This is one in a series of interviews with some of my and The Wife’s favorite novelists. Today we are visiting with Paul Levine, one of my all-time favorite legal thriller writers.
Levine’s lead character is Jake Lassiter, a fictional ex-Penn State linebacker and lawyer, who’s been supporting Paul through some 10 novels spanning over 28 years. Paul is so dependent on Lassiter that his real world twitter handle is @Jake_Lassiter. If that’s not enough to make you wonder, Paul has a longstanding practice of engaging in discussions with Lassiter, in writing no less. Perhaps no small coincidence, this writer has done precisely the same with his main protagonist in the Brooks/Lotello thriller series, Cyrus Brooks. True story.
Booklist describes Lassiter “as one of the most entertaining series characters in contemporary crime fiction.” The Miami Herald says Lassiter has “a lot more charisma than Perry Mason ever did.” That said, this writer, who has read and watched a lot of Perry Mason over the years, doesn’t recall Mason as having any particular charisma at all. As this writer recalls, Mason was basically just a very smart stick-in-the-mud. So much for The Miami Herald. However, Booklist pretty much has Lassiter spot on.
At the risk of dating myself, and Levine, but even more to the point for me, The Chicago Sun-Times likens Levine’s characters to “the Hepburn-Tracy screwball comedies.” That’s huge.
Paul’s To Speak for the Dead was listed as “one of the ten best mysteries of the year” by The Los Angeles Times. Retitled Jake Lassiter: Justice on the Bayou, and moved from Miami to New Orleans, the screen adaption appeared as an NBC movie-of-the-week in 1995. Produced by Stephen J. Cannell, it starred Gerald McRaney as Lassiter. Levine then moved to Los Angeles to join his buddy and fellow Penn State alumnus, Don Bellasario, to write 21 episodes of the CBS military legal series Jag between 1995 and 2005.
Paul has won the John D. MacDonald fiction award and has been nominated for Edgar, Macavity, International Thriller Writer, Shamus, and James Thurber prizes. His latest novels, are Bum Rap, Bum Luck, and Bum Deal. Bum Rap was an Amazon Number One Bestseller. Paul swears Bum Deal is his last Lassiter novel. Lassiter says no way. I’m with Lassiter.
So, enough hype to make sure this writer has the readers’ attention. Let’s start at the beginning, so to speak.
Ron: Born and raised in Pennsylvania, you stayed close to home and graduated from Penn State University in 1969. Like brothers from other mothers, this writer was born and raised in Los Angeles and turned down a gymnastics scholarship to attend Penn State, which had the number one collegiate gymnastics program in the country at the time, to stay close to home and graduated from USC. (Editor’s note: USC went on to defeat Penn State, and Southern Illinois University, to win the 1962 NCAA gymnastics championship.) You then went on to become a lawyer, and join a major national law firm, as did this writer (although not the same law schools or the same law firms). You’re five years younger than I am. Were you copying me? Stalking me?
Paul: Ron, I didn’t realize you were that old! Are you still ambulatory? Nah, I wasn’t following in your footsteps, not intentionally. I’ve found that a lot of writers – maybe most – started out doing something else. It helps to have a real life before you spend endless hours sitting alone in a room making stuff up. To be a storyteller, it’s advisable to have stories to tell, based at least in part on life experiences. It’s better to create characters after you’ve gotten inside the skin of actual people with real emotions, real dialogue, and real problems.
Ron: You don’t pay me enough to ask me personal questions like that, although the answer is . . . barely. You’ve worked as a newspaper reporter, a law professor and a trial lawyer before becoming a full-time novelist. Did you have trouble holding a job? How and why did you segue to becoming a novelist? Was it so you wouldn’t have to work for anyone? Other than perhaps Jake Lassiter?
Paul: Really, it was a natural progression…other than quitting a high-paying lawyer’s job for a career as a freelance writer/novelist/screenwriter. I was a journalism major and editor-in-chief of the student daily at Penn State. In my first job, I covered the courts for The Miami Herald, and that stirred my interest in the law. So I went to law school and spent 17 years as a civil litigator. I quit a partnership in a deep-carpet law firm with over 1,000 lawyers in what family and friends thought was an act of obvious insanity. But I’d gotten this notion of following my bliss, and I simply enjoyed writing novels more than trying cases. I should point out that some judges accused me of writing fiction in my appellate briefs, so maybe I had a head start.
Ron: You don’t have to tell me about the relative appeal of writing novels over trying cases. Although I have a ways to go to match your portfolio. I am trying, however. (Some say very trying.) How did you and Jake Lassiter . . . meet? Were you also a washed out linebacker? I watch USC football. Do you watch Penn State football? Does Jake? Do the two of you watch games together? Talk about them together?
Paul: Ron, you were the accomplished athlete. I was a wannabe.
As for Penn State football, I live in Santa Barbara, CA but still have season tickets to the Nittany Lions. For the last 40 years or so, I’ve either attended the games, listened on the radio, or watched on television. I can spend hours boring you with tales of Penn State’s national championship wins over Georgia in the Sugar Bowl and Miami in the Fiesta Bowl because I was there. I conjured up Lassiter as a guy tougher than me but not quite as bright. I like him because he wasn’t a great player. He walked on and finally started his senior year basically because he sacrificed his body on the suicide squads, the kickoff and punt teams. Same thing with the Dolphins. He wasn’t drafted but somehow made the team. His fearlessness and doggedness kept him in the league a few years. Similarly, he wasn’t the brightest bulb in night law school, but he kept plugging away and passed the Bar Exam on the fourth try. I admire relentlessness.
Ron: Are you a crime novelist or are a comedian? Do they go together? As we’ve noted, you’ve held a lot of jobs. Have you ever tried stand up comedy? Do you think you could? Do you think this writer could?
Paul: Two lawyers walk into a bar… Oh, never mind. I tend to find humor in serious events. Murder trials. Autopsies. Partners’ meetings in law firms. As for stand-up comedy, neither you nor I should give up our day jobs. Wait! We don’t have day jobs.
Ron: You’ve got that right. Just ask . . . The Wife. Mine. Is Bum Deal really your last Jake Lassiter novel? What will happen to you? More importantly, what will happen to Jake? What will you do next?
Paul: First, a word about the plot of Bum Deal. Lassiter finally switches teams. Appointed special prosecutor in a high-profile murder case, he vows to take down a prominent surgeon accused of killing his wife. There’s just one problem…or maybe three: no evidence, no witness, and no body. Oh, something else. Defending the surgeon are his two young pals, Steve Solomon and Victoria Lord, who would love nothing more than to turn the tables on their mentor. And this: In Bum Deal, Lassiter is suffering from symptoms consistent with Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE), the “industrial disease” of the NFL. All those hard hits on the suicide squad have come back to haunt him. So, the first question is whether he will live or die. The second question is whether, if he lives, I’ll sit down and pound out another tale for him. (I’m ignoring the possibility that if he dies in Bum Deal, I could cleverly write a prequel. Wouldn’t be the first, would I, Mr. author of The Puppet Master?) But as of right now, “Bum Deal” is the end of the series.
Ron: Well, I don’t know who’s sorrier to hear that, Jake or me. Guess I’ll just go pout and let you, and Jake, get back to whatever the two of you were doing together when I stopped by.
Paul: We were just getting ready to kick back and watch Monday Night Football with some al pastor tacos, fried plantains, and Dutch beer. You would be wise to leave us the hell alone.
Editor’s Note: Be sure and pick up a copy of Bum Deal. You’ll be glad you did. So will Paul. And Jake. And for more info, visit Paul. And Jake. At https://www.paul-levine.com.
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