From a naughty teenager to adult turned author with a lot of experience and a whole lot to say.

Please, introduce yourself. Tell us about your personal life, family, education.

Hi Mary, Thank you for having me. I’m Mike Faricy. I write crime fiction. I was born, raised, and still live part of the year in St. Paul, Minnesota. I’m a baby boomer and the oldest of five children. With five children, we were one of the smaller families on the block. But with all those neighborhood kids, there was always the option to do things we weren’t supposed to be doing: shooting bottles in the Mississippi River, exploring deep dark caves, running along the catwalk of a highway bridge, or buying a car at age thirteen with four pals. We paid $25 for the car and drove through the neighborhood one summer evening, honking at families. (Our fathers found out that night and we had to turn over the car keys).

I went to an all-boys military high school and went to college in a town outside of Green Bay, Wisconsin. After college, I went into the army and married a college sweetheart a month after I returned home. We have three children and twelve grandchildren that I get to spoil on a regular basis. The marriage ended in 2001. I met and dated an Irish woman, and after eight years of dating, I talked her into marrying me. We’re both tethered to our families, and so I’m with her in Ireland for a number of months, or she is with me in the US.

For years, I worked in sales in an aspect of the graphic arts industry called color separations. That industry has largely been replaced by technology. The ads I used to charge $1500 for can now be done by my ten- year-old grandson on his computer. I write seven days a week, and I’m blessed to work at something I love to do. I have a large group of friends, and I have played bagpipes for the past 35 in the Brian Boru Irish Pipe band located in St. Paul. So, I don’t lack things to do in my spare time.

What inspired you to write your first book?

As far as writing my first book, I occasionally wrote for my school newspaper in high school and college. I still write maybe a half-dozen articles for a local paper. When my children were growing up, and I was working full time, I would write in the dark, meaning before sunrise or after sunset. I wrote at least fifty different first chapters, no doubt all works of genius. I finally looked at the stack of first chapters and told myself to fish or cut bait, so I wrote my first book.

Upon completion, I somehow got the phone number of William Kent Krueger, a big-time author, resident of St. Paul, and an awfully nice guy. God bless him. We met at the St. Clair Broiler, where he wrote every day. He told me all about the book biz, and at the end of our hour-long conversation, I took out the manuscript of my first book, pushed it across the table, and asked him if he’d like to read it. He gave me a frightened look, shook his head, and said, “No.” Then, he explained that we all have a work that should be kept under the bed. I went home, read my manuscript, and decided, yeah, it belonged under the bed. I then began my next book and the book after that.

Eventually, over the course of maybe four years, I’d written six books and had dutifully sent out sixty or seventy query letters on each book with a self-addressed stamped envelope enclosed so I could receive my rejection notice promptly. It was on the sixth book that I had a query letter returned to me. The envelope was addressed to, at that time, one of the big six publishers in New York. The envelope had a large purple stamp across the front that read ‘Return to Sender.’

I turned the unopened envelope over, and on the back was a handwritten note; “This does not fit our needs at this time.” My immediate thought was Mike Faricy, from St. Paul, Minnesota, doesn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell with these people. Fortunately, there was a side gate into the playground. Amazon had started doing e-books, and I haven’t looked back. I’m an indie author. I have seventy-eight books out in four different series and book seventy-nine, Puppy Love, is at my editor’s as I write this.

His Writing Style

Have you developed a specific writing style and why?

The development of my writing style wasn’t intentional. It just happened. The most popular series I have is my Dev Haskell P.I. series. I started writing it for crabby old guys like myself, but what I found was that the vast majority of readers who respond are women, and they love the series. Dev Haskell is a private investigator. He’s the guy you went to high school with, and you just knew it was probably a good idea to keep your distance. He was always going to do some crazy thing, and while you were curious about how it would turn out, you knew not to get involved.

Years later, you’d ask a friend what Dev Haskell was up to, and it would be more of the same. Dev has a relationship with a different woman in every book. For a variety of reasons, at the end of the book, she tells him something along the lines of, “Please don’t ever call or contact me again, ever.” My female readers love that. Of course, they want him to have another relationship, but they’re hoping for the same result. He has a golden retriever named Morton that readers love. Morton is a canine version of Dev Haskell. Now, all that said, Dev helps people out. Folks with real problems contact him and he does his best to get them squared away.

In my Jack Dillon Dublin Tales series, US Marshal Jack Dillon, through a series of events in the first book, is assigned to the Dublin police force, An Garda Síochána. He’s involved in situations that often, but not always, involve Americans in Ireland. He’s more straight-laced than Dev Haskell, but there is still an aspect of humor that runs throughout the story. Because I live a part of every year in Ireland, it seemed only natural that I began a series set in Ireland.

When I start a new book, I write what I loosely define as an outline. It has maybe a half-dozen lines about what I want to happen in the series, and then I add to that, almost daily, as things develop. I have a list of individuals in every book who help to make up the world my chief protagonist lives in. Most are positive, friendly, helpful individuals. A few are different and not the type of person you would want to spend time with. I always have a notebook with me. On occasion, someone might mention an incident they were familiar with or perhaps involved in, and I may make a note. I may see something, a particular facial expression, a driving incident, food, anything, actually, and I store it away for future use, not necessarily whatever I’m working on at the moment.

I attempt to be accurate in things such as how law enforcement might deal with a particular situation. How the court might react. I receive contacts from readers, certainly on a weekly basis, regarding something that happened to them or in their area, and I make a note of the situation. I should also mention that in making all these notes, I really try not to use abbreviations. Looking at a note eighteen hours or days later and trying to interpret my abbreviations has never worked well for me.

Realism in Books

How much of your books is realistic and experiences based on someone

Maybe about forty percent of what I write is based on someone I know of or events in my own life. That’s a broad statement. I knew someone who was killed in a hit-and-run accident years back. The case was solved years later, and, broadly stated, I used the solving of the case as a baseline. That said, I purposely made sure that no specifics in my story would identify the case. In today’s world, with all the news and incidents from around the world available to review online, there’s no limit to anything you would want to investigate. I’m constantly looking up general laws in the US and Ireland regarding the potential for being arrested or jailed, whether it’s overnight, a few days, or longer. I never use an individual’s name unless it’s a public record or I’ve cleared it with the individual beforehand.

Do you remember the first book you read?

Yes, although I didn’t read it, it was read to me. My mother was the first person in her family to ever attend college. She earned a degree in Library Science and was a librarian until she married my father, after which she could no longer be employed because she was married. My folks would take us to the library once a week in the evening, and we could choose a book to be read to us. I chose George The Pig. I loved the book. George was a pig, and it was his birthday. The book goes through how George won’t share his birthday cake with any of his friends, and when you turn to the last page in the book, it’s a picture of George exploding because he ate so much birthday cake.

I’m not sure if I liked it because he kept all the cake for himself or because justice was served. But it was my favorite. After that, in fourth grade, I got ahold of the book Snow Treasure. The story is about Norwegian children sneaking gold bricks down the mountainside on their sleds during the Second World War past German troops. Both books had an impact on me and helped to form the love of books that I’ve always had.

When you see new authors struggling, what single piece of advice could you give them on a moment’s notice?

What I always tell new authors is not to give up but to keep at it. It’s different for everyone. If you have children at home, you’re pregnant, working, a hundred different things, you have to adjust. I write all day, every day, because I can, and I make my living writing books. But that didn’t just happen. I worked for almost twenty years and wrote when I could before I was able to do it full-time.

The other thing I would say is to try and write every day, even if it’s just for thirty minutes. If you are writing only when you are in the mood, you are holding yourself back, in my opinion. Overcome that excuse, which we’ve all had, and get to work. Of course, that said, I’m reminded of the time I was on a walk with my wife, and after a mile or two, she said, “You seem awfully quiet. Is everything okay?” I replied, “No, I’ve got a guy hanging outside a third-story window by a phone cord, and there’s two hit men going through his apartment looking for him.” My wife just picked up speed and left me in the dust…!

Do you have a blog or website viewers can visit for updates, events and special offers? Include links to any and all of your sites.

Thank you, Mary. I post a couple of jokes and a book offer everyday on

Facebook. https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100079971962052

You can email me at: mikefaricyauthor@gmail.com

I send out a mailing twice a month offering free books. The emails are

strictly FREE books. No opinions, nothing political ever, just offers on free

books. If you subscribe to my mailing list, you automatically get five free

books from my Dev Haskell series. You can unsubscribe at any time.