James Sheehan - The Thinking Man's Grisham

When James Sheehan decided to set pen to paper eighteen years ago, he was looking for a hobby that would ease the stress of his job as a trial attorney. Today, he is the author of three thought-provoking legal thrillers that inspire readers to ponder the complexities of life.

Sheehan, a native New Yorker, came to Florida over thirty years ago to study law at Stetson University. After working for a firm that represented major corporations, he decided to go into private practice where he could represent individuals who were downtrodden or discriminated against. His desire to “humanize” the death penalty issue inspired him to write The Mayor of Lexington Avenue, the tale of Jack Tobin, an idealistic trial lawyer fighting to exonerate an innocent man on death row. Praised as “A terrific novel, a genuine literary achievement” (Booklist), the book established Sheehan as an insightful new voice in the legal thriller genre. By seamlessly weaving together the stories of two childhood friends whose lives take vastly different paths, Sheehan gets readers to examine the thorny subject of capital punishment in a new light.

A year later, Sheehan revisited the death penalty question in The Law of Second Chances, the story of Henry Wilson, a death row inmate, and Benny Avrile, a man facing the death penalty for his role in a robbery/murder. Their lives intersect when Jack Tobin finds himself representing both men. Unlike The Mayor of Lexington Avenue, The Law of Second Chances is based on an actual case. “People always asked me if Mayor was based on a true story. It wasn’t, but I thought I’d do that with Second Chances,” Sheehan explains. “So I researched death penalty cases until I found the one I wanted.” Sheehan was also looking for a character as compelling as the one he created in his first novel. “I had such a great character in Rudy (the innocent inmate in Mayor) that I wanted to come up with one just as good. I think I did that with Henry Wilson.” It seems that the critics agree. The Law of Second Chances has been called “An involving thriller that is also a moving meditation on love and friendship.” (Booklist)

Sheehan’s third book, The Lawyer’s Lawyer, is another in the Jack Tobin series. According to Sheehan, “A lawyer’s lawyer is the lawyer other lawyers look for when they get into trouble, and Jack certainly fits that bill.” The story begins in a small Florida town that is being ravaged by a serial killer. A suspect is eventually arrested, convicted, and sentenced to death. Ten years later, as the execution date draws near, Jack Tobin is asked to revisit the case. This sets into motion a series of events that lead to Jack being tried for murder. Now he must find his own lawyer’s lawyer or risk becoming the newest resident on Florida’s death row. The Lawyer’s Lawyer is slated for release in January, 2013.

In his spare time, Sheehan keeps his brain sharp by reading, his body fit by competing in triathlons, and his soul nourished by spending time with his five grandchildren. In addition to teaching full-time at Stetson Law School, his alma mater, he has finished his fourth novel, The Alligator Man, a legal thriller that could have come straight from today’s headlines. The Alligator Man tells the story of a young Floridian whose life is decimated when the company he works for is driven into bankruptcy by corporate greed, and he decides to avenge himself by murdering the former CEO.  The idea for the book came from Sheehan’s desire to explore what causes a person to become a criminal. “As a society, we treat people in a black-and-white way, but most things aren’t that clear cut,” he says. “The message from my books, and from fiction in general, is that there are lots of layers to life. And books provide a tapestry for life. That’s why people enjoy them so much.”

For more about Jim Sheehan, visit his website at www.james-sheehan.com

Next: Cynthia Thomason – A Place for Romance

Randy Wayne White - Doc Ford and Dinkin's Bay

In 1987, the Tarpon Bay Marina in Sanibel closed its doors, and Randy Wayne White found himself out of a job.  After spending thirteen years as a fishing guide, White had to look for another line of work.  As it turned out, the marina’s loss was the reading public’s gain.

White moved to Florida in 1972 and took a job working for the Fort Meyers News-Press.  He was impressed by the “complexities” of the state, and became fascinated by Florida’s social and natural history.  He also found himself drawn to the sea and eventually obtained his captain’s license.  Then he decided to purchase a boat and become a light-tackle fishing guide.

His experiences on the water inspired him to try his hand at writing. Although he had never formally studied the craft, he was an avid reader and credits “a wonderful library system” with helping him develop his skills.  “I always wanted to write,” he says.  “It was a calling.”  He was influenced by his favorite writers:  Conrad, Hemingway, Twain, Peter Matthiesen, John D. MacDonald, and John Steinbeck.  In fact, the inspiration for White’s Doc Ford came from a character in Steinbeck’s Cannery Row.  “I wanted to create a character that was purely analytical, not spiritual,” White explains. So he made Doc Ford a scientist - a marine biologist.

White started out writing several novels under the pseudonym “Randy Striker.”  So when the government closed Tarpon Bay to powerboat traffic, White decided to turn to writing full-time.  His first Doc Ford novel, Sanibel Flats, was published in 1990 and was chosen by the American Independent Mystery Booksellers Association as one of the “Hundred Favorite Mysteries of the Twentieth Century.”  Since then, White has published eighteen novels centered around the exploits of ex-CIA agent Doc Ford and his friends at Dinkin’s Bay.  In his latest, Night Vision, Doc Ford finds himself protecting a mystical Guatemalan teenager from the degenerate trailer park manager she can implicate in a murder. According to Booklist, “White handles the action scenes superbly, writing with both precision and dramatic flair, but he gets inside the heads of his characters, too…” 

When it comes to writing, White does his job superbly.  A New York Times-bestselling writer, he has been awarded the Conch Republic Prize for Literature and the John D. MacDonald Award for Literary Excellence.  In addition to his Doc Ford novels, White has written several non-fiction works, many based on his extensive travels.  His non-fiction books include, Baitfishing in the Rainforest, The Sharks of Lake Nicaragua, Last Flight Out, and An American Traveler. The Gift of the Game, a PBS documentary that he wrote and narrated, won the “Best of Best” Award at the 2002 Woods Hole Film Festival.

White structures his novels in three levels.  As he explains it, “First, I try to write a fast story.  I also try to make a political or environmental statement. And then, there’s a spiritual level that I write for myself.  My readers can take from the story whatever they want.” He calls writing “the hardest work I’ve ever done,’ but loves it nonetheless.  According to White, “The best part of writing is reading something I’ve done and saying, ‘Gee, that’s pretty good!’”  He also enjoys having readers tell him how they’ve been affected by his works.  His biggest challenge is finding the time to write. “The impositions on my time are more than I’d ever imagined,” he says “People think that because you write, you don’t really work.  They don’t realize that even when you’re up from the typewriter pacing, you’re still working.” 

White’s next Doc Ford novel, Chasing Midnight, will hit bookstores on March 6, 2012. White describes this as among the best of his thrillers. Set completely on Florida’s west coast, Chasing Midnight finds Doc Ford pitted against environmental extremists and the Russian mob.

When he isn’t writing, White enjoys reading non-fiction, traveling, boating, windsurfing, playing baseball, and socializing with friends at his restaurant, “Doc Ford’s Sanibel Rum Bar & Grill.”  He even dabbles in the culinary arts. “I cook all the time,” he says. “In fact, I do all the cooking at home.”  “Home” for White is an old Cracker house that sits on a Calusa Indian mound on the bay.  For the man who was named a Florida Literary Legend by the 2010 Florida Heritage Book Festival, this peaceful setting has inspired some of the most compelling novels in all Florida fiction.

For more about Randy Wayne White, visit the author’s website at http://www.randywaynewhite.com/

Next: James Sheehan - The Thinking Man's Grisham

Julie Compton: The Story Behind the Story

Julie Compton is fascinated by why people behave the way they do. This fascination has taken her from the practice of law to a career as a writer, culminating in two successful novels that combined elements of both.

Although Compton has been writing “as long as I can remember,” she never thought of making a career of it. She worked for private law firms until the birth of her second daughter when she began staying home with her children and writing seriously. Six years later, she resumed practicing law for a “dream job” as a trial attorney with the US Department of Justice that offered the privilege of working on some of the largest corporate bankruptcies in the country. She returned to writing full time in 2003 when her family moved to Florida for her husband's job.

The idea for her first novel, Tell No Lies, in which an assistant DA compromises both his professional and personal principles in his quest to become top DA, sprang from two separate incidents. “Back in '96 or '97, I heard a radio report about a politician who had been caught doing something unethical, and it got me thinking about what compels someone to do something so obviously wrong. Perhaps I'm too naïve, but I believe most people go into politics for the right reasons, but somewhere along the way they take a wrong turn. At about the same time, I read a newspaper article about a teenage boy who was involved in a crime of some sort – I don’t remember the exact nature of it. His mom claimed he was innocent despite what appeared to be  a mountain of evidence against him, and I found it so interesting how a parent could rationalize the evidence away. I put the two concepts together and wrote the framework for the novel.” Compton worked on the first draft for three years, spent another three years editing, and in 2008, Tell No Lies was finally published. Many critics have compared her to Scott Turow, and Kirkus Reviews gave it a starred review, calling it “a taut, tense cautionary tale complete with courtroom drama and a surprise ending."

Although Tell No Lies has been described as a legal thriller, Compton sees it more as a book about family and relationships. “When I started writing, I didn’t intend for it to be a mystery. I saw it as a relationship story with a mystery imbedded in it. I wanted to explore what makes a generally good person start sliding down the proverbial 'slippery slope'.”  After the novel's release, Compton was fascinated by how much of a lightning rod her protagonist turned out to be. Readers' reactions inspired her to write a sequel, tentatively called Keep No Secrets.

Compton finds it easier to balance her writing and personal life now that her children are older. She even finds time to volunteer as a guardian ad litem for neglected and abused children, a position which heavily influenced the themes of domestic violence in her second thriller, Rescuing Olivia, released in 2010.  Rescuing Olivia is the story of a Florida biker whose girlfriend disappears from the hospital after a motorcycle accident. In his quest to find her and save her life, he is forced to face the demons of his own past if he is to have any chance of saving Olivia from hers. Publishers Weekly called the novel "intense" and "entertaining," and Kirkus Reviews aptly labeled it a "[m]odern-day fairy tale" in which "Compton burrows . . . deeply into Olivia's and Anders' troubled back stories and dramatizes in such psychologically compelling terms the swain's attempt to rescue his princess." Compton hopes her readers will come away from her books realizing that “there’s always a story behind the story.” And that’s the story Compton wants to tell.

For more information, visit the author's website at http://www.julie-compton.com/

Next: Randy Wayne White - Doc Ford and Dinkin's Bay

Drs. Chris Cortman and Harold Shinitzky: Knowing Your Own Mind



Dr. Shinitzky (L) and Dr. Cortman (R)



If you’ve ever felt that something was preventing you from living life to the fullest, two Florida psychologists have a prescription that might be just what the doctor ordered. Doctors Chris Cortman and Harold Shinitzky have combined more than 80,000 hours of clinical experience into Your Mind: An Owner’s Manual for a Better Life, a book that will help readers understand how the mind works by examining “ten simple truths that will set you free.”

The idea was the brainchild of Dr. Cortman, a Sarasota psychologist specializing in the treatment of emotional trauma, relationship problems, depression and anxiety. After twenty years of clinical practice, Cortman identified ten common issues shared by most of his patients and ten interventions to effectively deal with them. He decided to incorporate this information into a book.  A short time later, he attended a meeting of the Florida Psychological Association where the speaker was Dr. Shinitzky, a former faculty member at The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Cortman was so impressed by the presentation that he decided to introduce himself. The two men quickly discovered that they shared common experiences, philosophies - even the same quirky sense of humor - so they decided to collaborate on the book. To Cortman’s original ideas, Shinitzky added his own evidence-based research and clinical anecdotes. Over the next several years, the men became what Shinitzky describes as “two psychologists with one brain.”  

Their mutual respect and admiration enabled Cortman and Shinitzky to avoid the pitfalls that plague other co-authors. According to Cortman, “Working with such a bright, intelligent guy, I worried about being able to disagree without hurt feelings. But Harold made it easy.” Shinitzky  agrees. “The partnership of two doctors without ego issues was so much fun. Writing together was a delight, never an intrusion.” It has also resulted in an immensely readable, common-sense look at the problems that prevent people from enjoying healthy relationships and fulfilling lives.  Shinitzky hopes the book will help readers “go from passive to active participants in their own healing and growth.” Cortman believes that the book presents “simple, yet life-changing concepts” that will enlighten readers and give them insights into their behavior.

Since the release of Your Mind: An Owner’s Manual for a Better Life, the good doctors have lost no time embarking on new projects. In addition to their full-time psychological practices, they have converted the information from their book into a youth prevention curriculum that Shinitzky presented to the National Dropout Prevention Conference. The two hope to form a non-profit organization promoting what they call their “Social Black Belt Youth Curriculum.” Shinitzky has also launched an internet patient resource website, “Able Village,” to connect disabled patients to providers they need for comprehensive care. He is the consulting sports psychologist for “Athlete Connections,” a program that helps student athletes transition to life after sports, and has recently been tapped to be consulting psychologist for the Animal Planet show, “Fatal Attractions.”  

For his part, Cortman has been presenting on a multitude of topics to many professional associations and organizations. He recently participated on a panel with Jane Pauley as part of Sarasota’s Community Mental Health program. He also writes a monthly column, “The Couch,” for Venice Magazine. In addition, the charismatic duo have their own half-hour weekly radio show, “Your Mind Matters,” produced by the Health and Wellness Channel, and are planning for the launch of a nightly television show on HWC this spring.  They have recently received an offer to publish their second book, The Age of Anxiety: Protecting Yourself From The 21^st Century Epidemic of Stress, Fear and Worry.

Despite their enormous professional demands, Cortman and Shinitzky recognize the importance of having fun. Cortman enjoys spending time with his wife and three children (including new baby son Dylan.) Shinitzky, who was recently named “Outstanding Psychologist” for his contributions to the Florida Psychological Association, likes to travel, play tennis, and visit with family. But whatever the future may hold for Doctors Cortman and Shinitzky, readers everywhere will benefit from being able to improve their lives by finally having an owner’s manual for their minds.

For more information, you can visit the authors’ websites: drshinitzky.com (Dr. Shinitzky) and srqshrink.com (Dr. Cortman).  

Next: Julie Compton - The Story Behind the Story                                                                 

Blaize Clement - Of People and Pets

Note: Sadly, Blaize Clement lost her battle with cancer in July, 2011, at the age of 78. She was a strong, courageous woman and the epitome of a Fabulous Florida Writer. Her spirit will live on through her wonderful books.

For Sarasota writer Blaize Clement, there were few things more fascinating than people and animals. When she was a child, she loved reading stories about the intelligence and nobility of animals. As an adult and a psychologist, she enjoyed uncovering the true stories of people’s lives. And as a writer, Clement found a way to combine these two interests in her popular Dixie Hemingway Mystery Series, the tales of a professional pet-sitter who finds herself immersed in intrigue and danger. Though her books have been praised for their entertaining stories and memorable characters, Clement believed they had something more to offer. “Dixie is a woman who has had some bad things happen, but is doing her best to move on and help others,” she explained. “I’d like readers to come away from my books with the idea that whoever they are, whatever they do, they’re fine just the way they are. I’m hoping to impart that we can all live together despite our differences. And pets, with their unconditional love, illustrate this.”

Although Clement did not set out to become a writer, she always knew there was one waiting in her future. As a young girl growing up on a farm in north Texas, she could envision herself with gray hair, sitting at a manual typewriter, watching the surf break on the shore. “I don’t know where that image came from, but I’ve had it for as long as I can remember,” she said, “and I just knew the day would come when I would do that.” So when her two sons were grown, Clement began to write. Her experience writing textbooks and expert witness reports helped lay the foundation for her fiction writing. According to Clement, “I’d learned how to sift through information to find the narrative thread. People’s lives have narratives too, and finding them ties into being a mystery writer.” In 2006, she published her first novel, Curiosity Killed the Cat Sitter, which was praised by Booklist as “a first-rate debut.”

The success of Curiosity Killed the Cat Sitter spawned five more mysteries featuring Dixie Hemingway, a former sheriff’s deputy who leaves her job after a family tragedy to become a pet sitter. Clement infuses her protagonist with pluck and humor while utilizing her background in psychology to give Dixie depth and dimension. There are also some wonderfully rendered animal characters that will keep the reader chuckling. The fourth book in the series (Cat Sitter on a Hot Tin Roof) was a finalist for the Mary Higgins Clark Award.

Clement’s upbeat and lighthearted writing belied a life marred by personal tragedies. A bout with polio in her twenties left her unable to walk unassisted. A divorce left her the single mother of two small sons. Defying the odds, Clement put herself through college to become a successful clinical psychologist. Her life seemed to be getting back on track when she was tipped from her wheelchair while being wheeled down an airport jetway, breaking her leg and giving rise to a host of physical complications. No longer able to continue her psychology practice, Clement went to France to recover her health. She returned to the states in 1997 and settled in Sarasota, which became the setting for the Dixie Hemingway series.

Clement’s trademark tenacity continued right up to the end of her life. She spent her final weeks working on the seventh and eighth Dixie Hemingway novels. Before her death, she managed to finish the editing of The Cat Sitter’s Pajamas, (scheduled for publication in mid-January, 2012). She has entrusted her son John with completing the final book, providing him with the first several chapters and a detailed outline, and leaving her readers with a special gift that will keep her memory alive.

Clement believed that people can learn a lot from their animal friends. To her, the relationship between pets and their owners is one of the best examples of unselfish love, and the way animals get along with one another can teach us how to live in harmony. This is the premise for the world she’s created in her books. And Clement often found herself wishing the real world was more like hers.

For more about Blaize Clement, you can visit her website at www.blaizeclement.com

Next: Drs. Chris Cortman and Harold Shinitzky: Knowing Your Own Mind

Tracey A. Akers: Welcome to Aredyrah

It’s been said that a book can open the door to new worlds. For Dade City writer Tracy A. Akers, the key to that door was a pencil and a blank sheet of drawing paper.  As a child, Akers loved to draw.  But as she grew, her life became filled with the demands of teaching, marriage, and motherhood, and she let her artistic side slip away. Then came what she calls her “Middle-age Metamorphosis.

“I got the itch to draw and realized, to my surprise, that it had been thirty years,” she says. “I began playing with it, and I cracked open the creative side of my brain that I’d set aside.”  She began randomly sketching, and a picture emerged of a young boy on horseback – a boy with long red hair, wearing black gloves.  She didn’t know where the image came from. As she drew, a story began to form, and she felt compelled to write it down.  The way Akers explains it, “I didn’t pick the story; the story picked me.”  Although she’d never had any formal training as a writer, she threw herself into learning everything she could about the craft. She read mountains of books, became a member of the Florida Writers Association, joined a critique group, and “practiced, practiced, practiced.”  Two years later, she had completed The Fire and the Light, an award-winning fantasy novel for young adults

The Fire and the Light introduces readers to the world of Aredyrah, the mythical island that is home to Dayn and Ruairi, two teenage boys considered outcasts by their rigid societies. The search for acceptance and truth that brings them together makes for a spellbinding tale that is bound to resonate with young readers experiencing the awkwardness of adolescence.  The saga continues in The Search for the Unnamed One. This second book in what Akers calls “The Souls of Aredyrah Series” won the gold medal for Young Adult Literature in the 2007 Florida Book Awards.  Akers describes the series as “high fantasy that combines romance, adventure, and cultural conflicts.” Both books have been chosen for the Florida Department of Education’s  "Just Read" Families Recommended Summer Reading Lists. Book Three, The Taking of the Dawn, was recently released.  Akers is currently working on The Shifting of the Stars,” Book Four in the Aredyrah series, as well as a separate series still set in Aredyrah, but in a different generation.

Akers finds it a challenge to juggle her real life with the fantasy one she creates as a writer, but she tries to set aside time for her son and grandson and “to make a date with my husband now and then.” She also manages to lecture and attend Science Fiction/Fantasy conferences.  But she’s always happy to return to Aredyrah.  As a former teacher, Akers hopes reluctant readers will join her on the journey. “I want kids to love reading," she explains. "When a kid says, ‘I never liked to read, but I loved your book,’ I know my job is done.”  Akers also hopes their time in Aredyrah will help teens learn to accept themselves. “There are so many teens who find themselves labeled. I hope a kid who doesn’t fit in will be able to walk away from my stories saying, ‘My differences can make me great!'"

For more about Tracey A. Akers, visit her website at http://www.soulsofaredyrah.com/.

Next: Blaize Clement - Of People and Pets

Steve Alten: A Shark Called Meg

As a teenager growing up in Philadelphia, Steve Alten loved reading shark stories. He kept coming across references to something called “Megalodon,” the 70 foot, 70,000 lb. prehistoric relative of the great white shark. At the time, Alten had no way of knowing how “Meg” would someday change his life.

By 1995, Alten had moved his family to South Florida and taken a job as the general manager of a wholesale meat company. Unhappy with his work, he began dabbling in writing. After reading an article in Time magazine about the Mariana Trench (the deepest canyon in the Pacific Ocean), a storyline popped into his head. He decided to set it to paper, working on weekends and weeknights, and in eight months he had completed the manuscript for MEG: A Novel of Deep Terror. On Friday, September 13^th, 1996, Steve lost his job. Four days later, MEG was sold to Bantam-Doubleday and went on to climb to #17 on the New York Times Bestseller List.

MEG tells the story of Jonas Taylor, a diver who encounters a Megalodon on a top-secret dive into the Mariana Trench. Even though no one will believe him, Taylor spends years researching the possibility that this creature could still exist in the ocean depths. In what the New York Post describes as “an adrenaline-pumping thriller,” Taylor once again encounters the deadliest creature to ever prowl the sea. The success of MEG paved the way for a  four-book series: The Trench, Primal Waters,and Hell’s Aquarium. In the latest, and what Alten considers the best of the series, Hell's Aquarium brings back not only Megalodon but many other prehistoric sea monsters for what Alten describes as “a final world wrestling match in the sea.”

In addition to the MEG books, Alten went on to publish several other well-researched, page-turning thrillers. Domain, and its sequel, Resurrection, are part of a series of novels which explore the Mayan Calendar’s prophecy about the end of the world. The most recent addition, Phobos, follows protagonist Immanuel Gabriel as he goes to the end of the world and back again to explore everything the Mayans knew and to show that the universe, and human existence, aren’t what they seem.

Alten has also penned three stand-alone novels: The Loch, Goliath, and The Shell Game. According to Alten, The Shell Game is the longest and most difficult book he’s ever written. A “cautionary tale” about the end of world oil, this controversial and disturbing novel took 2 ½ years to write. Alten spent over a year researching peak oil and its effects on society. This led him to the events of 9-11 and the idea of a government conspiracy. Alten hopes The Shell Game will get readers to “open their eyes and see that part of patriotism is questioning. Without questioning, you can lose your open society.”

The novel Alten considers his best is also his latest book. Grim Reaper: End of Days is the first in what Alten plans as a series that can be described as “The Stand meet Dante’s Inferno.” Set in New York, Grim Reaper takes readers on a classic hero’s journey of good versus evil and transformation versus redemption. Drawing parallels between the lack of morality in Europe in the days preceding the Black Death and the greed and corruption in today’s society, the story centers around a covert biological program that could lead to global pandemic and destruction.

Over the years, Alten had received countless letters from teenagers who said they hated reading until they read his books. When he learned that teachers were using his books in their classrooms, and MEG had been rated a #1 book for reluctant readers, he was inspired to create “Adopt-an-Author”, a nationwide non-profit designed to encourage students to read. Teachers who register for the free program receive giant shark posters, free curriculum materials, an interactive website, student-author correspondence, and classroom conference calls/visits with the author. To date, over 10,000 teachers have registered, and the program has had unprecedented success in getting students to read. (For more information about “Adopt-an-Author,” go to http://www.adoptanauthor.com/.)

 Although Alten makes it a priority to be accessible to his readers, he finds the solitude of writing a challenge. “When you write, you’re on sort of an island with nobody there to help you. It’s all up to you – there’s no right or wrong decision,” he says. But judging from the success he’s enjoyed as an international bestselling author, becoming a writer was the right decision for Steve Alten.

For more about Steve Alten, visit his website at http://www.stevealten.com/

Next: Tracy A. Akers - Welcome to Aredyrah