An Interview with author Richard Whitten Barnes

Author Richard Barnes

Author's website

Why did you start fiction writing and what genre(s) do you like to write?

I took a night class. I was asked to join writers group and before long I had a half dozen stories. I was encouraged by the group to turn one of my stories into a book which evolved into a WWII historical fiction. I discovered that I really enjoy doing the research. Then, I had an idea for a mystery and wrote two of them before being published by Wings ePress. Since then, I go back-and-forth between the two genres.

I recently wrote MEDALLION, the story of a Norwegian commando and a young woman; an American Flyer working for the British during the second world war.
My next book is the fifth in a series. My heroine, Andy Blake, is a Canadian Provincial Police detective. STEEL TOWN is a story about the interdiction of opioids in the steel city of Sault Ste. Marie Ontario. As usual, Andy has to balance her love life and the job of catching the bad guys.

Why this/these genres? What attracts you to them?

Writing mysteries is a challenge. First you have to have a story that is interesting for the reader. Most importantly for me is crafting a good ending. I like one that is a surprise and satisfying for the reader.
Writing Historical Fiction gives me the opportunity to satisfy my own curiosity about history and my desire to put words on paper, simultaneously.

Generally speaking, what is the driving force behind your characters? Have any of your characters changed in dramatic way from what you imagined at the start during the writing process?

I would have to half of the driving force behind my characters is of their own volition. I have had characters completely change there persona by the end of the book. In one of my books the character I had meant to be a hero turned out to be the villain. There is no question, my characters have their own mind in many respects.

What do you find the most difficult in finishing a story and approximately how long does it take for you to write a story?

I have been writing since 2009, and I am just publishing my 11th book this coming June. So, a book every year has been the norm. In every case, finishing the story is the biggest challenge. I hate it when a book just stops, as if the author ran out of ideas. I enjoy reading a book that has a thoughtful ending whether that is a surprise, or just a good feeling. Achieving this is a significant challenge.

Are there other types of writing you do such as non-fiction, or short fiction?

No, although I have thought about adding to my collection of short stories and publishing them as a group.

Has your writing affected you in any way and what would you recommend to someone wanting to start writing fiction?

Writing has almost become my raison d’être. There is not a day that goes by I am not thinking about a plot line or a character. I think one needs that kind of fire in the belly to be a good writer. Writing isn’t easy. My advice to someone thinking about doing this for a career would be to ask themselves if they have that kind of dedication.

Richard Whitten Barnes, author of Historical and Mystery fiction

Steel Town

Without warning, Detective Andy Blake’s personal life seems to be spinning out of control. She already has enough on her plate dealing with the opioid crisis that has crippled her hometown of Sault Ste. Marie. Adding to that are her efforts to balance it all with an admitted infatuation with the charming Dr. Campbell who is on special assignment advising the health responders dealing with a new threat: a pure form of the drug fentanyl that has added to the crisis.

Meanwhile, a young boy with special needs and a young couple become integral to the intriguing outcome of Andy’s investigation.

About the Author:
Mystery and Historical Fiction Author Richard Whitten Barnes
is a native Chicagoan, who graduated as a chemist from Michigan State University. He retired from a long career in international chemical sales and marketing, which took him all over the world. Barnes is a veteran of the U.S. Army 82nd Airborne Division and an avid sailor. He, his wife Marg, and their dog Sparty live in Charlotte, NC, but spend summers at their cottage on St. Joseph Island, Ontario, on the shores of Lake Huron. Steel Town is his eleventh book.

Reviews:
I have never read any of Richard Whitten Barnes novels before. Steel Town, an Andy Blake mystery is a real cracker. You know a good book when you can’t put it down until the end. This is a novel where the reader definitely doesn’t hit pain barrier at page three.

Like all good detective novels the ending has a real twist in the tail but I’m not telling. That would spoil the surprise.

The main character Andria (Andy) Blake is very real, three-dimension character. It’s also good to see a female character given centre stage.

Urban the principal bad guy, Joey, his autistic son and Maryland Eddie also are also believable characters. Dealt a bad deal in life they both helped one another to climb out a pit of despair, helped by Joey’s sudden appearance in their lives.This is a nice sub-plot.  
Good read 5 Stars. - Review by Andrew R Williams, Author of Arcadia’s Children: Samantha’s Revenge & Arcadia’s Children 2: The Fyfield Plantation

~*~

An engaging story line with plenty of unexpected twists and one final surprise I never saw coming. The characters were well drawn and compelling, and while it took me awhile to get into the story at the beginning, as it unfolded, I found myself turning pages long into the night, needing to know what happened next. An intriguing plot and a satisfying ending. I enjoyed the detectives, Andy Blake and her partner Arnold Terry and hope to see more of their adventures in the future. 
Skye Taylor, Award winning author of the Camerons of Tide's Way series and The Candidate. 

Enemies

By Richard Whitten Barnes
Historical, 324 pages
Cover art by Trisha FitzGerald
Paperback ISBN 978-1-61309-822-6  $12.95 available from Amazon or CreateSpace
Ebooks available from Barnes and Noble, Smashwords, or Amazon

Review:
Jürgen Stern has come to Ottawa to negotiate a trade deal between Canada and Germany. He is in the hotel restaurant for breakfast and sees another man of his age. After a waiter draws his attention, he looks back to see the gentleman is gone, but has left behind a folder. Inside are drawings from a close up view of World War I. Recognition strikes Jürgen, also a veteran of the war. His determination to meet the artist leads to a momentous change for a total stranger.

Brian MacLennan knew he could not become a farmer, so he left his home on St. Joseph Island in 1916 to join the Canadian Expeditionary Force going to Europe to fight the Germans. Now, in 1968, as a successful business man, he doesn't believe his drawings of what he saw in France during the war have value, but his daughter wants him to give them to his son as a wedding gift. Only, he has left them behind.
   
Enemies exposes the viewpoints of two young men, boys really, who become soldiers, one German and one Canadian. The story gives the reader a unique view of the bravery, blood, devastation, fear and death of opposing sides. Jürgen and Brian meet again many years later, their meeting draws parallels between their differences during the appalling war, and exposes how much they were alike. As a December release, this story will certainly give readers the wish for peace.

A Scent of Almond

By Richard Whitten Barnes
Click on above line for buy link.
Mystery/Crime, 302 pages
Cover art by Trisha FitzGerald

Blurb:

A serial killer at large.

Detective Andy Blake’s life couldn’t have been better. Her love life with Grant Stacey is on track, and she is happy in her new job with the Ontario Provincial Police. But her tranquil life on beautiful St. Joseph Island is interrupted with a simple request to take over the investigation of a two year old poisoning death.

The routine case turns complicated when curiously similar unsolved deaths are discovered over a period of several years, and cyanide is a common thread. Adding to the turmoil is Dan Graves, a renaissance man if there ever was one, and a contender for Andy’s affections. She finds herself pulled in all directions before coming to grips with the A Scent of Almond.

Excerpt:

Pauline Acardi opened the door to her unexceptional house near the Desbarats ice rink. She couldn’t have been much over thirty, her trim figure dressed in a halter and shorts, as if celebrating the unexpectedly beautiful weather. “Yeah?”

Andy flashed her ID. “I’m Detective Blake—” she began.

“Thought someone would show up. I heard they found Vinny.”

“May I come in?”

She was led into the parlor furnished in an eclectic collection of pieces—modest, but decently kept. She scanned the room, but found no trace of Vincent Acardi. The shelf over the propane heater bore none of the framed photographs of family. Mrs. Acardi appeared a bit defensive, standing with her mouth set, arms folded across small breasts, feet braced apart.

“What are your feelings about your husband being finally found?”

The question wasn’t expected. “I…guess…I’m curious. Yeah.”

“Curious?”

“Yeah. The constable said he was found in a house on St. Joe. Been dead since he went missing. That’s weird.”

“I read the report of your calling the OPP back then. You and Mr. Acardi were having some problems.”

“Vinny was a skinny little shit, but he was big enough to knock me around. The last time was just too much, and I called to get a…” She searched for the term.

Andy already knew. “Restraining order.”

“Yeah. I was embarrassed to go to work all bruised up like that. He was doing it for years. My friends said I better call the OPP. Then one night he just don’t come home.”

“Where were you that night?” Andy asked.

“Here … with a friend.”

“Andy checked her notes. Mrs. Hanks?”

“Claudia. Yeah.”

“Why was she here?”

“She worked at the Legion Hall on the Island where Vinny and I would go once in a while. I got to know her. That night she comes to my house—tells me Vinnie’s been all over Debbie Wharton, a waitress who works there.”

That name wasn’t in the file. “Debbie…” Andy made a note.

“Wharton.” Pauline spelled it.

“So you think they had an affair?”

“Who knows? Debbie says no, I hear.”

“You said he’d been abusing you for years. Why didn’t you complain sooner?” Andy closed the file and walked to the door.

“I did, when we lived in the Soo. The police came to the house after the little bastard slammed me up against the side of the house. Actually, a neighbor called them.”

“You lived in the Soo?”

Pauline nodded. “Vinny was good with engines. Got a job at the marina on Kensington Point. We been here three years. I mean I been here that long now.”

Andy thanked her and began to leave, wondering how she was getting along without her husband, until a pickup pulled up at the curb and a man dressed in jeans and tank-top got out, and started up the walk.

Andy didn’t wait to be introduced, but it was apparent Pauline Acardi wasn’t pining away for Vinny.

Forgotten Roots

By Richard Whitten Barnes

Historical, 324 pages
Cover art by Trisha FitzGerald

It is 1801 when two lives begin a journey that will intersect thirteen years later at the explosive conclusion of America’s war with Britain.

A young bride sets out from Scotland to a Canadian fur trading outpost only to find her life entwined with an intriguing Voyageur. A runaway thug from the streets of Baltimore finds himself in the Ohio Militia, bound for a final showdown with the British in Northern Canada.

The tragic conclusion two hundred years in the past becomes a mystery for present day cop Andrea Blake to solve. History and passion are intertwined in Forgotten Roots.

Excerpt:
June 1801

Carlisle, Scotland

She had always found a way to get what she wanted. Not as a pampered child, but through the dint of her own perseverance. What she wanted now was Thomas Gibson, and seventeen year old Annette Duncan was about to get her wish.

Gibson was a man with a plan. He greatly admired the entrepreneurial spirit of the Scots before him, like Alexander Mackenzie and Simon McTavish, who had set out to the Americas to make their fortunes in the booming fur trade. McTavish’s newly formed Montreal fur trading company was flourishing, and Nettie’s father, Angus Duncan, knew McTavish. A letter from Duncan had procured a post for his future son-in-law with the North West Company, traders in furs, and competing vigorously with the older Hudson Bay Company.

Nettie stood before the mirror in her wedding gown cut high at the waist in the fashion of the day. Her plump five foot-three frame stared back at her with a look of satisfaction. She was neither beautiful nor homely, simply a fact, and she’d learned to live with it. Over her image’s shoulder stood her mother, holding a small box.

Nettie turned. “Mother! Look at me. I am…so happy!”

Gwendolyn Duncan kissed her daughter’s forehead. “I have never seen you so lovely, Nettie.” She took a step backward, surveying the girl’s pale yellow dress with the thin purple ribbon at the bodice. “When I saw your dress, I knew what to give you.” She opened the box.

“Oh!” Nettie had seen the earrings before and always loved them.

“They are old, dear, but still quite fashionable these days, and they match the trim on your dress.”

They were gold and amethyst with a shepherd’s crook wire. Little more than an inch long, they were elegantly simple.

Mother and daughter embraced anew. “It’s time, my dear,” Gwendolyn Duncan said, and the two headed to the stairs where the girl’s father waited to give her away.

~ * ~

The young Mrs. Annette Duncan Gibson stood in the window looking down at the wharf of Liverpool. So much ado in one place. The hotel’s street was crammed with wagons, carts, horses, porters pushing barrows. Across a wide yard filled with barrels and crates stood the merchantman, Penelope, sails furled neatly on its spars. Stores were being rolled up her gangplank for the trip to Newfoundland and Montreal. It was cooler here by the ocean, and she returned to her still-opened trunk to retrieve one of her wedding gifts, a light green knitted shawl.

The wedding had been fine, if only a little anticlimactic after all the planning. Her father had held her hand for the longest time before offering it to the eager groom, possibly thinking how unlikely they would ever see the girl again. There, Thomas Gibson, a slightly pudgy man of average height, stood perspiring in the overwarm room. Nettie knew her husband-to-be was no Adonis, but knew him to be solid and purposeful. Her older sister, Kate, had made the mistake of marrying a man of her fantasy, only to soon become aware his shallow character. Such a fate was not in Nettie’s plan.

They took the carriage from Carlisle south to spend their wedding night at a Penrith inn. Nettie was anxious. Her mother had tried to tell her what to expect, but it was less than what she had already heard from other girls—that her husband would be touching her in her private places, that she would come to know his body, as well. But that was the sum of her knowledge, and helped little to allay her unease.

They had a light meal upon arrival, nervous conversation throughout. After, Thomas escorted her to their rooms across the courtyard, then returned to their table, claiming a desire for a last sherry, ostensibly to give her time to dress for bed.

The accommodations consisted of two rooms and an inside privy, an extravagance from her parents for the occasion. Nettie had laid out her new nightgown and soon was out of her traveling clothes and ready for what lay ahead. She was barely in bed before Thomas returned.

She heard the door to the parlor room open and quietly close. Then, after what seemed an eternity, her husband of a few hours appeared shyly into the chamber. Nettie reached over and blew out the bedside candle.

The bed creaked as Thomas got under the coverlet. He said nothing, but she could hear his breathing.

“Thomas,” she said, as if reminding him the next move was his.

He rolled to her and kissed her—a little too hard. She tried to respond to him, understand his groping hands. There? She’d had her own hands there, felt pleasure, but he was too rough. He was pulling up his nightshirt, and now at her underthings!

“Thom…” Her words were stifled by his mouth on hers, then his weight.

It became clear that he was not adept at this.

Let it happen!

She felt the penetration and cried out softly, a brief hint of pleasure, then it was over. Thomas Gibson rolled off his new wife, and exhaled a sigh.

Nettie retrieved her knickers, and tiptoed to the privy. Thomas was asleep when she returned.

Another attempt at their stay in Lancaster was better, then again last night. And now she was an experienced, married woman, she wryly thought.

There was a perfunctory rap on the door before Thomas entered. “We must hurry, Annette. The captain has sent a messenger. We must be aboard in less than one hour. I’ve a porter coming for this last wardrobe.”

Luzon

By Richard Whitten Barnes

Historical 361 pages

Cover art by Trisha FitzGerald

ISBN 978-1-61309-100.5   $7.50

ISBN 978-1-61309-903-2   $12.95

Blurb:

It’s 1941, and Riza Manceda, a beautiful American intelligence officer, needs someone to impersonate a Japanese officer for a dangerous mission to her homeland of the Philippines. Her search uncovers the ideal man in Daniel Suhiro, a first generation Nisei with perfect credentials for the job…but maybe not so perfect.

The mission is to prevent the Japanese from discovering the Allies have broken their “unbreakable” Purple code.  This secret could shorten – or lengthen – the war by years, and is known by an officer captured in Luzon. Riza and Daniel train to either rescue the officer or, if necessary, assassinate him.

The compelling story of their harrowing venture meticulously comes to life as the pair becomes drawn closer to each other and then thrown headlong into incredible peril.

Excerpt:

They drove around for a good hour until they found a diner, its unlit sign swinging crazily in the gusts off the Delaware River. Both ordered the two-dollar special, staying as long as possible in the warmth of the place.

Daniel was worried about money. “We need to fill up the car. That’ll take three dollars. Dinner will cost us maybe five with dessert. We spent over a dollar for lunch on the way up, and then a place to stay tonight…”

It was well on toward 9:00 p.m. before they gave up the back booth they’d commandeered. They paid their bill, asking the big guy behind the register to recommend a place to stay that wasn’t expensive.

“Staley’s Tourist Court, back a mile to the highway. Take a right. You’ll see it on the left.”

They found the place easily enough, and both entered the larger of the cabins, an electric sign identifying it as the office.

“Hello?” Daniel called.

The sound of a fork or a knife on china, the scrape of a chair preceded a woman who appeared from the rear of the house—a dour face and severe black dress.

“Yes?” Daniel could sense her appraising this Asian man and foreign looking woman. He felt awkward in their rough clothing of the camp.

It occurred to Daniel they hadn’t discussed sleeping arrangements. “We’d like…” The hesitation was so painful, it was almost funny.

Riza finished for him. “A cabin, please. How much are they?”

The woman looked back and forth between them. “They’re five dollars a night, thirty for the week. No cooking.”

“Just one night,” Daniel said.

“Name?”

“Suhiro—Daniel Suhiro.”

 “Mr. and Mrs,” Riza added.

“Number four,” the woman said, handing Riza the key on a Bakelite fob. “In advance,” she said to Daniel.

He fumbled a ten out of his wallet and waited for the change. Riza was already out the door, wrestling a small duffle out of the Plymouth. Daniel got his gym bag from the car and followed her to the cabin, some twenty yards away.

He arrived as she was turning on the lone lamp in the tiny sitting room.

The cabin consisted of that room, a bedroom barely large enough for a double bed, side table and small dresser, and a small bathroom, with commode, sink and ancient bathtub on legs. He needed to use that commode—badly.

When he was finished, he found Riza working the oil heater, which was just beginning to offer some warmth to the place.

“What now?” he said

“What do you mean?”

“Stop it, Riza. You know damn well what I mean.”

“Well, if you think the ‘Mr. and Mrs. Story gives you a leg up, think again.”

Daniel looked around the small parlor. Two small chairs bracketed the table with the lamp—another chair next to the door by an end table. There wasn’t going to be any sleeping on the sofa tonight. He decided to put the issue aside, and took one of the chairs.

“So what’s the plan for tomorrow?” he said

“If we’re going to steal something important, it will have to be at night. I thought we could stay here until the afternoon, go into the building and hide somewhere until they lock up.”

“Then what? Can we even access the top floor?”

“We’ll have to play it by ear,” she said.

Flight of Dreams Newsletter for September - October

For September and October, 2011

Bad Medicine by Richard Whitten Barnes

Mystery/Crime; 277 pages; Cover art by Pat Evans

Enormous profits from counterfeit prescription drugs secreted into the USA from Canada are funding a Neo-Nazi group dedicated to changing the ethnic face of North America.

Windsor Ontario police inspector Andy Blake is recovering from a line of duty knifing that sends her home to beautiful St. Joseph Island, at the headwaters of Lake Huron. Instead of a peaceful recovery, Andy is thrust into the middle of a murder investigation that involves Grant Stacey, the boy she left behind twenty- five years ago.

The investigation pits her against killers ruthless enough to do anything to keep their supply from Canada intact, as well as the Islanders who are supplying them.

Lost In Fear by H. L. Chandler

Paranormal; 387 pages; cover art by: Pat Evans

On the east edge of Flagstaff, Arizona, the Brentwood Motel stood dark and silent. The L-shaped building blended into the high desert rock and sand hillside like a chiseled symmetric outcropping. In the chilly predawn the sixteen-foot-tall neon cactus road sign loomed blank and dead, its flashing yellow and green replaced by waning milky-blue moonlight. As the stars faded from the Arizona sky the young woman in unit number fourteen fought to break the grip of a nightmare. A nightmare she'd had off and on for the last fifteen years.

Julie Taylor lunged upright in bed, a scream locked between her clenched jaws, her fingers covering the pale scar under her cheekbone. Julie's chest and back were sweat-drenched, the skin hot and sticky. Her blue cotton gown was plastered tighter than if she'd walked through a shower. Julie blinked at her strange surroundings; it wasn't her room at Mrs. Hager's house in San Bernardino. It took Julie a minute to remember that she was on the way to Oak Grove, a small town in Arkansas, where she would teach school next fall. The nightmare always left Julie confused and, if she dared admit it, terrified.

Altered by Laura Burks

Paranormal Romance; 327 pages; Cover art by Trisha FitzGerald 0

All eighteen-year-old Jenna wants to do is have a slow paced and predictable summer in the small town of New Roads with her grandfather. But on Friday the thirteenth, the unpredictable occurs when she mysteriously hears a voice leading her to a buried book. Jenna is unaware that a secret curse lies within and she's just unleashed its hold.

As writings appear in the book strangely matching her vivid dreams, Jenna's curious nature takes over pulling her deeper into the mystery and the connection to her family. What she didn't expect to find was a forbidden love and a choice to save a life.

Will Jenna's choice remain a secret? Or did the secret choose her?

Thief's Coin by Michael Staton

Fantasy; 495 pages; cover art by: Richard Stroud

In the river town of Opal, as the traveling players in Balthasar's Dream Palace perform, sorceress Illisandra Zayla's  spymaster Jarn Sork captures Prince Derrius Hextor and imprisons him in a tower in the middle of the River Dolor. The prince's lover, the thief Stealth, must employ her cunning to outfox Sork and rescue Derrius, even though she knows her effort might result in his death.

As Stealth begins her perilous ascent up the tower, the two warring personalities in the sorceress's mind join in a life-and-death battle, one determined to merge their minds, the other just as determined to prevent the union.

June & Wallace by Lynette Hall Hampton

Romantic Mystery; 293 pages; Cover art by Pat Evans

When June March, a member of the Calendar Clan, married Wallace Striker, Sheriff of Edison County, North Carolina, she expected to return from their fairytale Hawaiian honeymoon and settle down to a quiet life in the Blue Ridge Mountains, but it was not to be. During a February ice storm a dying man shows up on their doorstep and they're pulled into a cat-and-mouse game with a killer bent on revenge. It will take the entire sheriff's department, June's family, and a host of their friends to keep this loving couple alive.

Monterey Madness: Mr. One Pocket by L. C. Wright

Mystery; 294 pages; Cover art by Richard Stroud

Nothing muddles a great home life quicker than a suspension from your job and an unexpected visit from an eccentric, skirt-chasing, father-in-law. Detective Adam Shaw thought his life couldn't get any worse…until it did.

With his best friend accused of murder, Shaw is drawn into a cat and mouse chase of who-dun-it where the good guys are not so good and the bad guys may be his only salvation. When the clues lead to police corruption, Shaw must go outside conventional resources and enlist the help of an eclectic band of miscreants who know more about breaking the law than solving a crime.

The straight shooting, black and white, Shaw, jumps headfirst into a world of gray. Forced into the realm of weird, new friends and deadly foes, the old-school detective struggles to survive…Monterey Madness.

Sleeping Dogs A Theo Stern Novel by A. W. Lambert

Action/Adventure; 935 pages Cover art by Pat Evans and background photo by: A. W. Lambert

Private investigator, Theo Stern, is approached by wealthy businessman, Jacob Levin who suspects a recent find in a Norfolk woodland could be part of an aircraft that, when carrying his uncle, mysteriously disappeared in 1940. Levin reveals that he is desperate to find out what happened to the aircraft and his beloved uncle. He implores Stern's help. 

Stern agrees to investigate and soon discovers that the reason behind the Levin search may not be all it seems. Others are also interested in discovering the fate of the same aircraft. So what is it that Levin is not telling him and why do people quickly shy away from Stern's questions? Stern's courage and dedication is tested to the limit when he uncovers a wicked crime, committed seventy years before, that can still create murder and mayhem.

That's How Women Die by Emily Payne

Chick Lit; 387 pages; Cover art by Kathy Williams

Journalist Kathleen Collins heads to Italy for a month-long trip in hopes of reconnecting with herself. Instead, she finds herself connecting with new friends, classmates, and an attractive acquaintance who makes a surprise visit. With all her plans out the window, Kathleen jumps headfirst into a journey she never planned on taking, but which leads her exactly where she needed to go.