Andrew G. Nelson
Shadow Strike
DOSSIER: As a NYPD officer, you built an impressive resume working protection for the Pope and President Clinton, you were a member of the elite intelligence division, and you’ve risen all the way up from running the streets to leading investigations. What part of being a cop had the most impact on your writing? The things you saw as a patrol officer, a detective, or a sergeant?
NELSON: That’s actually a great question, Jeff. I think I would have to say that every step of my career as a police officer has impacted my writing, as it provided a valuable insight into things. Certain things you do as a cop are a lot different from a detective or sergeant will do. So in my books you will see things from a wide variety of perspectives and having actually performed those roles in real-life, it adds a whole different level of realism. One of the things I enjoy doing is portraying the banter between cops prior to an incident. You get a glimpse of this early on in PERFECT PAWN with the main character, James Maguire, when he and his Secret Service buddy are awaiting the arrival of the President. You get to see them being themselves and realize that they are, in fact, human beings, too. They have the same issues you do, the same conversations, and then you see them responding to a life-threatening event. You get another look at this dynamic in QUEEN’S GAMBIT, and you see just how quickly things can devolve on the streets. One of the other things I was fortunate to have in my later career as a sergeant was interaction with top-ranking members of the NYPD, so as I am writing those characters I draw from that experience.
DOSSIER: With the ability to draw from so much rich life experience throughout New York City, how much of your writing is born from complete imagination versus anything derived from cases you worked where you simply changed some story details for publication purposes?
NELSON: There is always some semblance of truth hidden within the stories, but they are interspersed with the over-arching plot lines. Some of the incidents are fictionalized accounts of things that I have been involved. A lot of the characters have some foundation to people I have known / worked with over the years. Like the old Dragnet adage goes: ‘Only the names have been changed to protect the innocent,’ or in some cases, the infamous.
DOSSIER: When and where do you write, and what kind of environment do you prefer? (Absolute silence/music playing/anyplace where there’s a lot of traffic noise?)
NELSON: I have a home office, which is more like an NYPD museum, where I do the vast majority of my writing. I tend to write in silence, because when I write, I am actually ‘seeing’ the scene unfold in my head. On occasion, I have listened to select music, because that particular scene called for it and I think it helped embrace the overall vision, but as a rule it is just me and the steady clickty-clack of the keyboard.
DOSSIER: Many people in law enforcement start out working in corrections before graduating up to a patrol car and assigned to a sector. How was going into corrections in Illinois after retiring as a police sergeant from the NYPD, and which has provided more fodder for your writing?
NELSON: Not going to lie, that was a total eye opener for me. I ruined a perfectly good retirement to take a position as a Deputy Sheriff and ran a county jail. I decided early on that I much preferred arresting folks than baby-sitting them. However, the overall experience gave me an insight into the operations of a smaller department, which ultimately helped when I was crafting the first book in the Alex Taylor series: SMALL TOWN SECRETS. In that book, Alex is a former NYPD sergeant with a drinking problem. She gets a shot at redemption, courtesy of her former partner, James Maguire, as the chief of police in a small town in New Hampshire, or as Maguire refers to it, ‘Purgatory with a pine scent.’
DOSSIER: Your most popular books may be the Maguire and Taylor mystery novel series, but you’ve written many other works, as well. Where do you see things headed as far as continuing your series, doing a standalone, or expanding your Uncommon Valor nonfiction work?
NELSON: The first answer that came to mind was, ‘It’s Complicated,’ which is writer’s slang for I have a lot of projects in various stages. My latest book, SHADOW STRIKE, is a military thriller which gives readers a bit of a background story to James Maguire. My current WIP is the next book in the Maguire series, EXPOSED KING, and after that I am working on the sequel to my mystery / fantasy hybrid: AWAKENING. I’ve described that book as being NYPD Blue meets Twilight, without the annoying kids. In the wings is a non-fiction project I have been working on sporadically for the last few years. It’s a history of the NYPD shields (badges to everyone else) from the consolidation period (1898) to the present. The one thing I have learned from writing fiction and non-fiction is the actual amount of work that goes into NF. All the other stories I make up in my head, but with NF there is a tremendous amount of research that goes into it. You definitely have to put on your detective hat for that and commit yourself to following the evidence, and it is a painstakingly long process. So I work on stuff like that when I need a break from my other writing.
Website: Andrew Nelson | Amazon Page