Please help me welcome today’s guest, Brian Anderson…
Please tell us a little about yourself, where are you from? Where do you live now? Family? Pets?
I am a retired food bank manager residing in the small coastal city of Ocean Shores, Washington. I grew up in the Twin Cities and graduated from the University of Minnesota with a double major in English and Russian. During that time, I lived and worked in the Minneapolis neighborhood of Dinkytown, which provides the setting for my Lyle Dahms mystery series. I am married with three beautiful daughters, one perfect granddaughter, and our chihuahua-mix Sir Stanley of the Shores.
Tell us a bit about Death’s Honesty.
Death’s Honesty is the fourth in my Lyle Dahms mystery series featuring the Minneapolis private investigator. Dahms may not be the toughest or sharpest guy working the Twin Cities beat, but he is loyal, dogged, and despite numerous setbacks, will get the job done. He is quick with a quip, a device he uses to help steady himself when he is overmatched. Something that happens frequently.
Are there any tricks, habits or superstitions you have when creating a story?
The plots of most of my books come from titles that pop into my head, often from poems or song lyrics. It is then my job to figure out what the universe is trying to tell me by sending me these missives.
When working on a project, everything I see or experience is fair game to be included: descriptions of people I see on the street, stories in newspapers. Anything that comes my way becomes grist for the mill. Again, the universe seems to be trying to help if only I could learn to listen.
What do you want readers to come away with after they read Death’s Honesty?
At its core, Death’s Honesty is about parents and their children. What they owe each other, and what is too much to ask.
Would you rather have a bad review or no review?
Definitely a bad review, particularly one that contains kernels of truth. Things that I can learn from. I don’t mean to say they don’t sting, but it’s better to have someone point out deficiencies than to remain silent.
Are your characters based off real people or did they all come entirely from your imagination?
My two main characters, Lyle Dahms and his friend and housemate Stephen Edgerton, are based on a couple of guys I knew back in Dinkytown, when I was in college. The bar that they frequent almost daily is a rendering of a pub and 24-hour restaurant where I worked and where we all hung out. It was a fascinating milieu. Earnest students, hardworking regulars, barstool intellectuals, frustrated artists, and genuine nutbars. I love writing about it.
Who is the most famous person you have ever met?
I met tough-guy, professional wrestler George “the Animal” Steele in a hotel bar. He asked how we “enjoyed the show.”
How much of the book is realistic?
I’m no private investigator, and I don’t have any real-life experience with the law or law enforcement. However, the characters are based on people I’ve known and interesting situations I’ve heard about that I hope they come across as realistic. Most importantly, I strive to create books that blend genuine emotion, suspense, and laugh-out-loud humor.
How did your interest in writing originate?
I’ve always been a big reader, particularly mysteries, and have written seriously since high school
Who is your favorite author and what is it that really strikes you about their work?
My favorite author (among so many) is probably Raymond Chandler. He’s a master of language, and I constantly try to measure up to his standard.
Past secrets. Present danger.
Excerpt:
The man took a few steps down the stairs. As he did, he moved into the light streaming in through the still-open door. He looked to be pushing sixty, maybe older, not very tall, but hard, with sinewy muscles and prominent veins that bulged under the skin of his forearms like earthworms engorged after a rain. He was wearing jeans and a white pocket T-shirt that very nearly managed to hide a round little belly. He had a shiny pate encircled by curly, gray-salted, brown hair badly in need of a trim. It made him appear vaguely clown-like. But there was nothing funny about what he was cradling in his arms. Sunlight glinted off the barrel of a twelve-gauge shotgun.
I kept my smile in place as I pulled back my jacket to reveal the .38 in my shoulder holster. He smiled back at me as he slowly pumped a shell from the gun’s magazine into the chamber. “I might tell you the same thing.”
I nodded at his shotgun, smirked, and shook my head dramatically. “They got guns. We got guns. All God’s chillun got guns.” I quoted cheerfully.
The man’s brow furrowed. “What’dya say?”
“It’s from a Marx Brothers movie,” I told him.
“What’s it mean?”
I shrugged. “Got something to do with the absurdity of armed conflict, I suppose.”
We stared at each other for very long time. Finally, my adversary lowered the shotgun with a chuckle.
“You come to see me?” he asked.
I squinted at him. “Now, why would I do that?”
He chuckled again, I thought a bit nervously. “You’re an indirect bastard, aren’t ya?”
“Positively oblique.”
Buy link(s):
- https://www.amazon.com/dp/1509261893
- https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/deaths-honesty-brian-anderson/1147348055?ean=9781509261895
- https://books.apple.com/us/book/deaths-honesty/id6745478306
- https://wildrosepress.com/product/deaths-honesty/
About the Author:
Brian Anderson is a graduate of the University of Minnesota whose Dinkytown neighborhood provides the setting for his mystery series featuring private investigator Lyle Dahms. The Dahms novels spring from his lifelong love of mystery fiction, especially the works of Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler, as well as more contemporary masters like Robert B. Parker and G. M. Ford. He is a three-time finalist in the Pacific Northwest Writers Association mystery and suspense contest, and his debut novel, The Shiver in Her Eyes, was a finalist in their Nancy Pearl Contest for published fiction.
In 2024, he released his standalone novel Yule Tide, which features a fallen angel turned private investigator who fights to wrest Christmas from the dark forces who have taken control and twisted it to their evil ends.
Brian spent much of his professional career working to alleviate domestic hunger serving as the operations director of the Emergency Feeding Program of Seattle & King County as well as the manager of the Pike Market Food Bank in downtown Seattle. Married with three beautiful daughters and one perfect granddaughter, he now lives and writes in Ocean Shores, a small city on the Washington coast.
Author Alicia Dean 