Bookpleasures.com welcomes as our guest Kevin G. Chapman. Kevin is a corporate labor & employment lawyer who works for a major US media company.  

He frequently speaks at Continuing Legal Education seminars, has taught legal writing to law students, and is the past chairperson of the Labor & Employment division of the global Association of Corporate Counsel. When the work day is done, however, Kevin lives a much more exciting fictional life of crime and romance as the author of the award-winning Mike Stoneman Thriller series (and other novels, short stories, and screenplays).

Kevin's recent crime thriller in his Mike Stoneman Thrillers series, Perilous Gambit will be published November 24th., 2021

Kevin has also written several short stories, including Fool Me Twice, the winner of the New Jersey Corporate Counsel Association's 2012 Legal Fiction Writing Competition, which was the genesis of the character Mike Stoneman, the protagonist in Righteous Assassin

Fool Me Twice is available as a stand-alone short story free on Amazon.com (and most other ebook retail sites), or you can get it free from Kevin’s website. He has also written one complete screenplay (unproduced so far) and has another screenplay and two more novels currently in the works, one of which is a sci-fi space opera epic.

Kevin is a resident of Central New Jersey and is a graduate of Columbia College (‘83), where he was a classmate of Barack Obama, and Boston University School of Law (’86). Kevin loves talking fiction with readers, or talking law, politics, or baseball.

Good  day Kevin and thanks for taking part in our interview.

Norm: What is the one thing other people always seem to get wrong about you?

Kevin: In my real life, people always thinking that I’m way more serious and stuffy than I really am. In my writing life, many readers think I’m an ex-cop, which I’m very definitely not.

Norm:  What is your philosophy of writing?  As a follow up, is your writing an art or craft or some combination of both? 

Kevin: My philosophy for the Mike Stoneman Thrillers is to keep the writing straightforward. I’m not trying to make the reader think too hard about the language (as opposed to the plot twists).

A crime thriller is not supposed to be an SAT vocabulary test. Writing is supposed to be fun, both for me and for the reader.

Norm: Does your writing career ever conflict with your career as an attorney?

Kevin: I am constantly juggling my day job and my writing. It is a fortunate side-effect of COVID-19 that, for the last 18 months, I have had very little going on in my personal life (no trips, no shows, no concerts, no movies . . . ).

This allowed me to have more time for writing than during normal times. Work obligations often encroach into my evenings and weekends, which would normally be my writing time, but that’s to be expected.

I’ve found that I’ve pared down some of my other leisure activities while I’ve been busy writing these books. When I have video conferences, my book cover posters are in the background, which stimulates discussion about my books during business calls – so sometimes the writing encroaches on my work, also.

Norm: What are the preponderant influences on your writing?  

Kevin: As a young adult, I read a ton of science fiction. Edgar Rice Burroughs, Robert Heinlein, Isaac Azimov, Frank Herbert, and others. Those masters are storytellers.

They understand how to keep the reader interested and have an arc to their characters.

Later in life I started reading crime/mystery authors like Michael Connelly, Sara Paretsky and Linda Barnes, who do the same thing with more realistic stories.

Norm: Why have you been drawn to crime-thrillers?

Kevin: In the mid-90s, I wrote my first mystery, which was a PI story. As a lawyer, I’m always thinking about legal issues, and crime stories that touch on legal subjects have always fascinated me.

I decided not to write about lawyers, but I might change my mind down the line and create some stories more about law and less about crime.

Norm: How important is inspiration to you?

Kevin: Within the Mike Stoneman stories, I have a good idea of the characters and where they are going. The inspiration comes into play about the main plots of each book.

I had an “inspiration” about what would happen if somebody murdered the quarterback of the New York Jets. That led me to develop the story for book #4, Fatal Infraction.

I have a folder full of possible plot concepts waiting for development. They come from news stories, dreams, songs, and notes from my wife.

Norm: How do you deal with criticism?

Kevin: I like criticism. When I send out manuscripts to my beta readers, I’m disappointed when some of them tell me they loved the story and have no real issues. I want them to tell me what’s wrong, what’s missing, what doesn’t work, etc.

I want people to tell me what they don’t like so I can make it better the next time. Sometimes criticism is just silly (like a reader who was “shocked” that there was violence in one of the books).

That you just shrug off. You can’t please everyone. But I always take criticism seriously and think about whether someone’s critical comments have some validity and indicate something I can do better in the future.

Norm: In fiction as well as in non-fiction, writers very often take liberties with their material to tell a good story or make a point.  But how much is too much?  

Kevin: As a lawyer, I hate it when authors write scenes where the law is wrong – where the defense lawyer gets to put his witness on the stand in the middle of the prosecution’s case, for example. A little artistic license is fine, but don’t get it totally wrong.

I try to get it “right” as much as possible in my stories as to the things where it reality matters. I never want my readers to say “that would never happen that way.” As an example, in book #3, Lethal Voyage, I had a key plot event where the killer entered the victim’s state room on a cruise ship without being seen.

I later learned from one of my story consultants that modern cruise ships have security cameras in the hallways, so the killer would be on camera and could not enter that cabin unseen.

So, I wrote in a lightning strike the night before that knocked out the ship’s onboard servers and fried the ability of the security system to record their video images.

That’s plausible, and it explains why the killer wasn’t caught on camera. That’s taking a little bit of artistic license, but still keeping it “real.” I’m ultimately fine with anything that’s plausible.

Norm: Do you ever dream about your characters?

Kevin: All the time! I keep a notepad next to the bed so that when I have dreams about possible story lines for my characters, I can jot them down while I can still remember the dream.

Norm: Many people have the skills and drive to write a book, but failure to market and sell the book the right way is probably what keep a lot of people from finding success. Can you give us 2-3 strategies that have been effective for you in promoting your books? 

Kevin: First, I’m fortunate that I have a career, my kids are all grown, and I can afford to write books without needing the income to pay the rent. If I were counting on my writing to be my income source, I’d be very concerned.

But, as my potential retirement plan for five years down the line, I’m more optimistic.  I have found that personal interactions with readers and the development of a mailing list for my newsletter is the most important thing.

I need more subscribers, but my newsletter readers help me spread the word about my books better than any advertising. I have received wonderful support from other indie authors also, which is invaluable to someone just starting out.

Now, I try to give the same help and advice to other authors who need it. But the biggest thing is to produce quality books. Not cutting corners with editing, taking my time with beta readers and re-writes, doing the necessary research, and having a great cover designer (who is not cheap) has really helped me make my series marketable.

Norm: How did you become involved with the subject or themes of the Mike Stoneman Thrillers and particularly Perilous Gambit?

Kevin: I can’t say that I’m personally involved in drag culture, but it has always fascinated me. I’ve attended a few drag shows live and watched some of Ru Paul’s Drag Race, but I don’t personally know anyone who is a drag performer.

But, somewhere along the line I decided that Rachel Robinson’s brother would be both gay and also a drag queen. This creates conflict in the Robinson family and gave me an excuse to get my characters to Las Vegas (my favorite place).

As I got into the writing, I did research and talked to a bunch of people who have more insight than myself in order to learn enough about the drag culture to be reasonably authentic in my descriptions.

It was a challenging process. I did not envision when I started the series that I’d be tackling themes of racism (Fatal Infraction) and homophobia in the later books. It just worked out that way.

Norm: What were your goals and intentions in this book, and how well do you feel you achieved them? 

Kevin: I wanted to show the drag performers (particularly Jackie) as “ordinary” people. They have special talents, and special challenges in their lives, but they are people, with many of the same hopes, fears, worries, and struggles as anyone else. They just happen to be drag performers.

My goal was to bring these characters to my readers and bring my readers into this world so that they have an appreciation for those struggles as well as the fact that those people are just people. If that brings some level of acceptance or understanding to some readers, then I’ll be very happy.

It’s also supposed to be a fun story, and tie up the romantic subplots, and I hope my loyal readers will appreciate how those subplots resolve here.

Norm: Did you know the end of Perilous Gambit at the beginning?  

Kevin: Oh, yes. I try to always start with the ending and work backwards. If I don’t know how the story is going to end, I can’t start. I’m a compulsive outliner and I have a very detailed summary of every scene in the story, including the ending, before I start the first draft.

In this particular story, I kept the final scene secret, even from my beta readers, until the publication draft. Some of my early readers still don’t know about the final scene. (I expect to get some phone calls from surprised and excited readers.)

Norm: What was the most difficult part of writing your book and did you learn anything from writing your book. What was it?  

Kevin: It was very difficult finding the right emotional tone for Jackie and Lizzy as drag performers. As I learned more about the drag culture, I came to realize that there’s a lot of hurt and apprehension about cops and authority.

I learned some history that made its way into the book, and I changed the tone of the characters to be more cautious and skeptical about cops – even Mike and Jason.

When cops have historically pushed you down, oppressed you, and not taken crimes against you seriously, it’s hard to trust and have confidence in any cop. That was a concept I had not encountered before.

Norm:  Where can our readers find out more about you and your novels?

Kevin: My WEBSITE has information about me and all my books. Fans can also follow the Mike Stoneman Thriller facebook group.

Norm: What is next for Kevin G. Chapman?

Kevin: Right now, I’m going to take a pause from the Mike Stoneman story. Perilous Gambit ends in January of 2020. There’s a reference to Helene DiVito’s sister dying of a respiratory illness. That’s all I ever want to write about COVID-19.

So, the next story will not begin until the summer of 2022 at the earliest. For the next few months, I’m going to see what life is like when I’m not actively working on the next book. I’ve cranked out 5 books in 3 years, while working a full-time day job, so I’m due for a rest.

Norm: As this interview comes to an end, if you could invite three crime-thriller authors to your dinner table, who would they be and why?

Kevin: I’d start with Anna Willett, a wonderful Australian author who writes stories that slide into the horror/suspense side of the house. I love her characters and her stories. I’d also invite Dan Alatorre, who not only writes great crime thrillers, but who also writes books on writing craft that I have found very helpful. I’d love to pick his brain about how he outlines his plots and manages to make his writing so vivid and immediate.

And I’d invite Michael Connelly, the godfather of all crime writers. Partly to hear about his early struggles as an author, but mostly to ask him to give me a promo quote for my next book.

Norm: Thanks once again and good luck with all of your endeavors

Kevin: Thank you, Norm. It’s a pleasure to interact with your readers. Thanks for supporting indie authors!

Follow Here To Read Norm's Review of Perilous Gambit: A Mike Stoneman Thriller