Narco-Traffickers, Murders & Mexican Cartels: All in a day's work for cop-turned-writer C.L. Swinney

By Mark Young

Author Chris Swinney—writing as C.L. Sweeney—pens stories drawn from his own experiences. His day job is catching bad guys and whenever he can grab a few extra moments—he writes about them. Chris’ non-writing job is as a detective with a sheriff’s office in California. He has been loaned out to work on a Department of Justice task force focusing on drug trafficking and violent crimes. As an author, he writes crime thrillers, his debut novel Gray Ghost released a few weeks ago and his  second novel Collectors coming out later this year. It is always refreshing to read fiction written by someone who has lived the life—you know the cop-stuff is dead on. Chris is one of those writers.

Mark: Chris, thanks for taking time out of your busy schedule to join us here on Hook’em & Book’em. Tell us a little bit about your day job as a detective with the San Mateo County Sheriff’s Office in California.

Chris: First, thanks for having me on Hook’em & Book’em. Now, a little bit about my job. I’m assigned to a DOJ Task Force as a representative of the San Mateo County Sheriff’s Office. We basically do everything, from street level dealers and crimes against people to large scale narcotics and homicide investigations. This basically means we try to plan our days, but normally something else pops up that needs to be handled.

Mark:  As a crime fiction writer, I am highly interested in your expertise in cell phone forensics. On television and in the movies, viewers have grown accustomed to having law enforcement use cell phone technology to track down and catch bad guys. Everything from retrieving cell phone conversations to backtracking a person’s movement based upon tower pings and other contrivances. Tell us where reality leaves off and fantasy begins with cell phone forensics. What does law enforcement hope to gain from cell phone forensic? 

Chris: Without giving up too much information, I’d say cell phone forensics has gotten better and has led to solving crimes. Some of the stuff you see on TV is a little exaggerated, but I can tell someone with a cell phone forensic background has schooled them on what to do and say. Law enforcement is always behind in this technology, however, and we struggle with knowing others (NSA and secret squirrels) have the ability to assist local law enforcement, but they choose not to share the technology.  

Mark:  You are a narcotics detective assigned to work a task force operation with the Department of Justice. Tell us about these duties. Who do you team up with? Who are your general targets—street level traffickers, organized crime groups, Mexican cartels?

Chris: We team up with anyone who asks us for help or we work together as one large team. Some days we can’t get to our own work because major issues spring up, but, it’s satisfying when we’re successful. Among the other interesting things we do, I get to process clandestine labs, which helps keep the community safer. We also work organized crime groups, cartels, and essentially anyone doing bad things from San Francisco down to Monterey.

Mark:  What do you see as major drug trafficking trends? Years ago, cocaine exploded on the scene and flooded the market. A short time later, meth became a serious problem within our communities, later morphing into crystal meth. And heroin, which has plagued us forever, is always lurking out there looking for more victims—i.e., tragic death of Hunger Games star Phillip Seymour Hoffman last month. What are you seeing now as an emerging threat to our communities?

Chris:  I hate to say this, but ALL the drugs are on the streets in an alarming amount. In the San Francisco Bay Area, crystal methamphetamine is probably the most used and seen, but recently I found two kilos of cocaine on a guy, so you can’t dismiss cocaine. We have young people using heroin because it’s cheaper than OxyContin. And, we know heroin is being used, but we tend to focus on the crystal methamphetamine. As far as a trend, I’d say we’re not getting the support we need from the community or the people with the money these days. Having said that, we don’t give up and we continue to try to make the surrounding communities safer. Not really an “emerging” threat, but one that needs to be discussed, is the rampant abuse of pharmaceutical pills. 

Mark: As part of drug trafficking investigations, you are sometimes required to use wire taps to gather evidence. Explain to our readers the reality of this investigative technique, its limitations, and how it differs from what we see on television or in the movies.

Chris: The wire taps I’ve worked have been wild, from complex narco trafficking to murder for hire. However, they are very difficult to obtain and we tend to keep the entire process a secret. As far as the TV shows or movies I’ve seen featuring wire taps, they’ve been a little off. We don’t “flip a switch” or snap a finger and start hearing phone calls. It takes months to develop these types of cases.

Mark: Let’s switch subjects and talk about your writing life. Last

year, you came out with your debut novel, Gray Ghost, a crime thriller that takes place in the Bahamas where your main characters discover their fishing guides died in a mysterious explosion. Give our readers a little taste of what to expect?

Chris: I’ve always had a passion for the outdoors and law enforcement, so I took personal experiences and what I see every day and wrote a novel. I wrote inverted, that is, the reader knows fairly early on who the bad guy is, but I leave enough doubt and concern to provide a climatic ending.

Mark: How did you come up with the idea for this plot?

Chris: While flying into Andros, Bahamas, I noticed several downed planes on the tiny runway. I asked the locals about the planes and quickly learned about the narcotic trafficking occurring on the island headed to Miami. I interviewed and spoke to law enforcement, coast guard, and locals. Then, I just mulled the idea for years while life sort of took over. Fast forward eight years and I get into law enforcement-eventually working narcotics. It took four years for the novel to get published.

Mark: I would imagine your day job takes a big bite out of your time. What kind of writing schedule do you follow?

Chris: My writing schedule is as chaotic as my job. I write any time I can. Sometimes I speak out loud in my car into my cell phone recorder when I’m sitting on surveillance. When I get home, I help with the kids and try to write after that. When I have something that needs to be completed or an upcoming deadline, I buckle down and get it done.

Mark: What is your next writing project? Where are you in this process?

Chris: The next novel in the Bill Dix series is called Collectors. It’s written and I’m editing it now. I was able to feature a mentor of mine in the novel, Koti Fakava, who passed away unexpectedly leaving his wife and five kids. I’m donating the proceeds from Collectors to Koti’s family. I can’t describe how excited I am about this project. I’ve been able to get some great support, and the book is contracted. It should be out sometime in August.

Mark: Since you have one novel under your belt, what have you learned about the publishing and marketing business? Are there some things you might change or do differently this next time out?

Chris: I’ve learned quite a bit about the industry in the last five years. Publishing and marketing is a very difficult business. There are publishers out there that will prey on people who desperately want to see their work in print. I think if you continue to write and write well, you will get published. I think if you stick to your work and find an audience for it, you will become successful. I think it’s amazing to get published, but the real work comes with promoting. There are over ten million books on Amazon; somehow you must find a way to compete with all of them. As far as what I might try differently, I did that when I found a new publisher. I’m hopeful that I can be successful and keep my sanity while continuing to entertain readers.

Mark: Where can readers find you in the social media world? How can they reach you if they have any further questions?

Chris: I’m a big social media guy. I’m on Twitter, Facebook, Linked-In, Instagram (clswinney), Google+, and Goodreads. If you can’t reach me on these sites, you can reach my via email at swinster11@yahoo.com Thanks again for this wonderful opportunity!

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About the Author: Chris Swinney (C. L. Swinney), is currently assigned to a Department of Justice Task Force that investigates a myriad of cases ranging from street level drug dealers and bank robbers to homicides and complex Mexican Cartel cases. When criminals run, Chris is called to find them. He puts his unbelievable experiences and everyday life as a Detective into his writing.

Chris officially began his writing career when his feature article was published in Fly Fisherman Magazine. After this, his work continued to appear in PointsBeyond.com, Alaskan Peninsula Newspaper, California Game & Fish, and again in Fly Fisherman Magazine. He's now a contributor to PoliceOne.com, the nation's premier law enforcement online magazine.

Cop-Turn-Writer: Interview with novelist John Scanlan

By Mark Young

I was scrolling through my emails recently when I came across one from a debut author from Palm Beach, Florida—author John Scanlan. As I read further I learned that John is a cop-turned-writer and my interest meter shot up. Honestly, as a cop-turned-writer myself, I always want to help out a fellow officer trying to make a stab in the writing business—particularly if they are writing crime-related fiction.

Now, I have not read John’s novel—Of Guilt and Innocence published by Sunbury Press, Inc.—but his story idea seems intriguing. Nothing tugs at the heartstrings of people like the abduction of a child. Five-year-old Ashley Wooten is snatched from her own front yard in a well-to-do community of Boca Raton. The girl’s father must reveal secrets about his past to jump start a faltering investigation. As detectives delve into Ashley’s disappearance, they learn that the suspect might have ties to the murder of an elderly victim, a crime attributed to the South Florida Strangler. Uncertain how these two cases might dovetail, investigators scramble for clues before Ashley or another victim are found dead.

Sound interesting? I thought so.

John is a transplanted ‘Floridian’—is that the word? It seems that most people who have settled in Florida have come from somewhere else—particularly colder climates I would wager. John is no exception. He migrated to the sunny state from a small village in New York, about an hour’s drive east of Buffalo, which I guess accounts for his love of chicken wings. Eight years ago, John began his career as a police officer with the Palm Beach Police Department after a short detour with the U.S. Border Patrol. He is married with two young daughters and a son due in June. This makes 2013 a big year for him—a novel released last January and a son on the way.

Let’s find out a little more about how John balances his life between police work, writing, and a growing family. First, let's find out about his debut novel.

MARK: John, thanks for joining us here on Hook’em & Book’em. Tell us a little more about Of

Guilt and Innocence. What can readers expect when they pick up your novel? How did you come up with the idea?

JOHN:  Thanks for having me, Mark.  I think readers can expect an easy read that will hold their interest until the final twist.  It’s not your typical whodunit crime novel, but with every secret revealed it will really make them consider who is truly innocent and who is truly guilty.  I had decided I wanted to try to write a novel before I developed this particular idea, but I knew I wanted to have three separate storylines that intertwined.  I wanted to make it as emotionally charged as I could and so I used crimes that I knew would accomplish that. 

MARK: What did you find most challenging in writing this novel?

JOHN:  Aside from trying not to make it sound like one long police report?  My biggest issue with writing this novel was that I didn’t know what writing a novel would entail.  I thought every novel had to sound like A Tale of Two Cities and make readers have an open dictionary by them.  So I tried to write that way, until I read an interview with James Patterson where he said, basically, that he could only write the way he was capable of writing.  He couldn’t be anyone else.  And after reading that I looked at writing in a whole new light and felt a bit more confident in my ability.  I readdressed my work and just wrote the best I could.  No more, no less. 

MARK: As the father of daughters myself, I found the most troubling calls I responded to as a police officer where those involving children. In fact, a young girl—friend of my oldest daughter—was abducted and killed near our home which brings your story a little closer to my world. These incidents tear at your heart even though you must deal with the situation as a police officer.  John, as a father of two daughters did you discover writing this novel difficult in that respect? Have you had other experiences as a police officer that you could use to deepen the emotional struggle within your characters?

JOHN:  At times it was extremely difficult for me to write.  I had to really get into the feelings and emotions of the father of the missing girl, which, of course, made me consider what I would do if this had happened to one of my girls.  I remember, after writing portions of it, going into my daughter’s bedrooms after they were asleep (because that was when I usually wrote) and just looking at them and thinking how lucky I was.  And then I had to transition into writing from the perspective of the investigating officers, which provided me with no relief at all.  As a first responder, calls involving children are always the ones you dread.  They affect you deeply and stay with you, well, forever.  I was once first on scene at a house where a child had been pulled from a swimming pool just minutes before I arrived.  She was drifting in and out consciousness and I spent hours with her family at the hospital as they waited to see if their daughter would pull through and at what cost.  To make matters worse for me emotionally she was the same age as my oldest daughter.  I tried to use experiences like this to develop a realistic view as to what my investigators would be going through.     

MARK: Let us switch gears here and focus on your police career.  You  have been with the Palm Beach PD for about eight years. Where have you served and what kind of experiences have you faced?

JOHN:  I’ve served on my department’s Honor Guard Unit and currently serve as a member of the Crisis Intervention Team.  The great thing about working in Palm Beach is that it is a wealthy community that experiences a relatively low crime rate thanks to the hard work of my fellow officers, as well as all the outstanding officers that served before me.  Because of this we get to experience a lot of fun things.  I’ve served on two presidential details when George W. Bush visited and work security details when the NFL owners meetings are in town.   

MARK: Tell us about your assignment with the Crisis Intervention Team (CIT). What kind of services does the CIT provide? What are your responsibilities?

JOHN:  CIT deals with individuals in crisis situations.  Officers on the team are trained by mental health professionals to better deal with a variety of crisis situations and are dispatched to handle them should they arise.  Examples of these types of situations would be dealing with individuals suffering from mental illness, individuals who are suicidal, substance abusers, child or elderly abuse investigations, and death notifications.   

MARK: What experiences have you found interesting with CIT? What has been less desirable?

JOHN:  While none of those situations are pleasant, they are important.  It is important to help people who sometimes get overlooked or passed over because they are difficult to deal with.  It is important to console families who are grieving or confused or scared.  I wouldn't say any one experience is more interesting or favorable than another, but there is a bit of intrigue before you arrive at the call because you know it is going to be complex.  You know it is going to make you work for a resolution, and you just hope it will be a positive one.  Of course, that being said, I'm sure every member of the team would tell you that death notifications and child abuse investigations are the absolute hardest to deal with emotionally.

MARK: What has been your most rewarding experience as a police officer?

JOHN:  I'd have to say the most rewarding experience I've had was when I located a man wanted out of Cleveland on ten counts of kidnapping and rape.  The warrant was ten years old and after I put the cuffs on him and shipped him back to finally answer the charges against him. It was a pretty good feeling.

MARK: Leroy, New York is a long way from Palm Beach, Florida. What prompted you to make the switch? Better weather?

JOHN:  In all honesty, yes.  After my time training with the Border Patrol in Charleston, SC I just fell in love with southern living.  I liked having a somewhat constant temperature and the ability to do more things I enjoyed year round.  So I started looking at police departments in different areas of different states that I liked.  Luckily for me Palm Beach was the first to make me an offer.

MARK: How do you balance your day job and your family in order to find time to write? Do you just skip sleeping?

JOHN:  Skip sleeping?  It's probably my favorite past time actually.  Though I admit I do it much less these days.  In actuality my schedule works out quite nicely and I just don't push it.  I generally wait to write until my daughters have gone to bed so I can spend time with them and so I don't end up writing the same sentence six times because they are constantly asking me questions and I can't focus.  And then, depending on if I have to work in the morning, I will write for a minimum of an hour.  Occasionally, I am up until the wee hours of the morning writing, but there are also days, sometimes multiple days in a row, that I just can't fit it in to my schedule at all.  And I'm fine with that.  I have a full time job and a responsibility to my family that come first.  Maybe, someday, writing can be my only job, but until then it is relegated to being done under the cover of darkness. 

MARK: In reading some of your background material, I learned that you were a closet writer for a while—even from  your wife. Tell us how your big secret was finally revealed and why you were keeping it a secret.

JOHN:  I decided to keep my writing a secret simply because when I started I wasn't sure how far I'd get.  I figured no one needed to know if it only ended up being a week long hobby.  My wife had recently gone back to work and so, being a cop with atypical days off, I was left with an abundance of time alone on weekday nights.  I would write while my wife and kids slept and, as the words started flowing and I started really enjoying it, I decided I would tell her when the end was in sight.  But, of course, I got greedy and I got lazy.  I tried to sneak in a quick writing session one day while she was at the store and I left my manuscript up on the computer.  When she found it she was obviously confused, but very supportive and encouraging once I explained.  At that point I was only about half way finished and, with the exception of one other person, she remained the only one who knew about it until I signed my publishing contract.

MARK: What kind of story are you working on right now?

JOHN:  Right now I'm putting the finishing touches on a manuscript about the aftermath of an overturned murder conviction.  A conviction that caused a man to serve twenty years in prison for a crime he seemingly did not commit.  It details the perspective of the murder victim's husband, who refuses to give up his closure or peace of mind and instead chooses to overlook the evidence that supports the release.  It also details the perspective of the man once convicted of the crime and his reentry into the crime riddled neighborhood in which he grew up.  And then, of course, the now cold case investigation into the original murder.  

MARK:  Now that you have one novel under your belt, what do you think about the whole writing process? Worth losing a little sleep trying to balance everything?

JOHN:  Absolutely.  What started out as a secret hobby has grown into a large part of my life.  Though it's a lot of work, which does occasionally make me lose out on some of my beloved sack time, it's a fun part of my day that I look forward to.   

MARK: Any last words for new writers?

JOHN:  Don't try to be someone you're not with your writing.  Have fun with it.  Stay loose.  Don't get intimidated.  I tried not to put any pressure on myself, even with the submission process.  I told myself that if this manuscript didn't get published I'd keep writing them until one did.  And because writing was fun for me I didn't have a problem with that plan.

MARK: Thanks for your time, John. I know you don’t have much time to spare. Best wishes on your new writing career.

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Author John Scanlan is a police officer on the picturesque island of Palm Beach in South Eastern Florida where he currently resides with his wife and two daughters. For more information on him, visit John’s website at www.johnfscanlan.weebly.com or visit Sunberry Press.