Monday, January 7, 2019

#Giveaway All The Way Down Interview with author Eric Beetner

Today I'm interviewing new to me author Eric Beetner about his newest crime novel, All The Way Down. Eric and his publicist Author/Guide are sponsoring a Giveaway, details below.
Enjoy!



ISBN-13: 978-1643960104
Publisher: Down & Out Books
Release Date: 1-7-2019
Length: 276 pp
Buy It: Amazon/B&N/Kobo/IndieBound


ADD TO: GOODREADS

Overview:
Dale is a crooked cop. It started slow, but grew like a cancer and now he can’t get out from under the thumb of Tat, a would-be kingpin in every vice he can turn a profit with.

And now Dale’s number is up—the top brass knows. But instead of getting busted, Dale gets an offer. The mayor’s daughter is being held by Tat in his fortress built from an abandoned office tower. They want her back but if they storm the gates, Lauren is as good as dead. So they’re sending Dale on what could very likely be a suicide mission: infiltrate Tat’s fortress and bring her out alive.
If the Mayor even really wants her alive…
Floor by floor Dale and Lauren have to fight off an increasingly difficult and dangerous set of obstacles.
Meanwhile, Dale’s wife has her own troubles and some of the drug kingpin’s goons are only adding to an already rough day.
The clock is ticking down along with the floors of the building and escape is looking less and less likely. But to save her, and to save himself, he must make it all the way down.




The Giveaway is for one autographed copy of

All The Way Down US ONLY
Please Use Rafflecopter form to enter
Good Luck!



Praise for ALL THE WAY DOWN:


“Last chances, double crosses, and a cop who has to shoot his way out of a fortified skyscraper—what’s not to love? All The Way Down rips. It’s fast and fierce, like a guitar solo that hits all the sharpest notes.” —Meg Gardiner, author of Into the Black Nowhere

“Eric Beetner’s All the Way Down is everything a reader could want from an action thriller—fast, suspenseful, and the right kind of outrageous. The stakes ratchet up with each harrowing surprise for crooked cop Dale and reporter Lauren, as they work together to escape the urban fortress of the city’s maniacal kingpin. If every suicide mission was this much fun, we’d all sign on.” —Glen Erik Hamilton, author of the Van Shaw thrillers

“Beetner’s Dale Burnett is a dirty cop trying to rescue someone from the clutches of the ruthless criminal he’s been accepting money from...and fifteen floors of non-stop action follows! Beetner is a master at throwing more and more trouble at his heroes, and in All the Way Down, Dale gets hit with everything imaginable. No, check that—you will not have imagined what happens on a couple of these floors. This book is an absolute blast.” —Frank Zafiro, creator and editor of A Grifter’s Song

“Relentless.” —Rob Hart, author of the Ash McKenna series

My Interview with Eric:


Eric Hi, Welcome to The Reading Frenzy.
Happy New Year
Resolutions yay or nay?

I say nay. I don’t really have many bad habits, or if I do (like too many cookies) I’m fine with them. And if there is anything I really want to change about my life, I don’t like to wait for an arbitrary date. My wife thinks I’m annoyingly filled with self control. Except for the cookie thing.

Your new novel, All The Way Down sounds great.
Tell my readers a little about it.

It’s about Dale, a cop who is on the take from a local drug kingpin. When he’s busted by the upper brass they offer him a deal: go and get the mayor’s daughter from the kingpin in his hi-rise tower fortress or go straight to prison. It’s likely a suicide mission, but he’s got very few options. He finds her in the penthouse and has to escape, floor by floor, from the fortified building. It’s crazy action and unpredictable surprises on each floor as they try to escape.

Do you get into Dale your crooked cop’s head much in this book?
Yes. He’s trying to make things right in his own, broken way. He’s taking this chance to try to make in change in his career, his marriage which is falling apart and maybe using this as a chance to become a better man. He knows there might not be any redemption for him at the end of this but he’s willing to risk everything for even the slimmest chance.

From the description it looks like this novel takes place in a short amount of time.
What is the time span?

It’s all in one day. Every second matters! It was fun to have the restrictions of both the floors of the tower and the limited time frame to keep the action pumping and the clock ticking. It’s like lighting a fuse and then having it write to keep up with it burning down.

Who was your favorite character to write in this novel?
In many ways, Dale’s wife, Dahlia was surprisingly fun. She’s someone who is dragged into the madness quite unwillingly. And she’s not someone who has had any experience with this kind of thing, so it’s always interesting to see how a character like that will react to being put at risk. When the chips are down, she can kick ass.

Crime drama is a favorite genre of mine, my heart races until all the dots are connected.
So what’s the difference between regular crime fiction and hardboiled fiction?

Crime fiction pushes the criminals forward. Hardboiled can be about a detective or a cop. It’s a style. Crime fiction is more about the subject. Is the hero really an anti-hero? Jim Thompson wrote crime fiction. So did Elmore Leonard. Stories about criminals, sometimes seeking redemption and sometimes not. But always entertaining which is not always easy to do. Making a criminal protagonist relatable, if not necessarily likable, is a real balancing act.

I loved reading your bio especially the part about being an embarrassment to your kids, a parent’s credo.
But it also says you do many things like design book covers.
How did that start?

I’ll try anything once. I play music, I paint, I used to act. So when my first few novels were coming out on small indie publishers, I went ahead and designed my own covers which I liked much better than most of the stuff on the imprint. Another small crime fiction imprint tapped me to do some for them and now, over 100 covers later, I guess I’m doing something right. But mostly I just like creating. I’m not too picky about the kind of things I create. I just like doing.

Thank you so much for taking the time to answer my questions!
Good luck with the new novel.

Thank you for having me!



About the author:
I write hardboiled crime fiction. A lot of it, with more to come. People like Owen Laukkanen, John Rector, Megan Abbott, Kelli Stanley, Scott Phillips, Sean Doolittle, Rebecca Cantrell and more have said nice things about my books. I've been nominated for two Anthony Awards, an ITW award, a Derringer and I even won a few awards like the 2012 Stalker award for Most Criminally Underrated author. I seem to end up on a lot of lists about the best writers you've never heard of.
My books include Rumrunners and its prequel - the Anthony Award nominated Leadfoot, The Devil Doesn't Want Me, When The Devil Comes To Call and book 3 in the trilogy, The Devil At Your Door (out in 2018), Criminal Economics, Dig Two Graves, White Hot Pistol, The Year I Died Seven Times, Stripper Pole At The End Of The World & the story collection, A Bouquet Of Bullets.
I've co-authored The Backlist, The Short List and The Getaway List (2018) with Frank Zafiro and also (with JB Kohl) the novelsOne Too Many Blows To The Head and Borrowed Trouble and the standalone novel Over Their Heads. I've also written two novellas in the popular Fightcard series, Split Decision and A Mouth Full Of Blood and two novellas in The Lawyer series of Westerns.

I live in Los Angeles where, among other things, I co-host the Noir At The Bar reading series and the podcast Writer Types.

I've toured as a musician, painted, written screenplays, acted in short films, been to China twice, fished in the Mississippi, once met Barry Manilow, directed films and music videos, my name's been on TV over a hundred times, I own a real human skull and my kids think I embarrass them. A life well lived, I'd say.



I also design book covers. For samples of my 90+ covers visitcrimecovers.blogspot.com




 a Rafflecopter giveaway


16 comments:

  1. Great interview. Love how the story sounds. Thanks for sharing, Debbie.

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  2. Fantastic interview. I love getting insight into the characters and story.

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  3. Ohh a dirty cop. That sounds like a really interesting story. Loved the interview too.

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  4. This novel sounds intriguing and unique. Thanks for this feature and giveaway.

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  5. Now, that sounds like an adrenaline rush. I like that he's also a flawed character trying to make good with some twists to the story.

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    1. oh I knew you would gravitate to this on Sophia Rose

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  6. Hi Eric - I'd sure love to be a fly on the wall with you and your wife when you eat too many cookies(lol) Love a good crime story, and I can actually see this is as a really good movie. Congrats and Happy New Year! Debbie - Happy New Year and lots of hugs...RO

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