Jun 26, 2026 | Crime, Mystery, Police Procedural / Crime, Thriller |
Dave served thirty-one years with the Chicago Police Department and is now a commander with the Bridgeview Police Department. He graduated from Northwestern’s graduate program in Creative Writing.
Dave’s western, Stand for the Dead, was released in July 2024 by Thorndike Press and in trade paperback in August 2024 by Genius Book Publishing.
In Cabrini Green, doing the right thing can get you killed. Looking away can cost even more. Out of Cabrini received rave reviews in 2006 and was rereleased by Genius in 2025. The sequel was released the same summer. They can be found at Dave Case – Genius Books and on Amazon, of course.
Chicago Justice, the sequel to Out of Cabrini, was released in the summer of 2025. A killer walks, a boy comes home armed, justice has already lost its innocence, and the children inherit the violence.
Days before Christmas, Faith is desperate to get home to Oakland, where her father is awaiting heart surgery. Instead, she is sent into a Minnesota blizzard to find a missing college student whose disappearance may be tied to a cartel accountant, a federal grand jury, and an executioner known as El Clavo.
Stranded up north with a partner she cannot trust and a storm cutting off every exit, Faith follows the trail from Duluth to the frozen north shore of Lake Superior. The case is moving fast. The assassin is closer than anyone knows. And Faith must decide what courage means when violence asks for more than she knows how to give.
Up North is a tense Faith Nelson thriller.
Written by former Chicago police officer Dave Case, Up North is about a haunted young DEA agent, stranded in a Minnesota blizzard, who must find a missing girl before a cartel killer reaches her, while facing the question she fears most: whether she can still do the job without losing herself.
Dave, what is the most challenging part of your writing process? Finding the time! Don’t most writers say that? I’m still working full-time, not in the City of Chicago but in a smaller, nearly idyllic suburb. We are woefully understaffed, so I keep busy and bring it home with me too often. I do a lot of writing at work as well. I guess, aside from finding the time, it’s building an outline. I can’t be a pantser. I tried it and found that I wrote myself into corner after corner, so I must outline. My plots tend to be complicated, with more than one POV character, and I find myself getting bogged down in extrapolating events. I bounce a lot of stuff off my buddy, Michael A. Black, a fantastic writer in his own right. I find that helpful. The silver lining of being an
What’re you working on now?
Up North is scheduled to come out in June, and I’m stoked (can I still say that without making myself sound antique, lol?). I’ve been working on a sequel to my Macbeth series, Out of Cabrini and Chicago Justice, and I’m super excited about what’s going on with his character and his partners. But now I need to get going on another Faith Nelson book. Up North isn’t a cliffhanger by any means, but there’s rich emotional material I want to explore, and Faith deserves the attention.
Speaking of Faith Nelson, the protagonist of Up North, what was the most challenging thing about writing characters of the opposite sex?
Everything. That is, if you want to get it right. And you remember that I love realism, meaning getting it right is important to me. In general, in all of my other books, I’m always asking myself if I’m getting it right. I tend to bug those early readers of mine who are women, asking if I’m off base anywhere a female character is involved. I found Faith particularly challenging in that she’s black as well. I’ve written about Black women before- Laticia Gibbons, for instance- but Latricia, while very important to the story, didn’t occupy much space in Out of Cabrini, where Faith is Up North. But lucky for me, I have someone I go to who has schooled me on many aspects of being a black woman and on being black and on being a black woman in law enforcement. She even posed for the cover.
What kind of research do you do?
I ask a lot of questions of people who know what I’m exploring. I know that sounds like “Duh,” but it’s easy to fall into the habit of just asking someone who knows a little bit more than you. I like going to the experts. I’m obviously very familiar with law enforcement, having been involved in it full-time since July 1986. I’ll do the math for you. That’s 40 years, ugh. But I wasn’t acquainted with the DEA beyond a few encounters, so I asked a couple of people who had been assigned to their office for years. It was very informative.
One aspect of a story that is important to me is the setting. I treat it like a character, and I’ll spend a great deal of my research on setting if need be—Cabrini Green, the City of Chicago, the Dakotas, or the north shore of Lake Superior. I hadn’t been out West for a long time when I was writing Stand for the Dead, so I took a road trip to South Dakota’s Black Hills country. I was planning to hit Wyoming and Montana as well, though my SUV’s engine had other ideas. But I was there long enough to get the feel of the space. I originally used ‘area’ in that sentence, and I don’t think you can capture the West in something so contained as ‘area.’ You need a word that implies bigger, and ‘space’ works better.
I grew up in Minnesota and was well acquainted with its winters. I’d been to Grand Marias and the north shore years earlier as well, but I wanted a deeper sense of the place and took another road trip, this one in the late fall. Every road trip was a blast, though returning from the Dakota trip was a little harrowing.
Looking to the future, what’s in store for you?
Writing! As soon as my time in Bridgeview is done and we’re rapidly approaching the close of that chapter, I believe I’ll devote myself full-time to writing. It’s what I do. I have so many stories to tell, so many things I want to explore. I have more Macbeth stories, more John Altar stories, and Faith Nelson, along with characters you haven’t even been introduced to yet.
Do you have any advice for new writers? Write! Write!
And write some more. I do a lot of writing at work, though none of it is fictional. I write every day, but at present most of it isn’t the kind of writing I want to do. I fit that in whenever I can. If you know me, you know there is always something to write about nearby. I don’t like using my phone, but I will. I have many chapters in the Notes app. I have notebooks in my truck and at work, and I often carry a leather-bound field notebook in my pocket.
George, I really appreciate the opportunity to appear on your blog. I know you’re on hiatus, but there are a lot of us hoping you’ll return. Thank you for giving me the chance to talk and let your readers know about Up North. I’m exceedingly proud of this book and hope everyone loves it as much as I do.
Email: davecase@duck.com
Out of Cabrini, Amazon link: Out of Cabrini
Out of Cabrini, Genius Book Publishing link: Out of Cabrini
Stand for the Dead, Amazon link: Stand for the Dead
Stand for the Dead, Genius Book Publishing link: Stand for the Dead
DAVE CASE – A Long Transition to Published Author – Author George Cramer
Dave Case Books – Gripping Law Enforcement & Western Fiction
May 17, 2026 | Crime, Mystery, Thriller |
Once again, Frank Zafiro brings his characters to life in his novella, Shades of the Job. Private Investigator Stanley Melvin overcomes his challenges and serves his client well, putting her needs ahead of his own.
By treating the dramatic principles of literature almost as characters, Zafiro illuminates Stanley’s story, which might otherwise have fallen flat in the hands of a less skilled author. These principles strengthen and carry the story, effectively building suspense.
The reader enjoys a well-written detective story while gaining a deeper understanding and appreciation of the many challenges of writing fiction.
I recommend Shades of the Job to readers and writers alike.
Feb 20, 2025 | Mystery, Thriller |
Former newspaper reporter Jennifer K. Morita writes stories for Sacramento State by day and murder mysteries by night. She is a member of SinC, Crime Writers of Color, Mystery Writers of America, and International Thriller Writers. Jennifer is also active with her local SinC chapter, Capitol Crimes, where she served as vice president and president. She edited Capitol Crimes 2024 Anthology Farm to Foul Play.
Jennifer was a runner up for the Sisters in Crime Eleanor Taylor Bland Award in 2022.
She is a former Sacramento Bee reporter, is a senior writer for University Communications at Sacramento State. When she isn’t pushing Girl Scout cookies, she enjoys reading, experimenting with recipes, taking leisurely hikes, doing Zumba, and doing hot hula.
Her debut novel, GHOSTS OF WAIKĪKĪ, has been nominated for a Left Coast Crime Lefty Award for Best Debut Mystery. 
It’s about an out-of-work journalist who reluctantly becomes the ghostwriter for a controversial developer. When she stumbles into murder – and her ex – she discovers coming home to paradise can be murder.
Where do you write? What, if any, distractions do you allow? I wrote Ghosts of Waikīkī in my old kitchen. We moved last summer, and now that I finally have an office with bookshelves and a good Zoom background, I’m still writing in my kitchen—or at least part of the time. I work at the kitchen island when I’m baking or needing to keep an eye on dinner and to be honest, I love writing about the heart of our home. Only now, I have the luxury of retreating to an office when a few extra squealing teenagers are in the house.
But being a mom means constant distractions—the kind you can’t ignore. So, I have to be flexible about where I write. I like cafes where I can get a good cup of coffee and ignore the giggling teens because they aren’t mine.
I also work out sentences on my phone while waiting in the pick-up line at school or on my iPad, guarding my front row spot in Zumba an hour before class. My writer friend, Hawaiʻi noir author Scott Kikkawa, told me he likes writing in bars and mentioned one in Kaimukī. I’m adding it to my list of places to go to write the next time I’m on O‘ahu.
What are you currently working on? I’m working on a second Maya Wong book. I’m not under contract, so fingers crossed that my publisher will want more of Maya. I have a few more ideas rattling around, including a mystery set in Sacramento’s declining Japantown about a woman who runs her family’s hundred-year-old mochi shop with her grandmother and secretly writes a true-crime blog.
I’m also mulling over a dual-timeline standalone about a bartender in San Francisco Chinatown whose customer drunkenly confesses a terrible secret and is found murdered in Portsmouth Square hours later.
A while ago, there was a dust-up between two women vying for a front row spot at a popular Zumba class I attend. I missed class that day but heard all about it the following week. Talk about spilling the tea! The chatter died down, but tensions flared again the other day. And now I have to write about murder in a Zumba class. But I won’t use my real name for that book ‘cause I want to keep my front row spot.
How do you come up with character names? I’ve always liked the name Maya, but I couldn’t sell it to my husband when I was pregnant with our first daughter. While I’m not the “yes dear” kind of wife, he was a middle school teacher at the time (now an elementary school principal) who had multiple Mayas in all of his classes. Fair point.
So, I used the name for my protagonist in Ghosts of Waikīkī instead, and I think it worked out for the best. I also shamelessly stole names from friends and acquaintances, raided my Hawaiʻi school yearbooks, and consulted the Social Security website to come up with character names for my first book.
Now, I collect names I like. I’ve got them scattered in random notes on my phone. The guy at the Hertz rental car stand in Honolulu, a kid in my daughter’s fifth-grade class, the woman who helped me put on my yukata for Obon Odori – they’ll all be character names someday.
I am picky about central character names, though. A lot of thought goes into them, and I play around with how they sound for a while before I commit. It’s almost as important as naming a child.
How long did it take you to write your first book? Twenty-plus years ago, when I was working at a suburban weekly covering local government, I initially thought of writing an amateur detective series featuring an Asian American newspaper reporter. I thought it was going to be set in Sacramento. I played around with character and plot ideas, but nothing gelled. Years later, when I was a stay-at-home-mom doing freelance writing, I started thinking more about that book I’d always wanted to write. The pandemic gave me the chance to finally do it.
I began plotting in September of 2020, writing in October, and finishing my first draft in January of ‘21. Mind you, we were sheltering in place, so there were no school drop-offs or pick-ups, no shuttling kids to dance classes or Girl Scout meetings. I didn’t even have to change out of my pajamas in the morning.
I sent out a few cold queries, got instantly rejected, and tinkered around with my manuscript, query letter, and synopsis before querying again. I signed with my agent, Lori Galvin, in May of ‘21.
How long to get it published? It took me two years to rehaul and revise my manuscript before Lori, and I felt it was ready to pitch to publishers. It was all over the place, with too many characters and themes. I scrapped a whole storyline, cutting about two-thirds of my manuscript. I had to stop saying I was “revising” and finally admit that I was rewriting my book.
Lori recommended Paula Munier’s PLOT PERFECT, and it helped me figure out what story I wanted to tell and how to structure my plot. I took many online writing classes, including just about every webinar offered by the Sisters in Crime Guppy chapter.
Of course, this is when my kids went back to school, and all their activities slowly ramped up again. I also returned to work full time, writing for University Communications at Sacramento State. I also served as vice president of our local SinC chapter, Capitol Crimes.
I got frustrated with myself for taking so long, but in retrospect, it might have been a blessing. Those two years gave me time to join a writing community where I could watch and learn from other writers about the craft and the business side of being an author. I’m grateful for Capitol Crimes, Sisters in Crime, and Crime Writers of Color because they gave me a better idea of what to do once I got a book deal.
We went out on submission with my book in June of ‘23, and I signed with Crooked Lane on my birthday in August. GHOSTS OF WAIKĪKĪ was released in November of ‘24.
Do you outline, or are you a pantser? Most people would be appalled if they saw my “outline” for GHOSTS OF WAIKĪKĪ. It’s over a hundred pages in 14-point font, Google Docs with red strike-throughs, yellow highlighted passages, and comments in the margin. It’s part of the messy, weird, stream-of-consciousness process I need to go through to know my idea is enough to carry an entire book.
I tried a more organized, cleaner method to plot a cozy idea I’ve since put aside. Basically, I stuck to one or two sentences per scene, and I had a much harder time writing it. I think I need to hash out the action and events more thoroughly so I can play around with the words. I guess I can’t make up stuff and compose well-written sentences at the same time.
I also can’t move forward until I’m satisfied with the sentences I’ve put together. It’s self-editing as you go, and you’re not supposed to do that, but I think all those years as a journalist trained me to perfect the writing as much as possible the first time around.
The way I plotted Book 2 falls somewhere in between, and so far, it’s working for me. I wouldn’t recommend what I do, but it seems to be my process.
You can learn more about Jennifer at www.jenniferkmorita.com or follow her on social media.
Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/authorjenniferkmorita
Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/jenniferkmorita/
Bluesky – https://bsky.app/profile/jenniferkmorita.bsky.social
Ghosts of Waikiki is available to purchase at Amazon or Barnes & Noble.
Jun 20, 2024 | Crime, Thriller |
Lisa Towles is a crime novelist, a passionate speaker, and an avid supporter of other writers. Her 12th crime novel, Codex, will be released on June 20th by Indies United Publishing and was called “Fast-paced and ingenious” by The Prairies Book Review.
Lisa lives in northern California and works in the tech industry.
Tell me about your forthcoming book and what kind of readers you’re targeting. 
Codex, my new (standalone) psychological thriller, aligns with my other books’ pace, vibe, and style – fast-paced, high-concept action thrillers with impact, meaning, and relevance. They’re written for readers who like puzzles and complex plots involving games, conspiracies, politics, corruption, and espionage. I think Codex delivers all of that with a punch.
What are the themes of Codex, and how will they help readers identify with Angus? Mental health and substance abuse are two predominant themes with which Angus struggles throughout all of the challenges put before him. And then, the themes of loss and grief are an important part of how Angus’ mind and heart transform as the story evolves. I think it’s an emotional book to read, and it certainly was to write as well, but not without its rewards.
What is a challenge your character faces in this story, and how does he respond to it? Angus is confronted by two strangers at different points in the story – one gives him a lavish gift, and another tells him that the life he thought he’d lived wasn’t real – that the accident that killed his wife was no accident, and that she was about to expose an unthinkable technology and a massive coverup. Realizing the danger and burden that his wife had faced alone wakes up his mind and inspires his broken heart to find the truth about her killer and expose her story to the world.
What types of research did Codex require? I did a lot of CIA organizational research for this book (online and through a personal contact), historical research on CIA programs, regional research of Half Moon Bay and the peninsula, Texas, and New Mexico, as well as mental health and substance abuse, military, legal, and corporate research. It’s all fun because I learn so much from research and from my characters as we’re on this journey together.
Do you start with a character, a crime, a setting, or something else? They’re all different in the way that they announce themselves to me, and there’s always some catalyst that lets me know that it’s time to put my fingers to the keyboard. For Codex, Angus Mariner showed up as broken and rock bottom. Having been there, I could identify with how he felt and seeing the world from that jaded, dark, vulnerable place.
What are some activities on your writing journey that don’t involve writing? Research for story, plotting, and setting; social media and marketing; graphic design; community engagement to set up events; book clubs to engage with readers; making book trailers; and I’m now hosting a YouTube author interview series called Story Impact that’s so much fun.
What’s next after Codex? Specimen is a young adult thriller that Indies United Publishing will release on December 3, 2024. I’m excited about this story because it confronts some very contemporary themes of gaming, diversity, inclusion, and controversial science and technology. It takes place all over San Francisco and in the Marshall Islands. To learn more about Specimen (and see another awesome cover design from viladesign.net), click here.
Learn more at www.lisatowles.com or follow her at linktr.ee/authortowles.
Pre-order Codex here: https://a.co/d/5eLZmCw
Feb 26, 2024 | Action & Adventure, Crime, Westerns |
Paty Jager is an award-winning author of 55 novels, eight novellas, and numerous anthologies of murder mystery and western romance. All her work has Western or Native American elements, hints of humor, and engaging characters.Paty and her husband raise alfalfa hay in rural eastern Oregon. Riding horses and battling rattlesnakes, she not only writes about the Western lifestyle, but she also lives it.
Thank you, George, for inviting me to your blog.
The Pinch, book 5 in my Spotted Pony Casino Mystery series, was published on February 22nd. It is available for pre-order.
Dela Alvaro, a disabled veteran and head of security for the Spotted Pony Casino, is doing a security check for a casino on the Oregon Coast when a child is kidnapped and Dela’s friend is murdered.
The idea for this story has been in my head for many years. I usually plan two writing retreats a year at the Oregon Coast. I stay a week and get a lot of writing done because I’m not catering to the animals or my husband. There aren’t any chores, and I write, walk on the beach, and write more.
On one such trip, I was walking along the beach, enjoying the briny salt air and the mist of the fog and waves. I noticed an older man with a boy about four or five out at the water’s edge. The boy was splashing and digging with a plastic shovel. I continued walking and noticed a boat close to the shore, or closer than any I’d witnessed before. My gaze gravitated to rocks sticking up out of the waves a good thirty or more feet from where the water lapped at the beach. Watching the splashing waves and enjoying the moment, I thought I saw the head of a seal bobbing by the rocks. That seemed dangerous, but they are good swimmers. I continued on and eventually turned around, heading back to where I’d entered the beach.
The boat was gone, and the older man walked up to the hotel without the boy. I looked around and didn’t see him anywhere. That was where my imagination kicked in. By the time I was back at the place I was staying, I’d come up with a kidnapping, a premise, and how it would play out. My only problem is that I was writing romance books at the time, and I didn’t see how to use this in western romance.
However, the idea stayed with me, and when I started writing mysteries, I kept coming back to the idea, trying first to make it fit with my character in the Shandra Higheagle mysteries, but I didn’t see how I could make it work. Then, when I started writing the Gabriel Hawke novels, I thought, now, I can use that story. But even though I took Hawke to Iceland for a book, I couldn’t find a plausible reason for him to be on the Oregon Coast.
Then came the Spotted Pony Casino mystery series and Dela Alvaro, my disabled veteran who is head of security for the Spotted Pony Casino on the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Reservation. After four books where she has helped the FBI and Tribal Police track down killers, she has a reputation for running a tight security staff. She is invited to a Tribal casino on the Oregon Coast to help them tighten up security, and now I could finally see how my story and premise would play out.
When I decided now was the time to write the book, a friend and I went on a road trip to visit a casino on the Oregon Coast. I had planned to use that casino in the book. Still, when I started making fictional employees at the casino accomplices in the crime, I decided I needed a fictional casino. Then, my mind wasn’t tied to logistics anymore, either.
Even though I had visited the casino and talked to security staff, I kept running into things I hadn’t realized I’d need to know to write the story, and the emails I’d sent to the casino asking questions went unanswered. Having the epiphany to use a fictional casino as I do in the Spotted Pony Casino books freed up my mind to work on the kidnapping and murder rather than logistics.
This series points out the widespread danger that Indigenous people- mostly women, face. My main character lives with the fact that in high school, she left her best friend in a small town not far from the reservation because she didn’t want to leave when my character had to get back for basketball practice. She is found the next day murdered and sexually assaulted. In the first book where this character comes to life, Stolen Butterfly in my Gabriel Hawke novels, she helps find two women missing from the reservation and last seen at the casino.
In this book, she not only has to deal with a missing child but she is reunited with a best friend from her time in the military, only to have her murdered. One more slash to my character’s heart and one more spark to make her always find justice.
This book took a long time to come to fruition, but I believe it was worth it.
Recent Projects
I published Christmas Chaos in October to give readers of my Shandra Higheagle Mystery series some closure. A short story with Dela and Heath characters in my Spotted Pony Casino Mystery series is available in the Windtree Press Whispers anthology.
Blurb / Long- Dela Alvaro, head of security for the Spotted Pony Casino, is asked to do a security check of a casino on the Oregon Coast. She no sooner starts her rounds at the casino than a child is kidnapped. The parents are a dubious couple. Special Agent Quinn Pierce of the FBI has been out to get the father for some time.
One of Dela’s best friends from the Army appears, and they catch up, only to find her friend strangled the next morning after having divulged to Dela she may have photos of the kidnapping.
As Dela struggles with the violent death of yet another best friend, her lover, Tribal Officer Heath Seaver, arrives, and the two begin untangling the lies, bribes, and murders.
In the end, as Heath carries the child to safety, Dela must face a cunning killer alone.
Blurb / Short – Dela Alvaro, a disabled veteran and head of security for the Spotted Pony Casino, is doing a security check for a casino on the Oregon Coast when a child is kidnapped and Dela’s friend is murdered.
Groups I belong to:
Crimescene writers loop
Sisters in Crime
Niwa
Alli
Author’s Guild
20 Books 50
Links
Book link for The Pinch – Universal book link- https://books2read.com/u/38Y787
Social Media Links –
TikTok – @authorpatyjager
Instagram – @patymjager
YouTube – @PatyJager
Facebook – Author Paty Jager
Twitter – @patyjag
website – https://www.patyjager.net
blogs – https://ladiesofmystery.com and https://writingintothesunset.net
Hi George,
I’ve lost my subscription to this blog. Can you connect me again?
Jim Guigli jimguigli@sbcglobal.net
Thanks John. I like to treat location like a setting, especially a place like Chicago or the north shore of Lake Superior. I love epic locations! I appreciate your taking the time to write. Take care and be safe!
Dave
I’m originally from the Southside of Chicago, but I left at a very age to land in Milton Township between Lombard and Glen Ellyn in small two-bedroom house. Therefore, since you worked in Chicago and some of your books take place or start in the windy city, I find them interesting.