The Reading Frenzy: **Giveaway** Inerterview with Matt Coyle

Today I'm so happy to welcome back Matt Coyle who's going to tell us about his latest Rick Cahill thriller, Night Tremors. I'm sure once our conversation is through you'll want to read this book as badly as I do. Oh Guess what you'll have a chance to win an autographed copy!
Matt Take it away!

ISBN-13: 9781608091492
Publisher: Oceanview Publishing
Publication date: 6/2/2015
Pages: 330

Overview

Nightmares of the man he killed two years ago still chase Rick Cahill through his sleep. The memory of his murdered wife haunts him during waking hours. His private investigative work, secretly photographing adulterers, paid for his new house but stains his soul.

Read an Excerpt:

Chapter One-

The woman's back arched and her head jerked backwards. Blinds cut shadows across her naked body. She stood splayed, her arms pressed against the wall. Her shoulders shuttered and she twisted towards the window, exposing the man's bald head. His face, a tight grimace that only pain could produce. Well, pain and sex.

Click.

I got the shot I needed. The proof required to trip the adultery clause in the prenup and open the divorce settlement vault. It would be the last one I showed the man's wife, right after the establishing photos of her husband walking into the La Jolla Inn motel room with his mistress.

The adulterer drove a late model, black Cadillac Escalade. He probably liked it because it was a status symbol and a smooth ride. I liked it because it was roomy under the chassis. Plenty of head room when you had to lie under it and shoot pictures up through slanted motel window blinds of cheating hearts, and bodies. My Nikon D7100 got me the shot without a flash lighting up the cool, moonless December sky. It was early evening, but winter and clouds darkened the ancient inn's parking lot.

I crawled on my belly along the asphalt out from under the SUV and stood up. Tiny pebbles and dirt clung to my jeans and dark blue hooded sweatshirt. I tried to brush them off, but the dew in the night air smeared the dirt into grime and stained the clothing. My mind wandered back to my time as a cop. Way back then I'd never envisioned this as a career. A well paid camera jockey, cataloging the weaknesses and bad decisions of others.

A snoop. A Peeping Tom. A private investigator.

I was good at what I did. Maybe the best in San Diego. The stakeout specialist with the steady hands and quick camera finger. I could sit, or stand, or lie and wait forever for people to do what they shouldn't. Then, click, I had their wrongs captured for posterity. Or infamy. I did my job so well that I never talked about it when friends asked what it was like to be a PI.

I swallowed down my introspection and headed across La Jolla Boulevard to the strip mall where I'd left my car. The mall had a Haagen-Dazs ice cream shop. Bright and shiny and full of sweet, creamy sin that went down a lot easier than self analysis. On the drive home, after I'd chomped down the last of a waffle cone topped with two scoops of mint chip, I hit my boss's number on my cell phone.

"You get it?" His voice vibrated the Bluetooth in my ear.

"Hello to you, too."

"I'm with a client." His voice now hushed. "Just give me the news."

"In flagrante."

"You got a knack, Bullet. Print them in the morning, and we'll show them to the client tomorrow afternoon."

Bob Reitzmeyer had dubbed me "Bullet-head" when I was a kid with a military crew cut. I'd listen to his cop stories when my dad brought him home for dinner after their shifts together on the La Jolla Police Department. Thankfully, he'd dropped "head" from the moniker when I graduated from the Ventura Sheriff's Academy and became a cop on the Santa Barbara Police Department. A long time ago.

"Will do."

"Good work. You're turning into a crack peeper. Your pop would be proud."

He hung up, saving me from having to hold my tongue. I doubted my father would have been proud that his son was a "crack peeper."

Dessert already consumed, I was still hungry for dinner. I drove north until I hit La Jolla's restaurant row, Prospect Street. I rolled past towering palm trees, neon and glass edifices with ocean views and an aging cement rectangle sunk below street level with a view of the office building blocking its view of the ocean. Muldoon's Steak House. My former place of employment.

Before my life changed.

Muldoon's was stuck in a 1970's steak house time warp: lit in permanent dusk, redwood slats and brass on the walls, salad bar buffeting an open grill area. It had once been a second home to me. Now it was just a place where I ate dinner a few times a month.

A hostess I didn't know greeted me in the entry.

"Is Turk in tonight?" I asked.

"Mr. Muldoon?" Her voice had a lilt that made sense matched with her big brown eyes.

I nodded.

"No. He may come in later. I'm not sure."

I felt guilty that I was relieved not to have to see my former best friend. Two years ago, Turk had saved my life before I finally saved myself. But I hadn't saved Turk, and he'd paid for my life with his mobility. A debt I could never repay. He'd been a casualty of a bad decision I'd made in my life. There'd been other bad decisions.

And other casualties.

I'd just pushed my empty dinner plate away when a shadow crept across my table. I raised my eyes and saw an old piece of Texas in a tailored western style suit wedged up under a cowboy hat.

"Mr. Cahill." The twang in his voice had been muted by years under the Southern California sun but it still had some Lone Star state left in it.

When I first met Timothy Buckley his wardrobe looked like it had been piecemealed together by Goodwill. He'd spent his time shaking hookers and junkies loose from the legal system on the ugly side of San Diego. Now he hung his shingle in La Jolla, a jagged slice of paradise cut along the coast. The closest he got to hookers and junkies was protecting trust fund babes from "Girls Gone Wild" videos and their silver spoon brothers from DUI charges.

"I think we're past Misters, Buckley. You can call me Rick."

"Well, there it is Rick." He took his hat off, allowing a braided, gray ponytail to fall down onto his back. "I've called you three or four times at your office, but you never call me back."

"Nothing for us to talk about."

"Son, I know we got off to a bad start way back when." He scratched a permanent two week-old gray beard and squinted watery eyes at me. "But you're 'bout as ornery as a polecat with his tail up."

"Then why the phone calls?"

"Sometimes a skunk spreading stink around is the only way to flush out the truth."

"You seem to have gone a little more country since I last saw you, Buckley. Is that for my benefit?"

"I'm afraid it's out of habit. My upper crust clientele expect an attorney from Texas to be folksy. I aim to please." He threaded the brim of his cowboy hat through his fingers. "Mind if I sit down, Rick?"

I weighed hearing Buckley out against the possibility of seeing Turk hobble in on his cane. I gambled and nodded to the right side of the booth. Buckley slid in, set his hat on the table, and steepled his fingers.

The waiter came by and asked if he could get me anything else. By the way Buckley wetted his lips, it looked like he had his mind set on the first nip of the day.

"Just the check. Thanks." I looked at Buckley. "Despite the fact that I ignore your phone calls, you keep making them, and you somehow track me to a restaurant I only decided to eat at an hour ago. What the hell do you want?"

"I'm not trying to pester you, son." He spread his hands open over his hat. "I heard you eat back at your old haunts every now and again. It's that important that we talk."

"It's important to you."

"I know I put a burr under your saddle during that Windsor mess, but I was just protecting my client. And everything turned out okay come closin' time."

The "Windsor mess" had ended two years ago, but it still haunted my dreams.

"It turned out okay for you. A change in clientele and zip codes." I slowly nodded my head. "But, come closin' time, three people were dead." And one left walking with a cane.

"Actually four people died." He avoided my eyes. "If you include the one you killed."

"Why are you here?"

"Fine. We'll put the brass tacks on the table." He leaned forward. "You remember the Eddington boy?"

"Randall Eddington?"

"Yes."

"The murderer?"

Randall Eddington had been eighteen when he killed his parents and younger sister. The murders went national as the networks' tragedy of the month. Every three letter combination of the alphabet had news vans in La Jolla for the trial later that year, even though the judge wouldn't allow cameras in the courtroom. It had been good for Muldoon's business for a month or so. Even breathless reporters with nothing new to report had to eat after the red light went dark.

"Well, the jury found him guilty. That's true." Buckley's eyes had a little hang dog in them. "In the first trial, anyway."

"First trial? I only remember one."

"One so far." Buckley wiped his lips like that phantom drink couldn't come soon enough. "So, what does getting a psychopath a new trial have to do with me?"

"I don't believe he is a psychopath."

"Okay. Let's just call him a kid with anger management issues." I leaned forward and crossed my forearms on the table. "But why me? There are plenty of private dicks in San Diego with more experience who can fudge up some evidence for you."

"I'm not looking for a prop job, Rick." He put a leathery hand on my arm. "I'm looking for the truth. And if the Windsor case proved anything to me, it's that you're a truth seeker."

"I'm a guy who peeks through windows and snaps photos of married men locked onto unmarried women."

I slid down the leather bench opposite Buckley and stood up outside the booth.

"You gonna' do that for the rest of your life, son?" Buckley grabbed his hat and stood up next to me. "Or, do you want to work a case that matters. Something that won't make you want to scrub yourself with a wire brush in the shower at the end of the day."

"I use Comet and sandpaper." I strode around him down into the main dining room. "See you around, Buckley."

The moon still hid behind the clouds and the ocean down below Prospect Street pushed up a heavy breeze that poked cold fingers in my face. I'd almost made it to my car when I heard boots clomping behind me. Cowboy boots.

"Rick!" Buckley was out of breath, his cowboy hat clenched in his hand when he caught up to me. His face was red, either from wind or exertion. "Just hold on one dang minute and hear me out."

"I've heard enough, Buckley." I opened the door to my car. "I'm not interested. The kid got what he deserved."

"Cops make mistakes, Rick. You and your ex-girlfriend are proof of that."

"Sometimes they get it right." I slid into the car.

"Tony Moretti was lead detective on the case." Buckley let his bloodhound eyes droop a little lower. "You still convinced the boy got what he deserved?"

Moretti was now Police Chief of the La Jolla Police Department. He'd only been a detective when he tried to pin a murder on me a couple of years back. But just because Moretti had been wrong about me didn't make the kid innocent.

"Look, Buckley. I couldn't help you even if I wanted to." I closed the car door and rolled down the window. "I work exclusively for La Jolla Investigations. I can't freelance. You want our firm on it, talk to Bob Reitzmeyer."

"He's not the right fit. We want you."

"Sorry. Can't help you." I turned the ignition key. "Good luck, Buckley."

I started to roll up the window, but Buckley's hand on it stopped me.

"Randall's grandparents remember you from that article in The Reader about the Windsor murder. The one about you being the fella who really caught the killer. The rest of the media got it wrong and made Moretti out to be a hero. The Reader got it right."

"I'm sorry for the grandparents, but there's nothing I can do." He was wrong about The Reader. It didn't get it right, either.

"They've got their life's savings liquid and ready to pour out to the man who'll find the truth about what happened to their family. They just want to make sure their grandson gets a fair shake."

"Are you more interested in the fair shake or the liquid assets?"

"You don't know me very well, Rick." His watery eyes went dry and all the Texas hospitality left them.

"I know you well enough, Buckley." I pulled out of the parking spot and gunned it down Prospect Street as the cool, moonless night drew down around La Jolla.

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Matt, welcome back to The Reading Frenzy.
Tell us about your new thriller, Night Tremors.
Thanks for having me.

In Night Tremors, Rick Cahill has left the restaurant business and now works for a very successful private investigative agency. When an old nemesis asks him for help, Rick risks losing his home, his freedom, and even his life as he battles corrupt police, the criminal justice system, a friend turned enemy, a vicious biker gang, and a psychopathic murder as he tries to free an innocent man from prison.

This is your second novel and the second in the Rick Cahill series.
What do you like the most about returning characters?
I like to give returning characters a chance to grow. Rick’s life has changed drastically since we first met him at the beginning of Yesterday’s Echo and it will change radically again before the end of Night Tremors. Timothy Buckley, a secondary character in Yesterday’s Echo, has a much larger role in this book. I never intended to bring him back, but as I developed Night Tremors, it made sense for him to be a part of the story. He turned out to be my favorite character in the book.

How are the books related?

They are written in first person, so Night Tremors is the continuing story of Rick Cahill and his quest for redemption. Additionally, as I began writing the third Rick Cahill crime novel, I came to realize just how important the title of the first book, Yesterday’s Echo, is to the series. A passage late in the book sums up the impetus for the series:

I knew what it was like to live with one horrible decision that had destroyed lives. Life moves forward, but the reverberations chase after you like yesterday’s echo.

Rick has to make a number of difficult decisions throughout his life and they always have ramifications that he can’t escape.

So Matt now that you’re a “seasoned” author, what about the whole writing your first novel process surprised you the most?

When I sat down to write my first novel years ago, I thought writing was a solitary process that didn’t involve other people until you got an agent. I found out that, in order to make a book as good as it can be, you need to collaborate with other writers. Not to help you do the actual writing, but to critique the work and show you what readers actually see, instead of what you think they see.

Beyond that, after the book was published, the amount of marketing time and energy an author must devote to the book was a surprise. I enjoy it, especially, meeting readers, but it demands that you make the most of your valuable writing time

Matt the last time we spoke you said that there could be a stand a lone in your future but you still had a lot of Rick Cahill stories to tell first.
Anything changed?
Nothing has really changed, other than I now see a standalone as more of a definite possibility. I have something in mind, but it’s very dark and I’ll be interested to see what my agent thinks of the idea. However, right now, I’m in the middle of writing the next Rick Cahill crime novel and happy to be in Rick’s world. I plan to write Rick for as long as people want to read about him.

So Matt; about your co-stars? Are they all made up in your head or would your sister recognize herself easily enough?

Ninety-nine percent made up in my head. There is only one character who is loosely taken from real life people I’ve known. That’s Turk Muldoon. He is a compilation of two people from my past: a restaurant owner I used to work for and a best friend who passed away about nine years ago. They are two people who have been very important in my life.

Matt, Publisher’s Weekly calls your protagonist Rick, fallible and painfully vulnerable.
Do you agree?
I think the Publisher’s Weekly review nailed it. Rick is fallible, vulnerable, but above all else, resilient. He’s smart, but not brilliant, capable, but not a superman. He has to live by his wits and sometimes they fail him. When they do, he has to deal with the repercussions all by himself.

Speaking of reviews, there are some nice early reviews of Night Tremors, including

one by my friend Hank Phillipi Ryan.
Are you a fan of reading your own reviews?
Hank is one of the nicest people in the biz and receiving a blurb from her was truly an honor. Just as it was getting ones from Robert Crais, T. Jefferson Parker, and Hilary Davidson. All people as nice as Hank and whom I greatly admire.

Regarding reviews, guilty. Of course, you want them all to be good, but I have seen some validity in a couple of less than stellar reviews. I try to learn from all of them. However, some you just have to set aside and realize that what you write isn’t going to resonate with everyone.

Matt, thanks a lot for answering these questions. Good luck with the new novel.
What will Rick get into next?
It’s been my pleasure.

Rick investigates whether the death of a former cop and Navy SEAL is a suicide, as the police have ruled, or a homicide. Along the way, he has to deal with the ramifications of, yet, another difficult decision he made in Night Tremors.

Praise for the books:

Publisher's Weekly:
04/27/2015
In Anthony Award–winner Coyle’s extremely dark sequel to 2013’s Yesterday’s Echo, Rich Cahill, a La Jolla, Calif., PI stuck doing such lowly jobs as photographing adulterous spouses, is drawn to the case of Randall Eddington. Imprisoned in San Quentin eight years earlier, at age 18, for the brutal murder of his parents and sister, Randall may get a new trial if fresh evidence can be verified. The investigation is complicated by the involvement of a vicious biker gang, the ethically compromised cops who may have known that Randall was framed, and Cahill’s own obsessive need to study every piece of the puzzle. Most PIs are hypercompetent and tough, but Cahill is fallible and painfully vulnerable—he keeps on trying to do the right thing. Readers should be prepared for a morally ambiguous ending to this sobering crime novel. Agent: Kimberley Cameron, Kimberley Cameron & Associates. (June)

Booklist
“Rick Cahill is not a happy man. The former police officer turned PI still has nightmares about a man he killed two years ago, and he feels that he is responsible for the murder of his wife. Despairing of taking more cases involving the tracking of unfaithful spouses, he decides to help a lawyer he despises free an imprisoned man who may have been unjustly convicted of murder. The case puts him at odds with both the police department and a nasty biker gang and leads to a high-speed chase around San Diego. Solid hardboiled thriller fare.”
Hank Phillipi Ryan:"A terrific newtake on classic noir!A P.I. with a conscience grapples with hispast, thenplotshis own brand of justicein Matt Coyle's well-written,twisty and surprising page-turner."
Library Journal:05/15/2015
Rick Cahill is uneasy in his new profession as a private investigator. A former cop whose wife was brutally killed years ago, he has never escaped the stigma that he got away with murder. Now Rick spends his nights as a Peeping Tom, photographing the indiscretions of La Jolla's married class. Feeling dirty, Rick's ready for a change, and fate ushers in Texas attorney Timothy Buckley. Buckley pleads with Rick to help him free Randall Eddington, who was found guilty of savagely murdering his own family. Rick's investigations put him back in the crosshairs of the police, who still believe he's guilty of his wife's murder, and may very well cost him his last remaining friend from the past. VERDICT Coyle doesn't disappoint in this sophomore entry after the Anthony Award-winning Yesterday's Echoes. In this tale we find all the elements that garnered the first book such high praise: complex characters, snappy dialog, a fast-paced plot, and a clever blending of crime noir tropes with today's culture. The gods seem to take delight in persecuting Rick Cahill, but readers will relish this fast-paced and complex whodunit.—Amy Nolan, St. Joseph, MI

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MEET MATT:

Matt has a degree in English from the University of California, Santa Barbara. He’s taken detours into the restaurant business, the golf business, and the sports collectible business. His first novel Yesterday’s Echo won the Anthony award for best first novel, the San Diego Book Award for Best Published Mystery and the prestigious Benjamin Franklin Silver Award. Night Tremors is Matt’s second novel in the Rick Cahill crime series. Matt lives in San Diego with his yellow Lab, Angus. He is hard at work on the next Rick Cahill crime novel.