I stepped into Bukowski's Basement for a quiet drink and ended up getting worked over by tough guy, Anthony Venutolo...
PAUL BISHOP
THIS FORMER LAPD LIE
CATCHER
PRIMED TO CONQUER
KINDLE’S CRIME CHARTS
Interviewed by
Anthony Venutolo
Paul, you've been
kicking around the writing biz for quite some time. You've written a bunch of
novels, short stories, screenplays and were the co-creator of a new pulp line
(Fight Card), what makes Lie Catchers
different from your previous work?
Lie Catchers is my most intimate book on two levels. First,
it really delves into my personal experiences as an interrogator. This was
something I’ve been wanting to do for several years now. Interrogation is an
intimate dance between the interrogator and a subject all in pursuit of an
elusive concept of truth. We all have our personal space, which can vary
depending on the situation we are in – public, social, intimate. The intimate
zone (0’–1.5’) is reserved for those individuals to whom we are closest, who we
trust. A great interrogator lives in the intimate zone.
When I am in an interrogation, I have no barriers between
myself and the suspect. We are knee to knee, and sometimes closer. I sit on the
edge of my chair alert to anything the suspect does I can interpret as a sign
of deception. If a suspect’s behavior changes when I ask anxiety raising
questions from what it was when I was asking non-anxiety questions (usually
personal history stuff so I can get a behavioral base line) then I know I
caused that deceptive behavior to happen. Often my first clue is when the
suspect’s carotid artery begins to pulse in their neck. This is visible, but
you have to be in the suspect’s intimate zone to see it.
As a sex crimes detective, think about what I am asking of a
suspect. I’m asking them to tell me their deepest, darkest secrets – secrets
that will get them sent to prison for long stretches of time. The only way to
do that effectively is to developed an intimate relationship between the
interrogator and the suspect. Using my personality, my empathy, and a complete
lack of judgment, I have to draw a suspect into a world where there is nothing
outside of our mental engagement. I know this works because I’ve done it time
and time again. And like Ray Pagan in Lie Catchers, I’ve been able to pass that
skill on to others.
The book is also intimate because it is told in the first
person voice of Calamity Jane Randall – an experienced detective who is about
to have her world turned inside out by Ray Pagan. My connection to Jane and her
personality felt very real to me. As I wrote, it was as if she was right there,
in my intimate zone, whispering in my ear.
FOR THE FULL
INTERVIEW CLICK HERE
ABOUT THE
INTERVIEWER: By day, Anthony Venutolo (proprietor of Bukowski's Basement) works on the Digital Operations Team in the
newsroom of NJ Advance Media, home of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Star-Ledger
newspaper and its web site NJ.com. When he’s not in HTML, social media or SEO
Hell, he also dabbles in writing fiction and a small bit of poetry. He has
freelanced for such magazines as Bikini, Details, Chance, Men's Health
and Playboy Online, while also
writing columns for the gambling magazines Casino Player and Strictly
Slots. His pulp novella FRONT
PAGE PALOOKA was released September 2013. A follow-up collection of
short stories, BOURBON
& BLONDES is also available.
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