The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – The Jane Sparks Trilogy by Xiomara Rodriguez

Episode Date: May 6, 2025

The Jane Sparks Trilogy by Xiomara Rodriguez Writerxiomararodriguez.com Amazon.com The Jane Sparks Trilogy is a compendium of my three books. How Could it Be is a family mystery that needs to be solved within a crime that also needs to be solved.The two main characters, San Francisco Police Department Lieutenant Jane Sparks and FBI Senior Special Agent Fran Morris, find themselves in a mystery of their own as they try to find a killer and a smuggler.And the Story Continues. This second book takes the crime-solving skills of twin sisters, Captain Jane Sparks of the SFPD and Special Agent Fran Morris of the FBI, into the dark underbelly of horse racing and the criminal element that thrives there. New Beginning Maybe? Is the 3rd installment of the adventures of the crime-solving team of twin sisters, Captain Jane Sparks of the SFPD and Special Agent Fran Morris of the FBI. This book takes the sisters into the world of stolen art and antiquities and takes them into different roads in their lives.

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with your brain. Now, here's your host, Chris Voss. Hi folks, it's Voss here from the Chris Voss Show.com. Welcome home. Ladies and gentlemen, there are ladies and gentlemen that makes official welcome to over 16 years and 24 and episodes of the Chris Voss show. And it just keeps rolling and rolling. And I suppose we have to do another 24 and episodes in 16 years.

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They help authors reach their audience and maximize their book success. Anyway, we have an amazing young lady on the show today. We'll be talking about her exciting book that came out November 5th, 2024, called the Jane Sparks Trilogy. We have Siamata Rodriguez on the show with us today. Welcome to the show, Ms. Rodriguez, how are you? I am great.

Thank you for having me and I'm really appreciate it. Thank you for coming. We really appreciate having you as well because we can learn so much from you and what you have here. You are a 74 year old young woman who had a dream. You were born in San Juan, Puerto Rico, lived there until the age of 27. You came to mainland USA. You retired from the US Coast Guard after serving 20 years

10 of which she served as a special agent with the Coast Guard Investigative Service She's the first Hispanic female to become a special agent with the CGIS After retirement, she did many things one or proudest achievement was that on April 2014 she co-founded to Casa Latina a nonprofit organization geared toward helping immigrant women, men, and children who are victims of domestic violence, violence crimes, and human trafficking in Northern Nevada with immigration help and referrals so they can stay in the USA for a better life. Since the age of nine, she dreamed to be a writer. She published some short stories and poems in various college magazines and in some online

magazines along with some of her poetry that was published in New Stro magazine. She's a wife, been married for 43 years and a mother of two outstanding children, a grandmother of two, and a great grandmother of six. Welcome to the show, Ms. Rodriguez, again. It's glad to have you. Ms. Rodriguez I am glad to be here. Pete So, give us dot coms. Where do you want people to look you up on the interwebs and find out more about you? You could go on Books High Press, you could go on Amazon, and you could go on my webpage, writersyomaradrodriguez.com, and it has the books and it has the trilogy. Ah, that sounds like good stuff.

So give us a 30,000 overview of what's inside your new book. The James Sparks trilogy is a companion of all three books that I wrote before. How could it be the story continues and a new beginning? Maybe this story is about two sisters. One is a lieutenant at the San Francisco PD. The other is a FBI agent. They're twin sisters, but they did not know they were twin sisters.

They didn't even know the other one existed. So they find out when the FBI agent gets shot at the San Francisco PD parking lot. Well, now they have to find out how come they were separated and why was the FBI agent shot? Was she shot because they thought she was a lieutenant or was she shot because she was an FBI agent? Also another crime that they have to solve that deals with horses. So they go and they find out what's going on. I'm not going to tell you what happens next, because I want you to read the book. You have to do the

third story has to do with antiquities. Pete Slauson Antiquities, so like Egypt sort of stuff? Or… Stacey Yeah, Egypt and Israel and stealing antiquities and finding them and art theft and murder. Pete Slauson So, you call this book a trilogy, it's three books in one technically, or three kind of separate sort of stories that go between, but it's all encompassed in one book. Marcia That's right. It makes it easy for people to carry.

The stories, the books are, were made, were created for people that want to read, but they do not have a lot of time to read. You know, they want to read something and they want to be excited about something, but they really don't have the time. So that's one of the reasons I wrote them for that kind of people. For people that I have like my age and have that they have a little bit of hard time concentrating a lot on things. Or for young kids that are beginning to learn chapter books and they want to learn something new. So I'm giving everybody a little bit of something they could use and enjoy. It's enjoyable. They're enjoyable and they take away, they give you a little bit of relaxation.

Pete Slauson Oh! Now, is this the first book you've written? Marjory Baxter I have written a lot of short stories and I have written a lot of poetry. I started writing poetry and then I shift to short stories and scripts for theatre. Pete Slauson You started writing when you were nine. That's pretty cool. Marjory Baxter Yes. Pete Slauson Yeah. Marjory Baxter That was a way of escaping what was happening around me. And it just took me to a different world. I love reading mysteries.

I read all of Nancy Drew mystery stories. That's how I started with the mysteries. Uh, then I started reading some FBI books and I went on along. I got, I went to the University of Puerto Rico, history and theater, and then to George Mason University with sociology. Pete Oh, wow! And imagine, has some of your life experiences, you know, you were in the, I believe the Coast Guard, has that, how has that shaped your writing experiences? You delve out characters and plot

lines and, or has it, I guess? Yes, it has. I joined the Coast Guard in 1977. And at that time, women were few and far between. And when I became an agent, there were only seven of us as agents in the coast guard. Wow. Yes. And it was hard. It was a hard time because at least for me, there are many days that I had to get up and look at myself in the mirror and say, I could do this. Come on.

I can do this. You can do it. Go for it. You can do it. And, but I enjoy the work. It was different every day. There was something different. If you ever saw NCIS, the show, that's the work I used to do for the coast guard.

Okay. You know, we had, we had vice admiral Sandra Stowes on the show. I think she worked, I think she was the head of the coast guard at one time. Coast guard. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So you know her? No, I heard. I didn't ever get to know her.

We had her in the show back in 2021. We should check in to see what she's doing. She wrote a great book on leadership and stuff. But I imagine, yeah, these, you know, working in the ocean and with water and, you know, crises and conflicts and all sorts of stuff, that's a salty job, eh? Get it? Ocean salt. That's the best you can do on that, Jim. Sorry, folks. Make you a little salty being on that there sea. But no, I mean, it's hard work. I'm sure it's got to be. I've seen the Coast Guard do their thing and then I've seen those, what's that dangerous job with the crabbing and stuff they do with the fishing? Yeah, we do everything.

Coast Guard does a little bit of everything. Yeah. And, yeah, it's hard work and there's salt water too. It sprays on you and you dry out and then there's the sun. That's always probably fun too with salt water. But yeah, it's hard work. And so, talk to us about some of the characters that are in the book and why you chose them and featured them. I guess, would Jane Sparks be the first

person we want to talk about as the main person in the book? Yeah, Jane Sparks is a lieutenant in the San Francisco PD. She came up the ranks. She was a San Francisco mounted police officer and she went up the ranks. Her father or what who she believes is her father was also in the San Francisco PD. And she's divorced, hardworking, very following the rules. Very, she follows the rules. On the other hand, Fran, which is the FBI agent, was first NYPD police officer. And from there she went to the FBI. She's married and her wife is a medical examiner and a writer. I basically a little bit of it stole the character from books that I read from

Patricia Cromwell, because I liked the character in a way, the character of the wife in a way as Patricia Cromwell, who was also a medical examiner for Insect Science. And I combine them and the books are reading really fast. There is also the character, which I enjoy the most is the mother who discovers that she has had two kids, two daughters, and did not know that she had two daughters. Pete Slauson How would you, how would a mother not know she had two daughters? Because it's… Marcia That's something you have to read the book. Pete Slauson God, now you really gotta read the book.

You gotta figure this one out. Marcia Now you have to read the book. Pete Slauson Immaculate conception? Marcia No, she gave birth to both kids. Pete Wow. Jai She gave birth to both daughters, but only raised one, knowing only one. Pete Oh, okay.

Alright then. So everyone's in for a surprise when they find out that there's a spare. Jai Yes. Pete I'm always trying to convince my mom I'm adopted and she insists otherwise, but there's pictures to prove it, so I guess whatever. But I always mom I'm adopted and she insists otherwise, but there's pictures to prove it. So I guess whatever, but I always claim I was switched in the hospital. You know, they do the switcheroo at the beds there.

That was going on in the seventies. So I'm sure. Yeah, that was going on in the seventies. Now you, do you, do you have two twin protagonists in the book and the two sisters? And why did you choose that? Why did you feel that was kind of a great thing to put there? You know, they came to me. They created themselves in my mind. It was about three o'clock in the morning. I was fast asleep and all of a sudden this idea came to my mind and I started,

sleep and all of a sudden this idea came to my mind and I started, you know, getting ideas of the characters and how to put them together and went for it. I have an amazing husband who understood and I started writing and writing and writing and until I finished the first book, he just, it was like, okay, just let her be. Just, just give her coffee and let her be. Just give her coffee and let her be. Pete Slauson Give her coffee, let her be. Jai Radha Yeah. Pete Slauson That's a secret to a long marriage of an Ellie, I guess. Is that true? Jai Radha I think so, you know, I give her coffee and just let her be. Pete Slauson Yeah. I mean, it seems to work. So, how long

have you been married? 43 years? Jai Radha 43 years. Pete Slauson Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, clearly it's working. Jai Radha It is working. He's an amazing human. He is just an amazing, thoughtful, he's such a great father and grandfather and great grandfather. Right now he is playing with our great grandson in the back. Oh, that's awesome sauce. Give her, I'm going to try that next time I get a relationship. Just give her coffee and leave her alone.

If she likes coffee, she might. So if she likes tea, that's cool too. I can make that. I got a great expressive machine. We can make her some great express. If she likes tea, that's cool too. I can make that. I got a great espresso machine. We can make her some great espresso. And then, let's see, what was the other question that I had for you on the things?

What age did they discover that they're twins? Can you tell us that? Is that important to the story? No, that when the FBI agent gets shot at the San Francisco PD parking lot, the lieutenant comes down because one of the cops says, I thought it was you. Tell us the lieutenant, I thought it was you. And she, okay, I don't believe that. So she went down and she saw the credentials for the FBI agent. And then she went to the hospital and had a DNA test and they came out sisters with both parents. So it was like okay we are sisters now what happened? How did we get here? How was I

in San Francisco and you were in New York? How didn't our mother know that she had two kids? What happened? And they have to figure all that out in addition to trying to find out why Fran got shot. So, you know, people are trying to stay alive, figure it out and stay alive long enough to find out so they don't get shot again Maybe maybe Shooting that takes place now what happens to the mother when she finds out that she has two twin daughters

She files for more child support I don't know either you have to read the book. You got to read the book folks. That's what novels are about. We can, we can cover his story not historical books because you know, people know how it turns out kind of, at least I hope so. But yeah, with novels, we got to leave some suspense. So how did your own background influence your portrayal of the complex relationship between the twin sisters? I'm sure that kind of is interesting, especially since they've, they're really growing up

together and knowing each other. Twins usually have a kind of a bond. My own background, I come from a semi-large family. I have two, two brothers and a sister. My mother was a nurse. And that's where I get some of the ideas. I am so sorry, I wasn't expecting a call. I am so sorry.

They just want to be on the show, that's what it is. Yes, they do want to be on the show. And I have no way of getting up and going and taking the phone and turning it off. All right. Hopefully it'll just ring out here in a second. No, because my husband's voice is going to come. Oh, there he is.

There he is. Could you edit this out? I could try. Yeah. Yeah. Let's see where we're at in the thing. We're at, uh, how far are we in 1629? So I am so sorry.

It was one of those things that I really wasn't expecting. That phone hardly ever rings. I know it's my phone's the same way. It only rings when, when I'm on there. Some it'll ring the five minutes before I'm supposed to go on show. And so I think it's the guests calling me because they're having a, like a technical issue and, or, you know, maybe reschedule. It's like some sales scammer. Yeah. Some sales, some spam or some sales or something like that.

It's always something like that. That's a house phone. And the only reason we have a house phone is for emergencies. Nah, that wasn't an emergency. It's pretty funny. One of the other questions that I had for you, let me see if I can find it here as I hunt around to my map to try and find stuff. I'm not sure what's going on with my computer today. But so, there's definitely some issues between, you have to resolve between them. Does there, can you tell us anything without giving anything away about how they evolve as sisterhood? Do they become a team maybe throughout the trilogy?

Yes, they do become a team, but they still have to work out the issues of being sisters, understanding the fact that they are sisters. They also have to work the issue of one trying to be able to accept their mother as her mother. Jane's parents died. When she considered her parents are both dead. So all of a sudden she has this woman that's really her biological mother. How does she get along with her? How is she going to deal with that fact? The jealousy of Fran about having to share her mother with this brand new

person that is her biological sister. So those are issues that come up in the, in the process. Each book tackles current unique criminal worlds, smuggling, horse racing, and stolen art. How did you approach researching these very crimes or the crimes that are in the book? They are, I didn't want to write books with the common drug crimes and so forth. I didn't want to write books with the common drug crimes and so forth. So I have a friend, very close friend, whose brother was is or was a horse insurer person. He insured horses. There is such a thing as insuring horses. And we were talking about about subject and she said, my brother insures horses. Excuse me.

Say what? Ensure of what? Horses? So, yeah, it works very much like health insurance for people. Is that more time out? So I started researching and I found this crime that was committed and the FBI investigated about horses and using horses as a fraud. Pete Oh, wow.

Jai And it took me a while, but it is a real crime and it was investigated by the FBI. Pete Wow. So, for the shooting part, did you shoot anyone to do background testing on what that's like to get shot or shoot anyone? Marcia No, no. I went to the range and shot a couple of, you know, but I had to do that anyway when I was an agent. I had to, every few months, qualify different weapons. So… Pete Slauson Yeah. Note to self, don't mess with Mrs. Rodriguez. She'll put a bullet in you. In writing about different criminal subcultures,

did it give you any challenges or did you pull maybe some of that from your pseudo-police work to give it more authenticity and accuracy or? Jai Radha I made sure both. Pete Slauson Okay. Jai Radha I made sure. I pulled up from some of the things that I knew and you know, investigated form that I was taught and that I knew and I did. And some of the crimes that I just had to investigate. And that's something I like is researching and finding out things and the research paid off.

Did you always envision the story as a trilogy or did it begin as a simple one book story and then expand it as you developed it? I started, I thought it was going to be a one book issue. That's it. One book. And then the second one came upon because I couldn't leave the sisters where they were at the time. I mean, how could?

So I developed that, the second book, and I added some other stuff that I some some some things that have to do with web pages and internet and things like that on the second book and then on the third book because I love history I love that that kind of work I went okay now we have to take the sisters another step so what else could we do with the sisters? Where are we going to go with the sisters? So that's the, I gave a romance to Jane. Jane finds somebody she could love. Something she didn't have before because she was divorced.

And the first book, we know she's divorced. because she was divorced and the first book we know she's divorced. And the character of her ex-husband shows up on the first book. And he also shows up on the second book. And there's a twist there that you have to read the second one. And then on the third book, there's a bigger twist with this character. Pete Slauson Wow. Lots of twisting and turning as it were. Marcia Yeah, that's what mysteries are about. You have twists and, you know, all mysteries cannot be solved within five seconds. Pete Liesveld Did you find it hard to plot that out where, you know, there's the inner woven interlay

of the plots, the plot lines and the subplots and, you know, all that weaving that you authors do in novels? Yeah, it was a little hard and you have to sort of draw lines. Okay, this is going a chart. This is going this way and this is going that way and this is going the other way and you have to make sure that you put them all together at one point at a time so you don't get lost in the chart. Do you make a chart for it? I do.

I can see the chart. I'm like, this is good. Bob's going there and then Jane's going over there. You have to. And things like that. At least I do. I have to put a chart. Okay. I have Jane and I have Fran, what's going to happen here? And there's this, this other character coming in and. But without a chart, but again, it goes back to my time as a special agent. You have childs and crimes who criminalists. when you have childs and crimes, who do you see as criminalists? Pete Slauson Yeah, like criminal at the top and his little,

his little gang of bad guys, you know, and the whole thing you see in the, like the movies you see. Marjolein You have a chart and you follow the chart for the crime. Pete Slauson Oh, follow the charts. That's how you find the end of the plot. Now, I believe the setting is in San Francisco. Why Farris Yeah. Pete Slauson Why was it important to do that in shaping the atmosphere? Mary Farris Because I lived in Alameda. My last station as an agent was Alameda. And I worked very closely with the San Francisco PD at the time, and also with the FBI at the time. And my youngest daughter lives in San Francisco. Pete Slauson Oh, so you're pretty familiar with the lay of land out there and the beautiful

scenery and the wonderful weather. Marcia I love San Francisco. If it wasn't because of the weather sometimes, I love San Francisco. But I live in Nevada now. Pete Slauson Ah, you live in Northern Nevada, I think? Marcia Yes, I live in Reno. Pete Slauson I live in Vegas. And so, we're neighbors. Marcia We are. Pete Slauson Since those are two major cities in freaking Nevada, yeah.

Leila Larson And the weather. Pete Slauson The weather, yeah. It's like it started about summer again. Geez, wasn't last year like really hot? Of course, you guys, do you guys have a cooler up there where you're at in Reno as opposed to Vegas? Leila Larson We get very hot or cold. The other day it started raining and then it started to hail and a couple weeks before that it was snowing. CB We do that here in Vegas, but usually the snowing is referred to as a cocaine party. No, I'm just kidding. That's Las Vegas Vegas, don't do that kids. Las Vegas snow

is what we call it. I had to wander for that joke a little bit in the, in the wilderness, but I found it. So Las Vegas snow, we confuse with Las Vegas meth. Anyway, it's a wild town. Everything's there. Let's see. What do you have any plans to continue their story beyond the trilogy? Yes, I am working on another book and I'm driving my family crazy because I have some ideas and I'm trying to get their friends to give me suggestions to help me put some of those working parts together. To help me put some of those part working parts together and his mom would you please? Please Let us be for a couple minutes

Questions and tattoos and questions on micro dots and questions and refrigerated semis It sounds like it sounds like your kids are like is mom just talking to us or is she trying to pull information after stuff? What's going on? Yeah. It's a little bit of that.

Is she really talking to us? What is she trying to do? What is she trying to say? What is she trying to do? Let's talk about your website too. I know you have some offerings over on your website. What do you have on your? What is she trying to do? Let's talk about your website too. I know you have some offerings over on your website. What do you have on your website people can take a look at it? And the website, I have a water bottles, t-shirts, hats and the books.

Here you go. You got the merch as the kids say. The merch. It's a small store and I'm trying something new. I always like to try something new. The merch is so important these days. Was there any challenges you had as you were going through the trilogy, putting it together and when you were writing it and stuff or maybe things that you found that were really rewarding and finally getting right on the page. It was amazing because I have written many, many short stories before. And sometimes things were easier,

and sometimes they were harder. But on this books, it just flew. The things, the words came onto the paper and they were there and they kept flowing and flowing and the characters and everything just kept flowing. And it made it easy in a way that I had never had that kind of ease at creating something. So that was interesting for me because I kept saying, is this right? Is this the way it should be? Pete Yeah. Marjory But it just happened. Pete Yeah. I mean, it sounds like it's more better that way than when you can't make anything

come to you and you're just sitting there in the writer's block going, what the hell? Marjory I hate those writer blocks. I have been on those moments writing short stories and I get to a point and said, okay, now where do I go? On this guys, no, they just kept, characters kept growing and and flowing and things were there so real I know I sound a little bit off but That's that's how I felt at the time. Mm-hmm the so upcoming Do you plan on writing more books anything in the works currently or? There's the one that we talked about and stuff.

Do you see yourself continuing to write more stories in the same venue of a genre? Kirsten I don't know. Let me see what happens with this other book. I have six great grandkids that require my attention. My great grandson comes from school and he stays here with us and we go right now, my oldest daughter is coming because in a little while we have to go to a baseball practice. I thought I had, I was done with all that, but now I have great grandkids that I have to go to baseball practice and baseball games and gymnastics and all that stuff again.

Ah, got to go through it all again. What's the feedback you've heard from maybe readers right now on some of your characters? Do they give you any feedback? And maybe, you know, we've had authors on the show that talked about that sometimes they didn't realize some things about their characters, like in one instance that their character was an alcoholic. After several books, their readers are like, hey, you know, that dude's an alcoholic. And they're like, yeah, what? What sort of feedback have you gotten from your readers? Mariam Selleh, MPH, MPH-TV Host I have gotten feedback that the books read too fast.

Pete Slauson Oh! Mariam Selleh, MPH, MPH-TV Host They go too fast. They want it longer. And so, that's the idea. It's for you to be delighted in something really fast. They like the characters, they want more interaction, a little bit of more interaction with sisters. But again, there's a crime that has to be solved. So, the third one, they have a little bit more interaction. Pete Slauson Ah! So, an interesting book for people to read. And it sounds like you've really discovered your love of writing and stuff and everything else. Anything more we need to know before we go out?

Marcia Thank you for allowing me to be here. I want to tell people out there that are listening or watching us, that if you have a dream, go for it. Don't ever give up. I'm 74 years old. I dream to be a writer since the age of nine, and I'm here with you today. Pete You're never too old to start writing, folks. Chase your dreams and all that good stuff. We'll be excited to see more of what you put out, Ms. Rodriguez, in the future. Thank you for coming by. Ms. Rodriguez Thank you. Pete Thank you! And thanks, And thanks for tuning in. Order up her book wherever fine books are sold. The Jane Sparks trilogy, November 5th, 2024 came out three books in one. So you're going to get all

it's like, it's three books in one people. How can you say no to that? Thanks for tuning in. Go to goodreads.com, Forch says Chris Foss, LinkedIn.com, Fortress, Chris Foss, Chris Foss One on the TikTok and Ian, all those crazy places on the internet. Be good to each other. Stay safe. We'll see you next time. Thank you.