ABOUT THE BOOK
Someone’s watching . . .
Zoe McCabe is a beautiful young actress on the verge of stardom who has been basking in the standing ovations and rave reviews she’s been getting from critics and fans alike for her portrayal of Desdemona in an off-Broadway production of Othello. As she takes her final bows, Zoe has no idea that, seated in the audience, a man has been studying her night after night, performance after performance. A man whose carefully crafted plans are for the young actress to take a starring role in a far deadlier production he has created just for her.
Portland, Maine detectives Mike McCabe and Maggie Savage are settling into the new rhythm of their relationship when McCabe gets a late night call from his brother Bobby that Zoe, McCabe's favorite niece and Bobby’s daughter, has suddenly disappeared. The NYPD is certain Zoe's abduction is the work of the man the tabloids have dubbed “The Star Struck Strangler,” a killer who has been kidnapping, abusing and finally strangling one beautiful young performer after another. Bobby begs McCabe to return to the New York City crime beat he’d left behind so many years ago, to work his old connections, and to help find Zoe before her time runs out. The stakes for McCabe and Savage have never been higher. Or more personal. And suddenly the race is on to stop a vicious attacker, before the McCabe family is torn apart beyond repair.
Book Details:
Title: A Fatal Obsession
Author: James Hayman
Genre: Mystery/Thriller
Series: McCabe and Savage Thrillers, book 6
Publisher: Witness Impulse (August 21, 2018)
Print length: 432 pages
On tour with: Partners in Crime Virtual Book Tours
INTERVIEW WITH JAMES HAYMAN
Q: James, tell us about your series. Is this book a standalone, or do readers need to read the series in order?
A: A Fatal Obsession is the sixth entry in the McCabe/Savage suspense thriller series. Each of the books can be enjoyed as stand alones. However some readers may enjoy the evolution from book to book of the relationship between the two protagonists, Detective Sergeant Michael McCabe and Detective Maggie Savage.
Q: Where’s home for you?
A: I live in the wonderful small city of Portland, Maine. I call it wonderful because it boasts everything I want in a hometown: a vibrant urban feel, great restaurants, great architecture, terrific art and music scenes and it’s right on the water on Casco Bay.
Q: Where did you grow up?
A: I was born in Brooklyn and grew up in Manhattan. When I was fourteen I was sent off to boarding school in Andover, MA. where I spent four years. So in a very real sense I can say I also grew up in New England.
Q: What’s your favorite memory?
A: Getting married to a very special woman in a four hundred year old Anglican church in the tiny village of Penkridge, Staffordshire, England and driving off to the reception at my in-laws home in a 1937 Rolls Royce.
Q: If you had an extra $100 a week to spend on yourself, what would you buy?
A: An extra $100 would buy me a bottle of very, very good single malt Scotch Whisky.
Q: What’s the dumbest purchase you’ve ever made?
A: A $100 bottle of very, very good Scotch Whisky.
Q: Have you been in any natural disasters?
A: Yes. When we first moved to Maine we lived right on the ocean in a house we had built on an island off the coast from Portland. On April 18th, 2007 the so-called Patriots Day Storm struck. Hurricane force winds and wild waves for over twenty-four hours. No power for nearly a week. The storm was officially declared a natural disaster.
Q: What is the stupidest thing you've ever done?
A: Drove from New York City to the end of Long Island in a driving snowstorm in an ancient VW Beetle. Ran out of windshield washing fluid about halfway and could only keep the windshield from freezing up by washing it with the contents of a bottle of vodka I had in the car.
Q: What’s one thing that you wish you knew as a teenager that you know now?
A: When I was a teenager I was convinced I knew just about all there was to know about life. I wish I knew then what I know now . . . that I knew next to nothing.
Q: What’s one thing you wish your younger writer self knew?
A: If I’d known that I’d be able to sell the first novel I ever wrote to major publishers in half a dozen countries I would have started writing novels decades earlier.
Q: What makes you bored?
A: Long windy speeches from dull windy people at weddings, formal dinners, and/or endless business meetings. Happily, on these occasions I can usually retreat into my own world of day-dreams which is invariably more interesting.
Q: What choices in life would you like to have a redo on?
A: I’d like to start writing fiction earlier than I did.
Q: If someone gave you $5,000 and said you must solve a problem, what would you do with the money?
A: I’d give it to an organization like a homeless shelter or Doctors Without Borders or the National Resources Defense Council.
Q: How did you meet your spouse?
A: We met on a blind date in London when I went there on vacation. We were introduced by a British girl I knew in New York. I think we both knew we had something special right from the get go. We spent about three days together in England before I had to head home to New York. But, after I got back, I wrote her and asked her to come visit me in NYC. To my amazement she agreed. The rest, as they say, is history.
Q: What are your most cherished mementoes?
A: Two watches inherited from my brother who was much older than me and who died far too young from cancer.
Q: What’s your favorite line from a book?
A: “It is cold at 6:40 in the morning of a March day in Paris and seems even colder when a man is about to be executed by firing squad.” Day of the Jackel by Frederick Forsyth.
Q: What’s one of your favorite quotes?
A: “Outside of a dog a book is man’s best friend. Inside of a dog it’s too dark to read.” –Groucho Marx.
Q: That's one of mine, too! What would your main character say about you?
A: How in the world did somebody as goofy as you dream up somebody as cool as me?
Q: Who are your favorite authors?
A: Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Kate Atkinson, Donna Tartt, Dennis Lehane, Michael Connelly, and Ian McEwan.
Q: What book are you currently reading and in what format?
A: Fatal Vision by Joe McGinniss. I’m reading the ebook version.
Q: What’s one pet peeve you have when you read?
A: A font too small for my aging eyes. That’s why I usually read on a Kindle. I can make the font as big as I want.
Q: What’s the best compliment you’ve ever received about your writing?
A: “Turning someone else’s terror, pain, and even death into diverting entertainment is at the core of the mystery writer’s craft, and here Hayman offers a stunning lesson in how to do it . . . Everything goes right here: pacing, mood, and lean, elegant writing.” (Booklist)
Q: Where and when do you prefer to do your writing?
A: In the morning in the quiet room at the top of the University of Southern Maine library. It’s comfortable, quiet and a five-minute walk from my house.
OTHER BOOKS BY JAMES HAYMAN
The Chill of Night
Darkness First
The Girl in the Glass
The Girl on the Bridge
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
A native New Yorker, James Hayman worked for Madison Avenue advertising agencies for over 30 years before moving to Portland, Maine to continue his writing career. His first thriller, The Cutting, was published in 2009 and introduced Portland detectives Mike McCabe and Maggie Savage to mystery fans. Four more McCabe/Savage thrillers followed garnering great reviews and landing Hayman on the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and USA Today best-seller lists. James currently lives in Portland with his wife, artist, Jeanne O’Toole Hayman and their rescue cocker spaniel, Pippa. His 6th McCabe/Savage thriller, A Fatal Obsession, came out August 21st and, according to NYT #1 bestselling author A.J. Finn, “A Fatal Obsession is (Hayman’s) finest to date: a ferocious live-wire thriller starring two of the most appealing cops in contemporary fiction."Connect with James: Website | Blog | Facebook | Twitter | Goodreads | Amazon
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