Bookwild - Melanie Anagnos' Nightswimming: Noir in 1970s New Jersey with Halley Sutton

Episode Date: July 25, 2025

This week, Halley Sutton and I chat with Melanie Anagnos about her new noir Nightswimming. We dive into her love for 70s culture, how reading noir shaped Nightswimming, and the future for the trilogy.Nightswimming SynopsisPaterson, New Jersey, 1979: Jamie Palmieri is an up-and-coming patrol officer, three years out of the academy and frustrated with his slow rise to detective. That all changes one frigid night in January, when a double homicide at a local bar leaves the owner and a young woman dead. In the wake of the Rubin "Hurricane" Carter proceedings and the city's lingering distrust for the police, Jamie is told to expect a "no one saw a thing" investigation. But as Jamie traces a series of small leads, he's sent on a path where the tables turn suddenly - with the still-unknown killer now stalking Jamie and the people he's closest to.A classic police procedural charged with the social turbulence of the 1970s.Check out Melanie's Substack here Get Bookwild MerchCheck Out My Stories Are My Religion SubstackCheck Out Author Social Media PackagesCheck out the Bookwild Community on PatreonCheck out the Imposter Hour Podcast with Liz and GregFollow @imbookwild on InstagramOther Co-hosts On Instagram:Gare Billings @gareindeedreadsSteph Lauer @books.in.badgerlandHalley Sutton @halleysutton25Brian Watson @readingwithbrian 

This week I got to talk with Melanie Anagnos about her noir 70s thriller Night Swimming, which is book one in the Jeannie Palmieri series. And it was such a fun conversation. Hallie was a part of the interview as well. She was an early reader of this. And so it just seemed perfect to do the interview together. But here's what it's about. Patterson, New Jersey, 1979.

Jamie Palmieri is an up-and-coming patrol officer three years out of the academy. and frustrated with his slow rise to detective. That all changes when frigid night in January, when a double homicide at a local bar leaves the owner and young woman dead. In the wake of the Rubin Hurricane Carter proceedings in the city's lingering distrust for the police, Jamie is told to expect a no-one-saw-thing investigation. But as Jamie traces a series of small leads,

he's sent on a path where the tables turned suddenly, with a still-unknown killer, now stalking Jamie and the people he's closest to, a classic police procedural charge with the social turbulence of the 1970s. So Melanie also has a substack that is in the show notes, where she writes about 70s culture, and you can tell how much she knows about that time with how immersive this story is. Like you feel like you are in 1979. You feel like you are in New Jersey. You just feel all of it.

We dive into how reading Nordic noir shaped how she wrote this book and which parts of that genre she kept and the ones that she kind of played against and chose to go a little bit of a different route. That being said, let's hear from Melanie. I am super excited for this interview. There's a kind of cool story to this one. So I got an email that said a noir that Hallie Sutton calls and then it said Hallie's blurp. And I was like, hey, I know her. And so then when I responded, I obviously found out that Hallie read Night Swimming and just really, really loved it. So I thought it would be cool to have Melanie and Hallie here together to talk about it.

So I'm excited to talk with both of you. Oh, I love talking, especially Noir with Howley, because that's such an interesting. Whenever we chat, it's really, I learned so much. Same, honestly. That's very kind. And I'm so excited to talk with you, Melanie, about night swimming, a book I absolutely loved and which just came out and hear more about your process of writing it. And mention your absolutely wonderful substact, your Shayla FM, which if anyone isn't aware of, you should absolutely subscribe to. Yeah. So that plays into the book. So I guess we could also

kind of just talk about that kind of from the beginning. So this book takes place in the 70s in 1979. And your substack heavily focuses on that time period as well. So did you always love that time period? What kind of brought to you to like knowing so much about it and then eventually setting a noir there? So there's a lot. There's a lot to that answer. I guess the short answer is I was doing research for the novel. And although I know a lot about the 70s, you know, to get the granular, just background and just familiarized myself, I went back there.

And I happened upon two issues of Playboy, you know, the media attention in the late 1970s. And it really interested me the way that the media was treating one issue versus the other, which was the anniversary issue, was a huge media event. But there really wasn't a lot of pushback from feminists. And I mean, this was like, it was on television.

It was on network television. It was all over the newspapers. And then the same year, Playboy decided to do their first Ivy League issue. They would always, they would recruit women from different colleges and they decided to concentrate on the Ivy League. And that the feminists went crazy. And the disparity. in the treatment was really so interesting to me. And I really honestly never thought twice about

Playboy. I'm not interested. It just, you know, some people find it interesting. It just really was never interesting to me. But that was very interesting to me. And I started doing research. And I had a long form essay and no home for it. And I, you know, Lee Stein has been an editor that I've worked with. and she convinced me to put out a substaff because otherwise the essay was just going to sit in my computer and I'm not a social media person. So I thought, you know, my greatest fear in life is that I'm going to post something and people are going to say mean things. So why would I write this controversial essay and put it out on substack? But that's what I ended up doing.

And once I started posting on substack and I serialized the essay and once that finished, I just thought I continue until I had, you know, no more material. Yeah. That's so cool. So how did that substack? How did that inform the book, the night swimming and Jamie Palmieri? I mean, can you talk a little bit about like, has there been cross flow between the two? I mean, obviously your research plays into your writing. So regarding the substack, but in particular, the long form essay, had a lot to do with you know, the narrative around women and how that was changing in the 1970s.

And I thought it would be really interesting to the male perspective. Because I, you know, I like the grainy middle ground, not the people who were, you know, just the misogynist in the world and the people who immediately understood feminism and, you know, were 100% on board. but, you know, people, you know, young men in the middle, you know, particularly in a very, you know, traditionally male atmosphere, such as a police station. And how would, how would that play out? So that, you know, so it was those, those kinds of themes of how the gender narratives were changing in the 1970s. And it's been an evolution and, you know, one step forward, two step back kind of thing.

Mm-hmm. Yeah. I also read an article that you wrote about writing this where you were talking about how you kind of wanted to almost write like Nordic noir, but in America, obviously. And I thought that was so fascinating. So was that something you've kind of always wanted to dive into that genre? Or did it just like feel kind of like that it was. would fit what you wanted to write the best. It's sort of, you know, they were the two paths that crossed. I was writing the book and I knew what I wanted to do and I was just really beginning to get into Nordic noir and that is very much known for how place and culture is really defining. The crime is, you know, very much integrated into the culture. and I wanted to do more about the culture than just like here here's the city it takes place in

yeah and so that really gave me a roadmap on how to do that yeah so to that end one of the things I wanted to ask you about was one of the things that kind of like looms large in the background of night swimming and in Patterson 1979 is reuben the hurricane Carter and I was curious about how you, yeah, was that something you always knew you wanted to incorporate? Or like what, was that something how, because it affects basically how everyone speaks to police in the book and like whether communities are willing to come forward. And I'm just curious about, about that. And what, at what point did that become a part of writing the book for you? It really, it was sort of after the fact. It was, what I say, after the fact, after I had the

initial concept of the book. And I thought about, while I'm writing about the police in Patterson, it would be ludicrous to not think about Hurricane Carter. On the other hand, I didn't, sorry, I just got a strange pop-up from Google, which is I had to install it for this podcast, but going back to Hurricane Carter. So basically, I knew that I had to address it, but I didn't want it to be about Hurricane Carter, because that's obviously a subject unto itself. So I had to think about, well, I must mention it.

I must think about it. And how is that organic to the story, which would be that in a urban situation, you know, because you used to have community policing and, you know, trust in the police. And how is that changing? How was Patterson changing in the 1970s? That was what was going on with me. So yet with respect to Hurricane Carter, I think that's always an issue when you have like a larger cultural you know, I guess,

phenomena or something in the culture that's really big, but you don't want it to take over the narrative. Right, right. And for anybody, hopefully people know the reference, but if you don't, can you do like a short rundown of Hurricane Carter of what that was? Okay. So in 1965, there was a multi, I think it was three people who were murdered at the Lafayette Bar and Grill. in Patterson, New Jersey, and witnesses had described a getaway car and Hurricane Carter,

Rubin Hurricane Carter, who was a boxer at the time. And I think the other gentleman was John. John artist, I think his name was, but two men, and they were both black and they were arrested. And there was problems with the prosecution. And it went back and forth to the, from the state courts to the federal courts, but there was a lot of allegations of, you know, police and prosecutorial, you know, misconduct. And it became very famous. Bob Dylan had written a song about it. Eventually, I think Denzel Washington was in a film. So it really was on the radar in Patterson. Yeah. And the other thing that I've kind of been wanting to ask about, too, is so there's that going on. There's kind of like that distrust or tension with that as well. But then in the noir sense as well,

something that I enjoyed was that our main character is still kind of hopeful. And so like you kind of, with noir, there's always like a lot of cynicism, which I'm all for that every now and then, of course, too. But I did like that like he really felt like he could make a positive impact still, basically. Or you get what I'm saying. So did you go into it knowing that the that was how you wanted his character to be, or did that kind of come as you wrote it? Well, I think I always love character-driven fiction, whatever the genre. And so that was, you know, I'd never written a police procedural. So that was very challenging to me, to be sure.

But I felt a real obligation to the genre. And I didn't want to overstep, you know, my bounds, you know, being new to the genre and just, you know, ignore, you know, the tropes. And so I wanted to, you know, to lean into the genre. And you do have the, you know, often a young male, often a loaner. But I wanted to think about that. Well, why was he alone? You know, did he want to be alone?

Was that a comfortable, you know, place for him? So I used the, you know, the structure of the police procedural and I was, you know, very close to it. But I thought that there was still things that I could do with it and make it, the character-driven piece that I wanted it to be. That's cool. How did you do that research for the police procedural? I'm personally very intimidated about writing a procedural because of all of the research that would go into it.

So I'm curious to hear about your process with it. Well, it's funny because I was listening to some of the back episodes. And Kate, you had said that you hate when you talk to an author and they say, well, where did you have the idea for this? And they say, oh, I don't know. It just came to me. I thought, oh, my God. because this just came to me. I don't know.

She's just going to ask me this question. So I really don't have a great story for how I started this, but I do remember the exact moment that I thought, oh, my God, I'm so over my head. This is such a bad idea. And what I did is I had looked up online, just books about, you know, police procedure. And I happened on, I think his name is Patrick O'Donnell,

and he does podcast for Cops and Writers. And he has guests. And they will talk about, you know, it's usually former police. And they'll just, you know, talk about their, you know, how their experiences. And then the other podcast that I listen to a lot is called Smalltown Dix. And that's, and I love this because it's the woman who Yardley Smith is the voice of Lisa Simpson on the Simpsons. Yeah. Amazing. And she is married to a former police detective who has an identical twin brother.

So the three of them have this podcast and they have detectives will come in and unpack cases that they were involved in. So that was like a starting point. And then I did research and I went to newspapers.com and looked, you know, back as much as I could about, you know, certain whatever information I could get at the time period. But those were really good resources for me. Yeah. Those are great. And obviously you're no slats at doing research because there's. there's so much baked into two Cherchet-la-Fem, like just this kind of deep knowledge of history.

You know, I will say, someone had asked me as an attorney, how did that help my writing? And I thought, you know, I don't really know that it did, but I know how to do research. Yeah, that makes sense. I know you also grew up in Patterson as well. So what was that like getting to, like, write fiction in the place that you, like, lived in real life? Well, I actually, I was born in Patterson, but I didn't grow up there. Oh, sorry. My grandmother grew up there.

And it was, you know, literally the next town over. You know, I think you have to, you know, there's that balance, you know, sometimes. And I don't know if you find this with writing about L.A., where you want a particular place, but it doesn't exist. You want a restaurant on this street, but there is no such restaurant. Or you want to talk about a restaurant, but you're going to say something negative. So then you change the name so that nobody can say, oh, you said this bad thing. So it was a combination of being where I could use actual locations and actual names. I would try to do that because it made it more accessible for me.

And it will make it more accessible for readers. But there were times where I had just had to make stuff up. Yeah. Yeah. That makes sense. And you do kind of touch on some other of the historical events that were happening there. and with like the textile industry and stuff, how did you pick like which things you did want to include

or were there just some things that like felt like, oh, this would fit well with a story I'm telling? I think, you know, it was an interesting book to write. The first three chapters, and this has never happened to me, and I don't think it'll ever happen to me again, but the first three chapters really just came out, you know, structurally the way that I wrote them. I mean, I obviously did edits on the trap chapters themselves, but those three chapters,

and I just really felt a rhythm. And I don't do an outline, but I do know where the story arc is going to be. And I do know what the ending is going to be. I always knew what the ending was going to be. So that really helps me in terms of, you know, how I move forward. Yeah. Yeah, that makes sense. So the other thing, it is like super hot here.

So I was kind of excited that it was snowy and cold. Was that something you always envisioned to? Or was that as you kind of like read more Nordic noir, did it kind of feel like, well, I'm going to have to or I'm going to add some snow? That was, this is loosely based on an actual crime and that's what it happened. Oh, yeah. Can you tell us a little bit about the actual crime? Pardon me? Oh, sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt you. You're in the midst of saying. No, I didn't know. I didn't hear. I didn't, I didn't hear the question. I was going to say, I want to hear more about the actual crime that it's based on. You know, it was just a straightforward bar shooting. But for some reason, I had thought, you know, because I do like to start from a place of, you know, a fact because I feel like then that's the kind of crime fiction I like to write, which is this is, this could actually happen. You know, you have to have enough, you know, evidence and.

and all the various things that will move a novel along. You know, it can't be, well, you know, we found one piece of evidence and we solved the crime. But at the same time, I like to be close to, you could pick up a paper and this would be the crime that you would read. So, you know, I try to, you know, find that. And then it was basically just a bar shooting. And I added, you know, the various characters because it was a single homeless homicide. I did a double homicide. And then everything else was completely fictional.

But it just was like, oh, there was a bar shooting. What would happen if this happened? And it just happened to be, you know, that time of year. Yeah. That's cool. But you're right. It is like a little refreshing. But that's good because I think from now on I'm going to say, well, you know,

I always wanted to write, you know, Nordic noir and there made it cold. So, you know, as I go along, the next time that I get that question, I'm going to be much better on that. I gave you a new answer. Yeah, I like yours better than mine. If you're an author, chances are high that you just want to spend your time writing and maybe reading, not thinking about social media, what to create, and what to post. And the good news is, I have a solution for you.

With just three hours of in-person filming, you can receive 90 days or three months' worth of social media content. The content is a mixture of videos, photos, edited reels. And when you receive the content, you also receive a PDF that's a content calendar that links to all of the content tells you exactly when to post it and gives you an option for captions. And if you've ever felt like you're tired of just talking about your book all the time, we will help you come up with ideas that are general content for your page that's not just all about your books. If you are tired of thinking about your social media presence and just want to get back to writing, check out the link in the description. It was a little bit crazy for me too because I read your book and then I read Our Last Resort by Climons Michalone right after. And it references Patterson, New Jersey. And I was like, I've never heard of this place.

And now I'm hearing about this like waterfall twice. Oh, I'm sorry. What was the name with that of the book? It's our last resort. And it's by Clements Michalone. I can also send it to you too after this. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

I don't know because I'm always just so interested where it pops up because it's so. to me, it's obscure, but. Yeah, yeah, it's not the like whole setting. It jumps back and forth, but in the past timeline, there's some stuff there. Patterson's having a moment. There was also that Adam Driver movie. It's funny because for a city that's really, you know, you know, in the shadow of Manhattan and, you know, certainly past, you know, its heyday, it, oh, you know, it's really been amused.

I mean, you know, George Tice, who is. a photographer that is known outside of Patterson, that was his first show. It was called Patterson. It was at the Metropolitan in Manhattan. I mean, it's just, you know, you wouldn't expect that. Yeah. And there was the film by Jim, I was, get his name wrong, Jim Jarmish.

Mm-hmm. And I always wonder, like, why? Why Patterson? Yeah. Patterson, the Muse of New Jersey. Exactly. Clearly. Did you have another question, Holly?

Yeah. I was going to ask you. So you mentioned the Nordic Noir, who in particular were you reading that spoke to? And I really want to return also to that question or to what you said about the way that Nordic Noir place is so pivotal and important and like hear a little bit more about your thoughts about that. So I had started reading the, I think the first that I mean, I had read, you know, the girl with a dragon death tattoo like, you know, way back. But it wasn't like a genre that I was really reading a lot of. And then I, you know, started reading Department of Hugh, which I remind. loved so much. I'm reading the first book right now. Yeah. Oh, are you? Are you enjoying it? Very much. Yeah. They're a lot of fun. It's a great, great voice. I love his voice. And I read that. I'm trying to think I read some of the Henning-McHell, the Wallander series. And then I had, I started reading the Martin Beck series, which was actually the first. Like they were the, you know, I think you were talking about it, the Laughing Policeman. So that's Amaz Cheval and Pierre

Lou and I was so careful when I say their names. And, you know, it's so funny because one of the reasons I didn't start with them, I was like, oh, it's in the 60s. It's probably not as current. And it really is. You know, like it has their work is not dated at all. And I felt like that was because they were true police procedurals and they're very, very structured, very, very geared to society and critiques.

society and but but still you know very um accessible yeah yeah that you're on society are not like smeared all over the tax it's it's just subtle no it is and for if kate i don't know if you've read these books but they are they were written by i believe it was a husband and wife team or at least a romantic partner team yes um and back in the 60s the martin beck books and basically each book they took like a social issue that was facing sweden and kind of found a way to like build a plot around that and so there's 10 of them and they are there are these like like you said like very procedural but like very interesting and still like amazingly current prescient books that like really use crime fiction as a vehicle to like talk about social justice and social concerns that's awesome yeah

what's interesting to me is just reminding me when you said it was a husband wife duo isn't that what you and alina is as well i think oh i don't know i think Lars kepler is like that actually. So yeah, there are some cool, there's some cool noir writing partnerships going on there. But that's really cool. I need to check those out for sure. So I'm still fascinated. So tell me more about like the way that you see place and Nordic noir like setting and like how that was so impactful in a way that you wanted to translate it into night swimming in the Jamie Palmieri books. Well, I think it was sort of it was giving me permission to do a little bit more than well, you know, this is what the street looked like because Patterson, especially, you know, in this 1970s, you know,

it was so rich in terms of the, you know, it's rust belt, you know, existence. And, but I wasn't writing about that. I wasn't writing about, you know, the textiles and that had nothing to do with what I was writing it. And, but, but I still felt it was very important to the story because it was really about how are these people living, what's going on in their, in their society. So it was, I guess it just gave me permission to go a little bit deeper into the, um, that, the location rather than, you know, just, you know, the brush strokes of, well, this is, this is the street, you know, going to describe the house so you know what it looks like. Which I think is very important. I mean, I love that, you know, that, that, that texture in novel. Absolutely. But, you know, I really

wanted to think about the society. And I also wanted to think about, you know, what was it like to be a male in that society. Great. And that was, it was not intentional until, it was not something I thought about until after I wrote the book about what it was like to, why did, you know, because somebody had said, well, why didn't, why didn't I write a female in the 1970s because you would have, and my answer was, one, I didn't think about it. But two, it was like, I really didn't want to do that because then it was always the elephant

in the room, right? If you're writing about a woman who's a police officer in the 1970s, you're. going to have to talk about, you know, the pushback, the sexual harassment, right, you know, the promotion she didn't get. And I was like, you know, I just want to write about the crime. And I also, you know, to be fair, that's already been covered very well by a lot of other writers. Right. So it's not, I'm not dismissing it as it's not interesting and nobody should tell that story, but I just felt like that story has been told and it wasn't the story that I needed to tell. Yeah. Yeah. It makes me think of something that a,

author I really like, and I might have said this too already, Melanie, in a separate chat, but there's this author I really like who lives in Southern California named Todd Goldberg. And he talks about setting is like intertwined with character and plot because setting begets character, which in turn begets plot. Like you don't, where you live forms part of who you are, which in like necessarily forms like what sort of crimes would be perpetrated and how somebody would react to them and like you kind of can't disentangle those three is his point. And I think that's really true. And I think that's kind of a version of what you did with Jamie Palmieri's with the book and also what you were just just saying. You know, it is. It's very interesting. It was also the reaction,

and particularly with crimes against women. One of the pieces I had written about in substack was about a rape of a young woman in the 19. It was in 1901. Actually, it was 1900. And 1901 was the trial. And it was just so interesting to me because of, one, I was surprised that there were actual convictions of the men because they were very prominent men in Patterson. But two, the information that was allowed to come into court and the way that, you know, attacking her virtue, for lack of a better word and her past and what was she doing out that night was, that was fair game. Yeah. So yeah, yeah, so how how that crime was received in society was really interesting to me because that was very much a different society than what what we have now. Yeah. Although I would argue that still comes up. In the 1970s, that was very transitional. Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. Yeah. For sure, right. And I think that's what you're so interesting. I think your book is said in 1979. Am I, is that right? Yes. Yes. And so you're sort of like not only on the cusp of a decade, which I like, I think.

we like to think of historically decades as these very clean things, like the 70s, very different from the 80s. But like you really are living in this transitional moment, kind of coming out of the radical 70s, and then very soon we're going to be into the hedonistic 80s, and you're kind of straddling that that point in your books you're writing. And I think that you bring that to life really well. It's very interesting. Yeah. Well, I also think like, you know, so much of the movements of the 60s and 70s were like really the movements of like the two coasts, right? And, and what was going on in college campuses and like and then the 70s like it really like became you know the the bread and

butter conversation the kitchen table conversations and things were changing at home so i you know that that is like a part of the 70s that is interesting to me because all of a sudden things that were just going on that you would read in the paper are now um you know being lived you know in your community yeah absolutely yeah i feel like there's a also like there's like a lot of paranoia in the novel in like kind of multiple different ways. So it's kind of like you were saying like even the the like willingness to trust the police or government officials was there as well. But then also like Jamie gets to a point where now like he's kind of kind of being hunted too. So he's like very paranoid.

Was that like thematically kind of there for you from the beginning or did it kind of develop as you wrote it. That I would have to say developed as I wrote it. As I said, the first chapters were very clear to me and I always knew where it was ending. But I mean, I think that is one of the joys of writing is you might think about a scene and you think, I'm just not sure if this is going to work. And then as you start writing, things just come to you. There's, there's, you know, this, I think Anne Patrick calls it the loam in your brain where like, you know, somebody who was your second grade teacher suddenly would be a great character as the neighbor in the novel. You know, all of this stuff that's just rattling up there. And, you know, in that case,

you know, those pieces just came together that, well, how would this, how would this work or what would be interesting? Mm-hmm. Yeah. That makes sense. It does make sense. It is like a weird little magic moment. Sorry, I didn't mean to cut you off. No, you're totally funny. Where your brain like feeds you something and you're like, oh, yes, perfect. you know yeah yes exactly because i you know it wasn't like i thought you know like i i don't know where it came from but yeah yeah i think that's probably why somebody came up with the idea of them used you know all those years back because they didn't know where they were getting these ideas from but they were just you know popping up so yeah that's right i think that's been going on

yeah it certainly worked for me at various points in the novel yeah totally so the other thing i saw is that it is one of three or that it's going to be a three book installment. Was that because, like, you had three really specific crimes you wanted to write, or, like, how did that part come about? I think it was a combination of there were two different, two different, you know, crimes or scenarios that I wanted to explore. And I also felt that Jamie was somebody who had more,

there was more to his narrative arc that I could still explore. You know, I didn't think I could do like a 20 book series. I didn't think that would work for what I wanted to do with the novel. But I do think that for three books. And I, you know, I really enjoyed the characters. I mean, it was just, you know,

it's hard to just like leave a character and then just start with new. I mean, you know, eventually you have to do that as, you know, and I've done that before in different pieces. But I just thought if I could stay with Jamie a little longer would be fine with me. Yeah. And you like since this one has so much like we've been talking about like research and like

understanding of all of it, it's kind of like everything is so fleshed out. So I'm sure it's like kind of not not easier, but like it you just will want to stay there longer anyway since you just like completely built out the world. Well, you get comfortable. Yeah. Yeah. I know that feeling Melanie. I felt like.

So my book. series, right? And so it was like, by the time you finish the first book, you're like, or you finish a book, you're like, oh, I figured out how to make this marriage work, like, between me and the characters. And then you're done. And it's like, okay, you got to get divorced and marry someone new. And you're like, wait, like, I, this was just, we just got this one, like, ironed out. So I'm glad that you get to spend more time with Jamie. And I'm excited. I really love Jamie as a character. And as Kate points out, like, the world is so fleshed out. And so, is there anything you can tell us?

I know you're at work on book, too. Is there anything you can tell us about it? Or is it state secrets for now? No, you know, it's so hard. I mean, even when I do readings, like I'm confined to the first chapter. I don't know, you know, if you've had that experience because I'm always trying to like, oh, like, you know,

the first chapter, like, isn't there something more interesting? But, you know, you don't want to, you know, you're just so confined by spoilers that you're like, I don't think I can do that. you know, I think Jamie is, we'll be back and I think it'll be interesting. But what you were saying, it's funny because Jamie actually came as he was, he was the, you know, the outtake from, from another novel. Oh, I think everybody says like, oh, you know, everyone starts with that novel that you write that ends up in your drawer. And I had that novel, but I was so stubborn. I was like, oh, no, no, no, this is not going to end up in my drawer.

this is this is the novel that I'm meant to write and it has to be out there in the world and it was not it wasn't a crime novel it was a very quiet novel and Jamie was just somebody from the neighborhood and eventually even I got bored going over this trying to make it work and I just liked Jamie as a character and that was where you know the you know the inspiration was well maybe I could do something with with Jamie and since he was a police officer the next thought was well then it has to be a police procedural Yeah. And then the next one is, I couldn't possibly do that. Yeah. I love that. That's kind of magical, too, like when they just come from another place and create something. That was, I've only had, you've mentioned that, and Marjan Kamali, who wrote, well, she's written multiple things, but the line women of Tehran, she had the same experience where, like,

the main character was one that she was just writing like a contemporary fiction. and then it turned into this like sprawling historical fiction that extends to the present. But that's so cool when they just kind of become their own thing. And it's nice too because then you've already, I imagine you'd already built out. I mean, you're writing about a real place and a real time, but you're also creating your own version of it, right? And so you'd already, in that previous novel, built out a version of Patterson that I imagine you also got to like live in and keep using.

I was comfortable. That is a good point. I was definitely comfortable being there. so it was easier to just do other things, you know, in terms of, you know, you know, getting up to speed in what, what, how do the police work? Because in terms of world building, some of it was done. Yeah. So you mentioned earlier that you're not an outliner. Me either.

So high five on chaos demons. So, but what I'm thinking about is like with a series, you know, three books, you, you also have a challenge of, you're writing each individual book in the series, but then you also have like an overarching character arc, right? Like you're kind of, there's these things that you have in the background and you've put some of that, you know, I can imagine where some of that is going. But I'm curious about, you said you know how your books end.

Did you know how the series ended or which place you wanted to get Jamie to without giving way too many spoilers? Just curious about how you think about that where you kind of have both the like individual book arc and also the series arc that you're playing with throughout these books. Yeah, I think I kind of just, you know, separately from how he exists in the novels, I kind of know what Jamie's life will be.

Yeah. And where he's going. So that's just sort of like that's just my working knowledge. And then I go forward in the books with this is, this is what's going to happen here and this is what's going to happen in the next novel. So, yeah, but I don't outline, but there's certain things that I do need to know. Yeah. Yeah, that makes sense.

I can't be, I'm not a complete pancer. Like I have, you know, even before I started writing book two, I had a lot of notes. And it wasn't just research. It's like this is what's going to happen. And same with book three. Like I'll be researching, I spend a lot of time on newspaper.com and I'll be researching for book two, but I'll see something about book three and pull that out and just do a couple of notes on that. Yeah, yeah.

I get that. I'm actually much the same where it's almost like you have little like tent poles that you're writing to. So it's maybe not like the full arc, but you're sort of like, I know at some point this will happen. I know this is probably the big emotional beat, you know, like those sort of things. Yeah. The other thing I read in the article, the crime reads article that your publicist sent over was about how you kind of noticed with Nordic Noir that it's like really, it's really sparse language. But like is just like still getting the point across so well. And obviously, like, I love descriptive writing sometimes, but also like sometimes I really just love being able to like read through exactly what's happening. And it's like it was still atmospheric. Like I had a sense of where I was too. But do you, did you kind of naturally gravitate to writing towards that way or was that kind of like for the sake of the genre or the procedural genre too?

I think my writing, and that was always, you know, I had a very nice MFA experience, so I'm not knocking MFA, but I will say I'm a very, you know, plain vanilla writer. And so when I was in my MFA program, I would write these beautiful metaphors. And then I would come back the next day and go, who put this in? Like, why is this here? This doesn't sound like me. So I think that's just how I just how I. right. I just, you know, and I love, I love poetry. I love writers who can do interesting things with their sentences, but that's just never been my natural go-to. That's not my comfort place as a writer.

It's so funny that you call yourself a plain vanilla writer because I do know what you mean, right? Like not your prose is not super purple and but I felt like the whole time reading your book, I was so impressed by your prose that like it's so punchy and it does the thing. I think what you're doing in your work is the thing that's actually harder, where it seems simpler, but it's actually carrying so much weight and we're getting so much from it without it being this kind of verbose, you know, paragraphs of description. Like I was so impressed by that. And I actually wanted to ask like, to teach me, Melanie.

How do we, how do we do this, you know? I think you said it better than me. I do spend too much time. I'm very obsessed with transitional sentences. and finding the right word. I spend too much time on that. I wish that came natural to me. Well, either way, it reads absolutely beautifully.

Well, thank you. It does. It really does. I can't wait to read the next one. Oh, well, I'm going to have to. You'll have to wait. Roll up my sleeves. Yeah.

I'm in the editing, but I actually like editing, because then you can just start, oh, I can make this better. Yeah, totally. It's not starting from nothing. Yeah. So do you have a full, do you have a full draft that you're editing now? Or like, where are you in the process? Yes. Yes. I actually do know a full draft. So that's great. I'm on schedule with that. That's good. Do you have any other questions, Holly? No, I think we got most of mine. Yeah. Well, I do, I was asking if you had a question, because I do always ask at the end if you've read anything recently that you've loved. Anything recently that I loved. You know, I read, and I've always, this, I've never, this has been sort of like a go-to for me, or to be, to be read was the prime of Miss Jean Brody, which I've never read. I haven't read it either, but tell what, so what was it?

It's one of those very similarly. I just love the language. I just thought it was just really engaging. And I was just, it was just one of those books that always pops up on, you should be reading this, you should be reading it. And I've never read it, so I did read that. And I just started a nonfiction that I always get wrong. I always say it's the long goodbye. I think it's called the big goodbye.

About Chinatown? Yes. Yes. And so I can't say that I've finished it, but so far, like the early chapters, I'm really enjoying. Yeah. So I've read that book. I believe it's Sam Wasson.

Yes. And it's about the making of the story of Chinatown. Great, great book. I'm excited to hear your thoughts. about it at the end. I have a tiny story about that book, which was that the last time I visited a bookstore before the 2020 lockdowns of COVID, I went to Chevaliers in Los Angeles, and I was in there and, oh gosh, why can't I think of his name? This is going to bug me. My brain is working slow today. Better call Saul, the main actor. Oh, Bob Odenkirk. Bob Odenkirk pops into the bookstore,

just me and him. And I'm like, frozen. Like, and like, I don't have that many L.A., like, Hollywood stories. And he pops in. And he's like, oh, he grabbed that book. And he was like, has anyone read this? Is it good? And he's like, Chinatown's my favorite movie. And so he, like, bought it. And I was just like, just be cool. Just be cool. But just so you know, we're in good company with Bob Oden Kirk. Oh, that just makes it even nicer. Yeah. Right. You know, to know that I'm reading something that is being shared by very interesting people. And I, you know, it's funny, as I was reading, I was like, you know, this is, this is something that Hallibwood read.

Oh, for sure. It's your territory. Yes. Yeah, the whole behind the scenes, Hollywood thing and like the crazy story of that script coming together. I mean, it's a, it's a very interesting read. I, you know, I felt that I really needed a nonfiction because I'd been reading a lot of, you know, a lot of crime and a lot of fiction. And I just, you know, I like to to break it up. And it had been a while since I read anything good.

So I, I, I, for some reason that, that, I don't. maybe know where that popped up in my i'm going to read this now but it did and i'm enjoying it i'm glad i need to read it now you really do kate it's excellent me yeah yeah i always want to know some of this it is very hallie book if i had stumbled upon it i would have been like maybe hallie read this oh i love it um so melanie you said you're not a social media person is there anywhere people should follow you we'll put the sub stack in obviously uh well i by substack, I'm starting on Instagram. So, you know, I, I think I have seven followers.

I don't know, but I'm hoping, you know, but I also, I, I'm never on Instagram, but I, you know, I do, I want to go on because I, you know, some, you know, I've had some very, very nice feedback for my novel and I just feel like I want to, you know, contribute back. Yeah. That's been like, that's been a goal is to become a little bit more social media. Now, speaking of social media, so my, my, my, my life. last substack was about my friend's mom who had given me some information about Patterson, because she grew up in Patterson.

She grew up, it was during World War II. So just a little bit, you know, came into the novel. That's not a spoiler. And she, she subscribes to my substack now, and she's 95. Oh, that's amazing. Yeah, I just love that. I was like, you know, that's my goal, right? That's aspirational.

that when I'm 95, I want to be experimenting with new social media. Yeah. But to answer your question, so, yeah, substaff, Instagram, and I have a website, and, yeah, that keeps me busy. Yeah. I'm sure it does. Well, I will put all those links in the show notes, and hopefully we'll be talking about book number two in the series here in the future.

Well, this was great. Thank you so much. I really appreciate it. great questions. You know, Hallie and I love to talk crime. So this is always fun. Yes. Always fun to talk crime with you. Very nice to meet you, Kate.