Brian Thiem, author of RED LINE on Matt Sinclair, Crime, and Justice

Brian Thiem, author of RED LINE, talks about his experience as a detective, his character Matt Sinclair, and justice.

Jen: Hi, Brian. Thank you for joining us at Fresh Fiction! You’re a former Oakland Police detective and homicide commander. How did you go from writing police reports to police procedurals? And what is different between working a case and writing about fictional cases?

Brian: It has been an interesting journey. During all of those years of work, I had dozens of stories swirling around my head but never had the time to put them on paper. When I retired ten years ago, I finally had the time and began writing.

I took some fiction workshops and quickly learned no one wants to read a story written in the style of a police report. I enrolled in an MFA (Master of Fine Arts) Creative Writing program and learned how to write. That’s where RED LINE was born. One of the things I love about writing fiction is I get to control the outcome. When I worked a homicide case, no matter how hard I worked, I sometimes couldn’t solve the case. Through Matt Sinclair, I now get to solve the case in the end and sometimes even win the girl.

Jen: Over the course of your career, I’m sure you’ve seen changes in crime solving technology and methods. When writing RED LINE, what was one of the challenges you faced trying to balance the need for a good story against the need to get the details right because of the continuing evolution of technology?

Brian: When I began working homicide in the late 1980s, DNA evidence didn’t exist, there was no such thing as entering people’s names into Google and finding everything about them, and homicide investigators were among the few officers in the department that had cell phones (mounted in two of our cars). However, even with technology that existed back then, such as fingerprints, we still solved most of our cases by talking to people, getting them to tell us the truth, and putting the pieces together. I believe the most interesting stories, even in today’s technological era, still result from the interactions between the detective and the other characters, so I don’t rely much on CSI-type technology, where a strand of hair at the crime scene is fed into a computer and spits out the killer’s name. In a city such as Oakland, where my stories take place, there’s a backlog of more than a thousand DNA cases, so it’s realistic for Sinclair to be forced to rely on his own skills to solve cases.

Jen: While technology may have changed, the process of working the case remains the same. Matt uses his experience, observations, and reasoning to work through the pieces. What do you think is the most important skill a fictional detective should rely on and why?

Brian: A sense of duty—an intense drive to seek justice. Everything else flows from that. A detective, whether fictional or real-world, must have a reason to do what he or she does. If he does it merely because it’s his job or to get a paycheck, he’ll never be able to do what’s required to solve the tough cases—to buck the bureaucracy and politics, to risk his life and his career, or to sacrifice his personal life. He must be tough, tenacious, intelligent, and brave. There are parts of Matt Sinclair’s past that made him into the kind of detective he is. He investigates murders for his victims because they can no longer speak for themselves. But more than that, he does it for the community because he knows that if people can murder without consequences, society will crumble.

Jen: As a law enforcement professional, who are some of the crime writers you enjoy reading whose depictions of police procedure are authentic?

Brian: It’s difficult to write authentic and interesting crime fiction. No one wants to read about a homicide detective’s authentic day, which might include four hours typing a report or six hours of listening to a suspect lie in an interview room before he finally rolls. Michael Connelly’s Harry Bosch series possibly does it the best. He’s a master. I just finished the third of David Baldacci’s John Puller series and was impressed with how accurately he portrayed his Army CID protagonist. Two friends from the New England chapter of Mystery Writers of America who also do it well are Kate Flora with her Joe Burgess series and Paul Doiron with his Maine Game Warden character, Mike Bowditch.

Jen: RED LINE’s main character, Matt Sinclair, is a veteran who struggles with his experiences in combat. How did you draw on your own experiences in Iraq as the Army CID (Criminal Investigation Division) Deputy Commander of the Criminal Investigation Group for the Middle East to create that aspect of Matt Sinclair’s personality?

Brian: I first want to thank all military veterans for their service and make it clear that PTSD is real. I touched on it in RED LINE, but readers will learn more about Matt Sinclair’s issues in future books.

Many people believe that if a soldier didn’t experience bullets buzzing within inches of him or her or watch an enemy soldier die from one of his bullets, he wasn’t “in combat.” Although Sinclair had bullets whiz by him and fired back, I never had during my time in Iraq. But, I huddled with other soldiers when Iraqis fired SCUD missiles at us, was awakened at night when mortar rounds and small arms fire got close, rode in aircraft doing evasive maneuvers to avoid antiaircraft fire when landing in Baghdad, and drove along roads where soldiers had just died from IEDs, knowing it was like Russian Roulette as to whether my Humvee would make it through or not. Those experiences and dozens more helped me create Matt Sinclair’s military backstory.

Jen: What’s next for Matt Sinclair?

Brian: Sinclair will, of course, be assigned more homicide cases. The stakes are even higher in the next book, THRILL KILL, and Matt must find the killer to prevent many people from dying. This murder will also bring up issues from his past, so the reader will see more of what made Sinclair who he is. He’ll continue to struggle with his love life. Although he’s an old soul when it comes to detective work, he’s still a teenager in the relationship department. Many of the characters from Red Line will return. His partner, Cathy Braddock, has become more seasoned, and is no longer the rookie murder cop that she was in RED LINE. And Matt is struggling with how to live life as a recovering alcoholic, surrounded by a world where his next drink is always within arm’s reach.

Jen: Thank you for joining Fresh Fiction and sharing your experiences with us.

About Brian Thiem

Brian Thiem spent 25 years with the Oakland Police Department, working Homicide as a detective sergeant and later as the commander of the Homicide Section. He also spent 28 years of combined active and reserve duty in the Army, retiring as a Lieutenant Colonel. He was assigned to various Military Police and Criminal Investigation Division (CID) positions, including a tour in Iraq as the Deputy Commander of the Criminal Investigation Group for the Middle East. He lives in Connecticut. RED LINE is his first novel.

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About RED LINE

When a teenager from a wealthy suburb outside of Oakland, CA is dumped at an inner city bus stop, homicide detective Matt Sinclair catches the case. It's his first since being bumped to desk duty for a bust that went south...fast. With few leads and plenty of attention, it's the worst kind of case to help him get back up to speed.

And it only gets worse as the bodies start to pile up--first at the same bus bench, then around the city. Unable to link the victims to each other, the killer is just getting started. Time is running out on Sinclair's career, not to mention the people closest to him.

With RED LINE, Brian Thiem, a veteran of the Oakland police department and the Iraq war, has written a nuanced police procedural filled with the kind of insight that could only be written by a detective who has walked the streets and lived the life.