{{{ AUTHOR INTERVIEW }}} Greg Messel, author of 'San Francisco Nights' @GregMessel & Giveaway!

Greg Messel has spent most of his adult life interested in writing, including a career in the newspaper business. He won a Wyoming Press Association Award as a columnist and has contributed articles to various magazines. Greg lives in Edmonds, Washington on Puget Sound with his wife Jean DeFond.

Greg has written ten novels. His latest is "San Francisco Nights" which is the seventh in a series of mysteries set in 1959 San Francisco. "Shadows In The Fog," "Fog City Strangler," "San Francisco Secrets," "Deadly Plunge" are sequels to the first book in the series "Last of the Seals." His other three novels are "Sunbreaks," "Expiation" and "The Illusion of Certainty." For a more detailed summary of Greg's novels go to www.gregmessel.com

Greg is currently working on his eleventh novel "Dreams That Never Were" which is not part of the mystery series.

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About the Book:

The wife of a wealthy San Francisco shipping magnate leads a secret life but someone is threatening

to expose her. Private eye Sam Slater and his wife and partner, Amelia, meet a mysterious woman in a large red hat during a train trip. The woman approaches him pleading for help because she‘s receiving anonymous notes quoting Bible verses which are becoming more and more ominous with each passing day. Her secrets have been discovered but by whom? What really happens behind closed doors in Room 505 in a swanky downtown hotel?

Sam is willing to take the case but Amelia warns that this woman is nothing but trouble. What does the woman really want? She’s been watching Sam for months and has a scheme to pull him into her world.

Find out in the latest Sam Slater Mystery “San Francisco Nights” set in the fall of 1959. It’s the seventh book in the series but is a heart pounding stand alone whodunit.

Watch the book trailer at YouTube.

ORDER YOUR COPY AT AMAZON

Welcome back to The Writer’s Life, Greg. I am so excited there’s another Sam Slater book! How long did it take you to write this sequel?

Greg: Probably about ten months. That’s the actual day-to-day writing but I’ve been thinking about it for a while.

For those not familiar with your series, can you name each book and a brief blurb for them?

Greg:

Last of the Seals: The first book in the series is “Last of the Seals.” The title refers to San Francisco’s baseball team before the Giants—it was the Pacific Coast League team, the San Francisco Seals. We first meet Sam Slater who is a baseball player at the end of his career in 1957. He encounters a young stewardess being harassed by some drunks and rescues her. That TWA stewardess is Amelia Ryan. Sam and Amelia continue to see one another as their relationship begins. She says "my brothers will be so impressed that I’m dating a Seal" and Sam says, "my brother will be impressed that I’m dating a stewardess." Sam’s best friend Jimmy Jankow is a private eye and plans to take on Sam as a partner and teach him the business. However, Jimmy is in the wrong place at the wrong time and is murdered by a mob hit man. This thrusts Sam into the private eye business and his first case is solving Jimmy’s murder.

Deadly Plunge: A rich, well-connected politican suddenly ends his life by plunging off the Golden Gate Bridge. His friends and family insist there was foul play. The key to unraveling the mystery seems to be a strange old Victoirian-style house where a shadowy political group is holding clandestine meetings. Sam and Amelia team up for the first time to try to discover what goes on behind close doors in the mysterious house.

San Francisco Secrets: A prominent doctor is being blackmailed but the private eye helping the doctor is murdered. Sam tries to pick up the trail and finds himself surrounded by several people with secrets. Meanwhile, Amelia becomes an international stewardess who starts traveling to London, Rome and Paris. Amelia's new job is complicated by a womanizing pilot who has his sights set on her.

Fog City Strangler: The city is terrorized by a man who calls himself the "Fog City Strangler”who boasts to local newspapers about his latest victims, who are pretty young blonde women. The strangler seems to be getting closer and closer to Sam and especially to Amelia, who seems to be the prototype of the strangler’s prey. Against this backdrop Sam and Amelia are hired to find a wealthy dowager’s daughter who has gone missing after taking a walk on the beach.

Shadows In The Fog: Amelia is forced to resign as a TWA stewardess after marrying Sam and becomes his full time partner in the private eye business. As a favor to a friend, Sam tries to help a young cop but the policeman is gunned down. Sam and Amelia’s investigation puts them in conflict with the San Francisco mob boss and some ruthless gangsters in Chinatown. One night Amelia is kidnapped in Chinatown and Sam begins desperately searching for her before it’s too late.

Cable Car Mystery: Sam rescues a woman who falls off of a cable car and his face is plastered all over the front page of the city papers as a hero. The woman whispers to Sam that she was pushed—someone is trying to kill her and then disappears into the crowd. As Sam tries to find the woman, Amelia notices that her sweet elderly neighbor has disappeared and his house is now occupied by two young thugs. One night Amelia grabs a flashlight and finds some disturbing clues in the neighbor’s garage.

San Francisco Nights: Sam meets a mysterious woman on a train. The woman pleads for Sam’s help and says someone is trying to kill her. She’s receiving ominous notes which quote Bible verses. Sam and Amelia find this wealthy socialite has a double life—one as a woman married to a successful shipping magnate and another life that is a secret world which she take great pains to conceal. Someone has discovered her secrets and is about to expose them.

Will there be more in the series?

Greg: Yes. I’m not sure when it will end but as long as I keep coming up with good story lines I plan to continue. I love the characters and the setting of San Francisco in the 1950s. Someday when I stop writing the Sam Slater series it will be like losing good friends. The next one in the series will be “Gaslight Ghosts.” I’ve always wanted to write a good ghost story and “gaslight” is about San Francisco’s early days at the turn of the 20th century. I’ve been researching San Francisco ghost stories and there are lots of good ones. I’m counting on one of them to ignite my imagination. It will be interesting for Sam and Amelia to deal with some supernatural events.

I do want to plug your magnificent book trailer. Watch!

Greg, who made your trailer?

Greg:My publishing team headed by Todd Rutherford. They do quality work and I think they especially excel with covers and trailers. All the books in this series have great covers thanks to them.

So what’s been happening in your life since we last had you here?

Greg: I’ve had a great deal of turmoil in the last few years and have tried to keep writing. My wife Carol died in 2014 of early onset Alzheimers. I also moved from my home in the Seattle area to Utah to have my adult kids help me. But then I hooked up with a dear friend who had lost her husband. My new wife, Jean and I were married in September of 2015 and I moved back to Seattle. I’m very happy now and Jean is very supportive of my writing and I have a great situation. Other than that…not much happening.

I wish you luck with your books (and future ones) and hope to have you back. Is there anything you’d like to tell our readers before you go?

Greg: My mystery series is best experienced in sequence but I try very hard to make them all stand-alone books and I think I have succeeded at that. I’m often asked, “what’s a good first book of yours to read?” I always want to suggest a later one because I think my writing gets better with each book. It should be that way. Writing a novel is a real post graduate class in writing. I’m really proud “Fog City Strangler,” “Shadows in the Fog,” and “Cable Car Mystery.” But I do feel my new book “San Francisco Nights” is the best thing I ever written. Jump on any where.