Publisher's Weekly said your writing infuses "the legal maneuverings with enough humor, insight and intelligence to merit an exception to Shakespeare's admonition to kill all the lawyers." That's a great quote, but why do lawyers have such a lousy rep?  Do you want to defend them?

Lawyers have a lousy rep because somebody always loses, and they blame either the opposing lawyer or their own lawyer. Usually the latter. But criminal defense, which is where I came from, is as necessary to a just society as jails, as essential to the Constitution as any other guarantee in the Bill of Rights. You can have that, or you can have The Ox Bow Incident. A lot of people are ready to grab a rope. Until they're arrested, of course.

You live in LA.  Have you been bitten by the screenwriting bug?

I actually started as a screenwriter (it's a requirement of city citizenship), had a top agent and all that. But it was always close and no cigar. So I wrote a novel, and that hasn't stopped. Interestingly, I was hired to write a script a little over a year ago and discovered my screenwriting ability was still there, even better because of the novels. And I definitely think my novels benefited from learning the craft cinematically.

Mary Poppins told us, "A spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down."  Along with Try Fear's suspense and entertainment, are you trying to sneak in a message or two for  your readers?

I think a theme or message has to be organic to the story and characters, and is subordinate to a page-turning read. I don't really sneak anything in. My characters deal with what's going on, and how they handle it ends up having thematic significance. It almost has to. I've been asked if there's a consistent thread in my books, and I think it's the quest for justice in a dark world. That always seems to be there in some form.

You practiced law for years and now write full-time.  Are there similarities between the two professions?  Differences?

Well, you have to be disciplined. You can't get very far in either profession unless you show up, day after day, and work hard. On the other hand, if you mess up a book you can fix it. If you mess up a trial, somebody goes to prison.

How has your writing changed over the years?

I've consciously studied the craft ever since I started, and still do. So I think - I hope - I get stronger. I struggled at first to figure out plotting, and when I did, I worked at characters. Then style and description, and so on. I try to assess areas in my writing I can improve, then figure out a way to do that. Along the way, I've written a couple of books on the craft for Writers Digest Books - Plot & Structure and Revision & Self-Editing. I like helping new writers solve the problems I had to, by trial and error.

You're a pretty versatile fellow.  In addition to your Ty Buchanans, you've written over a dozen books that you categorize as "inspirational fiction." Tell us about them and how your Ty Buchanan series differs.

I got my start writing Christian fiction, because I liked dealing with characters who were on that wave length, struggling with matters of ultimate significance.  With inspirational fiction I wrote stories for a certain audience, and enjoyed being one of the first to specialize in suspense for that market.

With the Buchanan books, I still have a guy fighting through deep waters, but he comes at it from a different angle. He's agnostic on theological matters, but is still that sort of "knight errant" à la Chandler's Marlowe. But my number one priority has always been writing a novel people can't put down. It still is.

What do you do in your spare time?  Run with the Hollywood set?

When I'm not lounging by the pool at the Beverly Hills Hotel, having myself paged, you can usually find me doing things around LA with my wife. Like the Hollywood Bowl on a summer evening, or the beach for a dip in the Pacific, or at Musso & Frank on Hollywood Boulevard for liver and onions. Yes, I said liver and onions. Musso's is the best.

What's coming next?

I have another book for writers coming out in December - The Art of War for Writers (Writers Digest Books). I'm working on a standalone thriller at the moment, and have several other ideas in the "cooking" stage. It never stops, and I don't want it to. I want to be one of those guys who conks out over his keyboard at 98 or so.

Contributing editor Keith Raffel wrote DOT DEAD, "without question the most impressive mystery debut of the year" according to Bookreporter.com.  His next book, SMASHER, a thriller set in Silicon Valley, is due out this fall.