#GIVEAWAY Showcase Gumshoe on the Loose by Rob Leninger

I'm super excited to be showcasing Rob Leninger's Gumshoe of the Loose #3 in his Mortimer Angel series. Read a conversation with the author then enter for a chance to win a print copy.
Also Goodreads in having a 100 kindle copy giveaway to enter click HERE.
Enjoy!

ISBN-13: 9781608092741
Publisher: Oceanview Publishing
Release Date: 4-3-2018
Length: 384pp
Mortimer Angel #3
Buy It: Amazon/B&N/Kobo/IndieBound

ADD TO: GOODREADS

Overview:

“Rob Leininger captures the voice and heart of the classic PI mystery and manages to make it completely original at the same time—Mortimer Angel is my new favorite Private Eye.”—John Lescroart, New York Times best-selling author

IRS agent-turned-PI Mortimer Angel is relaxing in a hole-in-the-wall bar in a Reno casino when an attractive young girl hires him to find out who left her a cryptic message demanding a million dollars. At the girl’s house, Mort finds the body of missing rapper Jonnie Xenon—Jo-X to his legions of fans—hanging from the rafters with two bullet holes in him. Mort is shocked when he learns the identity of the girl’s father—and even more shocked when the father hires him to investigate the murder.

Mort, being Mort, accumulates a few felonies as he follows the clues to Las Vegas. And along the way, he picks up an alluring young assistant who changes his life—in every conceivable way.

Oceanview is offering one print copy of
Gumshoe on the Loose
US Only
Please use Rafflecopter form to enter
good luck!

A CONVERSATION with ROB LEININGER about GUMSHOE ON THE LOOSE

TELL US A LITTLE ABOUT YOURSELF, HOW AND WHEN YOU STARTED WRITING.

I wrote my first novel (about 87 pages, handwritten) in the fifth/sixth grade. Since then I’ve always wanted to be a writer. However, life interfered for years: the Navy, college, working as a mechanical engineer—but I quit my job as an engineer to write full-time in 1985. That was a bad career move if I wanted to remain employable as an engineer. Then I wrote a few novels that were published by “New York” publishers. Killing Suki Flood was optioned by Warner Bros. for a movie. I sold a screenplay to  New Line Cinema, then life (mortgage, insurance, etc.) interfered again and I taught high school math for 12 years. Now that I’m retired from all that “life,” I am able to write full time.

WHAT INSPIRED YOU TO WRITE YOUR NOVEL?

I’ve been inspired to write novels since about the fifth grade. But the idea of having a “new” gumshoe find the decapitated head of Reno’s missing mayor in the trunk of his ex-wife’s car was certainly inspiring. I couldn’t pass up an opportunity like that. That was the basis for my novel, GUMSHOE. This latest novel, Gumshoe on the Loose, is the third in the Gumshoe series, and it was inspired by the first novel in the series, and by Mort’s sense of humor.

HOW DID YOU USE YOUR LIFE EXPERIENCE OR PROFESSIONAL BACKGROUND TO ENRICH YOUR STORY?

Like all novelists, my life experience is part and parcel of every novel I’ve ever written. I see life rather differently than most people, so my “hero,” Mort Angel, sees life in strange ways. But the Gumshoe series doesn’t specifically use any of my previous professional skills. Very little math or engineering is involved, at least not so readers would notice.

ANYTHING AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL IN YOUR NOVEL?

Nothing at all. I’ve never been a private investigator. And I never once found a head in the trunk of a car, or investigated anything, or killed anyone (like Mort does in the novel), or received a severed hand in a FedEx package, which, all things considered, is a good thing. And I’ve never been buried alive, either.

ARE ANY CHARACTERS BASED ON PEOPLE YOU KNOW?

No one. I never do that. My characters are composites and amalgams of people I’ve met, people I’ve heard about, people I’ve seen on the street, people I’ve invented, and people I hope don’t actually exist anywhere since they’re so evil (but probably do). It’s all done via imagination. Maybe staying home from school “sick” in order to read two novels a day instead of Silas Marner in English class was useful. Not sayin’ that Silas isn’t a good book, but it’s hard to beat the Edgar Rice Burroughs “Mars” books when you’re a high school sophomore. “English” as a subject can be boring if you take it too seriously. You can get an F if you write “gonna,” but “gonna” works just fine in fiction.

WHO IS YOUR FAVORITE OR MOST SYMPATHETIC CHARACTER?  AND WHY?

Mort is my favorite, but this third novel introduces Lucy Landry, and she’s right up there as a favorite because she’s stone gorgeous, sexy, witty, tough, and can touch her toes.

WHO IS YOUR LEAST SYMPATHIC CHARACTER?  AND WHY?

Least sympathetic would be Arlene because she’s evil, crazy, and murderous. But then, we can’t all be perfect so I try to cut her some slack, especially since I created her.

WHAT PART OF WRITING YOUR BOOK DID YOU FIND THE MOST CHALLENGING?

SPOILER: Most challenging was having the most likely guilty person in the first fifth of the novel actually be the person who did it, without giving that away.

WHAT DO YOU HOPE THAT READERS WILL TAKE AWAY FROM YOUR BOOK?

Like all the Gumshoe novels, Gumshoe On the Loose isn’t a textbook, so I hope readers have a good time with it and think it’s funny, interesting, offbeat, exciting, and want to know when the next book in the series will come out so they can run out and buy it for themselves and for everyone in their family and everyone else in their neighborhood.

WHAT WRITERS HAVE INSPIRED YOU?

John D. MacDonald (author of the Travis McGee series) was far and away the most inspirational. [This winter I read all 21 Travis McGee novels in order.] Next up would be Edgar Rice Burroughs. Then John Lescroart, John Sandford, , Robert Crais, Lawrence Block, Albert Terhune, and very early Stephen King.

WHAT IS THE WRITING PROCESS LIKE FOR YOU?

Put the characters in interesting situations, then watch the movie. Record what the actors (characters) do and say, pay attention to the surroundings (sounds, smells, the buildings, clothing, etc.). If an actor does something that doesn’t seem right, rewind the movie back to the point at which the actor went off the rails, then put them on a track that feels right, that’s fun, interesting, has future potential, and keeps the plot moving forward. If an actor gets boring, shoot him—or put him or her in the computer’s recycle bin.

WHAT IS THE BEST PIECE OF ADVICE ABOUT WRITING THAT YOU’VE EVER RECEIVED?

Elmore Leonard: “If it sounds like writing, rewrite it.” And “Try to leave out the parts that readers tend to skip.”

WHAT IS THE WORST PIECE OF ADVICE ABOUT WRITING THAT YOU’VE EVER RECEIVED?

Write like [insert any of several “best-selling” authors here, like DRK], who uses 39 words to say what can be said using 12 words. Write a 130,000-word novel—packed with literally thousands of extraneous words and phrases—that could be stripped down to 95,000 words without missing a thing. Write like that guy? All he’s got is the big name and the $3,000,000 advance, but if Joe Blow wrote the exact same novel, no agent would handle it, no publisher would publish it.

“Write about what you know” isn’t the worst piece of advice, but if I followed it I would not be able to write the Gumshoe series.

WHAT’S NEXT FOR YOU? ANY NEW BOOKS IN THE PIPELINE?

The next book in the Gumshoe series, GUMSHOE “FOUR,” is up next. That’s not even a “working title.” It’s just the fourth book in the series.

ANY FINAL WORDS YOU WOULD LIKE TO SAY ABOUT YOURSELF, YOUR NOVEL, OR LIFE IN GENERAL?

1)    Writing Gumshoe novels is fun because I get to be wacky.

2)    The dogs like it (a lot) when they get their daily walk.

3)    My wife likes to run the snowblower.

Connect with Rob - Website

Meet Rob:
Award-winning and USA Today best-selling author Rob Leininger grew up in California before joining the Navy. He served aboard heavy cruisers during the Vietnam War and also at McMurdo Station in Antarctica. He received a mechanical engineering degree from the University of Nevada, Reno, and worked on Trident missiles for Hercules, and “black” defense projects for Northrop Corp. Gumshoe on the Loose is the third novel in the best-selling Mortimer Angel Gumshoe series. Before deciding to write full-time, Leininger taught high school math in Reno, Nevada. He is a member of Tau Beta Pi—engineering honor society and of Pi Mu Epsilon—National Mathematics Society. He now lives in northwest Montana.

a Rafflecopter giveaway