We’re lucky today to be speaking with Mr. Greenough, author of Who is Offing The Collectors? A Thanet Arthur Blake Murder Mystery from Aspen Mountain Press, and For the Love of Erika from Mardi Gras Publishing.

Hi Mr. Greenough, thank you so much for taking the time to do this interview with Fallen Angel Reviews, we know how busy you are.

I’m retired and busy.

For the readers who don’t know you, could you please tell us a bit about yourself and your books?

In 1959 I graduated from college and taught grade school for thirty one years. I’ve always loved books. I began writing while still in college. I love to write murder mysteries, science fiction, and children’s books. I also write romances.

I see you’re a collector yourself like your character, Thanet. Did your love of collecting inspire this novel, and does Thanet collect the same things you do?

My favorite detective stories occurred on the radio in the 1940’s. Sam Spade, Phillip Marlowe. Thanet Blake is like those guys. Downbeat, poverty hill detective, not trained to handle murder cases but nevertheless he is forced to do so. He collects the same things I do; old time radio programs and black and white westerns and murder mysteries.

While reading the blurb for Who is Offing the Collectors? It put me in mind of the Mickey Spillane books, did you read them also or watch the series?

I only read one Mickey Spillane book in my life. As I mentioned I have been influenced by the radio detectives of the 1940’s. I will buy a detective book only if the book has a 1940’s setting.

Where did the idea For the Love of Erika come from? Is it based on anyone you know?

No one I know. I wanted to write a book about the things that could go wrong in the human mind, and yet the human involved doesn’t know it. Hence we have Hawk O’Brien who thinks there is nothing wrong with him.

How do you balance your personal life with writing?

It doesn’t seem to be a problem with me. I write less than a thousand words a day and that is easy to slip in at any time in the morning, or afternoon, or evening

If I walked into your office, what would I see, a mess or everything in its place?

Everything in its place.

If you and your wife could go anywhere or any era, what/where would it be, and why there/then?

We’re both retired and in our seventies. We’d probably go to the mall.

You have two hours to pick the brain of your favorite author. Who would it be and what questions would you ask?

Most of my favorite authors are dead. My favorite author is Ray Bradbury. I wouldn’t ask him any questions. I would just enjoy hearing him talk.

What can you tell us about your upcoming book Justin and the Fourth Golden Helmet, coming out with Mardi Gras?

It’s been canceled

When you write, do your characters come first, or does the plot?

I don’t know. It just happens. I start writing and things happen. I take no notes ahead of time. Whatever comes into my head gets written down as a story. Of course that does take a lot of revision.

Do you have a writing schedule, so many words a day, or do you write better with a deadline?

A deadline would drive me crazy to the point where I won’t accept a deadlines. I write until I get tired which is about five hundred words a day.

I see you and your wife live in the Pacific Northwest. Are you originally from there or a transplant? And if a transplant where from and how different is it from the Pacific Northwest?

We’re from the Pacific Northwest.

How can readers find out more about your books and contact you?

Amazon has ‘For the Love of Erika.’ Aspen Mountain has ‘Who Is Offing the Collectors.’ Mardi Gras has ‘For the Love of Erika.’

Now for the last question . We all love a good joke, do you have one that you’d like to share with us?

Thanet Blake knows only barroom jokes.

Again, thank you Mr. Greenough for taking the time out of your busy schedule and being here with us today. I’ll look forward to reading more from you in the future.

Thank you.

Interviewed by: Donna