Interview with Michael D. Graves, author of the Pete Stone Private Investigator series, published by Meadowlark Books
Today it gives the Indie Crime Scene great pleasure to interview Michael D. Graves, author of the Pete Stone Private Investigator series.
Your latest book in the Pete Stone Private Investigator series was published on March 8, 2022 and goes on general release in May. Titled Shadows and Sorrows, this is the fourth outing for Pete Stone. Can you tell us about the series and what led you to write it?
My grandfather’s last words to my father were, “Tell the boys not to forget me.” Years later when Grandpa’s face looked back from the mirror, I realized I never really knew him well. What was Grandpa’s life like before I came along? I decided to write a fictional story with a caveat. The tale would come from my imagination, but the setting would be based on Wichita, Kansas during the 1930s. I like to read mysteries, so Grandpa Pete Graves became Private Detective Pete Stone, Graves>Gravestone>Stone.
Pete Stone is a Private Eye who started life as a dairy farmer in Wichita, Kansas, and lost his livelihood in the Great Depression. Why did you set the series in the 1930s, and how did you research it?
Grandpa and a partner once delivered dairy products from farms to the city, but their small enterprise didn’t make much money. According to family lore the partners tossed a coin to determine who’d keep the business. Grandpa lost and eventually found work at Boeing, but Pete Stone became a private eye.
Grandpa was in his forties during the Great Depression, an era that’s always fascinated me. I admire people who struggle but remain resilient, citizens of Ukraine today, Londoners during the Blitz, or the average soul who works hard every day to put beans and bread on the table. Like tough people during tough times, Pete Stone is tenacious and stubborn, and he never quits.
My research began with legwork. My wife and I visited museums and libraries first. Librarians and museum staff are generous, and I’m grateful for their help. I read newspapers on microfilm for news and advertisements. What businesses thrived in Wichita during the Great Depression? How much was a pair of shoes? What movie was playing at the theatre? Pete Stone eats, drinks, smokes, gets a haircut. Advertisements help me visualize the quotidian details of his day.
Books and movies are good for research, too, and of course the internet is valuable. I bookmark sites that have historical essays and photographs from the 30s.
You live in Emporia, Kansas. How important is your knowledge of the area and your sense of place?
I doubt if my stories would be on the page today if I hadn’t started by roaming around Wichita and saying to myself, “I wonder….” Common advice tells us to, “Write what you know,” but it’s also important to write what you love. Living and writing in Kansas allows me to do both. Research adds to my knowledge of the area, but I have much more to learn. My love for Kansas keeps my hunger to learn alive.
Many novels about PIs are set in urban environments where there are particular dangers - gangs and gangsters. What are the crimes of a rural setting and how does the investigation unfold?
Robbery and murder exist in both cities and small towns. Kansas is a rural state, and Wichita is its largest city, and where there’s people there’s crime. I read the old newspapers, and I’m struck by how some things never change. Yesterday’s headlines are much like those of today.
My stories are fictional, but they’re often inspired by actual events or characters. A cop killer in Shadow of Death was inspired by a real-life killer from Hutchinson, Kansas who was eventually slain by Wichita police. In the same book Pete Stone visits a gangster in Hot Springs, Arkansas inspired by a real-life gangster who was driven out of New York City.
It’s common for a MacGuffin to drive a mystery. All Hallows Shadows relies on the four bodily humours to reveal clues to a manuscript that leads to the killer. In Shadows and Sorrows Pete’s love of baseball and the death of his friend lead Pete to a hidden cache of information that unveils the evils of the German American Bund.
As a PI, Pete Stone sometimes finds himself in conflict with the cops. How does he deal with that?
Pete Stone has a love/hate relationship with the police, especially Lieutenant Thaddeus McCormick (named for my father’s uncle.) The men respect one another and have a mutual interest in pursuing justice, but the police aren’t fond of a private detective who roils the waters and gets in the way. Pete Stone doesn’t try to aggravate the cops, but he’s often hired by a character who is overlooked or ignored by the police. Pete Stone doesn’t care if he’s popular. He has tough skin and does what he wants to do.
Shadows and Sorrows deals with an old friendship and a dead friend, Cocky Wright. Stone has to discover whether his friend was murdered and if he was selling secrets to the German American Bund. Who are the German American Bund and what can you tell us about the historical background?
A friend and fellow-writer sent an article to me about a woman who once spoke at our local university during the early years of World War II. Authorities later discovered that she recruited for the German American Bund, and she was deported.
The article led me to research the Bund, an organization of Nazi sympathizers that had a following in America. In 1939, the group held a rally in New York City that drew 20,000 attendees and led to protests and violence. The group’s leader was Fritz Kuhn who served time in prison here before he was deported to Germany where he again went to prison after the war. He died in 1951.
Pete Stone believes that every person deserves a fair shake, and he despises discrimination against others. When authorities believe that Pete’s friend was a Bund member, Pete investigates to solve the murder and clear his friend’s name.
Pete Stone and Cocky Wright played baseball together as kids. Tell us something about the importance of baseball to you and as a national sport. Why is it so iconic, the way football/soccer is in Britain, and what is “moxie”?
Baseball is our national pastime, and it’s always been a part of my life. As a child of the 1950s and 60s I had fewer distractions than children do today, and baseball, books, and a bicycle provided much of my entertainment. I played baseball as a youngster and coached my sons when I no longer played. I still have my ticket stub from the first game I attended at Yankee Stadium in 1960. Dad paid for seats near the dugout, $2.50 each. Details of the games that Pete Stone listens to on the radio are taken from actual box scores, and I try to make the details accurate.
“Moxie” was a common term of the 1930s and referred to a determined person who never quit. The term pops up in movies and books. According to Wikipedia it comes from a popular a beverage with the same name billed as “Moxie Nerve Food.”
Tell us about Pete Stone’s character. Who is he? Does he stand alone, like Phillip Marlowe, or is he helped by buddies and friends? Who has his back?
Exploring Pete Stone’s character is the crux that drives my stories, who he is and why he does what he does. Pete Stone is a good man, but he isn’t perfect, and he makes mistakes. He’s flawed, but he does his best. Pete knows that what’s legal isn’t always what’s right, and he picks a lock and peeps through a keyhole when he has to. He does whatever it takes to get the job done.
Pete Stone is a simple man with simple tastes. He’d rather eat barbeque and beans in a local rib joint than dine on a steak at Delmonico’s. He’s more concerned with a person’s character than he is about the colour of his skin or the quality of the threads on his back. Every person deserves an even break in Pete’s world. He often buys a meal for a guy who’s out of work.
Pete Stone was alone and lonely in the beginning, but the cast of characters around him has grown. Pete is independent, but others stand with him, and he is loyal to them, too.
His assistant, Agnes, joins him in the first book and becomes a steady ally. She helps with investigations, runs the office, and reminds him to get a haircut, have his shoes shined, or buy a new shirt. Tom runs the tavern and dispenses advice. Ethan Alexander is a wheelchair-bound history professor who shares his vast knowledge. Ellis Waldo shines his shoes and is the most well-read man Pete knows. Ellis’s son, Ralph, becomes a private eye and sometimes works on a case with Pete. Lucille Hamilton is a widow and Pete’s love interest. Their relationship grows over time.
Are you writing in the tradition of Raymond Chandler and Damon Runyon? What are the challenges of writing a historical mystery today?
It was never my intention to write in the tradition of another author, but I’m influenced by Raymond Chandler, Damon Runyon, Dashiell Hammett, Agatha Christie, and others. I enjoy stories that feature characters I admire such as John D. MacDonald’s Travis McGee or Lawrence Block’s Matthew Scudder, good human beings who sometimes trip and stumble but get back up and never quit.
To Leave a Shadow (2016) and All Hallows’ Shadows (2021) were selected as Kansas Notable Books. All Hallows’ Shadows was also chosen as the J. Donald Coffin Memorial Book Award winner by the Kansas Authors Club in 2020 and was a silver medalist in the Midwest Book Awards in 2021. How important is this to you and how does it affect you as a writer?
I am surprised and honoured when a book wins an award, but I don’t let that drive me. Early on, I assumed my readership would be a few dozen friends and family members, so it pleases me to have an audience that reads my stories. When readers tell me they enjoy my books, I’m grateful, and I appreciate hearing from them.
How do you make contact with your readers? Do you have an online presence or meet up with them in real life, at bookstores or conventions?
I love to meet readers in person when possible. I’ve presented at annual festivals and conventions as well as at bookstores. Following a presentation at a book festival in Iola, Kansas, the town library chose To Leave a Shadow as their selection for the community to read. I made Zoom appearances during the pandemic and was recently the guest speaker at several university literature classes. We recently released Shadows and Sorrows with a 1930s-themed cocktail party where attendees received party fedoras to wear. I’ve been interviewed on radio and in print, and I read my books to the public as often as I can.
I have a webpage at Meadowlark Press and an author page at Amazon. I also stay in touch with readers on Facebook.
Your author bio says: “When life conjures its riddles, Mike turns to back roads and baseball for answers.” Can you explain what that means?
When I need quiet time to think and ponder, I go for a drive in the country, steering wheel in one hand and coffee cup in the other. A long walk in a park helps, too.
Baseball is often used as a metaphor for life. Even in today’s modern stadiums, the game itself is much like it was years ago. The best hitters still fail seven out of ten times, and the best teams lose fifty or sixty games a season. That’s baseball, and that’s life. If you strike out one day, you have to go out there the next day and keep swinging. Show a little moxie. Never give up.
Which authors did you love to read growing up?
I read Mark Twain, Jack London, and the Hardy Boy mysteries. Random House delivered books in the mail, and I loved the biographies. My first book report was on George Orwell’s Animal Farm. That led to 1984 and on to Aldous Huxley. My folks encouraged reading. Dad and I went to the library together, and we always had books nearby.
Who do you like reading now and are there any particular TV shows or movies that you enjoy?
I’ve read sixty or seventy books a year for many years. In the past few months I’ve read Lincoln Highway, by Amor Towles, Cloud Cuckoo Land, by Anthony Doerr, and Hamnet, by Maggie O’Farrell to name a few. I enjoy books by fellow writers in the Kansas Authors Club, recently Gravedigger’s Daughter, by Cheryl Unruh and Marble Shorts, by Cathy Callen. Favourite authors include Jim Harrison, Larry McMurtry, Paul Auster, George Saunders, and others.
I enjoy many movie genres including noir and movies that depict the 30s and 40s. Some on Netflix include, The Highwaymen, Once Upon a Time in America, Road to Perdition, Public Enemies, The Irishman, and The Darkest Hour. Although I haven’t seen them in a while, I like Humphrey Bogart movies, The Maltese Falcon, The Big Sleep, and Casablanca.
About Michael D. Graves:
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