always-fun reading list put together by her estate. 

But the winner for most books by one author—three—went to John Jackson Miller. I read two of his Star Wars books—Kenobi and The Living Force—and then Batman: Resurrection, a direct sequel to the 1989 movie. By the way, did Miller have one of the best years for an author? He published three books in three different franchises: Star Wars, Star Trek, and Batman. 

If you put Miller and Coben in the mix, I read eighteen new-to-me authors, accounting for 22 of my 34 books. I do not count Tom Straw in that list since he wrote the Castle novels—but The Accidental Joe was the first of his with his own name on the cover.

Ever since I read Ryan Holiday’s The Daily Stoic in 2021 (and again in 2023), I’ve picked out a book meant to be read daily. Last year, it was The Daily Laws by Robert Greene. As of today, I’m four days into The Daily Pressfield by Steven Pressfield.

The Top 10

Here are my favorite books of 2024, presented in chronological order.

Eight Perfect Murders by Peter Swanson. Super clever narrative style with the clues rather obviously (in retrospect) sprinkled throughout. Excellent narrator.

Kenobi (Star Wars) by John Jackson Miller. If the original Star Wars was meant to be a western in space, then this is “Shane” in space. It details the first months of Kenobi’s months on Tatoonie and it delivers what I most want from Star Wars: stories set in that universe that have nothing to do with the characters we already know. This one truly is a western, only with lightsabers and Kryte Dragons. 

Learning to Love Midlife by Chip Conley. Anyone at any age can benefit from this book, but for us midlifers, this book is gold. Chip’s metaphor of a chrysalis—of when a caterpillar consumes, then gestates, and then transforms into a butterfly—is the core of this book. It’s the lens through which he advises us to see our lives. He calls everything that came before a dress rehearsal. A driving factor of this book is the growth mindset by which you measure not by winning but by learning. “A growth mindset facilitates seeking out, exploring, and enjoying new experiences. It is the antidote to midlife boredom.” It is also the antidote to boredom no matter how old you are. 

The Five-Star Weekend by Elin Hilderbrand. A few years ago, my wife discovered Hilderbrand and has read everything she wrote since. When she finished this book, she put it on the kitchen table, a signal for me to return it to the library. For whatever reason, I picked up the book and read the description. Still curious, I wanted to see how it started. Twenty-nine pages later, I walked into the next room, book in hand, and told my wife, “I am in!” It certainly didn’t hurt that the five lead characters are all my age, but Hilderbrand’s effortless writing made the pages fly by. I was completely enthralled, and while I got misty when it came to what happened to the characters, I really got to the point where I didn’t want the fictional weekend—or the actual book—to end.

The Heist by Jack Du Brul. This is an Isaac Bell adventure as created by Clive Cussler. Bell is my favorite of Cussler’s series and a new entry is always cause for celebration. Plus, this one begins with an aerial attack on the yacht of President Woodrow Wilson. Cussler’s novels are always good, reliable action/adventure mystery/thrillers guaranteed to be the summer blockbuster movie you see in your mind. When you have a series character like Isaac Bell, it’s rare the hero loses. The joy comes in the locations, the devices the hero uses, and specifically the steps and daring-do Bell takes to get his man.

Worst Case Scenario by T. J. Newman. My personal joke with Newman is that the cover of her debut, Falling, so captivated me that it took me a year to read it. But then I read it and her second, Drowning within weeks of each other. Worst Case Scenario is her third, and for a thriller writers, she’s three for three with eliciting an emotional response from me. Her stories have great elevator pitches, like this one: What do you do if a plane crashes into a nuclear power plant? It’s the kind of situation you hope never, ever happens in real life, but Newman tells this story using characters that you really start caring for from the moment they step into the story. As a human, I became terrified at how easily something like this might happen. As a reader, however, I was enthralled and emotionally engaged throughout the entire book. And I will read everything T.J. Newman writes. You should too.

The Accidental Joe by Tom Straw. Every now and then, you hear a concept for a book and it instantly hooks you. This is one of those books. What if an Anthony Bourdain-type celebrity chef who hosts a TV travel show is also a CIA spy? Here, Sebastian Pike is the Bourdain stand-in, and you'd be hard pressed not to imagine the real celebrity chef in this story. When I read the hardcopy, it was Bourdain's voice I heard in my head. Later, as I listened to Straw's narrations, he put just enough of a tonality that could I still hear Bourdain's voice. It was pretty magical, as was the relationship between Pike and Cameron Nova, ostensibly his producer, but we soon learn she's a CIA agent who recruits Pike for this job. Pike is one of my favorite new amateur detectives. I love stories where a non-detective becomes embodied in a larger, dangerous story. I love it when what this non-detective brings to the table—cooking and TV production in this case—actually helps solve the case. I love it when we meet a character that just feels like you’ve watched every episode of his fictional TV show for years. 

Deal Breaker by Harbon Coben. Where has this book been all my life? On the bookshelf of a local store, just waiting to be read. Myron Bolitar is a sports agent, and while you might think it would take some narrative gymnastics to get him involved in a mystery, you'd be wrong. One of Bolitar's clients, Christian Steele, a rookie quarterback, receives a phone call from his girlfriend. That would be his missing girlfriend whom everyone presumes is dead. Know who’s also dead? her dad, a medical examiner, who was killed during a mugging. Coben delivers an entertaining co-star. Windsor Horne Lockwood III is Bolitar’s old college roommate, friend, and “partner.” I might've been late to the Myron Bolitar party, but I ended up listening to the second book right after this one.

Batman: Resurrection by John Jackson Miller. Who knew that one of the best sequels of the year would be a novel to a thirty-five-year-old movie? A highlight about this book is that we get scenes we would have liked to have seen in the movie. A key one is with Alexander Knox, the reporter played by Robert Wuhl. We get a number of scenes with him, doing some investigating about a gang of Joker acolytes, the Last Laughs, and, most importantly, interacting with Batman himself. Miller, a former college reporter, gave Knox some great content and retained Wuhl’s trademark sarcasm. He also shines when he gets into the heads of our characters. Specifically, he puts you in Bruce Wayne’s head, the Michael Keaton version. He’s still new at this costumed hero thing and he struggles with what he has to be, why, and what’s next for him. Miller shows us how Batman uses the tools on his utility belt, and how, during longer conflicts, he can run out and must rely on his fighting skills. I particularly enjoy the relationship between Alfred and Bruce. There’s that paternal instinct in Alfred, and yet he still questions why Bruce does what he does. In a Batman world without a Robin, Alfred is very much a partner.

The Night We Lost Him by Laura Dave. Know how, as soon as you finish watching The Sixth Sense, you watch the movie again, knowing the truth, and it all lines up? That’s how the prologue is in The Night We Lost Him by Laura Dave. This is the story of Nora, and architect, who is surprised by her estranged half-brother, Sam, who is convinced their father's recent death was not an accident. What follows is a dual story: Nora and Sam's investigation and their father's life. The more Nora digs, the more she looked inward on her own life. Laura also wrote a line of dialogue I've extracted from her book and put into my own book of quotes. When Nora is doubting herself, a young mom says "If you are looking for answers you can't find, you need to change the question." This line hit my reality and forced me to look around and assess things. It’s always a good and positive thing to assess one’s life and make adjustments accordingly. I do it rather frequently, but Laura Dave’s succinct way of saying it crystalized it for me. One of the best books I read all year. Oh, and I get to books any number of ways, so for this one, a hat tip to The University of Texas at Austin, Apple TV, and Houston’s Blue Willow Bookshop for introducing me to the work of Laura Dave. Here's the review for how those things connect.