Episode 291: How to Make Your Story Truly Unique — Interview with Robert Dugoni

by Gabriela Pereira
published in Podcast

Hey there word nerds! Today, I have the pleasure of interviewing Robert Dugoni.

Robert Dugoni is the critically acclaimed New York Times, #1 Wall Street Journal and #1 Amazon Internationally Best-Selling Author of 17 novels in The Tracy Crosswhite police detective series set in Seattle, the David Sloane legal thriller series, and the Charles Jenkins espionage series.

He is also the author of several standalone novels including The Eighth Sister and The Extraordinary Life of Sam Hell, both #1 Amazon kindle downloads, as well as The 7th Canon and The Cyanide Canary, a Washington Post best book of the year. Several novels have been optioned for television series. Robert is the recipient of the Nancy Pearl Award for fiction and many other awards. We’ll be talking about his book A Cold Trail which is out now.

In this episode Robert and I discuss:

  • The power of dedicated, daily work
  • Revisiting an old crime in a new book
  • The particular appeal of a small town as a mystery setting
  • The interplay between setting, theme and characters
  • The myth of originality

Plus, his #1 tip for writers.

About Robert Dugoni

Robert Dugoni is the critically acclaimed New York Times, #1 Wall Street Journal and #1 Amazon Internationally Best-Selling Author of 17 novels in The Tracy Crosswhite police detective series set in Seattle, the David Sloane legal thriller series, and the Charles Jenkins espionage series. He is also the author of several standalone novels including The Eighth Sister and The Extraordinary Life of Sam Hell, both #1 Amazon kindle downloads, as well as The 7th Canon and The Cyanide Canary, a Washington Post best book of the year. Several novels have been optioned for television series. Robert is the recipient of the Nancy Pearl Award for fiction and many other awards. Check out his website, or connect with him on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.

A Cold Trail

In New York Times bestselling author Robert Dugoni’s riveting series, Seattle homicide detective Tracy Crosswhite returns home to a brutal murder and her haunted past.

The last time homicide detective Tracy Crosswhite was in Cedar Grove, it was to see her sister’s killer put behind bars. Now she’s returned for a respite and the chance to put her life back in order for herself, her attorney husband, Dan, and their new daughter. But tragic memories soon prove impossible to escape.

Dan is drawn into representing a local merchant whose business is jeopardized by the town’s revitalization. And Tracy is urged by the local PD to put her own skills to work on a new case: the brutal murder of a police officer’s wife and local reporter who was investigating a cold-case slaying of a young woman. As Tracy’s and Dan’s cases crisscross, Tracy’s trail becomes dangerous. It’s stirring up her own haunted past and a decades-old conspiracy in Cedar Grove that has erupted in murder. Getting to the truth is all that matters. But what’s Tracy willing to risk as a killer gets closer to her and threatens everyone she loves?

If you decide to check out the book, we hope you’ll do so via the above Amazon affiliate link, where if you choose to purchase via the link DIY MFA gets a referral fee at no cost to you. As always, thank you for supporting DIY MFA!

Link to Episode 291

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