Jeff
Cody/Sebastian McCabe Interview
Today I have the pleasure of
visiting with two distinguished gentlemen from St. Benignus College in Erin,
Ohio, Jeff Cody and Professor Sebastian McCabe. My friend and fellow mystery
writer, Dan Andriacco, introduced me to his two amateur sleuths. Mr. Cody is
public relations director at St. Benignus and Professor McCabe is the head of
the college’s popular culture program.
1. I’d
like to start the interview with you, Mr. Cody. Tell us a little about St.
Benignus College and the quaint town on Erin. I don’t know how quaint it is. The homicide rate seems rather high!
Erin has about 30,000 residents, not all of them Irish. Sitting on the Ohio
River in the southeast part of the state, it was an important stop on the
Underground Railroad. Other than that, it’s a lot like any small town you’ve
ever visited. But it’s also a college town. St. Benignus has about 2,000
students. If you think that’s not enough to keep a public relations director hopping,
you’ve got another thing coming.
2. Besides
being friends, you two have a few things in common. Would you like to share
those with us, Mr. Cody? First of all,
Mac is married to my sister, Kathleen
Cody McCabe, which makes Kate the most long-suffering of mortals. We also share
an employer, St. Benignus, and a boss, the insufferable Ralph Pendergast. Mac
is the Lorenzo Smythe Professor of English Literature and head of the popular
culture department, while I run the two-person public relations office. This often
means that I have to try to put out fires that Mac started.
3. I’m
eager to hear about both of your mysteries. Tell us about your series,
Professor McCabe. As Jefferson frequently
notes in his accounts of our adventures, I am the author of the best-selling
Damon Devlin mystery novels. Damon is my alter-ego – slimmer, handsomer, and smarter
than I. He is a professional magician, a vocation that I myself once pursued as
a young man in Europe before settling down to more academic pursuits. I am not
ashamed to say that the Damon Devlin novels hearken back to the Golden Age of
detective fiction, such as the works of Ellery Queen and John Dickson
Carr.
4. What
do you find so fascinating about Sherlock Holmes, Professor? You are obviously a wordsmith, Ms. Kaska,
because you have hit upon exactly the right word. Holmes is indeed fascinating,
as I am sure Mr. Spock would say. Perhaps part of his allure is that he is
himself a mystery, both in his personality and in his origins. That has given
many non-canonical authors free range to imagine that which we do not know
about him. For example, the biographical details provided by Dr. Watson are
sparse. We have met the great detective’s older and smarter brother, but
Mycroft Holmes is even more mysterious and therefore more fascinating than
Sherlock! The psychological profile of Sherlock Holmes is also a puzzler. He
claims to find emotions abhorrent, and yet he displays curiosity, anger,
sympathy, regret, despair, desire for vengeance, frustration, and even
fraternal love. So he is a complex character, a conundrum. Another great
mystery about Sherlock Holmes is that he manages to retain our utter confidence
in his supreme abilities despite the fact that a several of his clients died
because of his human failures!
5. Last
I heard, Mr. Cody, you were working on number six in your Max Cutter detective
series. How is that going? The number is
seven, all unpublished, and why did you have to remind me? Ouch! I still can’t
figure out why no publisher wants them. Max Cutter is a hard-boiled private
eye, not some namby-pamby amateur sleuth like Mac’s fairy tale heroes. There is
no justice. But I can’t complain. I’ve been so busy writing up our real life
adventures that I haven’t had time for fiction in the last couple of years. And
the McCabe – Cody books have actually been published!
6. You’ve
also had some major changes in your life lately, Mr. Cody, involving a rather
smart, attractive journalist. Is it too early to let the cat out of the bag? What do you mean “rather smart”? Lynda
Teal’s IQ is higher than my bowling score! And she’s almost as beautiful as her
mother and built like a brick pizza parlor to boot. At the beginning of No
Police Like Holmes, we’d broken up. There
was some silly business about me being too controlling. But by the end of the book,
we were on speaking terms again. We weren’t exactly dating, but we weren’t not
dating. I changed my Facebook status to
“It’s Complicated.” In the final chapters of Holmes Sweet Holmes, it got less a lot less complicated and I
got a lot happier. I’m still amazed. In the new book, The 1895 Murder, you’ll find out the secret that Lynda had been hiding about her
parents – and be as shocked as I was.
7. I’ve
read about your exploits in solving murders in Holmes Sweet Holmes and No
Police Like Holmes. Both of you are storytellers, but Dr. Andriacco allowed
you, Mr. Cody, to narrate the cases. How do you feel about this, Professor? It would be churlish of me to complain.
After all, I have achieved my own success as an author and amateur detective. I
am also happily married, a status shared by very few fictional sleuths. Jefferson
deserves to have his chance at publication and romantic happiness. Naturally,
he records our cases in a style that is much different from mine. I do not, for
example, pepper my prose with sarcastic comments in italics that I am too
prudent to utter aloud.
8. I’m
not sure that Dr. Andriacco will approve of this next question, but I have to
ask it. What advice, would you give to him the next time he sits down at his
computer and decides to deposit you on another murder trail? Keep us in Erin, please! The next case, The
Disappearance of Mr. James Phillimore,
takes place in London. I’ve already finished the first draft. Mac and Lynda
loved Baker Street and all the rest of that Sherlock Holmes stuff, but I got
homesick for our little town on the river and the other characters who live
there.
Dan Andriacco is a former newspaper journalist and mystery book reviewer who has been a member of the Tankerville Club, a scion society of The Baker Street Irregulars, since 1981. He is the author of Baker Street Beat: An Eclectic Collection of Sherlockian Scribblings, and two Sebastian McCabe - Jeff Cody mysteries, No Police Like Holmes and the upcoming Holmes Sweet Holmes. Follow his popular blog at bakerstreetbeat.blogspot.com and his tweets @DanAndriacco.
Dr. Dan and his wife, Ann, have three grown
children and four grandchildren. They live in Cincinnati, Ohio, USA.
Holmes Sweet Holmes
“I loved Dan Andriacco’s first novel about Sebastian McCabe and Jeff
Cody, and I’m delighted to recommend the second, which has a
curiously topical touch. Holmes Sweet Holmes concerns the murder of
Peter Gerard, writer, director and star of 221B Bourbon Street, which re-imagines
Sherlock Holmes as a jazz-playing American in 1920s New Orleans. The characters
are engaging, the plot is cunning, and the writing is literate and witty. This
is classy stuff!” – Roger Johnson, The Sherlock Holmes Society of London
No Police Like
Homes
It’s a
satirical look at Holmes and the industry he’s spawned, but it’s affectionate
and neatly constructed . . . There
are plenty of twists, a good few red herrings and an ending which surprised me
as I had someone entirely different chalked in as the murderer.” – The Bookbag
“Andriacco’s characters and their lives are so very normal and
untormented, his writing style so light, and his observations so witty that No
Police Like Holmes is an enjoyable,
palate-cleansing romp of a mystery with a little Sherlockian education thrown
in.” – Well-Read Sherlockian
“Cody is
engaging enough to make further books in the series welcome.” – Publishers Weekly
Baker Street Beat
“Baker
Street Beat is an entertaining collection of short
essays, stories and screenplays by Dan Andriacco, a self confessed Sherlock Holmes
aficionado, and covering the author’s own experiences and knowledge of the
world of Holmes . . . In all, I would definitely recommend this book for anyone
who has a love of Holmes and wants to learn more about him.” – Cult Britannia
The 1895 Murder
Popular
mystery writer Sebastian McCabe is about to conquer a new world with his
Sherlock Holmes play 1895. On opening
night, however, his Erin, Ohio theatrical debut as both playwright and actor is
upstaged by a murder in back of the newly renovated theater.
“Reading The 1895 Murder, the third mystery in Dan Andriacco’s Sebastian
McCabe/Jeff Cody series was like visiting a group of friends who, yet again,
find themselves embroiled in a murder investigation. Andriacco’s masterful
plotting had me stumped. When book four comes out, I will be one of the first
to crack the cover.” – Kathleen
Kaska, author of the Sydney Lockhart mystery series and the Classic
Triviography books.
“Dan
Andriacco has a writing style I would love to have. Dan has characters that
have real lives and who you can identify with. His Jeff Cody character has
great wit and McCabe great intelligence. His books are just fun to read."
–Kieren McMullen, author of Watson’s
Afghan Adventure and Sherlock Holmes
and the Irish Rebels
TWITTER:
@Dan Andriacco
