Debbi Mack interviews crime fiction writer, Richard Meredith.

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Debbi: Hi everyone. We're back for a seventh season of the podcast, which just blows me away. I mean time flies, man. I can't believe I've been doing this for six years. Anyway, as always, I'm blown away also by the variety of backgrounds that people bring into the writing craft. And my first guest for this season is no exception. He has a background in biology. He's worked as a marine scientist and wildlife biologist for the federal government and the private sector. He has also worked on commercial fishing boats. My guest today is author Richard Meredith. Hi, Richard. Thanks so much for being here today.

Richard: Hi, Debbi. Thank you very much for having me. It's a real honor to be with Crime Cafe. And I also want to thank you for posting my guest blog on your website. That was wonderful.

Debbi: Oh, my pleasure to do so. Like I said, you have a very interesting background. What was it you did on commercial fishing boats?

Richard: Well, this may be before your time, but there was during the '70s, there was this controversy about the tuna dolphin controversy where the fishing boats were catching the dolphin and so I was one of the government monitors on those boats. So I did that for about two years.

Debbi: That isn't before my time, by the way.

Richard: And I did that for a couple of years. And then my wife said the next job that comes in on the beach, take it. That was in Kansas City. So I got pretty far from the ocean after that.

Debbi: Well, that's very interesting. I used to work at EPA actually. So I was going to ask you if you did environmental protection.

Richard: Yeah, I was at the Corps of Engineers and we worked with EPA quite a bit. Yeah.

Debbi: Very good, excellent, wonderful. All that Clean Water Act stuff.

Richard: Yeah, exactly.

Debbi: There you go. Had you written any fiction before you wrote The Crow's Nest?

Richard: I wrote a novel called Sky Dance, which was about my experience. Well, it's a novel, but it was based on my experiences in Ecuador when I was working on doing environmental impact studies on petroleum projects down there. And that was self published. I did it through CreateSpace with Amazon. But this was the first one that was published by a publisher.

Debbi: I see. So is this the first in a series or is this a standalone?

Richard: This is a standalone. Yeah. My next three that are still, well, I'm trying to find a publisher, but they're a series. Yeah.

Debbi: Tell us a little about The Crow's Nest. What's it about?

Richard: Well, I say that The Crow's Nest is a crime thriller without police, federal agents, or the military. It's just two men seeking justice against a brutal cartel. It's unique so far in that I think it's the only novel about the use of the crude submarines in the smuggling of cocaine between Columbia and Northern Mexico. I describe it as the mutant spawn of Das Boot and S...