Debbi Mack interviews true crime writer Blaine Pardoe on the Crime Cafe podcast.
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Debbi: Hi everyone. This is the Crime Cafe, your podcasting source of great crime, suspense and thriller writing. I’m your host Debbi Mack. Before I bring on my guest, I’ll just remind you that the Crime Cafe has two ebooks for sale: the nine book box set and the short story anthology. You can find the buy links for both on my website, debbimack.com, under the Crime Cafe link. You can also get a free copy of either book, if you become a Patreon supporter. You’ll get that and much more if you support the podcast on Patreon, along with our eternal gratitude for doing so.
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Debbi [00:02:13]: Hi everyone. Today's guest is an award-winning New York Times bestselling author of numerous books in a wide variety of genres, including true crime. He is also a historian, which I think is way cool. It's my great pleasure to introduce Blaine Pardoe. Hi, Blaine.
Blaine [00:02:33]: Thanks for having me on.
Debbi [00:02:35]: Sure thing. I'm glad you could be here. And let's see, you've had a really interesting career. I don’t get to talk to many crime authors who are also nonfiction historian writers. So, how did you get into that?
Blaine [00:02:51]: Actually, you know, I tend to write the things I like to read. So, from my youth, I've been reading true crime and I've been reading military history, and when I became a writer, I was writing primarily science fiction and told my agent I wanted to get into writing some military history and he was like “that's crazy, you don't go that direction” and I said “well, I do”. And so, I started going into that and I wrote a number of military history books, really enjoyed doing that. And you know, then I decided, well, you know what, I always like true crime, I'll go branch into that. I found that, really, the amount of research—there’s a difference as to where you go to get the information, but the actual research methodologies are pretty similar between writing a historical nonfiction and writing true crime.
"I wrote a number of military history books, really enjoyed doing that. And you know, then I decided, well, you know what, I always like true crime, I'll go branch into that. I found that, really, the amount of research—there’s a difference as to where you go to get the information, but the actual research methodologies are pretty similar between writing a historical nonfiction and writing true crime."
Debbi [00:03:49]: Mm-hmm. I was gonna say, you said you have a preference for cold cases and older cases, is it more difficult to write about recent or ongoing cases?
Blaine [00:04:03]: Yeah. You know, the problem is the wounds are all pretty new and you know, I'd love to do some current cases, especially some of them that are out there now are absolutely fascinating. The problem is, you know,
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