Beyond Hard-Boiled Detective Fiction: A Conversation with Indigo Author JB Roth

JB Roth author interview illustration for Indigo River Publishing blog

A Behind-the-Scenes Look: JB Roth Author Interview

This JB Roth author interview takes you beyond the crime scenes and courtrooms, offering a personal look into how he went from attorney to full-time fiction writer.

Who is JB Roth, this still-new Indigo River author?

Head over to my website, and you’ll see I’m a mystery writer, a former attorney, and a Floridian by choice. I’ve got one novel out—Blunt Force—and another coming in January called Fractured. Both feature Cooper Malone, a modern-day hard-boiled PI working Miami’s streets with his team. They’re an interesting bunch.

That’s all fine and good, but today, you get to know a bit more about me, beyond just the facts.

How did you get into writing?

Stop me if you’ve heard it before, but as a writer, I’m a pandemic pivot story. I was practicing commercial law; the courtrooms closed; the business world slowed down to a trickle. What’s a guy to do?

I started writing fiction. I rather enjoyed it, so when the law picked up, I kept writing part-time. Then one day, after long hours arguing with stubborn attorneys, my wife came to me, hands on her hips, telling me I was a much happier human being when I wrote fiction than when I worked in the law. She was right—which is a frequent problem. That was also around the time Indigo River picked up Blunt Force. We rolled the dice, and today, I write full time.

I’ve got to admit, writing fiction is way more fun than court papers. I get to make stuff up! It’s also as different as night from day. In a legal memo, you tell the court what happened, what the law says, and why you should win. Simple as that.

What is your writing process?

The first rule of fiction? “Show, don’t tell.” I was used to telling judges what was true. Now I had to learn to show readers what my characters did, how they talked, where they went, what they heard and smelled and saw and thought. My early attempts were rough. It makes it that much sweeter now when people tell me how much they love Blunt Force.

I write the first draft of every book longhand with a fountain pen in a writing journal. The second draft is closer to a rewrite putting it on the computer than strictly editing, while the third is a narrower edit. The two or three drafts that follow come after my wife Penny goes through some story-editing. Every page will end up worked over ten times or more—editing, polishing, cutting, adding—before it leaves the house.

Pages about what, you ask? Many writers have a quip at the ready to answer the cocktail-party question: “How do you come up with your ideas?” I’ll do a bit better than that for you.

Writing a story is a little bit like starting a fire. You gather your kindling—which is absolutely everything you see, read, or hear in life. Most of it’s wet and will never catch. But sometimes, you put a match to the pile, you write a few pages, and the fire takes on a life of its own.

I’m a “pantser”, the funny name for those of us writing without an outline—writing by the seat of our pants. You could say that once the kindling catches, I throw logs on top of it. Sometimes a log threatens to smother the whole thing, and I pull it out or move it to the side for a while. Some burn a little too hot or never ignite. I’m never afraid of the delete key.

His New Book: Blunt Force

Blunt Force started with a single question. How would someone solve a murder without a body or a crime scene to examine? In fact, what if you weren’t even sure a murder happened? So I dropped the crime on a cruise ship; I created a slightly freaked out passenger who suspects the worst; and I let my PI loose into the world. Come along for the ride, won’t you?

Remember how I said the kindling could be anything you hear as you go about life? One Fourth of July, I heard parents playing hide-and-seek with their kids, joking with the crowd, asking, “Have you seen three little girls trying to hide?” I wondered, what if three women actually disappeared, college-age ladies perhaps, on a Fourth of July? What if no one knew what happened to them or where they were three days later? Let’s say it happened on a beach. And what if, to make things a bit more tense yet, there had been a murder on the same beach at the same time they vanished? That’s how Fractured started, and come January, you’ll see all the unexpected places this will take Coop and the gang.

JB Roth kills people for a living, but there’s no need to call the FBI. He only does it on the page. Once an accountant, then a lawyer, JB writes full-time today. Born in Europe, JB spent many years in Minnesota and now splits his time between Jacksonville and Tampa, Florida, with his wife, Penny, and their tyrannical French Bulldog, Lena.