Let’s talk about Rich Zahradnik’s book, Lights Out Summer, before I discuss his guest blog.
In March 1977, ballistics link murders going back six months to the same Charter Arms Bulldog .44. A serial killer, Son of Sam, is on the loose. But Coleridge Taylor can’t compete with the armies of reporters fighting New York’s tabloid war–only rewrite what they get.
The story entangles Taylor with a wealthy Park Avenue family at war with itself. Just as he’s closing in on the killer and his scoop, the July 13-14 blackout sends New York into a 24-hour orgy of looting and destruction. Taylor and his PI girlfriend Samantha Callahan head out into the darkness, where a steamy night of mob violence awaits them.
In the midst of the chaos, a suspect in Taylor’s story goes missing. Desperate, he races to a confrontation that will either break the story–or Taylor.
Rich Zahradnik was originally going to write about libraries. And, he did. But, he also touches on a timely, important topic. Thank you, Rich.
The first two books in the series were shortlisted or won awards in the three major competitions for books from independent publishers. Drop Dead Punk won the gold medal for mystery eBook in the 2016 Independent Publisher Book Awards. It was also named a finalist in the mystery category of the 2016 Next Generation Indie Book Awards. Last Words won the bronze medal for mystery/thriller eBook in the 2015 IPPYs and honorable mention for mystery in the 2015 Foreword Reviews Book of the Year Awards.
Zahradnik was a journalist for 30-plus years, working as a reporter and editor in all major news media, including online, newspaper, broadcast, magazine and wire services. He held editorial positions at CNN, Bloomberg News, Fox Business Network, AOL and The Hollywood Reporter.
Zahradnik was born in Poughkeepsie, New York, and received his B.A. in journalism and political science from George Washington University. He lives with his wife Sheri and son Patrick in Pelham, New York, where he writes fiction and teaches kids around the New York area how to write news stories and publish newspapers.
For more information, go to richzahradnik.com.
protagonist in four books including the latest, Lights Out Summer, is a journalist. That leads to inevitable questions.
“How much is he like you? Does his career match yours?” There are more
differences than similarities, though there are some of the latter, as he could
only come out of my experiences. Taylor is a much better reporter than I ever was.
I wandered around the news business, trying lots of different things, curious
about how newspapers, magazines and websites worked. Taylor is modeled on
reporters I met along the way. He has his eyes on one thing: the story he’s after.
He’s close to myopic in this. It’s his mission to report on the lives of victims
and find out why they were killed and who did it. In many ways, I made him the
reporter I thought I should have been. That doesn’t make him ideal—or an
idealist. Such single-minded drive can be off putting. And dangerous to Taylor
and the small group of people close to him.
high school. This was about the same time I learned of the McCarthy era witch-hunts,
the blacklisting, the lives and careers destroyed. I became fascinated with how
Senator Joseph McCarthy used lies to destroy lives. How America could be
possessed with a fear that spread like a virus. And how the press seemed unable
for much of the period to do anything to counter McCarthy’s lies with the facts.
school, sent me to the newly opened Museum of Radio and Television (now the
Museum of Broadcasting) in New York. I watched Edward R. Murrow’s surgical dissection
of McCarthy’s charges on Murrow’s show “See It Now.” The broadcasting great
brought facts to bear to expose the senator for the fraud he was. Murrow’s
broadcast is credited, in part, with bringing down McCarthy.
was pretty quickly assigned a research paper. I pretty quickly chose McCarthy
and the press as my topic. I remained fascinated with journalism’s failure, and
then success right at the end, at taking on a bully of national scale. I could
have researched the paper at my university’s library. No doubt, they would have
had what I needed. But I was in Washington. I had the Library of Congress up
the mall behind the Capitol. The Library. Of. Congress. I was going big time,
indulging a fancy, I must admit, as well as my curiosity about what it was like
to use the nation’s great library for a real project (rather than to take a
tour).
than the Dewey decimal system. I might be wrong there. I filled out little paper
slips. Waited, sitting at my assigned desk in that glorious reading room, in
that building with all the books ever printed (well, ever printed and copyrighted
in the U.S.). To me, a palace. I wasn’t a book writer then, but I was a big book
reader. My materials were found somewhere in the depths of the library and
delivered to me. I read and took notes. Learned why the press had stumbled when
it came to going after McCarthy’s big lie—that there were communists everywhere
in American society. It was because they had to chase all his little lies—there’s
ten over there in that government department, fifteen over here. Getting past
all the smoke took, did take, hard work to get at the hard facts.
all shapes and sizes in my career, some that officials or executives didn’t
want reported. The lessons from my McCarthy research became core to my work as
a journalist. Get the facts. Stay focused on the big picture, not the sideshow.
gets the facts, he can figure out a crime. He isn’t much for quoting historical
figures, but he has memorized one thing John Adams said. “Facts are stubborn
things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of
our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.”
story? He’d go anywhere, though for him (unlike me) not for the glory of the
building, but the chance of finding a key detail. (The Library has a connection
with the most important investigative story of the last century. Woodward and
Bernstein plowed through file cards there in their pursuit of a lead in the
Watergate investigation. The scene is in the book and the movie. That’s another
story, and perhaps another reason I went up there in 1979.)
of all murderers. The villain will use any and all sorts of little lies to
distract from the biggest one of all—that he or she didn’t do the killing.
How very interesting! Thanks, Rich, for doing this guest post for Lesa. I found it quite fascinating (plus the Library of Congress – catnip to a former library staff member!). I'll be looking for your books and seeing if I can meeting Coleridge Taylor.
Right with you on that catnip, Kay.
Yes, interesting. We were fortunate enough to be in England during the two New York blackouts that happened in the summer, in 1977 (British tabloid headline was "New York in Chaos") and 2003.
So, the next time you go to England, Jeff, New York will probably have a blackout?
Thanks everyone for the comments…I'll be stopping back to see if there are questions or additional comments. –Rich