Check out Friday’s blog, John Sanford’s Neon Prey, for all the links we talked about in our book club and Writer’s Perspective discussions.
We also had a lot of fun with the wine and food discussion! The links for the wine and recipes can be found in Monday’s blog, Book Club Idea: Beef Tenderloin and Carnivor Zinfandel.
I’m still laughing about our talk of cannibals and snakes! You really have to listen and laugh for yourself!
Listen and subscribe right here!
Below is a transcript of this episode, but trust me, it is more fun to listen! And you can listen while you exercise, clean, ride the subway, or are on the road.
Welcome to Game of Books with Cathi in South Dakota. That’s me. And Christie in South Florida. That’s me we’re two newbie writers sharing our take on wine, food and mystery books. And the authors who write them! Join us for the fun.
Hey Cathi and all you mysterious foodies. It’s October and there is some weird weather out there. I know down here. I know. It’s been so weird. We’ve had record heat in Fort Lauderdale. I mean, nineties and humid. It feels like middle of the summer. Really, really hot. So how’s it been in South Dakota?
That sounds kind of awful. Um, it’s been all over the place. It’s been, it was, it’s sweaty, just put it that way. It’s a sweaty October. We’re having kind of all over. We had a little, uh, snow last weekend, when you and I were in Atlanta and then, um, and then it just got beautiful. This last weekend was absolutely gorgeous and picture perfect. And now the last two days have been like super high winds, like 40, 35 mile an hour winds and rain. So there’s lots of leaves on the ground, lots of beautiful leaves that are no longer on the trees unfortunately. Anyway, probably a good time to be inside and read or have a book club.
Yes, that’s a great idea.
Here we are. Today we are doing John Sanford’s latest book and the Prey series Neon Prey. Um, it was really exciting to see him at Thrillerfest last summer. He was the Thriller Master this year.
Yeah, that was really cool. And um, and next week actually we’re going to do some Corks and Conversations with some of the authors that were at Thrillerfest, kind of a compilation of many interviews. So I’m excited for that.
You know that was really fun. It was, um, it was long enough ago that I’m really excited to listen to the interviews again because I’ve forgotten.
Yeah, that was pretty chaotic. It was chaotic. It was a lot of fun, but it was like, whew. We did a lot. We did a lot of interviews in a row.
We did. And so, um, anyway, I’m also very excited to hear about today’s food and wine pairing. What have you got for us?
Okay, well today we have the Carnivor Zinfandel and I got to tell ya, this is the perfect wine. It was the perfect, perfect wine. And part of the reason is because, well, let me just read you the description on the website. It says…
Okay, I’m gonna take a drink.
Okay, you do that! … At Carnivor, we love big bold wines and we also love smooth finish. Okay. So that’s probably what we’ve got. And then it, and then it goes on and on and it says, savor this feast for the glass with the juicy feast at your table, which matches what I’m planning on doing for food Carnivor is perfect with red meat and provides a captivating compliment to any cut and tonight and tonight add a little predator to your prey. Meet is made for Carnivor. Can you believe that? They actually said that on their website. I’m like, this has to be perfect.
This is the perfect mix. And so if you have read this book already, they’ll understand, but if not, you need to get a bottle for when your going to read this book.
Yes. It’s good sipping while you’re reading or at the book club with um, the food that I’ve chosen to go with it. But this, let me, let me have a sip because I haven’t been able to taste it yet.
Hmm.
Yum. That is really good. I really liked Zinfandels. I really do.
I do too! And this is a bold, I mean right away it’s a lot of flavor when you take that first drink but then it’s just like smooth. It’s really nice.
Yep, it says layered notes of dark cherry, Blackberry jam and perfectly toasted Oak. It really, I really, I do. I’m enjoying this and it goes with the food cause you can’t forget some food and actually the recipe for what I chose, which is Tenderloin, um, is on the Carnivor website. They actually have it and they say, impress your guests with this center cut roast meat for groups. So it’s like perfect because it’s really easy to make. You can like slice it up. You could have it like with salad or you can put it on little rolls, you know, and have it with the Carnivor Zinfandel and um, and you know, I mean it goes well with the book because literally on the second page.
Yes it does!
On the second page, the one of the characters, which is one of the, you know, gross bad guys because he smells and everything and he’s a murderer. So anyway, like a lot of southerners, he, Deese, is big on barbecue and he wants it done right. So he brushes the meat lightly on both sides with extra Virgin olive oil, seasoned with kosher salt from the Louisiana salt mines and coarse black pepper. I mean, he’s a stickler. He added a sprinkling of file powder, made of ground sassafras leaves and mostly used with gumbo, which I have used and it’s good, but it works on barbecue too. And then he cooks the steaks over peach charcoal, brought by the Georgia peckerwood to the red stick farmer’s market in Baton Rouge. So this is all in Louisiana. So, you know, we know there’s a lot of good food in Louisiana and this guy, he particularly likes to cook these tenderloins on the grill barbecue. Um, occasionally he might have a fresh liver that he’ll cook.
Oh my God.
Yes. So, well it turns out we find out about 10 pages later that … Deese is eating his human victims. So he’s a cannibal.
So there it is. That’s it. Christie just let it out.
There it is. Well, I mean you find out on page 10 or something like that, page 15. So I mean it’s probably even in the description of the book, like the cannibal guy. That doesn’t tell you everything except for hello, he’s a cannibal. He’s eating and, and so I was like, okay, I’m going to have to research cannibals a little because I mean, if we’re having beef because …
You’re just enjoying this probably a little too much. I’m just thinking maybe a little too much enjoyment.
Well listen, I mean one time I did go on, I went on a trip to, um, Tahiti one time and um, actually a couple times, but that’s another story. But, um, it was lovely, lovely place to go. And I remember on, I think it was on Morea, one of the islands, or Bora Bora. I think Morea. Anyway, I went on a tour that was put on by this archeology anthropology guy that just knew everything about the history of the people that lived there. And, and so he did touch on the fact that, you know, in those, that area like Fiji, New Zealand, all around there, there was a lot of cannibalism in the olden days. I mean, you’d hear about it like, you know, people on their ships, you know, they get eaten, things like that.
And so, but he talked about it in that particular case that it, you know, there’s, there’s different reasons for people to beat cannibals, but in this case they would eat just parts of their recently passed, um, family members to kind of, it’s like a ritual to have them live on, you know, so it would be like maybe eat their liver or something, you know, It probably didn’t hurt, you know, that it was high in nutrients or whatever, but, but they weren’t necessarily going around getting strangers off the boat. You know, that’s another story.
Whenever you mentioned eating someone’s liver, all I can think about it is “Fava beans and a nice chianti.”
I know, right?
I mean I was thinking everyone who listens is getting that reference, I presume.
I know, I know. And, and it’s funny too because then in my research I’m like going, well I wonder if they talk about like how to cook humans, you know, cause maybe I should use that recipe.
Okay. Again, you’re making a beef Tenderloin from a cow, is that correct?
I am.
Okay. Just wanted to clarify that!
I don’t know whose looking at my search engine, you know, my Google search, hopefully I’m not red flagged anywhere, but, but I did find, I don’t know if you’ve heard of this place, this site called the uncyclopedia?
No, I have not.
Yeah, it’s a website that parodies what Wikipedia like it’s logos is a hollow puzzle potato instead of the globe puzzle logo and it, and it says they’re a content free encyclopedia instead of just the free encyclopedia. So it’s all ridiculous and it’s really funny. And so they had a whole, you know, page on how to cook a human. I mean like…
Oh my!
Yeah, so it’s like, here’s an example. Like the tomato, which once was thought to be poisonous, human flesh is actually a very healthy alternative to the hormone injected meat that you find that your local supermarket and eating a person is not a soul crushing sin like some conservative religions want you to believe. The fact is that human flesh is both flavorful and full of the essential nutrition our body needs.
I think we might’ve just lost every listener out there.
It’s totally untrue. Untrue. Because then, you know, then they go into like, how do you pick the right human, you know, age you want. I’m like, you know, I don’t know, 13 to 16 .and then it talks about like, you know.
Those are irritating years anyway.
It is really funny. We all will have to put the link on that because you know, yeah. I mean some, some of the like little ads are even funny, you know, and cause there were just ridiculous.
I never heard of that site. It sounds crazy. I’ll have to check out.
That’s, you know, that’s fodder for discussion at a book club while you’re eating.
Oh, for sure.
While your eating beef tenderloin. And drinking some Carnivor, which I imagine would probably go well with human flesh as well.
Well, I’m sure glad I could find this wine in South Dakota so we can have this because it is perfect. It is really good. We need to do more Zinfandels this is yummy.
Now that we have our food, wine, it’s time to talk about the book. So excited. We are reading, um, John Sanford’s 29th, Lucas Davinport installment Neon Prey.
Wow. I didn’t realize it was 29. I don’t know how many I’ve read of these, but a lot of them.
I have too, and then he has another series as well. And so he, um, he writes two, he publishes two books a year.
Oh my God.
And he’s been doing it for years, I mean for years. Um, so John Sanford, a little bit about him quick, um, I am a longtime fan of his, he’s kind of a local writer for me because he’s from the twin cities and that’s the only a few hours away. And that’s what I was born originally and we used to live there. So, um, and it’s actually a pseudonym. John Sanford for John Camp who has lived in Minnesota for years and years. He now lives in New Mexico. Um, but he was actually a reporter, a newspaper reporter, um, at the St Paul pioneer press for many, many years before he started writing. And.
Wait a minute. So like his real name is John camp or John Sanford.
John camp, John Roswell Camp. John Sanford is a pseudonym. Yeah. Isn’t that interesting. And, and you know what’s so interesting about a pseudonym, um, not to get terribly off topic, but you know, I mean like he’s John Sanford at writer’s conferences and I mean all are all parts of his life. I think that’s so interesting, but it does allow you a little bit of privacy. Imagine so which he probably needs to get all that work done cause he’s got two series.
He’s probably not even going out in public. He’s just home writing everyday.
Right. Just constantly writing. So this is the Lucas Davenport series and Neon Prey, but he has also another series. The main character is Virgil Flowers and I’m sure people have read those as well. So Neon Prey, um, involves Clayton Deese, who initially looks like kind of a small time, low level, um, uh, I guess muscle for a loan shark. And, um, the US marshals get called out to investigate him. And Lucas Davenport is now working for the U S marshals. And so that’s how he gets involved. And so he ends up down in Louisiana and they’re digging out behind this guy’s house and they find a whole bunch of graves and they realize they’ve got a serial killer on their hands. And so they’ve kind of got two conflicting problems going on and it just gets wilder and wilder. And as you can tell from the cover, it ends up in Las Vegas. Which is great. So anyway, so here’s what I want to talk about with the book is his settings and his location. Because John Sanford is known for really going deep in researching his settings. Like he goes to every location and checks it out as if it was like a movie, a movie shot.
Oh really? I didn’t realize that. That’s interesting.
Yeah, he’s scouts locations. He says. Um, and he describes, um, when he used to, he used to live in Florida actually. So this is funny. It’s a good combination for us because got Florida and my neighborhood. He was a newspaper reporter in Miami at the Miami Herald before he came to St Paul to be a reporter and then became a writer.
How can somebody do that many things in their life and still be alive?
And be very successful, by the way.
I know, I’m like It’s like how old do you have to be to be able to be first a, you know, a reporter and then write 30 bucks, you know?
Well, I think you know, he, he made the transition probably in his forties I’m guessing. Yeah. So anyway, when he was at the Miami Herald, he said he was reading a thriller, you’ll love this. And which the hero was cast adrift off the Miami coast. This is from an interview, by the way, in the realbookspy.com. Have you ever heard of that book review? Oh, it’s really good. Interesting. Yeah. And the bookspy did a interview with John Sanford, so I will put the link on our, um, web or website for that too. But he’s, so he’s reading this thriller that takes place in Miami. And, you know, when the sun came up the main character saw a line of hills and he didn’t know or he knew then because of the hills which direction to paddle or swim.
And John Sanford’s like, look, the, here’s the problem. There’s no Hills in Miami. None. It’s flat like South Dakota. So he said,
This is so true.
Yeah, he just stopped reading. He was like, that just ruined it for me. I couldn’t, you know, I couldn’t do it. So he said, if you set his crime scene somewhere, you better go look at it. It’s kind of his rule.
Right. So you know, now we have trash mountains.
Oh really?
Yeah. That’s what we call them trash mountains. You know, they’re big mounds.
Like a landfill, and then they’re going to cover it up or something?
Like a Hill. Yeah. Like, it’s the trash and they just pile it, pile it, pile it and cover it with, you know, earth.
You know, we actually have a beautiful, we have a beautiful nature park in Brookings from that exact thing. From an old landfill and, yeah, it’s quite lovely. So anyway, here’s what I love is, so he, you know, he’s talking about um, in this interview, um, the shift in crimes when he was reporter from like noticing what kind of crimes they had in Florida to when he moved to Minnesota to be a reporter. And this is what he said. And I just thought it was hilarious. He said the kind of crime they had down in Florida was this trashy, weird, bizarre, crazy stuff that was usually done out of stupidity and general banality and greed. That’s what he said about Florida. That’s when he used a reporter and then he says the twin cities and Minnesota in general didn’t have that kind of random trashy crime as much, but they had a lot of crimes or really dark and soon to be the thing that got hatched over a long, cold winter. I just thought.
Oh that’s so funny.
Isn’t that a funny, and so apparently we’re a little bit darker up here and a little bit, um, stupid and trashy down in Florida crimes. I thought that was hilarious, but I thought it was funny that he could characterize crimes in both of our neighborhoods. But anyways, so what did you think about the setting in this book? I mean, first we’ve got the rural Louisiana and then Las Vegas.
I, I, you know, I like the, you know, Louisiana setting, cause it’s similar to Florida, you know, the swampy, the flat, you know. Um, so I do like that setting and that’s interesting that he must have gone there to get it straight. And as far as Las Vegas is concerned, well, you know, what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. So maybe we should just, we need to probably explore Vegas a little bit and …
Well, and I thought, you know, that he did such a good job of describing, you know, just the crowds in Vegas, like in a couple of different scenes, like just this, you know, slew of people and the crime and the corruption. I just thought. He just kind of nailed that setting. I mean, it was really interesting. And again, you know, when he talked about the rural Louisiana thing, I wasn’t as much of a fan because some of my least favorite images are snakes. Let’s just say it. I don’t like snakes. And he kept talking about snakes at that weird grave yard and I was like, this is going to be hard for me to get through, but it’s how we didn’t bother you at all.
No, no. Well I don’t look at it all the same way. I mean, yeah, maybe I don’t want to see a bunch of, you know, like bodies and things, but I have spent a lot of time out in like swampy areas, so it’s not, uh, an unusual, I don’t know. I should, I should stop talking while I’m ahead. I’m thinking because if somebody looked at my life search engine and then here I’m like, I spend a lot of time in the swamps.
We’re good. Let’s move on.
Writers Perspective. All right, so this week we want to talk about tips or techniques in writing a mystery series.
John Sanford is what you could call an expert on this and he could probably tell us a lot about the subject and he is a great teacher and speaker. We both know that.
Yes, yes. It would be nice. Wouldn’t it be nice if we had him on a podcast?
That’d be great.
I don’t think he has time for it.
Well now he’s writing two books a year.
I know if he was still down here, maybe, you know, we could, I don’t know. But anyway, since we’re newbie writers and we need all the guidance we can get, um, I know, Cathi, that you’re outlining your second book on what you consider a series based on your first book, Repent. Um, so I thought, well, this is a pretty timely discussion. I mean, we’ve got, you know, John Sanford in his expertise in series. So I was like, well, maybe we should explore it a little to see if we’re doing it right.
Right. For sure. And that’s perfect for both of us because we both can see a series coming from, um, these characters and, um, obviously we’re not done with them. So that’s, that’s the great thing we want to, we want them to live on.
Yeah. And I think in researching what to talk about in the writer’s perspective, we found an article by Camille Minichino. She’s a writer I think in California. And we’ll put the her website or the link to this article where she talks about the 10 tips if you want to write a mystery series. And um, I, you know, I thought, I thought it was really kind of fun to read over it. And the first one was the one that, you know, we’re just talking about right now. You, you want to pick your protagonist wisely because you want somebody that can, you can come back to again and again. Yeah. I’m not sure I thought about that ahead of time.
Well, I guess I kind of did because I was thinking about, you know, what the character arcs that my characters arc was going to be in this first book. You know, what we’re hoping to see from her growth. And now I can kind of see where she needs to go on the next book. And you know, so she’s complex and I, I think you’ll, you have two good reasons that you can make your character into a series because of her age. For one thing. I mean that, open’s up so much.
Yeah. And that, and that’s why it kind of, you know, you just automatically want to know where she’s going to go in her life because she made it through this obstacle. Now what’s the next step? And so that’s where I can go with it. And I do think with your main character, so interesting. Such an interesting, you know, history that you can draw from all areas of it. And she could go a bunch of different ways. Depending on where life takes her. So that’s, that’s cool.
Yeah, I think so too. Um, and you know, it’s interesting cause one of her tips was, um, about marking your calendar. You know, so you, you want, you can decide if you’re going to age your character or not, you know, when, when’s the next episode going to occur? And for me it’s gonna occur like three weeks after this first one does. That’s where my second book, which is called Fester, it’ll take off. But yours, what do you think? Do you think it would be some time?
Mine is going to be, um, mine was more like, um, Oh, let’s see. June, about four months. Four or five months.
Okay. Yeah. Interesting.
So another one of her tips is, this is hilarious. I thought for, for John Sanford’s, um, skill set. Tip number nine is that you need to kill creatively. She says beware the readers of series like to be surprised, but not too much. So you want to be creative with your villains and your weapons. And I just thought, well, he pretty much nailed that doing the cannibal.
Right.
And he even said, and in this same interview with the realbookspy, um, he said, it occurred to me that I’d never done a cannibal, maybe because Hannibal Lector’s shadow falls on them. But then I decided what the hell, I’m just going to do one. And so I decided to find a credible person to embed the cannibal in instead of making them a complete nutso like Lector, I decided to make him a BBQ afficionado. He said he’s not eating people because he’s crazy. He’s eating them because they’re available high quality meat, Christie, which is very similar to what you said earlier.
That goes perfectly with the website. Yeah. Isn’t that great. Gosh. Yeah.
Again, I’ll put the link up to that interview. It’s a really good interview.
Well, it’s interesting too because when I was researching, I did notice that there were, um, some, you know, that some of the people, they, there was a website that had like seven cannibals on there that described what human flesh tastes like. And so it was like true life supposedly, you know, like this guy was a serial killer. This guy was just a total whack job. One guy like ate his own hip meat because he had a hip replacement and asked for the bone and I was like, that was a for somebody over and I don’t know far from here because I was like, what? But they were just, you know, they want, some of them just wanted to taste it. They just wanted to taste it.
I think it’s time to move on. I don’t know that I have anything great to contribute to this right now.
I know, that’s really funny. I’m making a steak tonight for sure, but it’s not …
I’m making pizza that’s already been ruined for me a few episodes ago, so. Okay.
Yeah, that’s true. I’m really sorry. I kind of go to the dark side of the food.
Well Christie, I love today’s discussions kind of. I’m just saying kind of, but I will say, I really do like this bottle of wine. What do you think?
Yes, I do too. I think, you know, I think Zinfandel is going to be on the top of my list and I do like this Carnivor one. So maybe I’ll, you know, try some others and see if it’s the Zinfandel or the Carnivor. But it’s really good. And it was only, what, 11 or 12 $12. Yeah. So, okay, Cathi, I know this is the time I made us hold accountable.
Yeah. This was your idea. I’m just saying.
And I can tell I’m already regretting it. Because I haven’t had any time for real writing, I mean podcast scripts and working on the design because we went to that great, great conference. She podcast, She Podcasts Live.
Yeah, there you go. And it was great.
Yes. I mean it was great that we got to see each other, we got to podcast together, we got to learn all this crazy stuff and all, you know, I mean more, more than we can ever implement. I’m sure. You know, it’s like amazing what’s out there. But, um, but I, we are trying to do some of it, so I’ve been focusing on that cause I want to get it all done before November because I want to do some NaNoWriMo writing.
NaNoWriMo.
Are you going to try? You’re gonna try a little bit. I mean, I think it’s, if we have that goal, you know, it might might be more than usual, maybe. That’s my whole accountability thing. Cathi!
No, I like the accountability and I think it’s great, especially if you’re ready to go
rock and roll on November, November 1st and I love that you’re getting so much work done on the podcast and thank you for that. I want to get a lot of writing done in November, but I’m not sure that I necessarily gonna fit it within the NaNoWriMo construct, I guess at this point. But it’s a good goal.
I just want to read your, your first one.
Yeah. So, um, actually I’m going to read it all tomorrow. I just printed it off today and I’ve been doing, I’ve been doing lots of revisions, like chunks and kind of jumping all over the place. And so it’s time to go back and read it as a whole and read it out loud. And you know, so I’m going to try after a meeting tomorrow morning. I’m going to try to take as much of the day as I can to get that done. So we’ll see. Um, yeah. And then go from there. So.
Oh good. Well I can’t wait. I can’t wait. So that’s very good. You have been, you’ve been a little bit better than me and staying the course and you know, you’re, you’re an organized person and I’m, I’m impressed by you, so I’m going to try to …
You’re being entirely too kind, but thank you. Yes I’m very, very organized.
Anyway, anyway, so we’ve got our goals and we’re busy still in October. I’m going to, I’m going to homecoming at college next weekend. Oh, that’s going to be so fun. I know. See some old roommates and stuff, so, yeah, and then Halloween and then, then I’m really gonna focus. I just feel like it.
That sounds great.
And I’m don’t forget that next week we’re going to have our part one of our Corks and Conversation at Thrillerfest. So I hope everybody listens. It’ll be so good. There’s many good authors we talked to.
Oh, we talked, to how many authors did we talk to?
Eleven.
Eleven authors and they were all over the gamut from types of authors and types of thriller writing that they did. And it was very exciting and newbie writers to people really, really experienced and who have done this a lot. It was really wonderful, I think. I think everyone’s really gonna like it. And I think you’re probably gonna be introduced to some writers that you may not have known up to this point.
Yeah. So that’ll be exciting.
Yes, it will.
All right, so I guess we should say cheers.
Cheers.
Thanks to our mysterious foodies out there for listening and sharing. Check out our website, GameofBookspodcast.com where you can find links to all we talk about. And if you subscribe to our weekly newsletter, you can get those links sent directly to you along with any exciting updates. We are also on Facebook and Twitter under @gobwriters.
And if you enjoyed this episode as much as we did, we would love to hear from you and please subscribe to Game of Books wherever you listen to podcasts so you don’t miss any of our book club ideas and Corks and Conversations with award winning and bestselling authors.
That’s all for today’s episode of Game of Books podcast, where we share food, wine, and mystery every Friday morning, just in time for the weekend.
This is Christie.
and Cathi.
Saying, thanks for listening.
Bye everybody.
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