S3 EP 124: J.R. Sanders, Author of The Nate Ross Series

Hello Happy People,

Recently during J.R. Sanders’ interview with Dianne Burckhardt on her podcast, Book Banter with Dianne Burckhardt - Book Talk Podcast, the pair learned they had many things in common, from mutual author friends, to both writing historical fiction, both are trained to work in law enforcement, and they are even both originally from Kansas, having lived in towns that are only an hour apart.  

J.R. eventually moved away from the MidWest and settled in Southern California with his wife Rose, where he worked as a private investigator and as a police officer.  It was his work in law enforcement that led to his interest in crime novels. His love for the Old West, he attributes his Dad and family outings he took him on as a child to places like the Dalton Gang hideout, the Old Cowtown Museum in Wichita, Kansas, and of course, the infamous Dodge City.

It seemed like a natural progression to blend his two loves, crime and the Old West, to create the Nate Ross novels. Nate is a private investigator in 1938. If you are a fan of old Noir classic detectives, you will love the Nate Ross Series of books! But why not hear all about it from the author himself? Don't wait, go listen now!   

J.R.'s Website
J.R. on Facebook
J.R. on Instagram
J.R.'s Books on Amazon
J.R. on YouTube

Transcript

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SPEAKER_04 0:01

Welcome to BookBanter with me, your host, Diane Burkhart. I hope you will join me every Wednesday as we explore all things to do with, well, books. Let's get on with our show today. Hello, my happy people. Today is June 26th, 2024, and as always, we have got a fantastic show for you. I have to admit, I am so stressed this week. I've been having technical problems like crazy. Unfortunately, my computer that I use for everything is a 2015 model, and it seems like everything I'm trying to do anymore, it's no longer compatible with the applications that I need to use to do the things that I want to do. So we're going to be working on getting some money together to buy a new computer so that I can keep bringing you fantastic content. If you would like to help us with the efforts to upgrade all of our systems here, you can do that by going to BurkhartBooks.com and just buying a copy of BookBanter magazine. It's only $2.99. You get a download copy to keep for yourself, or you can just read it online. Either way, that money is going to go help us to improve our programs and our computer equipment. If you're enjoying this podcast, you can help us keep going just by buying one issue of the magazine. But that's enough blather for the moment. Let's bring on our guest today. This guest is somebody that I was so excited to get to speak with. We have so much in common. Not only do we have mutual friends, and we have both come from about the same area of Kansas, but we're both trained in law enforcement. We love the old noir detective movies, and we both write historical fiction wests. So let's not waste any more time. Please welcome to Book Banter with Diane Burkhart, J.R. Sanders. Please tell our listeners who you are and what you do.

SPEAKER_01 2:08

I'm J.R. Sanders, and I write the Nate Ross series of detective novels. They're hard-boiled novels set in 1930s Los Angeles. My main character, Nate Ross, is a former LA deputy sheriff who more or less lives under the shadow of his father. His father was also a deputy sheriff before him, and Nate grew up idolizing him, thinking that he was like the heroes in the radio programs that he listened to. Only when he was on the department himself, he came to find out that his father was not only corrupt, but he was probably the crookedest cop in town. Nate, on the other hand, was an honest guy and actually uh ended up blackballed from the department, driven out of a job because he testified against a group of corrupt police officers. And so now he works as a private investigator. And though he tries to steer clear of Hollywood because he's got no use for the Hollywood scene and the movie business, he seems to time and time again end up stuck in Hollywood.

SPEAKER_04 3:14

You know, I've really been looking forward to this interview because we actually have a lot in common. It's like, first of all, we have a mutual friend in Mark L. Redmond.

SPEAKER_00 3:24

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 3:26

And we're both Kansans.

SPEAKER_00 3:28

Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_04 3:30

I grew up in and around the Wichita area, and you're from Newton, which is only about an hour's drive if you, you know, go the speed limit.

SPEAKER_01 3:38

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 3:39

From Wichita.

SPEAKER_01 3:41

Yeah, my little sister was actually born in Wichita.

SPEAKER_04 3:44

Then we also have the fact that we're both Western authors, because I wrote my Westerns as Steven Burkhard. Right. And I have a feeling you've probably been to Cowtown in Wichita.

SPEAKER_00 3:56

Oh, yeah, many times. That's Disney for an old west nerd.

SPEAKER_04 4:02

Oh, yeah. Now I know you've actually done some performing as a live historian doing things like portraying 19th century soldiers, lawmen, gold rush, prospectors. Did you ever do that at Wichita's Cowtown?

SPEAKER_01 4:19

Never did. I would I would love to have done it. I think the furthest east I ever got was Tombstone, Arizona.

SPEAKER_04 4:26

Oh wow. That would be fun. Yeah. So what did you portray in Tombstone?

SPEAKER_01 4:31

Oh, we I belonged to one of those gunfighter groups at the time, and we actually performed in the OK Corral on the I think at the time it was the 110th anniversary of the famous gunfight. And I don't even recall. I think I was one of the McClowery brothers, so I didn't live to the end of the performance. But it was a lot of fun.

SPEAKER_04 4:52

Now, do you actually have any connection to any of the actual Old West outlaws or anyone?

SPEAKER_01 4:59

Not that I know of. I've done a lot of family history, and uh I have a couple of very distant cousins on my mom's side who rode with Quantrell during the Civil War.

SPEAKER_04 5:10

Oh wow.

SPEAKER_01 5:11

Which was, of course, the same band of guys that produced Jesse and Frank James and the younger brothers. And so that's probably as connected as I am by blood. Because of being born in Kansas, my dad was an old West aficionado. Grew up going to places like Abilene and Wichita Cowtown and the Dalton Brothers hideout and hearing stories. And then, of course, I'm one of those guys of a certain age who grew up with Western TV shows on every channel every night, and John Wayne movies, and it's just something that's always been with me.

SPEAKER_04 5:45

One of the things that I always became really fascinated with, one of my aunts did some genealogy research and found out. I don't know, I can't remember if it's my great-great or great-great-great-grandmother, was the aunt to Frank and Jesse James. Oh wow. That was one of those things that I was always fascinated with. And I think it was part of the reason why I got into reading more westerns, was because I used to read a lot of stuff about Frank and Jesse James.

SPEAKER_01 6:12

That's pretty neat.

SPEAKER_04 6:14

Whenever I was reading one of your books that you sent me, The Dead Bang Fall, I kept picturing all of these old black and white movies that I grew up watching, like The Thin Man with Myrna Loy and William Powell, and just all of the old noir kind of gumshoe movies. Was that an influence for you when you started writing these things?

SPEAKER_01 6:38

Oh, definitely. When I was in high school and the kids I went to school with, we actually still read books back then as teenagers. Kids I went to school with were reading, you know, Jonathan Livingston Siegel and Stephen King stuff. And I was reading Dashell Hammett and Raymond Chandler and just fascinated with that whole period and that whole noir setting and the hardboiled private eye. I've just always loved those stories.

SPEAKER_04 7:05

Well, I think you've definitely got the feel down for it in the way that you write, because I could picture this so easy. And in my head, as I'm picturing the story, I'm picturing it in black and white. Because those are the old movies that I grew up watching and I always loved. And it just really fit with everything that I grew up with.

SPEAKER_01 7:25

They're fun to write because of that setting, because you know I'm just so steeped in it anyway. And then I'm kind of a word nerd and the and the language of that time and the slang that people used and the way they expressed themselves just sort of fascinates me as well.

SPEAKER_04 7:42

And I think you also have a little bit of insight into what it would be like to be a private detective.

SPEAKER_01 7:49

A little bit.

SPEAKER_04 7:51

How long did you actually do that?

SPEAKER_01 7:54

I worked for private investigation firms for a couple of, I guess three years total. Worked under under my own license for about a year. And uh, you know, the the disclaimer with that is it's not nearly as cool as it sounds. I never had a single car chase or shootout or fist fight, was never knocked out by a sap. Not really any fascinating stories to tell from that period.

SPEAKER_04 8:23

Which came first, being a private investigator or being a police officer in California?

SPEAKER_01 8:29

Uh being a private investigator.

SPEAKER_04 8:31

So, how did you transition into being a police officer?

SPEAKER_01 8:35

Actually, the PI stuff was kind of what I was doing when I was waiting to be old enough to uh to apply to be a police officer. And I thought it would be you know a good good experience. And it was.

SPEAKER_04 8:50

How did you transition from PI to police officer to writing Western crime novels?

SPEAKER_01 8:59

Oh, that was a long, long, slow process. Uh I don't know, writing was something I've always done. Uh I wrote probably like a lot of writers, you know, I did my first book when I was, I think, seven years old.

SPEAKER_02 9:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:15

And it was this sad little thing done, you know, hand illustrated, handwritten on cardstock, and bound together with white first aid tape. And it was just this little story about my sister's family. I had an older sister who was married at the time and had a couple of kids, and we were very close to them. And so this is my subject matter. And uh the book was, you know, just as bad as you would imagine. I actually still have it, I think, in a footwalker in the garage.

SPEAKER_04 9:45

Oh, that's cool.

SPEAKER_01 9:47

Simon and Schuster never came knocking. But anyway, so it's it's just something I've always done, and and I actually wanted to do it as a younger man, but was convinced at the time, like a lot of guys my age, that no, the smart thing to do, you know, get a good, solid, steady job with benefits and retirement and all that sort of thing. So I went that route and sort of put the writing thing aside. And to be honest, when I was younger, I don't think I really had the confidence to try and do it as a profession. Took me some time to reach that point.

SPEAKER_04 10:22

Well, and it's a tough thing to break into.

SPEAKER_01 10:25

It is. It is. Yeah, it's very tough and it's tough to maintain.

SPEAKER_04 10:32

Now, a lot of authors, whenever they do try to finally, you know, get the courage up and start writing that first book, a lot of people, especially nowadays, will write to market instead of really writing what they want. They'll find out what's hot and selling and they'll write something for that.

SPEAKER_00 10:50

Right.

SPEAKER_04 10:51

I would guess that's not what you did because anybody who is in the business knows Western novels are not one of the top-selling genres.

SPEAKER_00 11:02

Very true.

SPEAKER_04 11:04

They're probably one of the fun things to write, but they're not the big market.

SPEAKER_01 11:10

No, no, not at all.

SPEAKER_04 11:12

Uh so what made you go with that?

SPEAKER_01 11:15

Uh, as you say, it's you know, I don't think I'm capable of writing something that doesn't really interest me, that doesn't really grab me. That's not the kind of thing I would want to read myself. So I yeah, I've just always written the things that really fascinate me and the things that uh motivate me. My hope is that if I if it's interesting enough to me, it's gonna be interesting to not the world probably, but you know, somebody out there is gonna pick it up and read it and go, wow, that's you know, I can relate to this. This is good.

SPEAKER_04 11:50

Well, now you've done more writing than just your books. You've done articles for Law and Order and Wild West magazine, and you've also written for television.

SPEAKER_01 12:01

Yeah, nothing really impressive there either, just a couple of uh local PR spots. When I actually, when I was still a police officer, I did a couple of uh public service things for local broadcast, and it was fun, it was a good experience. I don't know, I can't imagine doing that full time, but uh I enjoyed it.

SPEAKER_04 12:22

So now, what was the documentary series Dangerous Missions?

SPEAKER_01 12:26

Oh, that was just a thing that I did uh with some friends of mine. It was an AE series where they focused on different facets of law enforcement, and the episode I did was on U.S. fishing game service, and that's probably not the official name of the of the agency, but the fishing game guys. It was on the history of that department, and basically we just portrayed the agents in various scenarios that were in the documentary. So I played at one point, I think the first fishing game agent killed in the line of duty back in the teens or 1920s, and then we did a couple of more modern reenactments of actual cases.

SPEAKER_04 13:07

That sounds like fun.

SPEAKER_01 13:08

It was fun, it was fun again. Not something I'd want to do for a living. Um I'm definitely not an actor, but uh it was, you know, it was just background stuff with narration over it. We had no lines or anything like that to memorize.

SPEAKER_04 13:23

Yeah, but I think it'd just be fun to do the whole thing.

SPEAKER_00 13:26

Oh, it was it was a kick.

SPEAKER_04 13:29

Your books have not only won awards, but they've also been used in educational programs.

SPEAKER_01 13:37

Yeah, I did a children's book. Actually, the only Western fiction I've written so far was a children's book that I did about 15 years ago now, close to 15 years. And we have something in common there too, because you did a book dealing with the orphan trains. And that was part of the story with this children's book that I did too. It's about an orphan boy in New York who comes west on an orphan train and ends up with a just a terrible family, people who only want him for free farm labor.

SPEAKER_03 14:11

Yeah, that happened a lot.

SPEAKER_01 14:13

Yeah. So he runs away and he uh falls in with a cattle company going north up the Chisholm Trail.

SPEAKER_04 14:20

And is that one The Littlest Wrangler?

SPEAKER_01 14:22

The Littlest Wrangler, yeah. And it's and it's actually based on the classic old uh cowboy tune Little Joe the Wrangler.

SPEAKER_02 14:30

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:31

Although, if you know the song, the book has a much happier ending.

unknown 14:36

That's good.

SPEAKER_04 14:38

So now what is the Oak Glenn and Los Rios Rancho?

SPEAKER_01 14:43

Uh if you're familiar with the uh with the Arcadia publishing line of books, there are those great books that are typically local histories. They branched out from that now, but this series anyway focuses on local history and they're sort of photo essays. They take old old vintage photographs dealing with you know whatever area or venue, city, whatever that that the book is focused on, and just sort of use the photos and illustrate, tell the story behind each photo, and tell the story of the the region or the city through that. And so the book that I did was about there's an area just up the road from my house, actually, now called Little Glen in Southern California. And it's an area in the mountain foothills that's full of apple farms that go back close to 150 years now. And it's a tourist area now. People go up there on weekends, and there are great restaurants and farms to visit, and you can actually go out and pick apples. And it's a real Southern California tradition, kind of a Southern California landmark. And so this book that I did was one of those photo essays where I took uh Trovo photographs that dealt with this area and Los Rios Rancho in particular, which is the oldest still operating apple farm up there.

SPEAKER_04 16:04

And it's so cool that you got to do one of these books in this collection. How did you actually get connected with this publisher?

SPEAKER_01 16:11

It was sort of a backdoor thing. I'm friends with the family that runs Los Rios Rancho, and they had actually just taken it over at the time. And in going through sort of inventorying the thing, they found this box or actually a couple bankers' boxes full of photographs and documents about the farm going back to 1906 when it was founded. And they showed it to me. And my first thought was, wow, this stuff would be great to publish. You know, people would be interested in this because Oakland is a big deal in Southern California. So I was familiar with the Arcadia books. I'd had a couple of their titles and uh liked them a lot, and so I got in touch with them and pitched this idea, and they liked it, but they didn't think that focusing on Los Rios Rancho, they thought that was too narrow. And so they wanted to expand it and make it about Oakland in general, with emphasis on Los Rios. From there, I ended up talking to a lot of the other old-time families that were still in Oakland and the local historical societies and gathering more documents and photographs and stories, and we just grew from there.

SPEAKER_04 17:23

I always loved those books in that collection because I worked for a big name bookstore chain for years while I was going to college. And I always loved those local books about Wichita and Newton and everything around our area because you would learn so much about where you live that you have no idea about some of this history.

SPEAKER_01 17:45

They're great. I still rely on those books a lot for research because there's just photographs in them that you would never find now anywhere else.

SPEAKER_04 17:52

Oh, yeah. I think they're fantastic. And that is so cool that you got to do one of those.

SPEAKER_01 17:58

Oh, yeah. And that was actually the first book that I published.

SPEAKER_04 18:01

Really?

SPEAKER_01 18:02

Yeah, that was that was my first entry into. I had done magazine stuff before then, but that was my my first published book.

SPEAKER_04 18:10

That's a nice start. It was. What is the last book that you published?

SPEAKER_01 18:16

The last book would be the Bring the Night, which is the third book in the Nate Ross series. And it was just out last April.

SPEAKER_04 18:25

And you have another book coming up this summer.

SPEAKER_01 18:28

I do, in August, the fourth Nate Ross book, which is called A Killing Way.

SPEAKER_04 18:33

And what's going to happen in this one?

SPEAKER_01 18:35

In The Killing Way, Nate sort of returns to the cowboy world that he started off in with the first Nate Ross novel, Stardust Trail, where he was dealing with bee cowboys in this old West actual case that had happened 40 years earlier. In the new book, A Killing Way. Nate's client is the retired. Well, at the time, the story takes place in 1939, retired silent film star William S. Hart, who had a ranch up in Newhall, California, which is still there. It's a county park now. But William S. Hart is in possession in the story of the last painting ever done by Charles Russell. Charlie Russell, the famous cowboy. And the painting is stolen from his house. And so he hires me to recover it. And it's a complicated case because he knows who stole it, but the man who stole it is dead. So it's not a matter of bringing the crook to justice, but finding the painting.

SPEAKER_04 19:36

Whenever you come up with an idea, how long does it typically take you to go from concept to published work?

SPEAKER_01 19:43

Oh, forever. Well, typically the books are spaced a year apart, so that's the time frame that I have to work within. But it's a tricky process because I'm not a plotter at all. I'm what we call in book publishing, a pantser. I don't develop any detailed outlines or anything like that. I'll do a general outline for a book, which of course always changes along the way.

SPEAKER_03 20:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:11

But uh I've tried plotting in detail, and I'm it's just not my skill set. So I'm writing this type of book, particularly crime novels with sort of a mystery element. I'm generally as surprised as anyone when I you know get toward the end and find out who done it. Uh with Stardust Trail, for instance, I think I was probably 95% finished with the book before I knew who the murderer was.

SPEAKER_03 20:41

I love that.

SPEAKER_01 20:42

Uh with the last book, or actually with Dead Bank Fall, the one you're reading. Um starts, of course, also with a murder. I knew who had done the murder in that case, but I didn't know why until I was nearly done with the book.

SPEAKER_04 20:58

Now, do you have certain actors in your head whenever you're building these characters?

SPEAKER_01 21:04

Not really in particular, although real life actors do show up here and there in the books. That's part of the fun for me of writing stuff set in Los Angeles and in Hollywood, especially historic Hollywood, is uh I'm able to drop in some of these people as characters who actually existed and actually lived at that time. That's just one of the aspects that I enjoy about writing this series. But uh no, I wouldn't say that I have particular actors in mind. I have pictures in my head now of Nate and Dusty and kind of what they look like and how they, you know, speech patterns and that sort of thing. But uh not really connected, any real life person.

SPEAKER_04 21:47

I haven't checked on your sales site. Do you have any of these in audiobook?

SPEAKER_01 21:53

Not yet, although my publisher, Level Best Books, is working on that. They contracted with. An audiobook publisher and they're slowly going through their catalog and hoping to uh you know, within the near future, have them as audiobooks.

SPEAKER_04 22:10

I think these kinds of books are so good as audiobooks because there's so much back and forth and action to it. I think it just works so well with that, that it just kind of helps build the story.

SPEAKER_01 22:26

I agree. Yeah, there's there's just a little something extra that, especially if you have a really top-notch narrator who can bring the bring the book to life.

SPEAKER_04 22:36

There are some good ones out there.

SPEAKER_01 22:39

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 22:41

I'm always curious whenever somebody moves so far away from where they were born, what is it that took you from Kansas to California?

SPEAKER_01 22:53

Uh, I was dragged out here kicking and screaming when I was about seven years old. Like my father worked in aerospace. Uh and this was the height of the space program. And so that was a lot like being a military brat, because you know, he would work for one company and their contract would run out and there would be layoffs, and he would end up with another company, or the company he worked for may transfer him across the country. And so uh I think I was 30 years old before I lived in the same house longer than five or six years.

SPEAKER_04 23:30

Yeah, I know a lot of people that their parents were in the aerospace industry, and it was constantly an upheaval.

SPEAKER_01 23:36

Yeah, yeah. There was there was a lot of flux, and you know, in some ways it was great though, because I got to see a lot of places that I never would have seen as a youngster, and I don't really regret it. But we ended up in California back in the early 70s, and then uh I've just never been able to escape.

SPEAKER_04 23:57

What do you do for fun when you're not writing?

SPEAKER_01 24:01

Read mostly. Yeah, I don't really have a lot of hobbies uh anymore. I you know my wife and I do a little bit of hiking. We like to travel when we can.

SPEAKER_04 24:14

So who is your go-to author?

SPEAKER_01 24:17

Currently, Michael Connolly. I'm working my way through the series of Bosch uh books and uh the Mickey Haller, the Lincoln Lawyer books. And uh yeah, he's just for my money, the the best writer going in this field.

SPEAKER_03 24:31

I do like the Lincoln Lawyer ones, those are really good.

SPEAKER_01 24:34

Yeah, and the TV show that they've done, I think, is is excellent. They've really done a great job with it.

SPEAKER_04 24:40

Oh, yeah. My husband and I watch that. We're like waiting for the next next season to hurry up.

SPEAKER_01 24:46

Yeah, and now he's got a series coming out featuring Renee Ballard and that series of books, which are also great. So I'm looking forward to that.

SPEAKER_04 24:55

We have to see if we can get that here in Germany.

SPEAKER_01 24:58

Hopefully.

SPEAKER_04 24:59

We're always like at least a season or two behind everything that's coming out in the US.

SPEAKER_00 25:04

Really?

SPEAKER_04 25:05

Oh yeah, it can be stressful, but at least we know then it's like, yes, we have another season coming, you know, so we do get that little benefit.

SPEAKER_01 25:13

See, over here in the States, we complain about the BBC stuff that they in Europe a year before we do.

SPEAKER_04 25:19

Yeah, we do get that one pretty quick. Now, this is the point of the show where we like to do five quick questions that never turn out to be quick, but one of these days we hold out hope that it will happen.

SPEAKER_01 25:32

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 25:33

Are you ready?

SPEAKER_01 25:35

Um, as ready as I am going to be, I guess.

SPEAKER_04 25:40

Question one. When you were at a PI, what was your favorite case that you worked on?

SPEAKER_01 25:47

Oh, well, again, I didn't do anything very interesting as a PI. It was mostly dusty research and court buildings and city halls. And you know, this was way back before Google or any sort of internet. And so, you know, if you wanted to trace somebody or you wanted to find out ownership records of property or something like that, you had to go and pull out these dusty old books in uh public buildings and pour through them until you were half blind. So honestly, I can't even answer that because that just was not that fascinating.

SPEAKER_03 26:28

So I figured there would have been something that was like at least funny or ironic.

SPEAKER_01 26:33

Oh, I wish I could come up with one, but uh I'm drawn a blank. It was just uh yeah, I mean that that was my day pretty much. It's come to think of it, that's still very much my day, looking through old books and yeah, and digging library stacks. I guess it hasn't changed much.

SPEAKER_04 26:54

I always like doing research in books, though. I'm I'm one of those nerds that whenever my college professors would tell us you have to do a 30-page research paper with notations, I'm like, yes. Oh, yeah, yeah, me too. So much fun.

SPEAKER_01 27:09

I love that. I'm such a nerd. I I have trouble with it because I'm a real rabbit hole guy. I'll find something in my research that's unrelated, but it really fascinates me. And then I waste a day about that instead of doing what I should be doing.

SPEAKER_04 27:26

Yeah, I've done that a few times. Question two. What is one thing that you like better about Kansas over California? And one thing that you like better about California over Kansas?

SPEAKER_01 27:39

Oh, well, I'll start with California. California has mountains. Got the Flint Hills, but you know, yeah, I love the mountains in California. I love I love the a lot of the scenery in California. I don't like the pace of life. I'm much more of a Kansas guy at heart. I like small towns, I like a slow pace, and that's definitely not California or most of California.

SPEAKER_04 28:08

Yeah, I can definitely understand that.

SPEAKER_01 28:10

And I think our laws in California are just insane. Getting more so by the day.

SPEAKER_03 28:16

I don't want to get political, but I think that happens a lot of places now.

SPEAKER_01 28:21

Yeah, yeah, unfortunately. I think it's probably not so much regional as just the times we're living in.

SPEAKER_04 28:27

Yeah. Unfortunately. Question three What kind of dogs are Ruby and Marlowe?

SPEAKER_01 28:35

Ruby is a Belgian Malanois, which, for anyone who doesn't know, it's that's sort of a German Shepherd's Belgian cousin. They're a little smaller and a little crazier than German Shepherds. And Ruby is, let's see, she's going to be nine years old in a couple of months. She has three legs. She's a rescue that we got from the local shelter here when she was a year old. And they had just picked her up on the street with a damaged leg. They're not sure how it happened, but it ended up having to be amputated. So they were having a little difficulty finding her a home, and she was a perfect fit for us. We had another young German shepherd at the time, and the two of them got along great from day one. And then Marlowe is our crazy man. He's, let's see, he just turned five, but you would never know it. He still acts like a pup. He's the one I was talking about who's 70 pounds, although he's about the size of a 25-pound dog. He's solid muscle, just dense. You go to pick him up, and you would think it would be pretty easy, and you can throw your back at him. He's just a chunk. But he's a lively guy, he's a hard head, but he's a lot of fun, too.

SPEAKER_04 29:47

So, question four: who is your favorite fictional detective?

SPEAKER_01 29:52

Oh.

SPEAKER_04 29:54

That's gonna be hard, right?

SPEAKER_01 29:56

It is, it is, yeah. Well, I guess I would have to divide it into more period, you know, historical fictional detectives and current ones, because I'm sort of divided between Philip Marlowe and Harry Bosch.

SPEAKER_04 30:11

See, I always go back to Sherlock Holmes, love Sherlock Holmes, but I also am just absolutely mad for Nick and Nora.

SPEAKER_00 30:20

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 30:22

I love Nick and Nora Charles. Those books are fantastic.

SPEAKER_01 30:27

Yeah. I wish somebody would do a film or a film series on those books. That's I mean, I love the William Powell Myrna Loy movies back in the day, but the tone of those was so different than what the books are.

SPEAKER_03 30:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 30:40

I wish somebody would do the books the way they were written. I think it would be interesting and it would be a whole different sort of thing than what's been done before.

SPEAKER_03 30:48

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 30:49

That would be nice. Since you are part of our summer read suggestion authors in our June-July issue of Bookbanter magazine, what book or author would you recommend for somebody for a summer read? Besides your own, of course. Your own, your books are a given.

SPEAKER_01 31:07

Yeah, that goes without saying truth.

SPEAKER_04 31:09

Of course.

SPEAKER_01 31:10

Let's see. Wow. I'm trying to think of stuff that I just read that would be a good summer read. I actually read a book recently called The Red House Mystery. And it's by A.A. Milne. It's a murder mystery, but it's by A.A. Milne, the guy who wrote when he doesn't written back in the 20s, I think. And the whole reason I read it was because in his famous essay, The Simple Art of Murder, Raymond Chandler just shreds this book, tears it apart, talks about all the logical inconsistencies in the story and the mystery element and so on. And I had read that essay many times over the years, but I'd never read the book that he was tearing apart. So I picked it up and I just read it last week, and it's actually kind of a cool book. I really enjoyed this story. It's a fun thing. And if you don't take it too seriously, and especially if you maybe have never read Raymond Chandler's essay, anybody would enjoy anybody who likes mysteries, especially if you like the the more golden age, you know, Agatha Christie, cozier sort of mystery. It's a fun read.

SPEAKER_04 32:22

I am going to have to check that out. I would love to see how the differences between that and his Winnie the Pooh work.

SPEAKER_01 32:29

Oh, reading this book, it would never talk on you that this is the guy who did you know the hundred-acre wood and Christopher Rother.

SPEAKER_04 32:36

I'm definitely gonna have to pick that up. You've already sold one person on your suggested reads.

SPEAKER_01 32:41

Oh, okay. Oh good.

SPEAKER_04 32:43

So now let's remind everybody who you are and what you do.

SPEAKER_01 32:47

Uh I'm J.R. Sanders, and I currently write the Nate Ross series of detective novels set in 1930s, LA.

SPEAKER_04 32:56

And where can people find you and your books?

SPEAKER_01 33:00

The books are available Amazon, Barnes and Noble, through independent booksellers. I'm easy to find. My website is jrsanders.com. I'm also on Facebook and Instagram. So if you're on Facebook and Instagram, I'm actually kind of tough to avoid, I think.

SPEAKER_04 33:20

See, well, that is how I found you was on Facebook.

SPEAKER_00 33:23

Ah, see.

SPEAKER_04 33:26

And as always, we're going to have all of your information in the description of today's podcast and on our website at burkhartbooks.com. And you are part of the June-July Summer Reads Authors that we're featuring in BookBanter magazine.

SPEAKER_01 33:41

Ah, very cool. Well, I appreciate that.

SPEAKER_04 33:44

Thank you so much for doing this today. I have been looking forward to this just because we had so much in common besides Western books, being from Kansas, having mutual friends, and I have a degree in forensic criminology, and you were a private eye and a police officer. So I don't think we can get much more in common.

SPEAKER_00 34:02

I don't think so. No.

SPEAKER_04 34:04

Thank you so much for this.

SPEAKER_00 34:06

Thank you.

SPEAKER_04 34:08

So there you have it, folks. My fantastic conversation with the incredible J.R. Sanders. Be sure to go check him out in this current issue of BookBanter magazine, which you can find at burkhartbooks.com. And while you're on our website, go to the podcast page where you can find links to all of JR's social media. And it is also listed in the description of today's podcast. So be sure to go check out his work. It's all really good. And I think that's enough for today, folks. I've got so much stuff to do so that I can keep bringing you all the amazing authors who are going to be coming up in the next few weeks. So now you know what time it is, folks. It's time for you all to go forth and be happy.