Q & A
Will there be another Jeff Tribe mystery?
Late Justice—the prequel to Intentional Take—was released in June 2009.
Are Intentional Take and Late Justice being made into movies?
At this time there are no plans for any movies.
Where is Spicket Falls, Massachusetts located? I couldn't find it on a map.
Spicket Falls, MA where Jeff Tribe lives is an imagined location. It's an amalgamation of my hometown of Methuen, Massachusetts, and the surrounding mill towns of Lawrence, Haverhill, and Lowell. The Spicket River is real and runs through Methuen. There is a small falls in the center of town behind the fire station.
The town of Earnest, NC, in Intentional Take is also an imagined location. Earnest is a combination of an area on the northern bank of the Cape Fear where there is a small dock out over the river with a sign next to it warning about crocodiles, a town off Route 421 that mostly consists of a traffic circle, and several locations in and around Wilmington, North Carolina.
Did you do research for Late Justice and Intentional Take? What were some of the sources you used?
My research includes reading books and newspaper articles about the topics and types of characters that will be in a novel, and visiting the locations I will be writing about. Some of the books I used as research for Intentional Take include Hells Angels: Into the Abyss by Yves Lavigne, Rebels: A Brotherhood of Outlaw Bikers by Daniel Wolf, Gangsta in the House by Mike Knox, What Cops Know by Connie Fletcher, Bad Guys by Mark Baker, The Goodfella Tapes by George Anastasia, The Corpse Had a Familiar Face by Edna Buchanan, and Huddle Fever: Living in the Immigrant City by Jeanne Schinto.
Where do you get your ideas?
Basic ideas can be sparked by anything – a newspaper article, conversation, photograph, observation, book, movie, etc. – but turning that idea into a short story or novel is the challenge. For Late Justice, the basic story idea came when I was in college. I was researching a paper at the Lawrence Public Library using a microfiche machine when I thought it would be interesting story-wise if someone from outside law enforcement was able to figure out something bad was happening by seeing a pattern in various news stories.
When I decided that I wanted to write a story about the origins of a private detective as he grows from helping family and friends to becoming a true detective, I used that original idea but made it more personal for the protagonist. Though published second, Late Justice is the first Jeff Tribe novel that I wrote.
For the second novel, the kidnapping of a family member and the protagonist's quest to rescue her is the story I eventually decided upon. The title for Intentional Take came from a quote in the newspaper several years ago by a park ranger talking about the theft of plover eggs by someone attempting to speed-up the opening of a public beach. The ranger said that they knew the theft was an "intentional take" but that taking the eggs didn't work because the beach would have to stay closed for the process to start over again. As soon as I read the quote I knew Intentional Take would be the title and the rest of the plot also fell into place.
Do you have any advice for new writers?
My advice to new writers is to keep at it no matter what. Keep writing and keep submitting, but heed any comments you might receive if you think they might help your work. I would also suggest you read as much as you can as well, in your chosen genre as well as out of it. You can learn a lot from the works and techniques of writers who are already published. Finally, there are many books out there on writing and getting published – many of them available for free through your local library – so read and take advantage of those as well. Good luck.