PRIDE 2020 INTERVIEWS: Joseph Pittman / Adam Carpenter

Today’s Pride 2020 Interview is with author Joseph Pittman, who also publishes under the pen name “Adam Carpenter.”

Hi, Joe! I hope you’re staying safe and healthy during the current pandemic lockdowns. What are you doing to stay creatively motivated in these unusual times?

Everything I can. It’s important to keep your mind engaged. I have read over a dozen books since March, and it’s knowing that these authors have kept at their creative process reminds me that I too can do it. Some days I get a lot done, some days I get caught up in a novel that I want to finish. It’s all about resolution: knowing what’s possible, and that endings lead to future adventures.

Since June is Pride Month, I have to ask: how has being gay influenced or informed your art/craft?

I struggled for years with my identity. When I published the sweet, romantic TILTING AT WINDMILLS, one of the reviews called it “sentimental slop.” Someone else said, a man writing a romance? What, is he gay? Brutal words from anonymous people. But you are who you are. You feel what you feel. Finally recognizing my dual life helped make me whole. It led to Adam Carpenter.

You’re one of the most versatile writers I know, published in a variety of genres from mystery to erotica. Is there any genre you haven’t been published in that you’d like to try your hand at?

I think I’ve covered all my interests. I’ve done mystery, crime, caper, saga, erotica, romance, I even did a sort-of western (DUDE RANCH!). Literary fiction is a questionable category, as it expects a certain level of writing I’m not sure I have in me. My closest example of that would be WHEN THE WORLD WAS SMALL, inspiration after having read a John Irving novel. Otherwise, I’m content mostly with the mystery genre.

I think the last time I interviewed you, I wasn’t aware that you also publish under the pen name Adam Carpenter. Many writers publish under different names in different genres, and I’m always curious why and how the pen name was developed.

I was approached by a new online eBook publisher to write erotica. But given that Joseph Pittman is known for his Linden Corners books, I couldn’t publish DESPERATE HUSBANDS under my own name. It’s a marketing decision. Know your audience. And so Adam Carpenter was born. The name is ironic. Adam is biblically the first man. Carpenter was the profession of Jesus’s stepfather, for whom I’m named after. It was meant to mean we have all origins.

Has there ever been a story idea that you thought could just as easily be a Pittman book as a Carpenter, or vice versa? And does your writing process vary at all between pen names?

Actually, Jimmy McSwain was originally straight. I developed the idea in the early 2000s. He had a girlfriend, but the backstory of his father’s death remained the same. I sold it to an audio publisher for an original series, but it ended up not panning out. When Adam was created, I recreated Jimmy as gay. But otherwise, Joseph and Adam maintain separate identities and separate audiences. But each of my characters, Brian Duncan, Todd Gleason, and Jimmy McSwain make one person: me.

What’s next from Joseph Pittman and from Adam Carpenter?

Joseph is currently writing THE CASE OF THE CON IN CANNES, a Todd Gleason novella. There’s also a partial draft of THE WINDMILL’S PROMISE and a stand-alone, THE SILVER MOON. Adam’s busy too. SECOND SHOT, #7 in the Jimmy McSwain Files, plus #8 and a new series set in Provincetown, more of a “Murder, He Wrote” cozy style.

The big news though is THE SHADOW DIARIES. A year-long blog written (sort-of) by our dog SHADOW. It’s the story of how he was rescued and came to be loved by his two daddies. It’s actually the perfect combination of Joseph and Adam…and Steve.  It will be published this summer, with beautiful artwork by Steve Cummings. (Editor’s Note: Joseph’s husband, artist Steve Cummings, is tomorrow’s interviewee.)

Where can people find you and your work online?

All of my books are available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble.com, Kobo, iTunes, Audible.

JOSEPH PITTMAN is the author of the beloved Linden Corners series: TILTING AT WINDMILLS, A CHRISTMAS WISH, A CHRISTMAS HOPE, THE MEMORY TREE, and CHASING WINDMILLS. Other novels include WHEN THE WORLD WAS SMALL, BEYOND THE STORM, and LEGEND'S END. His crime fiction includes the Todd Gleason novels, LONDON FROG and CALIFORNIA SCHEMING, and novellas "The Perils of Penelope Pittston," "The Antics of Anton Ardno," "The Mystery of Marilyn and Her Men," and "The Business with the Bumbling Blind Man." Also available is the three-part serial suspense novel, THE ORIGINAL CRIME, in eBook and audio: PART ONE: REMEMBRANCE; PART TWO: RETRIBUTION; PART THREE: REDEMPTION. Under the Adam Carpenter name, he is the author of the Jimmy McSwain Files, a detective series set in NYC, which includes HIDDEN IDENTITY, CRIME WAVE, STAGE FRIGHT, GUARDIAN ANGEL, FOREVER HAUNT, FRESH KILL and the forthcoming SECOND SHOT. Other series include the Cane's Inlet Mystery: SCANDALOUS LIES, SINISTER MOTIVES, and SUSPICIOUS TRUTHS; The Wonderland Scandal: DESPERATE HUSBANDS, DESPERATE LOVERS, and DESPERATE ENEMIES; the Edenwood Saga, EDEN'S PAST, EDEN'S PRESENT, and EDEN'S FUTURE.

Series Saturday: The Jimmy McSwain Files

This is a series about … well, series. I do so love stories that continue across volumes, in whatever form: linked short stories, novels, novellas, television, movies. I’ve already got a list of series I’ve recently read, re-read, watched, or re-watched that I plan to blog about. I might even, down the line, open myself up to letting other people suggest titles I should read/watch and then comment on.

As Adam Carpenter has just launched a second round of novels featuring openly gay private detective Jimmy McSwain (beginning with “Fresh Kill”), now seems the right time to chat a bit about the first five-book run in the series.

Jimmy McSwain is a private investigator operating out of Hell’s Kitchen in New York City. In a perfect world, Jimmy would be a cop just like his father before him. But our world isn’t perfect, and at age fourteen, Jimmy watched his father be murdered by an unidentified man holding up a local deli. When the NYPD stopped investigating his father’s death, Jimmy decided he’d take it upon himself as a private eye. Most of the time, Jimmy works cases for actual clients. In the first book, “Hidden Identity,” he’s hired to find missing heir Harris Rothschild, who had a falling out with his father over his “alternate” lifestyle. In book two, “Crime Wave,” he works pro bono to prove his sister’s boyfriend is innocent of murdering a man he was just seen kissing. In “Stage Fright,” a playwright receives threatening messages and the theater (at which Jimmy’s mother is head usher) hires Jimmy to find the culprit. “Guardian Angel” sees the holidays coming to NYC and Jimmy hired to protect and escort a tabloid darling. And in the finale of the first series, “Forever Haunt,” Jimmy takes on the case of an endangered mother and child and their missing husband/father. 

Each case stands very much alone. Carpenter plays fair with the reader, planting all the clues necessary to solve each case along with various mcguffins, red herrings, and sub-plots for distraction from those clues. I love that each case is markedly different in tone and stakes from the others, even though they pretty all eventually hinge on a murder of some kind. Hey, it’s a crime/mystery series—most people come for the death and stick around for the reveal, I get that – but it’s nice to have each book not always start with the hero tripping across a murder scene. It’s also nice that even though Jimmy is an openly gay detective, he doesn’t take exclusively gay-oriented cases. Yes, it’s true of the first two books (the missing heir in book one is gay, as is the sister’s boyfriend in book two), but after that the cases don’t necessarily hinge on the victim being gay. That said, there are plenty of gay tertiary characters running around for Jimmy to interact with and to draw on for help in his cases – especially the hysterically flirtation drag queen Terry Cloth and her club full of lost souls finding themselves. (I think a book set exclusively in The Dress Up Club, crime-oriented or not, would be a fun side-project for Carpenter to pursue.)

If this were an old-style mystery series, with little in the way of character development or continuing sub-plots, you’d be able to just read these five books in any order you’d like. But this is the modern age of serialization, both on television and in books, and the Jimmy McSwain Files has an over-all arc that is best read in order. Because Jimmy has that drive to solve his father’s murder after all these years (fourteen, that is. He was fourteen when his father died, and he’s twenty-eight at the start of the first book), and each book progresses that sub-plot. Hints and clues, sometimes revealed as part of Jimmy’s main case and sometimes coming from unexpected places and not always at a good time, abound. There’s forward movement towards Jimmy finding his answers and there are set-backs and road-blocks. And yes, this first series ends with an answer for Jimmy. This is not one of those series where the author never quite gets around to given the haunted main character closure. (Needless to say, I’m intrigued to see how Jimmy handles life now that his driving issue has been resolved, in the next set of novels.)

Jimmy himself is flawed. He’s a damned good detective, but he has his blind spots. His singlemindedness regarding finding his father’s killer puts him, and his loved ones, in danger. In the middle book, the clues about what happened to his father distract him from the main case and vice-versa, to the point where Jimmy barely manages to solve the main case. He’s pretty near rock-bottom, and I still think it was a brave move for the author to make, allowing the reader to see the main character essentially falling apart. Of course, that gave the author room in the final two books in the series to bring Jimmy back to the capable detective he was earlier, and that arc is also satisfactorily handled.

There’s also a romance at the heart of these books: Jimmy’s on-again, off-again relationship with Captain Francis X. Frisano of the New York City Police Department. While the biggest problem initially seems to be that Frank is not “out” to his force because it might impede his upward movement in the department, it also turns out that Frank’s father worked with Jimmy’s – and perhaps knows things he’s not telling. This adds even more tension to whether this relationship will work out. There’s also, at various points, the return of the man who broke Jimmy’s heart before the series commences and a possible new love interest. But the sexual and romantic attraction between Jimmy and Captain Frisano is palpable and multi-faceted, and the reader can’t help but root for both men to get their heads out of their asses and just get together already.  Note to the wary: Carpenter made his name writing erotica; there are sex scenes in these books, and they are fairly explicit. I personally think the books would have been perfectly fine without the sex scenes, but Carpenter knows his audience and gives them what they want.

I mentioned the sort of tertiary-level recurring characters, but I really need to talk about Jimmy’s main supporting cast: his widowed mother (still working at the same theater she’s been at since before her husband died and at which she often convinces her children to help out as ushers); his sisters (one a lawyer, one at loose ends and pregnant in the later books); his Uncle Paddy (who owns the bar above which is Jimmy’s office); and Jimmy’s mentor (his late father’s now-retired partner). Even in the first book this is a well-drawn and complicated supporting cast, and they each have something of a sub-plot arc running throughout the series. But they really get moments of their own towards the end of the run that feel real and satisfying and give Jimmy a world outside of work to complicate his life. One of my favorite aspects of each book is the time Jimmy spends with his mother and siblings around the dining room table, followed by the times Jimmy gets encouragement from his otherwise sort of old-school uncle. And of course, there’s always the shadow of Jimmy’s father: if he’d lived, would he be proud of who Jimmy is? Would he have been accepting of Jimmy’s homosexuality? It’s a question Jimmy can’t ever get an answer to. He can only hope. And I think it’s great that this series makes the point that even when we get the answers we’re looking for (as each of Jimmy’s clients does by the end of each book, and as Jimmy ultimately does at the end of the series), we never get all the answers we need.

Read the Jimmy McSwain Files if you’re looking for: a series lead whose homosexuality is not his only character trait; fair-play mysteries; solid character arcs for the main and secondary characters; a variety of types of cases that don’t fall into formula; and oh yeah, some sex.

FOREVER HAUNT - Book Review

TITLE: Forever Haunt (The Jimmy McSwain Files #5)

AUTHOR: Adam Carpenter

287 pages, MLR Press, paperback and e-book formats, ISBN 978-1944770587

DESCRIPTION: (from the back cover): For Hell’s Kitchen private detective Jimmy McSwain, his father’s death has defined him, defied him, and denied him his chance at happiness. But the shooting death of a young officer named Denson Luke has re-ignited the investigation into the mysterious Blue Death conspiracy. But Jimmy still must earn a living, so he cannot ignore a family in distress.

New neighbors Carmen Ramirez and her young son, Sonny, are clearly running from danger. Overnight, their case becomes one involving a missing father, a Chinese crime syndicate, and an abduction which threatens to overwhelm Jimmy’s mission of solving his father’s case. His relationship status with Frank Frisano on and off again, Jimmy tries to do double duty, jeopardizing his own safety.

It’s only when another murder occurs that Jimmy finally finds the path that has eluded him. His investigation finally leads him back home, where a devastating family secret overshadows all he’s learned, and the cost to the McSwain family may never be repaid. Jimmy realizes the blood on his hands will forever haunt him.

MY RATING: FIVE out of FIVE STARS

MY THOUGHTS: Adam Carpenter has successfully and satisfactorily brought this first arc of Jimmy McSwain mysteries to a conclusion with Forever Haunt, weaving together hints and threads from each of the four previous novels and answering the series’ longest-running question: who orchestrated the death of Jimmy’s father?

The third book in the series, Stage Fright, represented a low-point for Jimmy: distracted by clues regarding his father’s long cold case, he dropped the ball on a client’s case and was beaten to the solution by someone else. The fourth book, Guardian Angel, saw Jimmy a bit more back on his game, and that trend continues here: Jimmy is paying attention, making connections, not letting his life’s unanswered questions distract him from helping others – and not letting other people solve the crimes he’s investigating.

Jimmy’s character arc across the series has been a realistic one, with setbacks in his love life because of work and his work and family life because of work. Setbacks abound in this final volume, but with some interesting twists. Jimmy learns secrets that have been hinted at in the previous four books: about his parents, his neighbors, his mentor, and his adversaries and friends on the police force.

Because everyone has secrets, so many secrets you almost need a score-card to keep track. Some of the secrets are explosive (just how much did Jimmy’s mother know or suspect, and how exactly was Jimmy’s father’s partner (and Jimmy’s mentor) involved in what happened?). Some of the secrets revealed are more personal (Jimmy’s sister Mallory comes to a hard decision, following one of the funniest “drunk siblings” scenes I’ve ever read).  Long-standing questions are definitively answered, with no ambiguity. And as I’ve said, the answers we get are satisfactory: there’s a sense of “fair play” between author and reader at work here. The reveals make sense, nothing comes completely out of left field. Carpenter also seems to wink at other theories readers may have had, acknowledging that being fair and generous with clues doesn’t preclude the author from throwing a few red herrings into the mix of possibilities.

Carpenter intended from the beginning for this to be a tight five-book journey for Jimmy McSwain, and he’s held to his original plan. There’s something to be said for an author who sticks to an original plan (and releases the planned installments in a timely manner) even when the popularity of a series might inspire the publisher to want more books. A different writer might have strung these reveals out for three or five or ten more books, diluting the impact as storylines stagnate until the final book is scheduled. The good news is: while this particular arc is over, Jimmy McSwain will be back in future books. But that’s a matter to discuss later in this review.

Every McSwain File has had two storylines running concurrently. Sometimes the mystery of Jimmy’s father’s death takes a secondary role to the other storyline, and sometimes Carpenter reverses it. This time the new case is the secondary mystery. It involves Jimmy’s new neighbor Carmen and her missing son, and if it’s not quite as compelling as the mysteries Jimmy has investigated in the previous books, that’s okay.

In this book, the secondary mystery serves two purposes. The first is to distract Jimmy at key points, so that his focus is split between helping himself and helping people who can’t help themselves.  As authorial as well as in-story distractions, I don’t feel like we got quite the same depth of character for the Ramirez clan that we’ve gotten for the characters in those previous cases. They’re not cardboard place-holders; there’s still enough depth that they feel real. It helps that just as they’re new to the reader, they’re also new to the neighborhood. Jimmy’s getting to know them at the same time as we are, and so first impressions are enough. This secondary mystery is not padding, though — it has its own arc and mostly satisfactory conclusion, its own internal consistency. And that enables it to serve its second purpose.

Carpenter has said there are plans to come back to Jimmy McSwain, his boyfriend Frank Frisano, and the rest of the recurring characters in a new arc. Without spoilers, I can say that the secondary mystery gives us the motivation for that new arc. It’s not a motivating factor I was particularly happy to read (in fact, I tweeted the author a rather indignant “I think I hate you now” moments after finishing the book), but it does the job it needs to do, giving author, reader, and characters a reason to return. I do think the Jimmy McSwain Files could have continued on without the need for a new “season arc,” ala characters like Lawrence Block’s Bernie Rhodenbarr or MC Beaton’s Hamish Macbeth. But I can also see the allure of a an arc to run through however many books will comprise Jimmy’s “second season,” since the main arc of this first “season” worked so well.

I’ll miss Jimmy and his cohorts between now and when the next series starts. And while we wait, I recommend to folks who like gritty NYC PI stories with a touch of erotic content: find the first book in this series, “Hidden Identity,” and get caught up.