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The Crime Cafe

The Crime Cafe

By: Debbi Mack
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 Interviews and entertainment for crime fiction, suspense and thriller fans.© 2015 - 2021 Debbi Mack Art Literary History & Criticism Social Sciences
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  • Interview with Patrick H. Moore – S. 11, Ep. 10

    Interview with Patrick H. Moore – S. 11, Ep. 10
    Oct 26 2025
    My guest interview this week on the Crime Cafe podcast is with former investigator and crime writer Patrick H. Moore. Check out our discussion of Patrick's work in sentencing mitigation work. It's a lesser-known unique type of investigative work. You can download a copy of the transcript here. Debbi (00:54): Hi everyone. My guest today is a retired Los Angeles based investigator and sentencing mitigation specialist. Since 2003, he worked on more than 500 drug trafficking, sex crime, violent crime, and white collar fraud cases. My, what a mix. He also studied English literature and creative writing at San Francisco State University. As a student, he published several short stories and novel excerpts. In 2014, he published his first thriller novel Cicero's Dead. Today he has a three-book series, the first of which is a political thriller called 27 Days, which was along with Cicero's Dead, a finalist in various awards contests. As I said, it is the first of the three books in the Nick Crane thriller series. My guest was also co-founder of a blog called All Things Crime that apparently reached its zenith of popularity somewhere in the mid-2010s, which was what, 20 or 30 years ago? No, no, it was only last decade. It only feels like 50 years. Alrighty. It's my pleasure to introduce my guest, Patrick H. Moore. Hi. So how are you doing? Patrick (02:26): Oh, I'm doing great, Debbi. Hi. Thank you very much for having me on. Debbi (02:30): It's my pleasure. Believe me. And I was very intrigued to see that you used to be an investigator. Was that like a private investigator? Patrick (02:39): Well, I worked for a private investigator. The person I worked for, he held the private investigator's license, so I did investigations for him and also I did what's called sentencing mitigation work. We worked for lawyers primarily in the greater Los Angeles area, but also all around the country. And we would do a lot of their legwork. We would do a lot of their interviewing, and so we do their legwork, their interviewing, and also we would do a lot of the ghostwriting for the lawyers. So my specialty was actually writing federal sentencing memorandums, which are highly precise documents written in a very formal style that follow certain ground rules. (03:36): And so I wrote hundreds of these federal sentencing memorandums, and I also edited hundreds for my boss, but I also did investigations. But in doing sentencing mitigation work, it really is, it is like an investigation of a slightly different sort, that is you're not going out and knocking on doors or searching for things on the internet in one of the databases, but rather you're actually talking to your clients or our clients, my boss's company, John Brown and Associates. And so I would interview the clients at great length. I would interview their family members. I would collect character reference letters. So I was basically investigating the client his past, what he had or had not done, whether or not he had come from a disadvantaged background, all of those things. And so it was a kind of investigative work, but a kind of investigative work that very few people know about because the vast majority of the population has no idea that there are sentencing mitigation specialists in existence. And there actually are very few. I think Los Angeles really created this phenomenon, and I don't think it's really caught on in other parts of the country, which is why lawyers from other parts of the country would use my boss's firm too. Debbi (05:07): That's very interesting. Patrick (05:09): Because sharp lawyers quickly realized that to get those sentences a fair deal, they needed to have lots of ammunition, they needed to have lots of arrows in their quiver, and a full complete workup on the client they discovered was hugely helpful. We also did state cases, but those were fairly simple compared to the federal cases. My specialty was federal cases, drugs and fraud cases,
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  • Interview with Amanda DuBois – S. 11, Ep. 9

    Interview with Amanda DuBois – S. 11, Ep. 9
    Oct 12 2025
    My guest interview this week on the Crime Cafe podcast is with legal thriller author Amanda DuBois. Among other things, we talk about how telling true stories persuasively can make you a better fiction writer. Learn more about her novel, Unshackled, here. For a PDF copy of the interview, just click here. It's there, somewhere. :) Debbi (00:54): Hi everyone. My guest this week is the founder and managing partner of DuBois Levias Law Group, one of Washington State's longest standing woman-owned law firms before becoming a family law attorney, a field I learned to avoid like the plague, frankly, she was a labor and delivery nurse. She uses her medical and legal knowledge to address inequities in the legal system as an author of the Camille Delaney Mystery series, an award-winning book series. Her third and latest book is called Unshackled. She also founded an organization that helps formerly incarcerated people to reenter society. What a laudable goal. And I just finished reading the script for The Shawshank Redemption. What interesting timing. Anyway, I'm pleased to have with me today the author Amanda DuBois. Hi, Amanda. How are you doing? Amanda (01:57): I'm doing awesome. I want a copy of that script. How interesting that would be. Debbi (02:01): Oh, I can probably send you the link to where it was found. Or even a copy. Amanda (02:05): Oh, fantastic. I didn't know you were reading that. Debbi (02:09): Oh, it, it's kind of cool to read it, and I didn't have a chance to actually watch the movie. We were doing a discussion on it, and I hadn't had a chance to see it in a long time, but it seemed like there were scenes in there that might not have made it into the movie, which was interesting. Amanda (02:24): Yeah, that's exactly right. Debbi (02:26): It was very interesting to read, but I'm always pleased to have a lawyer on who has written crime fiction. I'm just pleased to see lawyers writing fiction, frankly, in general. And you have done some remarkable work starting your own law firm. How long have you had your own law firm? Amanda (02:49): So I'm just this year celebrating 30 years. Debbi (02:52): 30 years. Amanda (02:53): And so that makes us one of Seattle's longest-standing women owned law firms. Debbi (02:58): That's really awesome. Amanda (02:59): We've been celebrating all year. We have a little pontoon boat outside our office. Our office is on a lake, and we just did this champagne thing. You cork the champagne off and yeah, we've been having a good time celebrating. Debbi (03:11): That's awesome. That's fantastic. I think I can hazard a guess as to what led you from delivering babies to law, perhaps the absolutely broken healthcare system in this country that had something to do with it? Amanda (03:26): Well, a little bit. Yeah. Mostly I just wanted to do something different and was, here's a really funny story. How I ended up in law is I wanted to get out of nursing and I thought I'd go to medical school. So I went, took all the super hard science classes and then I decided I didn't really like ... I took like two years of biochemistry and all that stuff. And then I thought, well, maybe I'll go get an MBA. And so I went to buy the MBA study guide book at the bookstore, and right next to that was the law school book. And I thought, well, I'll buy that. I'd never thought about law school. So I went home and I was doing the MBA study book, and it was all this math and calculus and it was really hard, and I thought, this is awful. So I got a beer and sat down and did the law school study book, and I'm like, oh, this is much easier. (04:09): So my husband came home and I said, I'm going to go to law school. And he goes, what? I said, well, I'm not good at this MBA stuff. It's too much math, and I'm really good at this law school, so they must have a better idea about what would make a good lawyer. So I was totally the accidental lawyer. I had no interest really in being a lawyer at all,
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  • Interview with Desmond P. Ryan – S. 11, Ep. 8

    Interview with Desmond P. Ryan – S. 11, Ep. 8
    Oct 5 2025
    My guest interview this week on the Crime Cafe podcast is with crime fiction author Desmond P. Ryan. Check out our discussion about Toronto and the experiences in law enforcement that have informed his fiction. You can download a copy of the transcript here. Debbi Mack (00:07): Hi everyone. My guest today is a former police detective with the Toronto Police who draws on his experiences to write two very distinctive series, the Mike O'Shea series of gritty police stories, reminiscent of Joseph Wambaugh, so definitely gritty stuff. And also a series called A Pint of Trouble, which is closer in tone, apparently to the Thursday Murder Club books by Richard Osman. So I find that just a fascinating dichotomy of series there. Way not to get pigeonholed. It's my pleasure to have with me today, the author Desmond P. Ryan. Hi Des, how are you doing today? Desmond Ryan (00:54): I'm doing great, Debbi. How about yourself? Debbi Mack (00:57): Quite well, thank you. I just got through wrapping on my first film. I directed a film a week ago. It was a short film. It's a short film. Yes. Desmond Ryan (01:12): I'll bet that's a lot of work. Debbi Mack (01:14): Oh boy. It was a lot of work and it was a very, very interesting and eye opening, just kind of an experience I'll never forget. Desmond Ryan (01:24): What's the film about? Debbi Mack (01:25): It's about a priest who has a dark, somewhat dangerous past who has to face the consequences of what he's done. Desmond Ryan (01:36): Okay. Debbi Mack (01:37): I'll leave it at that. I don't want to spoil anything. Desmond Ryan (01:40): And where will we be seeing this film? Debbi Mack (01:42): I hope to have it somewhere online eventually. Somehow I think that the company that I was associated with, the nonprofit called Charm City Filmmakers helped make this happen. They basically teach new directors how to be directors, what's involved and who does what on the set, that kind of thing, and what your role is. And you'd be surprised how much work the first AD or assistant director does. It's just this amazing process that, it requires you to be really paying attention for one thing. Desmond Ryan (02:32): So it's not all magic? Debbi Mack (02:35): It's magic, but it's magic that looks invisible. I mean, the best magic does not reveal its tricks. Right? Desmond Ryan (02:44): That's true. Debbi Mack (02:45): But it's funny. People go behind the scenes all the time and see the tricks, so it's interesting, but it's a magic that we willingly buy into. Something like that. Desmond Ryan (02:56): Yes, you're going to have to let us know when it's going to be [inaudible] I'm already excited. Debbi Mack (03:03): Thank you. I feel like I've kind of hijacked this interview with you here. Just mentioning that film. My God, the film was really just a great experience and I'll probably talk about it more on a YouTube channel, so I'm on YouTube as Debbi Mack if you want to find it there. Desmond Ryan (03:22): We will. Debbi Mack (03:23): Okay, awesome. Let's see. You have the Mike O'Shea Series and the Pint of Trouble series. It's interesting. They're so very different. I love that you're writing though focuses on the diversity of Toronto's neighborhoods. I'm just fascinated with neighborhoods and how cities are made up of neighborhoods often. Tell us about the neighborhoods in Toronto and in particular, Cabbagetown, which I never knew about until I found out you were there, looked it up and has a very interesting entry on Wikipedia. Desmond Ryan (04:03): Yeah. Well, Debbi I'm born and raised in Toronto, and so I take a lot of it for granted, and it would take me hours and hours and hours to explain the diversity of Toronto. I believe it is the most diverse city in the world, not just because Des says so, but I think in whoever measures all of that stuff out it is. And it's made up of little neighborhoods, and a lot of the neighborhoods are based on culture and ethnicity,
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