The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – The Clinton Mafia by Vonda Crocker

Episode Date: July 13, 2026

The Clinton Mafia by Vonda Crocker https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0FCRXPLMM Vondacrocker.com A group of drug runners in Mobile, Alabama have been traveling north to the small southern town Clinton to hide cocaine in fudge then continuing to Kansas City . The plot thickens as the local mafia becomes suspicious and begins investigating.

You wanted the best... You've got the best podcast. The hottest podcast in the world. The Chris Voss Show, the preeminent podcast with guests so smart you may experience serious brain bleed. The CEOs, authors, thought leaders, visionaries, and motivators. Get ready, get ready. Strap yourself in. Keep your hands, arms, and legs inside the vehicle at all times.

Because you're about to go on a monster education role. rollercoaster with your brain. Now, here's your host, Chris Voss. Hey, folks, Voss here from The Chris Voss Show. D.L.A. Zill and the early things of the mix official, welcome to the show. For 16 years and nearly 3,000 episodes, we have been bringing you what is now the last, the last great podcast that's still broadcasting daily. We are the oldest podcast, podcast in existence that still broadcast daily.

There's only a handful of us left. And we seem to be outliving everybody, but we might kill off tomorrow. if you don't refer your family, friends, and relatives, and so the guilt's on you. Go to goodrease.com, porcheschiscus Christmas, Christophon. LinkedIn.com, Fortressischis-Christfoss, 1, the Ticotocany, all this crazy place. And opinions are solely their own and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the host or the Chris Foss show. Some guests of the show may be advertising on the podcast, but it's not an endorsement or review of any kind.

Today's featured author comes to us from books to lifemarketing.co.uk. With expert publishing to strategic marketing, they help authors reach their audience and maximize their book success. We have an amazing young lady on the show with us today, and we're talking about her books. She's a multi-book author. Her book will be leading off with today is called The Clinton Mafia by Vonda Crocker. It's a fiction book that we're going to talk about, a group of drug runners in Mobile, Alabama. I've been traveling north in different things, so we're going to get into the Dietz. But in the meantime, welcome the show, Vonda. How are you?

Thank you. I'm fine. Thank you so much. Thank you. Give us any dot-coms, websites, where we want people to find out more about you on the interwebs. Fonda Crocker Books.com is probably the best one. I think that's the best one. There's several out there, but that's the best one. Okay. The Clinton Mafia, give us a 30,000 overview of this book and what's the sign? The Clinton Mafia is a made-up story. Some people think it's not, but it is, and it's not about President Clinton. A lot of people think it is, but unfortunately for everyone, it is not. This is a fun romp, and it deals with a small town called Clinton, and it's actually a combination of Clinton, Mississippi, and Clinton, Arkansas. Oh, really?

And since I'm in Arkansas, that's why people think it's Clinton. president. He was governor, right? He was, yes. Yes. But it is not. And it's about hiding cocaine and fudge is basically the story. And there are substories in there, but it's running drugs, cocaine specifically, from Mobile, Alabama, through Clinton.

And it actually goes through both Clintons. Oh, really? Yes, and then into Kansas City. And so there's a lot of intrigue in it. There's seven women who are very good friends, and they're called the Clinton Mafia. And actually, there is a true Clinton Mafia that is a group of good friends who live in Clinton, Arkansas, of which I am a member. Which is where this name came from. But in the

Inside the house Yeah And in the book I told how we got our name And it's how the girls in the book Got their name as well Yeah Hiding cocaine in fudge

Yes I didn't know that was like a thing or possible What was the formula The use on that? I'm let me put my pen here No I'm just kidding I don't need to know that information But I didn't know you could hide cocaine in fudge

You can I checked with my neighbor Who's a retired state trooper to make sure that you could do that, and he assures me you can. It's a five-pound batch of fudge, and they had, the runners had, or really the traffickers, had coerced a sweet little Mexican lady who's here illegally and lives in Clinton, and her children are back in Mexico with her parents, and they have threatened her with the children's safety if she does not put the cocaine in the fudge.

They bring the fudge, they bring the cocaine once a week and through Clinton, buy five pounds of fudge every Friday, and give her the cocaine for the next week. Wow. And so while she's making the fudge for the little gift shop where she's working in the lady's dress shop, She hides it in the fudge, and then they come every Friday somebody does to pick it up. And so anyway, it's very, and then there's a lot of little intrigues on the side. It's small town life. And the point is you think small towns are really boring and nothing happens, but I assure you they are not boring.

I did not grow up in one, but I'm living in one. And I found that out. Is there anybody in the book saying the line, I did not have sex with that woman? No, not a soul says that. No, it does not. Now, if I had been writing the other one, possibly. Yeah, I might have made for interesting. Maybe you should put the Clintons in your Clinton Mafia,

and that would be a trifect of two Clinton cities and some Clintons. I think Bill and Hillary would get me for that. Yeah, they probably. Yeah, they would. I can tell some jokes on that, but I'm just going to leave it along because someone's going to start a conspiracy religion over it, some new QAnon thread or something crap. Probably. So now tell us about the protagonists in the book. Who are the folks there?

And what are they up to? There are seven women. They're all very, very different. Two of them were actually from Clinton originally. One of them came down from New York. Her husband was killed by the mafia in New York. And so she threw us at the map and it ended up in Clinton. And so that's why she's in Clinton.

One of them is from a very wealthy family in New Orleans. And so she's trying to get away from the family because they're telling her what to do all the time. So she moved to Clinton. And one of them is a food critic and drives all over the state eating at different places. and so she has a nosh notes, it's called, in the state paper. And they're just all so different. Every one of them is different. But they're very, very close friends.

And they get together and think it's very strange that all this fudge is being bought every Friday. And so they start investigating. And one of them is married to a state trooper. And he is very concerned because, They also are investigating. The girls don't know that. And they're very concerned because these girls are getting involved. And it's not a healthy place to be where you're checking on things that you probably shouldn't be checking on.

Yeah. Yeah. What made you write about drug trafficking? You write what you know is usually things we always say in your experience of a lot. Is there something we didn't know here, Fonda? I do know a lot. I hear a lot. And also, one of my daughters was a police officer in Honolulu for 15 years, and she was co-depatized by FBI and DEA.

So she knows a lot about drug trafficking. Oh. Yeah. So I used her as a excuse to. Tara. That's her name. Yeah. It's the research people do on books.

A lot of authors come on the show, and they tell me. Anytime I write a new book, I put it something like in France so they tell the publisher, hey, I got to have some expenses to go to France and do some research for this book. And I'm like, I'm like, this is brilliant. This is a great idea. You basically get your vacations kind of paid for. Yeah. And they're like, you need four weeks in France.

Yeah, yeah. I got to make sure I look around and know lots of research. You have to write the environment, man. But you write what you know. Yeah. Now, you've written three books that we're going to be talking about today, and we're going to plug both of them. When did you know you were a writer? When did you start writing and kind of realized light went on?

You go, hey, I can act for this, I think. I wrote my first book called Homefires Burning. And that was when the military was going to Afghanistan and Iraq back and forth. The military member was going back and forth, back and forth. Every six months, they would be gone. that absolutely wrecks havoc with a family back home. And so I wrote the book explaining my experience as a military spouse for 34 years and 26 moves. And if I can survive that, you can too.

And my point was you either go home to mama or else you stay and you become incredibly strong. And that's what I did because he was in the 87. second five times and always gone. And you never knew where they were going. They would just disappear and you didn't know when they were coming back. And so a lot of stress. And of course, the minute they leave, everything breaks. So that's a given. That's just a given. Yeah. And so my point was it was my story and everybody has a story. Every military spouse has a story. But this was mine because most people don't move that often, and they don't live as many places as we did. So, but anyway, that was my story, and that's why I wrote it.

It was for Army-wise because the divorce rate was just skyrocketing in the military. Yeah, the divorce rate's pretty in a hand over there. Yeah, yeah. It's a tough road. It's a very tough road. Yeah, and it's tough to the support that our families make and stuff for our veterans and people who are active in the military. It's just so important.

Without them, and these folks go and they put their lives in the line for freedom. And we do. So, you know, we need to support our troops. And then the third book, tell us about that one. The third book is, the third book is, Gulf Shores. Oh, okay.

And Gulf Shores is a totally different book. It's about a very famous, movie producer. She's elderly, but she's still working, and she goes from Hollywood to Gulf Shores, Alabama every year to escape.

Nobody in Hollywood goes to Gulf Shores, Alabama, normally. And so she has a condo there, and she flies in every summer, and she lays on the beach for a week, two weeks, just to escape, and

has nobody recognizing her. And she loves it. This year, she goes to the beach and she interacts with several people that are around her, and she changes the lives of every single one of them in one way or another, mostly positively. And you never visit with people around you at the beach. Nobody does, unless you're a teenager. You just don't. You go and you lay and you soak and you run in the water every now and then, but that's it. And she didn't. She interacted with everybody that she saw. And this idea came when one of my daughters and I went to Gulf Shores.

And we were looking around and I said, you know, stories here. Look at all these people. There are stories. And so I made them up. You don't recognize themselves. Hey, what was that, gal? We were on the beach with one time. She had that bikini.

I don't know. You write what you know. You write what you see. You do. That's really the cool part of it. But that's a great idea for coming up with stories for any of our aspiring authors that are watching the show. I think we all kind of do that, right? When we go into public, sometimes we see people and we make up stories about them.

Sometimes we're assessing fight or flight issues and this person's endangered to me. But, yeah, there's sometimes I watch people and watch what people. I've always watched people all my life. And you learn a lot from people watching. Yeah, you do. And you also learn what not to do sometimes. Exactly. Yes, you do.

America's Funniest Home videos. And sometimes people do that in real life and you're just like, Yeah. Is this on TV or am I, is this really happening? For real. But thank God for Darwinism. The Darwinism awards. But yeah, going to the beach and making up the whole storylines,

you can have a lot of fun. You could sell a murder romp on a beach, I think, too, or some sort of some sort of I can probably use my daughter's experience in the hall and a little to write two or three books. I know a lot of women, they love these books. They call them beach read books because they can set on the beach and they're really quick and either.

I think this is. Okay. Probably. If you're laying, matter of fact, my younger brother said, I've got your book and I'm taking it with me. We're going to Gulf Shores this August.

And I'm going to wait and read it there. Yeah. Good. Good thought. Good thought. Yeah, good thought. So what are some of the other things that come to mind when you sat down and started writing these books? You've written three now. Is there any future ones coming out? No, not really, unless I get a brainstorm or something. But no, these were the two that I had in the back of my mind. The Clinton Mafia, as a matter of fact, I had lunch with the Clinton Mafia yesterday.

So the real one. Yeah. But they helped me a little bit some years ago when we were first talking about this. And then I will tell you that I was diagnosed with ATTR. Most people don't know what that is. But that gave me the impetus to get going on these books that I had in the back of my mind. And I really wanted to write them. And so I did.

And one right after the other. So I did it. And also the Clinton Mafia is, also in Spanish. Oh, really? Yeah. Spanish version for you. Yeah, it's available in Spanish.

It's good because then the cartels can read it. Exactly. Exactly. And get some ideas. They can be like, hey, this is a, no one's ever going to suspect if we run stuff through Clinton, and Arkansas. And in fudge.

Yeah, and in fudge. I mean, great idea. I'll get the recipe after we close the show for you and how to mix that properly. But that's very different than the time. I always joke when I go to parties, friends parties that meet their friends and strangers or whoever's at their party. And they'll always be like, hey, how did you meet Bob?

Bob, how did you meet Bob and get invited to his party? And I always make, I use the same story. I'm always like, it's a long story. I probably shouldn't tell you about it because it's private. And they'll be like, no, what's going on? Bob. And I'll be like, how we met, you want to know how we met, we met in Tijuana. And we were both at a certain donkey show.

and we were a little too drunk and ebriated and made a mess. And I didn't know him. He didn't know me. But, you know, when you're in a Tijuana jail, you make friends with who you can. But I got to tell you, when you're laying on a table and the drug dealers are telling you, the only one you're getting out of jail is to become a drug mule. And they're packing cocaine up into your bottom. And you're having to waddle across the state line or the U.S. line together.

You become good friends. And then they just kind of look at me in horror. They're sorry they ask. Yeah. Yeah. When you're laying on a table and people are shoving cocaine up inside you, you have to waddle across the border there. You become really close.

Really close friends. We're good friends now. And they just sit and look at you like, what the fuck? And then my friend will use it come over and be like, one of my friends will come over and be like, you didn't tell him the Tijuana story, did you? So that just sets it all in there. But yeah,

give me some ideas on drugging. That's a different type of fudge cocaine experience from what I understand. I don't know what that means. That was a long way to set up a really. Another part on the Clinton Mafia, too. It starts with a horrible crash, a wreck coming down into the town of Clinton. A big gravel truck pulls out in front of the runner. And he's fiddling with his radio.

when he looks up, he sees this giant truck in front of him, and that's the last thing he ever sees. While during this wreck, the side panel that's packed with cocaine explodes, and the local police, as in many small towns, are not all that competent. And so, number one, they can't figure out who he is because he's got so many aliases. And so he's on ice, and the cocaine is in their life. locker and and nobody knows really what to do with it. And so it's the state police that that kind of get involved and they start connecting with state police in other states and they figure it out.

But anyway, that's the beginning of that book. It's not, it's not really the girls. It's the drug runner. Ah. So it seems like you did some pretty. good research. You talked to some police officers. Yeah. Some and the rest of it was just pure made up. You ever done the drug meal thing? Just to just through research for the book. I run some drugs.

No, never did. There's the next book. No, I'm just kidding. True. True. Well, there could be another one. You never know. Given the ideas here. Whenever the officer said to me, Chris, you've had too much to drink today. I'm like, I'm like, I'm doing research for a book. book. That's what it is. Yeah. They're like, okay, well, keep moving then, buddy. Keep moving. Any future titles on the deck? No, not, not really. I have had people ask me to do another

mafia book with the girls doing something else, you know, investigating something else besides the drug running. Because there's a, there's two or three little things in the book that are not about drug running. It's, it's local drama that happens. happens in small towns. And I've got to tell you that when I first moved here, like I said, we lived all over the world. And so we come to Clinton, Arkansas, which is a tiny little town in 2000-some-odd. And I was writing a play for a dinner event that was in the city. And so I made it a murder mystery. And I showed it to one of the girls who grew up here. and she said, you can't do this.

And I said, why not? And she said, it's all true. I made it up and I changed people's names just a little bit so you knew who they were, but, you know, the movers and shakers in the town, but you knew who they were because you could, I didn't change it that much. Yeah. And evidently, all the horrible things I put in the book were all true in the play. So I had to rewrite the whole thing and have her peruse it and make sure it was all okay.

But that was my introduction to small town living that everyone's related to everybody else and everybody knows everybody's secrets. And anyway, it's interesting to live in a small town. It's also great. There's positive things too. Yeah. Yeah. But those rumor mills, man, you know, like everyone, I have a big dating group and there's a small town. It's not really small.

It's actually pretty big, but it's still small comparatively. in the state and and everyone's hey man we they're out at st george they're out there in the middle of nowhere and it's really hard to date there because everybody knows who you dated like up here in the big city it's maybe your ex might find out you're dating somebody or something but but like everybody knows like your whole dating history and you're like this is kind of weird they're like you've been with bob dug and mark and everybody's been with bob dog and mark and you did it twice that sort of thing but i'm sure there's rumors and you know people always up the no good with that sort of stuff it's wonderful you found this writing and stuff and you've you've used it as a

great outlet for yourself to speak what you want to do and and tell your stories and storytelling is just so fun and i don't know maybe maybe it'll become an icon there in the little clinton town of everybody to buy the book there and i hope so i hope so hey you got to support you got to support your business and it's about the town a little bit. You should write a tell all true story book about the town and become a real. That would be a, yeah, huh? I would probably be torched. Run out of town on a rail.

I'll be throwing maltov cocktails. Exactly. Yeah, that would probably be bad to end up having 2,000 people in one town hate you and no one likes you. Yeah, I will tell you this is off subject totally, but we're talking about small towns. And there's one thing about, I think it probably happens all over the country, but especially in the south, there's always a few families in every small town that uses their front yard as their trash heap. And so you can drive around in any small town and you'll see lovely homes and lovely yards. And then all of a sudden you'll see a house that has everything they own in their front yard.

There's three or four broken cars. There's a truck that's on blocks and you'll see trash. It's just absolutely amazing. But I always wanted to make a book with just pictures of the South and just take pictures of the South and just take pictures of those yards because every single town has one and are three or four of them are more than that. But anyway. Yeah. Yeah. It's been wonderful to have you on. Give people your final pitch out to order up your books and wherever fine books are sold and your dot com.

Absolutely. It's dot com and there's others that you can probably look up, but Clinton Mafia in English and in Spanish and Gulf Shores by Vonda Crocker and Home Fires Burning by Vonda Crocker. All of those. It's available at Amazon. It's available at Barnes & Noble and most of them at Books a Million. and so go buy them. Yeah, go buy them or else. Yeah, you bet. Plus you got to give that recipe for how to get cocaine in the fudge if you ever need to. Yeah, somebody might need to travel. Not that I recommend.

Those are jokes, people, lawyers are going to my phone right now. They're kidding. Getting the messages from the attorney now. Chris, you're doing it again. I'm like, I'm sorry. They're just, I'm just being funny. We're entertaining, people. Yeah.

It's not funny when the marshal's knock on the door and be like, we need to inspect your fudge. And I'm like, it's not Friday. Anyway, thank you. Yes, for having me. I appreciate it. Thanks for coming. We always have a lot of fun with our authors.

We love it. People pick up her book, wherever fine books are sold, The Clinton Mafia by Vonda Crocker. And it's not about the Clintons. Stop it, you conspiracy nutballs. So maybe get jobs or something, me. Anyway, in order her book.

So that way you can read what the true fiction is behind the Clintons. I don't know, whatever I'm going on about. So thanks for tuning. Go to Goodreads.com, Forchess Chris Foss. LinkedIn.com, Forchess, Chris Fossus. Chris Foss, one of the TikTok and all those crazy places. Be good to each other. Don't make me pull the car over and come back there.

See you next. You've been listening to the most amazing, intelligent podcast ever made to improve your brain and your life. Warning. Consuming too much of the Chris Walsh Show podcast can lead to people thinking you're smarter, younger, and irresistible sexy. Consume in regularly moderated amounts. Consult a doctor for any resulting. Bring lead.