A Guest Post by TS Hottle, aka, Jim Winter

Hello all! Today’s guest is an author who will appear on The Crime Cafe next week. The YouTube version, that is. Jim Winter is a former crime fiction author who has transitioned to the sci-fi genre. Except that he’s writing under the name TS Hottle now. That’s TS HOTTLE not TS HOTTIE, like I thought it was. Now that’s a name that produces some really interesting online search results! 🙂 But I digress …

He’s giving away a free copy of his latest book, THE FIRST ONE’S FREE. Just send an email to tshottlewriter@gmail.com to enter the giveaway contest.

So without further ado, here’s T.S. Hottle, formerly known as Jim Winter!

On the old blog, I talked a lot about Holland Bay. Either it would get shopped traditionally, or I’d pack it in as a crime writer. The last agent I talked to passed on it, which is why I’m writing science fiction now as TS Hottle instead of crime as Jim Winter. But eventually, I’ll have to let Holland Bay out into the wild. It’s one of those stories that demanded to be told.

A few people asked, without it ever going public, if I’d ever write a sequel to Holland Bay. In short, Holland Bay splits its time between a young gangbanger and a disgraced former homicide detective both handed the opportunity to make their marks on their respective sides of the law. I pitched it as 87^th Precinct meets The Wire. As for writing the sequel?

I would say Channel 19 in Cincinnati seems to be writing it for me. All the cast members are there. Traci Hunter, a flamboyant, recently elected judge, is fighting corruption charges even after her conviction, sounding the familiar notes of racism and a corrupt political establishment. A new mayor is at odds with a police chief he did not hire. Gang activity has spiked violence in spite of everything done to reduce it. Write a sequel? I just need to change the names and the city.

It’s not the first time since I’ve lived here that the political scene has made for great drama. But in recent years, it’s actually been fairly quiet: Some budget issues, a farce over the new streetcar. More recently, however, other cities have had rioting over police brutality. Cincinnati saw this happen in 2001 but escaped the wave of mob violence other cities have seen more recently.

Still if you watch closely, crime stories are writing themselves all around us. We all know that relative or neighbor who has trouble staying out of jail. The police have their own problems with the civilian government. Some politician gets caught with his or her hand in the cookie jar. Signs of decline?

Change the names to punish the guilty. It’s a story that gets acted out over and over again.

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The Writer Formerly Known As Jim Winter, TS Hottle, was born in Cleveland just before the Cuyahoga River caught fire. For fifteen years, he was a crime writer producing the Nick Kepler Series and Road Rules, a bizarre romp from Cleveland to Savannah, Georgia, involving a stolen car, a stolen saint, insurance fraud, a deeply spirtual drug lord, and a truckstop “worker” who is anything but. He now writes science fiction under his own name. The First One’s Free, currently serialized on Amazon, is his debut novella. You can find him lurking at tshottle.com or find vestiges of his former identity of Jim Winter at eviljwinter.wordpress.com. When not making stuff up for fun and profit, he is a software developer in Cincinnati, his home for almost a quarter century. Buy him a beer. He’ll tell you all about it.

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PS: Do buy Jim/TS a beer sometime, because he really can tell you all about it! Jim and I have been through some … interesting times, as authors. 🙂

PPS: Here’s the Crime Cafe interview which should have been run last week, if I hadn’t screwed the sound up and had to redo the whole darn thing. Thomas Kaufman is so awesome, he agreed to do it again! What a guy, huh? 🙂