Marilyn's Musings

My guest today is Quintin Peterson and I asked him to tell me what inspired him to write Guarding Shakespeare . Introducing my friend and fellow PSWA member, Quintin Peterson. I retired from the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department on April 23, 2010, after more than 28 years of public service. When I started working at the Folger Shakespeare Memorial Library as a Special Police Officer (SPO) and issued Badge #28 on December 14, 2010 (BTW: I was sworn in as a police officer on December 14, 1981 and issued Badge #2807), I learned that April 23 rd is Shakespeare’s birthday. The coincidences were not lost on me. It didn’t take long for the plot of a noir story using the Folger Library as the backdrop to occur to me – The Maltese Falcon meets The DaVinci Code I thought – and on January 27, 2013, a short story version of Guarding Shakespeare , a caper about a plot to heist a priceless artifact from the Folger Library, was published in eNoir Magazine Issue No. 2 . On Ma...

From Quintin Peterson: I am a contributor to a recently released anthology of tales of horror and the paranormal; From Shadows and Nightmares , edited by Amber L. Campbell, which is available at amazon.com , BN.com, et al. James Dorr, Jeffrey Wooten, and Michele Wyan are among the 22 authors featured in this anthology, which has something for everyone who enjoys creepy stories. My contribution is ‘Round Midnight , a cop/ghost story. Hard-boiled chills and thrills. I am known for crime writing – “the retired DC cop who pens crime fiction” – but considered it an interesting challenge to generate a ghost story rooted in the crime fiction genre. So, I combined a cop story with a ghost story and came up with ‘Round Midnight , the story of a DC cop’s on and off-duty ghostly encounters with a childhood friend who died in his youth. It begins: Police work had taken everything from me and over time had left me virtually hollow. Seeing humanity a...

Marilyn: Though I've met most of the people I've interviewed so far, my guest today is a PSWA member I have yet to have the pleasure of meeting. So, Quintin, first off, tell me something about yourself and your background. Quintin: I have been a police officer with the Metropolitan Police Department of Washington, DC for more than 28 years and am currently assigned to its Public Information Office as a media liaison officer. I write news releases and media advisories and address inquiries from members of the news media regarding breaking police-related incidents, as well as coordinate the release of information when multiple District and/or federal agencies are involved. Additionally, I assist crime novelists such as James Patterson and George Pelecanos, and other creative writers. (I am an Active Member of Mystery Writers of America so they seek me out.) I am also a liaison between the department and members of the motion picture and television industries, acting as a script ...