Thriller
Date Published: June 1, 2018
Publisher: Intrigue Publishing
Whatever happened to Jane Roe's baby? Norma McCorvey, of Caddo-Comanche heritage, did not terminate the pregnancy that led her to become the anonymous plaintiff of the landmark U.S. Supreme Court women's rights case Roe v Wade because in 1971, when the motion was first argued, abortion in the U.S. was illegal. The Jane Roe real-life child would now be a woman in her late forties, the potential of her polarizing celebrity unknown to her. A religious rights splinter group has blackmailed its way into learning the identity of the Roe baby, the product of a closed adoption. To what end, only a new Supreme Court case will reveal. Tourette's-afflicted K9 bounty hunter Judge Drury, a Marine, stands in the way of the splinter group's attempt at stacking the Supreme Court via blackmail, murder, arson, sleight of hand, and secret identities.
Interview with Chris Bauer
Can you tell us a
little bit about the characters in JANE’S BABY?
JANE’S BABY is the
personification of a ‘what if’ premise. In real life “Jane’s baby” is the child
of the plaintiff known as Jane Roe in the 1973 Roe v. Wade landmark U.S. Supreme Court case, and would now be a
woman in her late forties. Most people are unaware that the real Jane Roe
(Norma McCorvey, died February 2017) did not terminate her pregnancy despite
the decision in favor of giving women the right to choose. This child was born
and put up for a closed adoption. At the time, the birth mother and adopting
parents knew nothing of each other’s identities, with the child also unaware of
her potentially polarizing celebrity.
Judge Drury is a
Marine turned fugitive recovery agent (aka bounty hunter) from Philly and is afflicted
with Tourette syndrome.
Judge’s deputies
are two military-trained working K9s, a boxer/bull terrier and a nasty German Shepherd.
His sidekick/ride-along is an amorous little person, Owen Wingert, a Supreme Court blogger.
Geenie Pinto is
Judge’s girlfriend, a capable, concealed-carry gun owner like Judge.
Judge and company are tracking a bail-jumping woman carpenter
known as The Church Hammer, who
feels it’s her divine right to stop a newly appointed U.S. Supreme Court
justice from serving on the court because she deems the justice too liberal and
a new threat to “the war on the unborn.” She works on a contract-by-contract
basis as a church-endorsed problem solver, i.e., assassin.
The Supreme Court judge that The Church Hammer has targeted is
Associate Justice Naomi Coolsummer, the
first Native American appointed to the Supreme Court. She’s an adoptee and a Manchurian
Candidate who is unaware she is a target.
Can you tell us a
little bit about your next books or what you have planned for the future?
AMERICA IS A GUN, a work-in-progress thriller, again showcases
protagonists Judge Drury and his K9 deputies, his dysfunctional small person
sidekick and ride-along Owen Wingert, and Geenie Pinto, Judge’s main squeeze. Geenie,
head of a town watch group in upstate PA, enlists Judge and Owen in challenging
the gun lobby in a clandestine, Sting-like
operation (as in the movie The Sting).
The novel is not 100%
anti-gun/anti-gun ownership, considering Judge and Geenie have concealed carry
licenses, but it is 100% anti-gun
violence and anti-gun lobby. It promises to be quite controversial even as
genre fiction.
DIRTY POOL, the third in the series (the series is tentatively
titled the Lethal Women series), is a
crime thriller that precedes JANE’S BABY, and deals with Geenie Pinto’s home town,
where crime has been non-existent for forty-plus years because the residents
have a very effective, secretive approach to protecting its citizens. A
sadistic binge-killing bail jumper arrives, with Judge Drury and his dogs on
his trail, but neither he nor Judge are prepared for what the town has in store
as a response to the threat. Not yet sold.
HIDING AMONG THE DEAD is a thriller with a different ensemble
cast of characters and kicks off a new series, this one about commercial crime
scene cleaners in and around Philly. Organ trafficking, illegal bare-knuckles
boxing, and the Hawaiian mob highlight a plot that deals with new immigrants in
the U.S. selling their organs to make ends meet, sometimes giving up more
organs than they intended. I’m just starting the publisher submission process
with this one, but it’s a great story, IMHO.
How long would you say it takes you to write a book?
While I’d like to crank ’em
out quickly like so many other prolific authors, it takes me six to twelve months
to write the first draft and a few months to polish it based on agent and peer
author feedback.
What is your favorite childhood book?
I recall loving the Tom Swift
series of juvenile science fiction novels, credited to author Victor Appleton, which
was actually a pseudonym for a number of writers over the years. The smart yet
pushy protagonist teenager Tom Swift addressed the inquisitive nature of so
many teenagers, and was the embodiment of invention and exploration. Trivia
about this character: the taser, today’s crime fighting weapon popular with the
police and used to incapacitate people by introducing electronic pulses to their
nervous system, thereby turning them into writhing sidewalk flounder, is an
acronym for “Thomas A. Swift’s electric rifle.”
If you could spend the day with one of the characters from
JANE’S BABY, who would it be? Please tell us why you chose this particular
character, where you would go and what you would do.
The height-challenged Owen Wingert,
a little person of color. He wormed his way into Judge Drury’s life despite
being a passionate Dallas Cowboys football fan, with Judge being just as
passionate about their archrivals, the Philadelphia Eagles. Owen has lived
multiple lives, is currently a court-reporting blogger/sports writer, but was also
a wrestler, rodeo clown, and midget bowler during his forty-plus years. I do
not take lightly the use of the term “midget,” but Owen, however, as a
character is quite comfortable with it. And Judge’s Tourette’s affliction has
made the term one of his more commonly uttered verbal tics.
Owen would take me to a U.S.
Supreme Court session, and I’d watch him salivate while witnessing the court’s pomp
and circumstance, and try, unsuccessfully, to keep him from cheering on the justices,
and we’d get thrown out of the Court building.
What was the hardest scene from JANE’S BABY to write?
I won’t go with one scene. There
are twists/reveals that turn on a dime, to go with a cliché, and they require
getting the language and the dialogue just right, otherwise the “aha” moments might
not work. For me, revealing plot surprises can be difficult, sometimes
requiring rewriting prior material because, more often than not, I realize
something about the character or story or plot itself has actually changed at
that point, or needs to change, causing the hinting of it in earlier scenes to need
editing.
What made you want to become a writer?
Here’s a fairly dry answer. I’ve always
enjoyed stories, novels, comics, movies, reading, learning interesting things, useful
or not. Experiencing the action or message or twist or wow factor gives me such
an endorphin jolt. So back in the early nineties I was living through a
nightmare at a large corporation (an air freight company) that was near
bankruptcy. It begot a takeover by a trucking company, which was deemed a
savior. It turned a bit ugly because of the middle management personalities
involved, the lives that were changed, and all the insecurity it produced. In
the long run, the trucking company, too, eventually closed its doors because of
the acquisition. I have no idea why I felt I could write a novel about it, but
I tried. The novel collapsed under its own weight because, well, first novel; I
tried to do too much with it. It will never see the light of day, but having
cut my teeth on it, it gave me confidence in writing a second novel, SCARS ON
THE FACE OF GOD, a modern day tale about a real-life religious manuscript
called The Devil’s Bible written by
monk in the thirteenth century. It was picked up by a small press and became my
first major publishing credit. The small press eventually closed, but the novel
is still available, in eBook format only. “It’s quite good, by the way,” he
says.
Just for fun
(a Favorite song: Crossroads – Cream (Eric Clapton, Jack Bruce, Ginger
Baker)
(b Favorite book: CHANCE by Steve Shilstone
(c Favorite
movie: Too many (double digits)
(d Favorite TV
show: On commercial TV, it could be any
one of the many longer-running sitcoms: Seinfeld, Everybody Loves Raymond,
Friends, Modern Family, others. On cable, it would be BREAKING BAD.
(e Favorite Food: Pizza
(f Favorite
drink: Medium Dunkin’ Donuts hot coffee,
cream and sugar. When the local DD folks see me enter the store, I don’t even
need to order it, they start the process. I drink a LOT of DD coffee.
Thanks so much
for visiting with us today!
About the Author
“The thing I write will be the thing I write.” Chris wouldn’t trade his northeast Philadelphia upbringing of street sports played on blacktop and concrete, fistfights, brick and stone row houses, and twelve years of well-intentioned Catholic school discipline for a Philadelphia minute (think New York minute but more fickle and less forgiving). He’s had lengthy stops as an adult in Michigan and Connecticut, thinks Pittsburgh is a great city even though some of his fictional characters don’t, and now lives in Doylestown, PA. He’s married, the father of two, is a grandfather, still does all his own stunts, and he once passed for Chip Douglas of My Three Sons TV fame on a Wildwood, NJ boardwalk. As C.G. Bauer he’s also the author of SCARS ON THE FACE OF GOD, an EPIC Awards runner-up for best in 2010 eBook horror, and the editor of the CRAPPY SHORTS short story collections.
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