Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - Nancy Grace Killer Reads: Solo Shot- Curse of the Blue Stone

Episode Date: July 7, 2023

Nancy Grace speaks with Irv Brandt,  Senior Inspector, US Marshals Service, International  Investigatons Branch about his Jack Solo book series. In Solo Shot: Curse of the Blue Stone, our rugged inspector is assigned to Interpol to protect a priceless stone, on loan to the British Museum.  Events turn dire when Jack Solo is accused of stealing the very stone he is tasked with keeping safe.   Solo Shot: Curse of the Blue Stone now available on Amazon. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Hi guys, Nancy Grace here. Today a special edition with me, a man we all know and respect, Irv Brandt. Senior Inspector, U.S. Marshal Service with International Investigations. Chief Inspector, DOJ, Office of International Affairs. Has worked at embassies all across the country. But you may not know this about Irv Brandt. He is the author of a series of books about Jack Solo. And you can find him on Twitter at Jack Solo author. All of these books are on Amazon,

but the one I want to talk about today is Solo Shot Curse of the Blue Stone. And you know, the first thing that grabbed me when I saw this, Irv, is the front of the book. I'm pretty sure that's Big Ben and Parliament. It is, Nancy. And I specifically had that shot in mind. I love that shot. And I'm not going to dwell on the front of your book because what's inside the book is so much greater than the front. But I love that you picked that. And then on the backside, you know, it stretches around. It just really puts me right there where everything happened. Okay. First of all, I love Jack Solo. I love that he's a poker player. And I love that he reminds me of this guy a little bit. Let's see who it is.

It's Irv Brandt. Because this guy is, as you say, a wise, cracking chief inspector. That would be you. With the U.S. Marshals Service. And you know the U.S. Marshals. I've got a soft spot in my heart for the U.S. Marshals. And I'll tell you why. And, you know, the U.S. Marshals, I've got a soft spot in my heart for the U.S. Marshals. And I'll tell you why. My first investigator slash bodyguard in the district attorney's office was a former NFLer, Robert McPherson.

Everybody called him Matt. This guy had to be 6'8". He's built like a fridge. And we went everywhere together. He had been assigned to the elected district attorney, Mr. Slayton. Mr. Slayton loaned him out to me. And he went on to become the U.S. Marshal for the Northern District of Georgia. And I just thought so much of him. And that was really my first contact with the U.S. Marshal's office. You couldn't have picked a better character than Jack Solo.

So tell me, how did you come up? Because he's kind of like you, yet he's so different as well. He's kind of like Indiana Jones. He's kind of like James Bond. He's kind of like Irv Brandt. And you intertwine the U.S. Marshal Service throughout the book to open up doors and avenues and little known spots across the world that only a U.S. Marshal would know about, unless you're Indiana Jones. So how'd you come up with Jack Solo? Well, Nancy, I started writing the Jack Solo series when I was with the U.S. Marshal Service before I retired.

And since I worked for the Department of Justice, I couldn't publish the novels. And so it was when I retired in 2017 that I started publishing my books. But how I came up with Jack Solo, he's a fictional character, but he is based on my experiences. And there's a little of me in him, of course, but he's also the character, his genre, his attitude, his characteristics are based on, you know, some of my favorite authors and their title characters like Robert Parker Spencer and Harlan Coven's Myron Bolotar. his detective Elvis Cole. I think Jack Solo gets a lot of his sense of humor as wisecracking detective from Elvis Cole. So it's a combination of all of those. I love this guy. And he conjures up Indiana Jones, but a whole, but yet so different from Indiana Jones.

So what really made me think of Indiana is the blue stone. This new book, Solo Shot, which has, you know, a secret meaning to itself, Solo Shot, which I don't want to give away, but The Curse of the Blue Stone. How many Jack Solos have you written? Well, actually, I'm deep into book eight right now. Good gravy. I've published four. The next one should be out next year. It's called Forever Solo, Societus Dragonistrum, which is Latin for Order of the Dragon. And this one you're going to love because it's for the Ring of Dracula.

Okay, you know what? For all of us that don't speak Latin, which is everybody since it's a dead language, you may need to put that in English. You think? Yeah. Everyone doesn't speak Latin, really? No one speaks Latin, actually. Remember, it's a dead language.

Huh. Okay. I'll keep that in mind. Just a thought for your readers. They may appreciate it not being written in Latin. Okay, go ahead. Okay. Nancy, I think you're really going to like it.

It's a good combination of the past and the present, like in Curse of the Blue Stone, the origins of the Hope Diamond. Well, in Forever Solo, I give you the origins of the Dracula family. Which museum house is the Hope Diamond? Well, it's in the Smithsonian. And I spent a lot of time when I actually wrote the novel in the Harry Winston Gallery in the Natural History Museum at the Smithsonian, staring at the Hope Diamond.

Oh, my goodness. And then I would go down to the cafeteria and write. Because I've taken the twins to the Museum of Natural History so many times, you know, with them growing up in New York. We have run up and down those halls so many times. Their favorite, of course, is Sagatawiya, you know, the Indian guide that led Lewis and Clark. But yes, that's where. So, of course, I was going to ask you how how many times you visited the museum to get this down oh another thing I love that he always wears a fedora I guess it's what made me originally think

of Indiana Jones but um okay back to Jack Solo how did you get the idea of Curse of the Blue Stone well it was when I was working at Interpol Washington, D.C., and I was spending time just walking through the Smithsonian's and. My mind was, could you actually steal something from the Smithsonian's? And I specifically thought of the Hope Diamond and I racked my brain on that, circling this and, you know, looking at the Hope Diamond and all the security. And I came up with nothing really. And I said, well, what if it went on display? What if it was loaned? What if it was loaned to the British Museum?

Could someone possibly steal it from the British Museum? And that's where the idea was originally born, is the Hope Diamond was going to be sent out on loan and Jack Solo was going to be in charge of its security. So that's how the idea first formed, was just me walking around the galleries in the Smithsonian looking for ideas. Wow. You know, let's see. I guess it would Smithsonian that the U.S. helped, I guess, dig out of the water. Gosh, thinking about that and thinking about the Hope Diamond, there are so many stories to be told. And it sounds boring that it would come out of a museum, but Curse of the Blue Stone is anything but boring.

It is not boring at all. So, you know, I didn't realize you had worked for Interpol as well. Now, I hear you talk about various art. I read about, you know, solo, drinking in, all sorts of great masterpieces, you know, like Matisse and so forth. What art inspired you to include that in Curse of the Blue Stone? The impressionists have always spoken to me. Monet, Van Gogh, artists like that. And you were talking about the cover of Solo Shot.

And it's pretty much Monet's Houses of Parliament. It gives you that hazy, it's a memory type view, something that you've seen but just can't really place in your mind. Or it's kind of abstract. And those type of artists have always spoken to me. And I've spent so much time in the galleries in Washington, D.C., because I worked there for so many years. And that was my inspiration for a lot of the topics and themes of the Jack Solo mystery novels.

So I guess wandering those halls, which one would you say is your favorite artist? Bingo. When I was working at Europol, which is separate from Interpol, in Den Haag, I would fly into Amsterdam and take the train to Den Haag to Europol headquarters. But I always made time to go to the Van Gogh Museum. Before I went to Den Haag, I made time in Amsterdam to go to the Van Gogh museum. And Nancy, I got to tell you, when you walk up the stairs into the second level of that museum, all of Van Gogh's self-portraits are lining the walls and you can see them as you're walking up the stairs. and my knees would actually get weak

and start to wobble and I would have to hold on to the rail because it just spoke to me so much that once I made it to that level I would have that's why they put the little couches out there for you to sit down because I was thinking it's funny. You might have a reaction. Because I was thinking of the self-portrait that hangs in the Metropolitan in Manhattan, which I love so much. And it's amazing you said that because one of my dream trips is to take the twins to to Arles and retrace Van Gogh's steps as he painted the countryside, the haystacks, the windmills, all of that genre, you know, that phase, his Arles phase, which not quite as famous as many of the others, but I really loved his paintings from Arles. Now, you know, what's another interesting thing?

I understand where you get your prototype for the good guy, Jack Solo, but where do you get your prototype for the bad guy in Curse of the Blue Stone? Well, Nancy, I was born in a different time. I'm a child of the Cold War. And when I was in the military, it was still the Soviet Union. And, you know, there was East and West Germany. So the bad guys were the Russians. And so you'll see in my... Some things never change. Yeah. My first four novels, the, you know, bad guys are Russians. And it comes from my early days of, you know, running around Europe when the Cold War was raging. And so in my mind, you know, they make the perfect bad guys.

So is that where you get the idea for the bad guy in Curse of the Bluestone? It is. And I added a few twists to that. All the books, the first four novels, which are selfless plug, are available on Amazon. You can get the e-books, all four of them for $10. But have you voiced them? Are they audio books? No,

I haven't done that yet. I can listen to the others when I'm out jogging. Well, if you would read them for me, that would be great because I hate the sound of my voice. But just as soon as James Earl Jones and Morgan Freeman come available, I'll get the audio. You know,

though, what adds a lot is when people can do different voices, you know, they can actually sound like, oh gosh, I remember trying to read all the role dolls to the twins and voicing. You remember the witches? I mean, he didn't do just Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

He did Matilda. He did. Oh, gosh, I read them all. The witches to the twins. Oh, even the short stories. And I would have to make up those voices. It's terrible at it. Of course, they were only like two years old, so they didn't know how bad I was.

What, oh wait. What about, I guess you call them the Kali assassins? Oh. Okay, I just call them the thuggies, and I'm sure that's the wrong pronoun. No, that's, no, that's, no, that is, that is correct. It's the followers of Kali. It was something that you mentioned earlier about Indiana Jones. I borrow a lot from Indiana Jones,

and those are the followers of Kali Ma. And that's my fictionalization of the historical facts of the Hope Diamond. But my fictionalization So it's Thuggy, T-H-U-G-G-E? E-E.

E-E. Did you make them up? No. No. They're real? It is real. He was the most prolific serial killer in history. The thuggies are real?

The thuggies were real. They were stamped out by the British a long time ago. They're evil! Without a doubt. by the British a long time ago, but they roamed for over a hundred... Oh, without a doubt, they make the perfect bad guys. But I fictionalized that the thuggy still exists

as a secret crime syndicate. Oh, that's a good twist. And of course, Solo gets accused of stealing Hope Diamond. Jack just has some bad luck sometimes stealing Hope, the Hope Diamond. Jack just has some bad luck sometimes. Man, he really does. You know,

if he didn't have bad luck, he'd have no luck at all. I gotta tell you something. I love Curse of the Blue Stone. I love it. And you're how far are you on the next one? On book number eight or the one that I'm getting ready to publish? Well, the one in book number eight. I thought that I'm getting ready to publish?

Well, the one in book number eight. I thought you'd already gotten a substantial way through it. Oh, I am. And you're really going to like this one because it's mostly a Western that takes place in San Francisco in 1881, then also Tombstone, Arizona in 1885. And it centers around the pursuit and capture of Apache tribes. But I also fictionalize and give my fictionalization twist that these Apache tribes, I don't want to give away too much, but are actually members of the Templar. Your own life, because there's so much time in your head.

People ask me about that a lot and I tell them it's usually because I'm from the state of intoxication. That's where most of these ideas come from. But I also have dual residency because I'm from the state of intoxication. That's where most of these ideas come from. But I also have dual residency because I'm also from the state of confusion. I hear you on that completely. After investigating crime all day, I'm completely confused. Guys, you are hearing the voice of my longtime colleague and friend, Irv Brandt. Many of you already know that he has been with the U.S. Marshal Service in international investigations,

chief inspector, DOJ's office, international affairs, working in multiple embassies, but also a best-selling author of the Jack Solo series, his latest, Curse of the Blue Stone, a Jack Solo mystery novel. It's on Amazon. I love it. And I want to thank you for being with us. Indiana Jones slash James Bond slash Jack Solo slash Irv Brandt. Goodbye, friends. I'll see you at the bookstore.

This is an iHeart Podcast.