No secret here, D.E. Johnson is one of my favorite authors! His first three mystery/crime novels are great reads and his work has been praised by many reviewers and readers, including Jay Leno. His writing has been called “extraordinarily vivid–” by the New York Times Book Review and I have to agree.

Dan, you are a master at bringing a setting to life. Why did you decide to set your series in early 1900s Detroit?

Thanks, Joe. The early Twentieth Century is, for me, the most fascinating time in U.S. history. Our country was coming of age and was in the process of becoming what it is today, for good and for bad. Social issues, foreign policy, crime, immigration, mental health treatment—you can find the roots of the current situations in what happened a hundred years ago.

My research made me fall in love with Detroit. The city was rightly known for decades as the “Paris of the West.” Tree-lined boulevards, sophisticated culture, great art scene, Detroit had it all. In 1910, there was no more exciting city in the world. Manufacturing was growing by leaps and bounds, led, of course, by automobiles, but the city was renowned for hundreds of other industries—stoves, train cars, and cigars being three of the most prominent.

In 1910, only 10% of Detroit’s population had even been born in the State of Michigan! The city was a smaller version of New York, filled with ethnic enclaves where many people never had to learn English because everything they needed was right there. Many of those immigrants were craftsmen, lured to the New World by the promise of a better life.

Along with all this came crime—white collar (led by the city government), blue collar, and everything in between. Labor activists, socialists, and anarchists were ruthlessly cut down by the establishment, and fought back every way they knew how. The city was prosperous, yet so many of its citizens were destitute. It was a perfect mixture for the extremes of human behavior—exactly the environment a novelist is looking for.

What got you started in writing?

I’ve always loved writing and thought I was good at it. (My wife just found an old story I wrote in elementary school, and I have to say I was impressed with my verbs.) I considered going into a writing program after high school but practicality won out, and I tried teaching (which didn’t agree with me). I spent twenty-five years in business before finally taking the plunge and learning the craft of writing. It has changed my life. My subconscious mind is able to work out all those issues I couldn’t get my hands around before. I’m a much happier person.

What was your favorite bit of research that you didn’t get to use in your stories thus far?

During the research for Detroit Breakdown, I fell into a rabbit hole filled with radium and uranium. During the early Twentieth Century, Eloise Hospital was one of the pioneers in the use of radiation therapy for tuberculosis. As I researched that (looking for a good way to punish Will for being my protagonist) I found a wealth of information about radioactive curatives.

In the first forty years of the Twentieth Century, many people looked at radiation as a cure-all. You could buy uranium-lined water coolers (or radium water by the bottle, if you had a little more money), as well as a wide variety of, er, Viagra-like radioactive products. I wrote an article about it for Criminal Element, which you can find at: http://www.criminalelement.com/blogs/2012/09/who-needs-viagra-when-you-can-have-a-radium-suppository-d-e-johnson-historical-true-crime-fashion-police-radiation

What books/authors do you recommend to writers looking to learn the craft and/or for readers who enjoy a fast paced mystery like your own?

For writers – The Art of Fiction by John Gardner, The Elements of Style by Strunk and White, The First Five Pages by Noah Lukeman, and Writing the Breakout Novel by Donald Maass.

For readers of crime fiction – a few of my favorite authors (alphabetically)—James Lee Burke, Lee Child, Loren Estleman, Bryan Gruley, Dennis Lehane, Elmore Leonard, Walter Mosely (And everyone who enjoys crime fiction should read The Killer Inside Me by Jim Thompson)

The fourth book in the series will come out in September of 2013 (Yeah!), what unique setting can readers look forward to experiencing?

The fourth book in the series (as yet untitled) will be set in the 1912 Presidential election. Michigan had women’s suffrage on the ballot, and some serious shenanigans took place to keep it from passing. There was definitely a conspiracy, and it looks like big liquor was behind it.

I’ll tell that story in the background while Will tries to figure out who killed an old school friend and deals with the aftermath of EloiseHospital, while trying to balance work and his relationship with Elizabeth. This book will also mark the return of a character from The Detroit Electric Scheme, whom we haven’t heard from since.