After a successful career in insurance, Thomas O'Callaghan turned his hand to writing his debut novel, Bone Thief and its sequel, The Screaming Room, which were published by Kensington Books and translated for markets in Germany, Slovakia, Indonesia, the Czech Republic, China, and Italy. The series features Homicide Commander Lieutenant John W. Driscoll and his dedicated team as they track the darkest killers in New York City.
The third installment, No One Will Hear Your Screams, was recently released by WildBlue Press: Is there a sociopathic killer murdering prostitutes in New York City? NYPD's top cop, Homicide Commander Lieutenant John Driscoll, believes there is. Someone who calls himself "Tilden" claims to have been sexually abused as a child by his mother's john. But what could have triggered Tilden's rage to place him on a mission to eradicate all of New York's prostitutes? Tilden is not your run-of-the-mill sociopath. After all, would a common murderer take the time to embalm his victims—determined as the cause of all the deaths by the medical examiner? Driscoll is on mission to put an end to the madness. A man haunted by the events of his own unstable childhood, he teams up with Sergeant Margaret Aligante and Detective Cedric Thomlinson to stop the killings and bring Tilden to justice before he kills again.
O'Callaghan stops by In Reference to Murder to take some Author R&R about writing and researching his novels:
Though my novels depict fictional murder I feel it’s important to accurately and definitively describe all aspects of the heinous killings. The reader, though he or she knows what’s being read is an imaginary tale must have a sense that the murders, meticulously depicted, could be real. Otherwise well crafted fiction becomes fantasy. With that writing style in mind, I invite the reader to board a rollercoaster of sorts on page one. I then keep them on that rollercoaster until the last page. The key is to never let them off. My dedication to clearly describe the killings must carry over into how I depict the procedures employed by my fictional team of homicide investigators who must track down these psychotic misfits terrorizing New York City. But, since I’m neither a killer nor a detective I rely on in-depth research to get both factions right. Failing to do so brings credibility into question.
When I created the villain in BONE THIEF it was important to depict an individual who not only craved bones, but had a wealth of knowledge about them. Who better than a radiologist? There are 206 bones in the human body, by the way. I know this because I looked it up. And not being a radiologist myself, I was able to ascertain what a normal workday looked like for such a medical practitioner by searching the web. Admittedly, most of the research for BONE THIEF was done via my laptop. I did rely on an assist from an actual NYPD homicide commander to get the investigative procedure right, but I failed to ask what weapons a police officer routinely carries. In the first edition of the book I had Lieutenant Driscoll release the safety on his Glock revolver. Had I done a tad more research I would of realized Glock, Incorporated only manufactures pistols and none of them have a safety. On a bright note, my mistake led to an entertaining conversation with a New York Times bestselling thriller writer who admitted to making the same mistake. She suggested I simply arm Driscoll with a semi-automatic in the second book. Which I did!
In THE SCREAMING ROOM, which features a set of demonic fraternal twins, I wanted to add a unique twist to the investigation. After reading several articles online that detailed interesting information about twins in general, I happened upon one particular article that spoke of something called the Turner Syndrome. I knew nothing about the condition until my random online search of “Twins” produced that link. It’s an extremely rare genetic disorder that only affects the female. But, what I found fascinating was that their DNA would be identical. A great find! By adding it to my storyline, Lieutenant Driscoll was baffled. How could two people have the same DNA? The information I’d gathered through my online research thickened the plot!
The most memorable research I’d conducted while writing NO ONE WILL HEAR YOUR SCREAMS began when I happened upon a website called BlueLips.com. My killer in this one is an embalmer by trade who uses those skills in an extremely shocking way to commit murder. Because it was important to get the details right on precisely what that entailed I purchased a DVD from BlueLips.com that depicted the procedure in vivid detail. Morbid? A tad. Informative and helpful to me as a thriller writer? Absolutely!
You can learn more about Thomas O’Callaghan and his fictional protagonist Lieutenant John Driscoll via his website, and follow the author on Facebook and Twitter. No One Will Hear Your Screams is available in both ebook and paperback formats through the Amazon store.
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