ABOUT THE BOOK
When private detective Sam Quinton sets out to solve the murders of a stripper and small-time gambler, he ends up in the middle of an organized crime war, testing Quinton’s loyalty to an old friend and making him the killers’ next target. While working to stay one step ahead of the killers, Quinton also has to safeguard the life of an elderly couple, who unwittingly hold the key to solving the murders and ending the war.
Book Details:
Title: Squatter’s Rights
Author: Kevin R. Doyle
Genre: mystery
Series: Sam Quinton
Publisher: Camel Press (March 2020)
Print length: 213 pages
LOVE IT OR LEAVE IT WITH KEVIN R. DOYLE
A few of your favorite things: a few of my favorite things are ice-cold Dr Pepper, 1970’s music and summer vacation.
Things you need to throw out: somehow, over the years I’ve collected dozens and dozens of wire hangars. Every now and then, I grab a handful to throw out, but the total amount never seems to diminish.
Things you need in order to write: solitude, not really a problem as I’m a confirmed bachelor with no kids or grandkids.
Things that hamper your writing: grading student work, though it’s rather unavoidable.
Things you love about writing: the thing I love most about writing is doing a first draft. I basically go seat-of-the-pants, so sitting down, idly typing and having a story roll out, often without knowing where it will end up, is kind of cool.
Things you hate about writing: conversely, one of the things I hate most is when edits start coming in from publishers. While I understand how necessary it is, by the time edits are done, I’m often sick to death of what I once thought was a cool book. When The Litter came out, after a year and a half writing process, we did content edits, line edits, proof edits, and galleys within six months. By the time the book actually was released, I couldn’t even stand to think about it. At least for a while.
Easiest thing about being a writer: so far, knock on wood, coming up with ideas. Not that all of them work out.
Hardest thing about being a writer: not having time. As with the majority of folks who pursue this, writing fiction does not count as my primary income, or even my secondary. Actually, last year I made more from short story reprints than from book sales. Even so, a few years back I looked around and saw I had a couple of books out, one or two more in the pipeline at various presses, and publishers willing to take a chance on me. At the time, I told several people, “I’d be enjoying the hell out of this if I didn’t still have to work.” Because I teach high-school English (lots and lots of grading), the majority of the year I can get very little sustained writing done.
Things you love about where you live: my town is what’s known as an urban forest. There are sizable chunks of woodland patchworked within the city. Although I technically live in an urban area, I can often look outside my balcony and see deer walking along the tree line.
Things that make you want to move: the one thing above all that would make me move, and with retirement only a few years off I’m planning now, would be no beaches. When I travel, it’s usually down south as close to the coast as I can get.
Words that describe you: nerdy, bookish, frugal.
Words that describe you but you wish they didn’t: inflexible, stubborn.
Favorite foods: pizza, omelettes, chocolate.
Things that make you want to throw up: pickles, sauerkraut. Really anything with vinegar.
Favorite song: it’s a tie between “I Honestly Love You,” by Olivia Newton John, and “Someone Saved My Life Tonight” by Elton John.
Music that make your ears bleed: rap, I just can’t understand it. I can make out maybe one word in ten.
Favorite beverage: it’s actually a tie. On one end is chocolate milk. On the other is Lost Trail Sugar Cane Cola from Louisburg Cider Mill in Louisburg, Kansas.
Something that gives you a pickle face: well, pickles.
Something you’re really good at: Star Trek trivia. (The good shows/movies, not the crappy new shows/movies.) Something you’re really bad at: any kind of math beyond basic arithmetic.
Something you wish you could do: I’d like to learn to scuba dive, mainly because I want to spend a night or two in Jules Undersea Lodge in Key Largo, Florida.
Something you wish you’d never learned to do: I don’t mind it now, but when I was a kid I wished for a while that I’d never learned how to snap my fingers. The day I finally figured it out, I ended up with blisters on my finger pads because I was snapping them so much.
Something you like to do: no-destination road trips. Grab a suitcase and some spending money, then hit the road with no destination in mind. Come back home when the money runs out.
Something you wish you’d never done: little league baseball. Hated it but was forced to endure for two seasons.
Last best thing you ate: black peppered porkchops in mushroom gravy.
Last thing you regret eating: they go by several names, but years ago one of my speech students showed us how to make what she called frogs’ eyes: a pickle slice slathered in creme cheese and wrapped in lunch meat. Blecchh.
Things you’d walk a mile for: seeing either Elton John or The Eagles in concert. Been lucky enough to see both acts twice.
Things that make you want to run screaming from the room: the idea of seeing Cher in concert. Love her early music (1970’s again), but went to one show and almost walked out.
Things you always put in your books: there’s always at least one death, even if of natural causes.
Things you never put in your books: gratuitous violence, though in the case of The Litter some might disagree.
Things to say to an author: where can I buy a copy of your book? (And actually mean it.)
Things to say to an author if you want to be fictionally killed off in their next book: where do you get your ideas? (Where the heck does anyone get ideas for anything?)
Favorite places you’ve been: I won’t give the name because I don’t want to ruin it, but years ago I stumbled upon a little town of, oh I don’t know, around three thousand people or so on the coast of Texas. It has an old, almost antique hotel on the shore. Not a tourist area, but one heck of a place to completely get away from it all.
Places you never want to go to again: my twenties—a horrible period of time for me.
Things that make you happy: summer vacation (I work as a teacher).
Things that drive you crazy: freshmen.
Proudest moment: has to be getting the first acceptance letter for a short story. Even though a few months later the editor changed his mind, I still remember what it felt like to read that letter.
Most embarrassing moment: probably one night when I realized, five minutes before class, that I’d totally forgotten to do the assigned project for that night. It was a required graduate course, and the professor was the chair of the department. That was an incredibly awkward conversation.
Most daring thing you’ve ever done: in Louisville, Kentucky, you can go zip lining in an underground cavern. In some places, the cave floor is a couple of thousand feet down. Absolutely terrifying.
Something you chickened out from doing: attending college graduation, both times.
The last thing you did for the first time: eat conch fritters.
Something you’ll never do again: eat conch fritters. Uggh.
OTHER BOOKS BY KEVIN DOYLE
The GroupWhen You Have to Go There
The Litter
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Connect with Kevin:
Website | Facebook | Goodreads | Amazon
Buy the book:
Amazon | Barnes & Noble
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