#AuthorInterview David Putnam, Author of ‘The Replacements’ @DavePutnam

Hi David! Thanks for sitting down with me today for an interview.

Jumping right in, I noticed that you’re a retired law enforcement official. Before I ask about that (since I’m certain it had some bearing on your writing genre) I’d like to learn a bit more about you and your younger years.

Where were you born? Did you grow up in the same city as your birth, or did your family move elsewhere?

I was born in Upland California and grew up in the city south of Upland Ontario. I attended Chaffey High School in Ontario. I joined the Ontario Police department and worked there for approx. 6yrs. Before transferring to Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Dept.

What was the Upland and Ontario area like? Did you enjoy your childhood? What did you do for fun? Outdoorsy and adventurous things, or?

The City of Ontario had a population of under a hundred thousand and had a small town feel, at least to me. I had a great childhood. My mother took us everywhere, camping and on trips to faraway places in our Belvedere station wagon. In the summers she farmed me out to aunt’s houses at the beach and in the desert for one month at a time. I learned to be independent early in life. I liked staying outdoors most of the time, but I also loved to read and always throughout my school years continually purchased books through the school’s scholastic reader program.

You mentioned in your website’s FAQ section, that you started writing your first novel at age 10. Reading the genre “a sci-fi time travel western” certainly brought a smile to my face. I lived many years in Phoenix and enjoyed visiting (on multiple occasions) the plethora of locations which feature “Wild West History.” Wyatt Earp is also one of my favorite ‘law men.’

Do you still have those 40 hand-written pages squirreled away somewhere? If so, do you think you’ll ever finish writing that childhood novel? It could be fun…

No, I wish I had kept those pages. I also started two different novels while in high school that I never finished. Those two were crime novels with a young kid as the hero.

In High School, you wrote you wrote (and, I’m presuming, finished) an organized crime novel. What inspired that creation? I’m also sensing a theme here: organized crime novel and … a job in law enforcement. What was it that put you on that career path?

My father was a deputy sheriff and I remember as a very young child, probably five or six, when he’d come home from working patrol and he’d sit in his recliner chair. He’d eat two sandwiches and drink a glass of milk. I wondered at the time how could he two whole sandwiches like that. And he’d tell me wild stories of how the crooks got the better of him and had him tied up ready to hurt him when he’d somehow escape and take them into custody. This may have had a subconscious influence on me. What I do know for sure though is that I watched Adam 12 and loved the adventure in that show and remember thinking that’s what I wanted to do. Then as I got older when I started to read everything I could get my hands on, I read The Blue Knight and more importantly The New Centurions. A little side note, my father told me that he went to school with Joe Wambaugh, at Chaffey.

Alright, twenty years had passed since your High School crime novel. What was it that re-sparked your writing interest? Had it always been there; just simmering under the surface, but you never had the time to devote to it? Or was there something specific that triggered it? I’m also presuming that you now type your stories into some type of electronic device versus handwriting them? *chuckle*

I have always been an avid reader and when I became a cop, and worked narcotics I kept novels stacked in my backseat (the trunk was loaded with SWAT gear). I was on a surveillance way out in the middle of the desert, a meth lab and was down to my last novel. When working a surveillance it’s not like on TV, only one car has the ‘eye’ while all the other cars are laid-off close enough to move when the primary goes mobile.

So, I was down to my last novel and it was a national best seller. I started reading it and found the whole thing absolutely horrible. I couldn’t believe the book got published at all; let alone becoming a best seller. I was stuck and had to read the whole thing. At the end I thought I could do better and penned my first four novels in the front seat of my cop car while during down time chasing murder suspects. I found that a great author makes it look easy and that writing is much, much harder then it looks.

I always start a novel or story based on an incident I was involved in or story someone told me that sparks my interests. The first novel I finished was called Missing Fingers. It was the story about two narc cops who were good friends. The one cop, Jack Mooney, is driving home when he hears a robbery in progress, he jumps the call and responds. He gets there first and the masked suspect is coming out of the house with a hostage. Mooney shoots the suspect. When he pulls off the mask he finds his good friend. The story is about what motivated his friend to do this heinous act. This is a real life incident.

I wrote 38 manuscripts (38 different novels), had four agents and about 150 rejections in 20 years before I sold novel number 34 to Oceanview. The Bruno stories are based on my time working the Violent Crimes team. There are five stories in the first book The Disposables that really happened. Book two, The Replacements, the first chapter is an incident I went to as a very young cop. Karl Drago in The Replacements was a murderous parolee just out of prison that I followed around until he committed another felony and he went back to prison. He’s now in prison for the rest of his life.

I do write now with a laptop, a thousand words everyday at three thirty in the morning.

Well, that’s certainly dedication!

Tell me about John Bruno, the protagonist for The Disposables and The Replacements. What’s he like? Law-abiding citizen or a man intent on providing justice for those who have no recourse?

Bruno is a black detective who went to prison for killing his son-in-law. The story opens with Bruno working in a liquor store and on parole. I made Bruno a black detective to add more conflict. The story is set in a place I know well, South Central Los Angeles. I worked on a violent crimes team as did Bruno. Bruno has a tattoo symbolizing the team. The tattoo was also something the deputies I worked with used to do.

Bruno works outside the law, a law he no longer believes in. He is wrong legally but believes absolutely that he is morally correct. Bruno’s grandson Albert was murdered by his son-in-law and the court let the son in law off. Bruno corrected that wrong by killing the son-in-law. The court then placed the other grandson, Alonzo back with the in-laws while Bruno was in prison. Bruno gets out and again corrects the courts decision by taking Alonzo back. Bruno then starts rescuing other children in similar situations.

When I first transferred from Ontario to South Central Los Angeles I went to a “check the welfare” call. I found four little toddlers playing in a house filled with garbage. There wasn’t any electricity in the house. Their mother lay on the couch out cold from heroin. The syringe and heroin were easily accessible to the children. I arrested the mother for child endangerment and under the influence. I called Child Protective Services and the social worker who responded said the environment didn’t rise to the threshold for them to take the children into protective custody. She said that her office would be inundated with children if they used that low of a standard. I was shocked. The difference from Ontario and LA really hit home with me.

That story was probably the genesis of The Disposables; that stark reality.

Wow, I am literally speechless…

Can you provide us with a brief synopsis of The Replacements? Was the story, once finished, what you hoped it would be – or did it morph into a darker, grittier version of what you had originally envisioned?

I don’t know the story when I start writing a novel. I start with an inciting incident, in this case the first chapter is “The house that bled.” And then I let the story take me where it may. The first chapter is based on an incident I went to as a young cop.

In The Replacements, Bruno rescues a child saving his life. Twenty years later two children are kidnapped and a third is threatened with the same fate. An old friend comes to Bruno in Costa Rica and asks Bruno to come back to the states to help with the kidnapping. Bruno is wanted in the States for numerous felonies but he goes back anyway because children are involved and the kidnapper insists that Bruno deliver the ransom. That’s the basic plot-line for The Replacements without giving too much away.

When I read books, I always feel like the tale is that much ‘sharper’ and more realistic when written by a professional in the main character’s field. With that said, do you feel that your law enforcement career provides you an added edge in the writing of your books?

On the flip side, do you ever have to ‘reign in’ how much you share, lest you cause confusion to the reader who may not be as familiar with the reality of the law enforcement world?

I try to write the story the way it would go down in real life, so, yes, I think my background and experience plays a large role in all my books.

Sometimes I worry that policies and procedures revealed in my books might in some way aid the crooks in their nefarious endeavors, but then I realize that the crooks I’m talking about don’t read.

I don’t ever pull any punches. When my wife reads my work, particularly a scene where the crook is winning over the citizen, or cops, she tells me she doesn’t know which is worse, if it happened in real life or if I made it up.

What’s next for you? Is there another book in the works featuring John Bruno, or will you branch into a similar, yet different, novel?

Do you think you’ll ever switch writing genres, or is it kind of like a “it isn’t broken so don’t fix it” type thing?

Oceanview really loves Bruno and Marie and I will continue to feed them Bruno books until they say stop. The third book, The Squandered is due out in February. I just finished book four, The Dispossessed and it’s out being reviewed with the agent. So now I’m ahead of the publisher by eighteen months and I have some breathing room. I am halfway through a stand-alone that I’m really having fun with called The Bun Boy of Baker. It’s written in three female points of view.

I also have a fantasy and a young adult making the rounds in New York. And in the next couple of months Stark Raving, an e-publisher is putting out a novel of mine called Thud.

Besides the enjoyment of the read, what do you hope readers will take away from your works?

For the reader to become more aware of the plight of children stuck in out social welfare system.

An admirable request to say the least!

Last question though — what words of wisdom do you have for the aspiring and/or struggling author?

When I started writing over twenty-two years ago I took a class by author Mark Clement and the first thing he wrote on the white board in the first hour of the class was one word, “Persevere.”

Writers write. You have to write everyday.

Author Bio:

Bruno Johnson, ex-detective with Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department and an ex-convict, is hiding out from the FBI in Costa Rica, tending bar to support eight children he illegally rescued from abusive homes. Partway through a normal day, Barbara Wicks, a former colleague and the chief of police for Montclair, California, walks into his bar. Bruno is shocked to the core. Is she there to arrest him and take him back to California? Turns out she’s there to request Bruno’s help. Two children have been kidnapped.

The kidnapper, Jonas Mabry, was himself a victim whom Bruno rescued as a small child. Now Mabry demands a fool’s retribution, a million dollar ransom, and Bruno to put his life on the line to get the money. In this twisted turn of fate, Bruno returns as a wanted criminal to California. Despite the risk of arrest and even his life, he cannot turn his back on these kids. And neither can Bruno’s girlfriend, Marie.

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