with R. Scott Mackey
We are delighted to welcome back author R. Scott Mackey to Omnimystery News.
Scott visited with us last month with an excerpt from his first in series mystery Courage Matters (RSM Publishing; February 2014 hardcover and ebook formats) and we asked him if we could follow up with a few questions about it.
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Omnimystery News: You've written both non-fiction and young adult books. What promoted you to create a fictional series character?
Photo provided courtesy of
R. Scott Mackey
R. Scott Mackey: Mainly I wanted to create a character that readers could connect with initially with the first book and then watch him evolve based on his past and from the experiences he encounters on the pages of the book. I think readers will be surprised and pleased with the evolution of Ray's character from book one to the second and third books. He definitely turns out to be quite different in the later books than where he starts out in Courage Matters as a fledgling PI. The other characters that I've introduced in Courage Matters will also change and grow in directions that most readers may not see coming. To me that is the challenge — and fun — of creating a series with recurring characters.
OMN: Give us a hint as to how you see Ray evolving as a character.
RSM: Ray starts out quite naïve as a rookie PI. By the end of Courage Matters he has experienced a lot. When the second book opens he is not the innocent he was at the outset of book one. I don't want to give too much away, but by the end of book two Ray will have little resemblance to who he was at the beginning of Courage Matters.
OMN: Have you included any of your own personal or professional experience in the book?
RSM: Only some of the basic elements. The book is set in a part of the country where I live. The main character is about my age and he is a former college professor, though in my case I was just a part-time instructor. Everything else in the book is constructed entirely from my imagination.
OMN: Describe your writing process for us.
RSM: I don't really have a standard place or time for my writing. I prefer to write during the day rather than in the evenings. Sometimes I sit at my desk and write, while other times I prefer to go to a library or coffee shop. On occasion I will go to a place similar to a setting in the book so that I can capture some details or nuances. When I'm on a book project I tend to be pretty disciplined about getting something down every day.
OMN: Your first book was a non-fiction history about baseball. What interested you about that subject?
RSM: Well, I love baseball and I love writing so I thought it would be a great match. The challenge was finding a baseball subject that hadn't been written about extensively and which I could do a decent job of covering. I think I did that. Barbary Baseball does a good job of chronicling 1920s west coast baseball in a way that hadn't been done before or since. The research was exhausting but it was so much fun learning about the people and places that made up the Pacific Coast League back then. I would like to keep writing non-fiction when I can. In fact, I am currently researching and hope to start writing later this year a book about the Heisman Trophy race of 1970.
OMN: Do you plan on writing any more young adult novels?
RSM: I really like the YA genre and believe some of the best literature we have has come from it. However, for now I have enough on my plate that I don't see myself writing a YA novel anytime soon.
OMN: What kinds of books do you enjoy reading for pleasure?
RSM: While I read both fiction and non-fiction, probably ninety percent of what I read are novels. I prefer mysteries, but anything well-written can captivate me. Recent reads have included Beautiful Ruins and The Financial Lives of Poets by Jess Walter and Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn. I really enjoyed Stephen King's Joyland, which I just finished.
OMN: What is the best advice you've received as an author?
RSM: Keep writing and keep trying to get better. Baseball and writing have a lot in common in that most of the time you will fail. In baseball that translates into striking out or hitting into a double play. In writing you will receive 20 rejections or more for each "yes" you get from a publisher. You can't let it get you down and have to keep plugging away.
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R. Scott Mackey is the author of four books, including Barbary Baseball: The Pacific Coast League of the 1920s and the young adult novels Blood Runs Deep and The Bugfish Experiment. Courage Matters, the first in a planned series featuring private investigator Ray Courage, is set in Northern California, where Mackey makes his home.
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Courage Matters
R. Scott Mackey
A Ray Courage Mystery
Rookie Private Investigator Ray Courage is asked by "Stockbroker to the Stars" Lionel Stroud to investigate an employee who's been acting suspiciously. Ray soon learns that not everything is as it appears at Stroud's firm.
When his investigation uncovers a possible Ponzi Scheme orchestrated by Stroud himself, two people are murdered and Ray becomes Suspect Number One. Ray needs to find answers fast to avoid prison … or death at the hands of the killer.
Complicating his efforts are threats from the son of a Mexican drug lord, hostility from an octogenarian with a penchant for lap dances, harassment from a cop bent on putting Ray away for life, and a rekindled love affair with Stroud's daughter.
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