CHARACTER INTERVIEW WITH ELENA HARTWELL'S EDDIE SHOES

ABOUT THE BOOK

Private investigator Eddie Shoes heads to a resort outside Leavenworth, Washington, for a mother-daughter getaway weekend. Eddie's mother, Chava, wants to celebrate her new job at a casino by footing the bill for the two of them, and who is Eddie to say no?

On the first morning, Eddie goes on an easy solo hike, and a few hours later, stumbles into a makeshift campsite and finds a gravely injured man. A forest fire breaks out and she struggles to save him before the flames overcome them both. Before succumbing to his injuries, the man hands her a valuable item. He tells her his daughter is missing and begs for her help. Is Eddie now working for a dead man?

Barely escaping the fire, Eddie wakes in the hospital to find both her parents have arrived on the scene. Will Eddie's card-counting mother and mob-connected father help or hinder the investigation? The police search in vain for a body. How will Eddie find the missing girl with only her memory of the man's face and a photo of his daughter to go on?

Book 3 in the Eddie Shoes Mystery Series, which began with One Dead, Two to Go.

Book Details:

Title: Three Strikes, You’re Dead

Author’s name: Elena Hartwell

Character’s full name: Eddie Shoes (Edwina Zapata Schultz)

Genre: Mystery/Suspense/Private Eye

Series: Eddie Shoes Mystery Series, 3rd in series

Camel Press (April 1, 2018)
Paperback: 288 pages
On tour with: Great Escapes Book Tours

ABOUT THE CHARACTER


Eddie was born to a teenage mother in Spokane, Washington. After dropping out of high school and spending a few years on the move, she settled in Seattle, Washington, where she worked for a private investigator. She earned a private investigator license not long before her mentor committed suicide. Unable to deal with the tragedy, and her feelings of guilt over her failure to save him, she fled her romantic relationship and headed to Bellingham, Washington to set up shop. Book one in the series picks up a few years later. Her estranged mother arrives on her doorstep and her ex-boyfriend moves to town. Then dead people start showing up.

CHARACTER INTERVIEW WITH ELENA HARTWELL’S EDDIE SHOES

Eddie, how did you first meet Elena?
According to her, she was on a road trip with her husband, and he came up with the name Eddie Shoes. She likes to say the name started it all. She claims I’m the love child of James Rockford and Kinsey Millhone. I think that’s a joke, but it’s a little hard to tell.

Why do you think that your life has ended up being in a book?
I blame my mother. Life was going along great before she showed up and butted her way into my house and my work. She keeps getting us tangled up in homicide investigations, which is not my forte, as I lean toward safer clients. Okay, maybe that’s not totally fair. My life wasn’t exactly great, but at least no one shot at me. Things have gotten a little more interesting having Chava around. And she takes great care of my dog when I have to work. I seem to be extending my circle of friends, I’m not quite the loner I used to be. All right, I’ll admit it. Life is going along great now with my dog, my friends, and my mother. But do me a favor, don’t tell Chava that.

Tell us about your favorite scene in the book.
The best scene to be in is when I get to eat this fabulous dinner at the resort where I end up with both my parents. They haven’t really seen each other since before I was born (you can read One Dead, Two to Go to find out how my father came back in my life). But the best scene to read is probably my escape from a forest fire. It’s very exciting!

If you could rewrite anything in your book, what would it be?
I would be independently wealthy and have at least one more bathroom now that Chava is living with me.

Tell the truth. What do you think of your fellow characters?
I wish I was some of my fellow characters. They have pretty great lives. My best friend Iz has it made. She’s sassy and gorgeous and tough, I’d love to spend time in her shoes. She’s smart and doesn’t get hung up over anything or anyone. Chance Parker is a homicide detective and my ex-boyfriend. People respect him because of the job he does. He’s smart, methodical, fair, and always solves his cases. He’s very sought after because he has such a high solve rate. If I could be him for a little while, maybe I could figure out how he feels about me. My friend Debbie Buse would be a lot of fun to be too. She lives above her bookstore with her two dogs, Indy and Gracie Allen. I’d love that life. I don’t want to be Chava though. Then I’d have me for a daughter … although maybe that would be okay too.

Do have any secret aspirations that Elena doesn’t know about?
Rock star! She should totally write a scene where I sing karaoke! I know I could do it.

If you had a free day with no responsibilities and your only mission was to enjoy yourself, what would you do?
I would go get coffee at Rustic Coffee in Fairhaven, head over to The Book Keeper and peruse the shelves. Then I’d have lunch at the Skylark. I’d visit the dog park with Debbie Buse and her dogs. I’d probably get another coffee in the afternoon, then later, I’d have dinner with my mom. It doesn’t sound like much, but that’s probably my favorite day.



What's the worst thing that's happened in your life?
My mentor Benjamin Franklin “Coop” Cooper, committed suicide. I learned you can’t stop someone who’s serious about killing themself. I think I have more to learn from what happened, but I don’t know what that is yet. It shadows everything I do.

 

What are you most afraid of?
Missing out on the chance for true happiness.



What’s the best trait Elena has given you? What’s the worst?
The Best? I’m funny. The worst? My mother is funnier.


What’s Elena’s worst habit?
She really has a messy desk. I keep trying to get her to clean up, but she’s hopeless. She usually has a couple coffee cups, a half a bag of dark chocolate covered walnuts (which she will NOT share with me), and receipts she should have entered into her tax documents a month ago. Every couple of months I talk her into tidying up, but that only lasts a day or two and things start to pile up again. She also keeps killing her houseplant. I told her she should just get an air fern and call it a day.



Describe the town where you live.
I live in Bellingham, Washington. It’s a town of about 80,000 people not far from Vancouver, Canada. It’s a college town, so it has a lot of young people and that laid back college vibe. It has a beautiful “old town,” which was actually the town of Fairhaven, settled in the 1880s. Fairhaven became a part of Bellingham around 1900. It has brick buildings and cobblestone streets, and it sits near Bellingham Bay. In addition to the bay, there are also lakes and rivers around the area and the Cascade Mountain Range is nearby, so there’s a lot of natural beauty.

What makes you stand out from any other characters in your genre?
Besides being half Latina and half Jewish, I’m almost six feet tall, and my sidekick is my mother. Add in we live in the far northwest corner of the country, and I think I’m fairly unique.

If you could be “adopted” by another writer, who would you choose?
I would love to be written by the late, great Sue Grafton. My author attributes a lot of her voice to falling in love with Kinsey Millhone. I think Kinsey and I would be very good friends.

Will you encourage Elena to write a sequel?
I’m always after her to get me and Chance back together again.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Elena Hartwell is the author of the Eddie Shoes Mystery series, about a mother/daughter, crime-fighting duo set in Bellingham, Washington. The third book in the series, Three Strikes, You’re Dead launched April 1. Elena lives in North Bend, Washington, on the middle fork of the Snoqualmie River. When she’s not scribbling mysteries, Elena can be found playing with her horses. She loves reading, writing, and the Oxford comma. If you follow her on Facebook or visit her website, you can see cute pictures of all her animals.



Connect with Elena:
Website  |  Blog  |  Facebook  |  Twitter  | Goodreads

Buy the book:
Amazon  |  Barnes & Noble 

GUEST POST BY ELENA HARTWELL

ABOUT THE BOOK

Private Investigator Edwina “Eddie Shoes” Schultz’s most recent job has her parked outside a seedy Bellingham hotel, photographing her quarry as he kisses his mistress goodbye. This is the last anyone will see of the woman… alive. Her body is later found dumped in an abandoned building. Eddie’s client, Kendra Hallings, disappears soon after. Eddie hates to be stiffed for her fee, but she has to wonder if Kendra could be in trouble too. Or is she the killer?

Eddie usually balks at matters requiring a gun, but before she knows it, she is knee-deep in dangerous company, spurred on by her card-counting adrenaline-junkie mother who has shown up on her doorstep fresh from the shenanigans that got her kicked out of Vegas. Chava is only sixteen years older than Eddie and sadly lacking in parenting skills. Her unique areas of expertise, however, prove to be helpful in ways Eddie can’t deny, making it hard to stop Chava from tagging along.

Also investigating the homicide is Detective Chance Parker, new to Bellingham’s Major Crimes unit but no stranger to Eddie. Their history as a couple back in Seattle is one more kink in a chain of complications, making Eddie’s case more frustrating and perilous with each tick of the clock.

GUEST POST BY ELENA HARTWELL

Getting The Details Right In Fiction

One of the trickiest things about writing fiction is getting details correct, especially in areas where the writer doesn’t have personal experience. For example, I’ve never killed anyone. I’ve also never found a dead body or investigated a homicide. This makes it tough to accurately portray a killer, a witness, or a detective.

And in my fiction, I do all three.

So what’s a writer to do?

In my experience, it’s a combination of research and common sense.

A writer also has to be prepared to have experts point out mistakes in their published novels and be gracious about it. It will be tempting to correct their grammar while they do so, but bite your tongue, smile, and say thank you.

For research, I love to read nonfiction in the subjects pertaining to a specific manuscript. Whether it’s cheating at cards or narcissistic personality disorder, there are plenty of great resources out there written by experts. I read about areas I know I’ll need help with before I start a manuscript.

Once I start writing the manuscript, I continue to do research, either online or in nonfiction books. I also keep a running list of questions for an expert.

After I’ve written the first solid draft—my writing process includes a lot of rewriting as I go, so “first draft” is a bit misleading—I contact experts in the various disciplines explored in the work.

This is my favorite part about being a writer. Experts love to talk about the things they are passionate about. I have gotten to tour through a working glass factory, gone on rides with the fire department, and have a long-standing relationship with a homicide detective.

I’ve also interviewed veterans about PTSD, spoken with beekeepers about colony collapse disorder, and spent time with people at a mental health facility. These experiences stay with me and dictate not just the words I put on the page, but also how I see the world.

Talking with experts is the best way I know how to sprinkle my fiction with real-world jargon, specific details, and accurate depictions. It’s also a great way to figure out plot points and actions that might not otherwise occur to me. The opening to the second book in my series, Two Heads Are Deader Than One, completely changed after a conversation with my expert in homicide detection. Without talking to him, I might never have figured out a great way to get my protagonist into trouble in the first place.

Then comes the common sense part. This is hard because you don’t know what you don’t know. Sometimes I get information wrong because I never knew to ask a certain question. So the first thing a writer has to develop is a keen sense of “why do I think that?”

If the answer is, because that’s how I’ve seen it portrayed over and over again on TV and in the movies, a red flag should be going up.

From homicide investigation tactics, to weapons, to medical emergencies, the public has been fed a steady stream of inaccurate depictions of crime and the people who deal with it on a daily basis.

One of the things I include with my questions for my experts are all the details I think I have correct. So, in addition to asking “how would you…” I also say, “I believe the following is true…” and make sure I verify what I think I know with someone who actually does.

Truth is stranger than fiction. It’s also important to people. Getting things “right” in your fiction shows readers you care about the characters you write and the world they live in. It also shows you care about the world you live in. With the recent explosion of fake news and a lack of respect for what’s true, fiction writers have an even greater duty to “get things right.”

The bottom line? Do the best you can, your readers will forgive your human errors and appreciate how hard you try. Own your mistakes and move on.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

After twenty years in the theater, Elena Hartwell turned her dramatic skills to fiction. Her first novel, One Dead, Two to Go introduces Eddie Shoes, private eye. Called “the most fun detective since Richard Castle stumbled into the 12th precinct,” by author Peter Clines, I’DTale Magazine stated, “this quirky combination of a mother-daughter reunion turned crime-fighting duo will captivate readers.”

In addition to her work as a novelist, Elena teaches playwriting at Bellevue College and tours the country to lead writing workshops.

When she’s not writing or teaching, her favorite place to be is at the farm with her horses, Jasper and Radar, or at her home, on the middle fork of the Snoqualmie River in North Bend, Washington, with her husband, their dog, Polar, and their trio of cats, Jackson, Coal Train, and Luna, aka, “the other cat upstairs.” Elena holds a B.A. from the University of San Diego, a M.Ed. from the University of Washington, Tacoma, and a Ph.D. from the University of Georgia.

Connect with Elena:
Webpage  |   Blog   |   Facebook  |   Twitter   |   Goodreads   |   Pinterest   

Buy the book:
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