Interview With Phyllis Entis

 

Author Bio:

 Phyllis Entis is the author of the Damien Dickens Mysteries series, which includes The Green Pearl Caper, The White Russian Caper and The Chocolate Labradoodle Caper and The Gold Dragon Caper. Her debut novel, The Green Pearl Caper, was a Library Journal SELF-e Selection. Phyllis is a free-lance writer and retired food safety microbiologist with degrees from McGill University and the University of Toronto. In 2007, ASM Press published her non-fiction book, Food Safety: Old Habits, New Perspectives.

 

Phyllis lives in Carmel-by-the-Sea, California with her husband and their Australian Cobberdog, Shalom. When she’s not writing, Phyllis usually can be found walking around town, browsing in the local library, or enjoying her garden.

Thank you, Phyllis, For speaking to me today.

 

Do you think someone could be a writer if they don’t feel emotions strongly?

This would depend on whether one is writing fiction or non-fiction. Speaking for myself, I do my best work when I am invested emotionally in my characters. If I don’t care enough about them to laugh or cry with them, then I haven’t done my job properly. When all the dust has settled, every work of fiction is a study in relationships.

 

What authors did you dislike at first but grew into?

I would have to say Charles Dickens. We ‘took’ David Copperfield and Great Expectations in 9th and 10th grade and I found them tough going. In 11th grade, I had a wonderful English Lit teacher, Miss Ferguson, whose adoration of Dickens and love for Tale of Two Cities brought the book alive for me. In the years following, I reread both David Copperfield and Great Expectations with an entirely new appreciation for the books. I’ve since read most of Dickens’s works, including Bleak House (one of my favorites), Pickwick Papers, Little Dorrit, Oliver Twist, etc., etc.

 

What’s the most difficult thing about writing characters from the opposite sex?

I write mainly in 1st person and my protagonist is male. The most difficult aspect of writing for Damien Dickens is to remember to use ‘man-speak’ versus ‘woman-speak’. As my husband reminds me from time to time, men don’t wriggle into tight spaces. They insert themselves, or wedge themselves in. Fortunately, my husband is a very patient and attentive beta-listener and is very effective at catching those lapses.

 

Tell us a little about yourself? Perhaps something not many people know?

I am a semi-retired food safety microbiologist. I still keep my finger in the pie, publicizing food safety recalls on my eFoodAlert blog and contributing articles to Food Safety News. Some of my professional experiences found their way into my third book, The Chocolate Labradoodle Caper.

 

I’ve always been a voracious reader. My cousin and I used to binge-read Nancy Drew books over and over again. We each had a complete set of the books and would speed read through a complete novel in an afternoon. It became a competition; we would each choose a different book from the series, begin to read at the same time, and check in with each other periodically as to what page we had reached. Judy always finished ahead of me, though not by much.

 

The only time I ever got upset with our dog (we had a Heinz 57 mutt by the name of Tippy) was when she decided to make a snack of one of my Nancy Drew books. She gave a whole new meaning to the term ‘dog-eared.’

 

What has been the best compliment?

One of my cousins is in his 80s, an international giant in the profession of dentistry, and reads very little fiction. He read The White Russian Caper (my second book) and sent me an email to tell me that he considered it a ‘tour-de-force’ and that he couldn’t put the book down until he had finished it. I cherish that message.

 

Could you tell us a bit about your most recent book and why it is a must-read?

My new release is The Gold Dragon Caper, fourth installment in the Damien Dickens Mysteries series. The book is set in 1983, three years after the end of the third book, and my protagonists (Damien and Millie Dickens) are having a rough time. They have run afoul of an influential hotel/casino magnate by the name of Derek J. Turpin, who is getting even with them for having thwarted one of his schemes.

 

The Gold Dragon Caper is a darker and more emotion-laden novel than the first three books, and contains some surprising revelations about Millie’s past. I must confess that I wrote some of the passages with tears in my eyes.

 

AmazonBuy link: Buy The Gold DragOn Caper

 

 

 

Where can we find you online?

Website/blogsite: Gone Writing (phyllisentis.wordpress.com)

Twitter: @PromptProse

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DamienDickensMysteries/

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Phyllis-Entis/e/B071LRJ4JY/ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_1?qid=1523395357&sr=8-1

 

What do you like to read in your free time?

It should come as no surprise that I love a good mystery. At the moment, my two favorite authors in the genre are Louise Penny and Jacqueline Winspear. I also enjoy historical fiction, especially books set in the first half of the 20th century, and some literary fiction. I loved ‘Still Alice’ by Lisa Genova, ‘A Shoe in the Road’ by Sandra Bass Joines, ‘Walls of Silence’ by Helen Pryke, and ‘Tall Chimneys’ by Allie Cresswell.

 

Blog post:

 Genre: Mystery/Husband-and-wife private investigators

The Gold Dragon Caper was both the easiest and the most difficult of the Damien Dickens Mysteries for me to write. I knew where I wanted to go with my plot, I knew my villain (not always the case for me at the start of a book project), and I knew how and where I wanted the story to end. That was the easy part.

 

The hard part of the project was its emotional content. I literally wrote some of this book with tears in my eyes.

The Gold Dragon Caper is a darker story than the first three novels. It was difficult to avoid the influence of the political climate in the USA during its writing, especially as Derek J. Turpin shares some characteristics with another DJT.

I don’t want to reveal any spoilers, so let me just say that we learn more about what makes Millie tick in this Caper. She went through some tough times before she met Damien, and some of that comes back to haunt her in this story. 

I hope you enjoy The Gold Dragon Caper.

Prologue:

 “NO!”

 I watched, helpless to intervene, as he raised his gun. He fired once, and Millie crumpled to the ground. Turpin turned to face me. “I warned you,” he said. “I promised you’d be sorry.”