Tom Straw
The Accidental Joe
A maverick celebrity chef reluctantly agrees to let the CIA use his hugely popular international food, culture, and travel TV series as cover for a dangerous espionage mission.
The Writer’s Dossier 4/21/2025 – The big Tom Straw interview
DOSSIER: Since many writers see at least a little of themselves in their book characters, where can we find shadows of you in your latest book The Accidental Joe? Afterall, it’s described as a high-stakes secret mission with a hot romance between a bad-boy celebrity chef and a CIA handler.
STRAW: I am about all those things. In my mind, anyway. And the world is safer because of that. Sleep well, you volatile globe, you. My experience in spycraft is confined to reading Graham Greene, John le Carré, Ian Fleming, and countless autobiographies and nonfiction reportage. Plus Google-sized rabbit holes where I only surface for meals. Which segues to your question about cheffery. Bad boy, yes. Bona fide chef, no. But a definite foodie, having taken cooking classes around Europe. I also count Alton Brown as a friend and culinary advisor. I could do worse than the host of Iron Chef America and Good Eats as my beta reader! Speaking of… Alton read my first draft of The Accidental Joe, and replied, “Love the book. Your knives suck!”
On a wing and a prayer
DOSSIER: Writer Nick Kolakowski was the first Dossier member to have an exchange with Craig Ferguson and it included a harrowing plane ride. What was your experience with Craigy Ferg like?
STRAW: May I have your attention, please: We have an overlap! I was working on the Late Late Show when Craig began studying for his pilot license, which would be near the time of the traumatic ride Nick described in his Dossier debrief. But that’s not the overlap! I, too had a wrenching, near-pant soiling airplane ride with Mr. Ferguson. But, let’s be clear, he was not at the controls. Craig leased a private jet to fly east for a live comedy tour and invited me to hitch a ride so I could visit my Connecticut home for the hiatus week. On approach to New York’s Westchester County Airport we entered a storm front complete with one of the absolute worst bouts of turbulance I’ve ever experienced. Jostled doesn’t cover it. We bounced, we shook, we took elevator plunges, we recovered. One member of our party of six threw caution to the (literal) winds, unbuckled, and raced aft to call the moose in the loo. It was a half hour of relentless buffeting and religious conversion. We landed safely, Craig went on his way, and I slalomed around fallen trees driving on the Merritt Parkway in the dark.
As for my experience with Craig, it was four wonderful years of creative bliss. We remain very good friends today. I might even fly with him again.
The Tom de plume
DOSSIER: Having written The Trigger Episode in 2007, you spent the next several years writing the New York Times Bestselling Nikki Heat series as Richard Castle. Now, with Buzz Killer and The Accidental Joe, how different is it writing back under your own name?
STRAW: The quick and true answer is that writing is writing. It is always supremely rewarding and inherently disquieting. My heart and soul abides in every one of those books regardless of whether it’s by Tom Straw or the tom de plume.
That said, there was a subtle layer of difference in writing those seven Nikki Heats. If I had to name it, the distinction was the weight of responsibility I felt to honor the TV series, which I loved, my relationship with series creator, Andrew W. Marlowe, and especially—most especially—the Castle fans. The common view Andrew and I shared at our first meeting was that I would not novelize Castle, but use it as a springboard for my original stories written to echo the show as Rick Castle’s idealized version of his experience on the ride-along with Kate Beckett. But man, did I use winks to the series, like naming my man Rook instead of Castle, populating the squad with analog characters, and planting Easter eggs (glancing references to minor show incidents)…all to reward the fans, who responded strongly to every sly allusion.
Writing under my own name means a freer playing field. The jerseys in the locker room bear my characters’ names, if I can torture the sports analogy. The responsibility is still there, but to myself and to my own readers. Honoring them is everything.
Fountain pens and laptops
DOSSIER: Where and when do you like to write? We’re guessing a castle, so do you have violins playing in the background? Bagpipes perhaps? Is there a window overlooking a moat and a drawbridge?
STRAW: I feel seen. But you left out the alligators in the moat and the prowling jackals. I have a pretty standard set up in my home office replete with tech you’d expect and fountain pens you might not. I do my daydreaming and outlining in composition books with pen and ink. Some drafting in them, too, but if I’m on deadline, I’m All Mac All The Time.
On the subject of deadlines, TV writing is ruled by that bastard the clock. TV’s a hungry beast (can’t have the cast show up for a reading without pages on the table). Years of experience trained me early on to write just about anywhere in order to hit the finish line. As a showrunner, with so much of my day consumed by the logistics of, well, running the show, factor in less time to write with the pressure of deadlines, and what you get is writing at the car wash, writing on the train to the studio, writing in a corner of the stage while the set is getting lit, writing on vacation, writing in the stands of the ball game… None of this is to cry poor me. It’s exhilarating and helps all my writing, including books, by not getting prescious about trappings or loose with goals.
From alchemy to chemistry to family
DOSSIER: As an Emmy- and Writer’s Guild of America-nominated TV writer and producer, you worked on a Dossier TV favorite, Night Court. Things on set were a little different when that hit show was filmed, so what’s something that really sticks out about it that might not fly too well today? We’re guessing it was a LOT of fun. Are we right?
STRAW: My years on Night Court were a blast. You can’t imagine. And even if you can imagine, it was even better than that. It’s near impossible to have a TV series that succeeds. What it takes is alchemy. Everything needs to fire on all cylinders: concept, writing, directing, casting, editing, producing, promotion. But the main component is not alchemy but chemistry. Night Court had all the elements, but chemistry led the way. We were a family. Occasionally dysfunctional, but rarely. We liked each other, laughed a lot, hung out together, and looked forward to coming to work every day. I made lifelong friends there, some of whose lives were tragically short. Markie’s family and mine were close, even vacationing and school carpooling together. Harry and I reunited on Dave’s World. John Larroquette is still a friend and a welcome baritone when he calls from the other coast. Working there, with all of them, underscored my credo about producing: the work is too hard not to have a good time doing it.
The Last Word
DOSSIER: Is there anything else you’d like to reveal in your Dossier today? (We like headline-making breaking news and it gives our graphics department something to do other than play video games all day.)
STRAW: Much as I’d love to hear you holler “Stop the presses” down the hallowed Dossier halls or startle your elite graphics battalion out of its sugar crash, I’ll have to offer you a crumb, not the Cronut. I am ecstatic to share that The Accidental Joe has been optioned by—stop me if you know the phrase—a major Hollywood studio. Along with that, I am collaborating with the producing team of one of the hottest spy series going. You’ll have to waterboard me or lock me in a room and pipe in a loop of the Kars4kids jingle to get me to say more. All I can give up is, pitching soon. Watch this space in The Dossier.
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