Date Published: 01-04-2026
Publisher: First Legacy Publishing
Caught between international cybercriminals, New York mobsters, and the police, Ryan is desperate to recover the file and avoid being expelled — or worse, executed.
With the body count rising and a deadly showdown looming, the race is on to solve the mystery, recover the missing file, and avoid turning Lower Manhattan into a bloodbath.
Author Interview
Tell me about yourself. Where are you from?
Port Angeles. I moved to New York City in 1979 to attend college. Since
then I’ve lived in New York, Boston, and for the last 31 years in
Central New Jersey.
What genre do you read? Who's an author you read? Name your top 5 authors.
KC: I love science fiction as well as my own genre – mysteries and thrillers. I also enjoy a good biography. But I’ll ready almost anything if it’s well-written. My top 5 authors are: Michael Connelly, Robert Heinlein, Isaac Asimov, Sara Paretsky, and Linda Barnes.
What book are you reading right now, and what do you like about it?
KC: I just finished a mystery/thriller that is also a travelogue of Italy by an author friend of mine named Victoria Weisfeld. It’s called She Knew Too Much. I enjoyed Vicki’s amazing prose, filled with wonderful similes and phrase-turning descriptions that I wish I could write better.
Favorite sports.
KC: I’m a huge New York Mets fan, but also generally a baseball fan. My wife and I have seen games in every current major league stadium (which is a great hobby). I’m also an avid tournament poker player, which is a sport in my book.
Favorite thing about your state you live in.
KC: New Jersey has a surprisingly wide offering of interesting things to do and see. The Grounds For Sculpture is an amazing facility near our home. It was created by Seward Johnson, a sculptor who is also an heir to the Johnson & Johnson fortune. He built up the huge sculpture park on the grounds of the former New Jersey State Fair and has hundreds of sculptors who have contributed pieces to it. I highly recommend it – in Lawrenceville, NJ.
How long have you been writing?
KC: I’ve been writing all my life, including poetry as a teen along with song lyrics. I wrote my first fiction in college and my first novel in 1991. But I’ve had a day job and children that kept me busy until 2014 when my youngest graduated high school. Since then, I’ve been writing more regularly, publishing a serious literary novel (A Legacy of One) in 2016, then turning to my current crime-fiction series and its related non-series books. I’ve published nine mystery/thrillers since 2018.
What is your writing process like? Are you more of a plotter or a pantser?
KC: I am a compulsive outliner. I don’t start writing text or dialogue until every scene in the movie (book) is outlined. Typically, the detailed outline of my books runs 35-40 pages before I sit down to write the first actual text.
How did you come up with the ideas for your series?
KC: The original idea for the Mike Stoneman series came from a short story I wrote in 2012 for a contest sponsored by the New Jersey Corporate Counsel Association. (I’m a lawyer by trade and work in-house, so the NJCCA is my professional association.) The story had to be about law or crime and I came up with my New York homicide detective, Mike Stoneman, for that story – which won first prize! The story, titled Fool Me Twice is now available for free as a reader magnet on Amazon, Kobo, B&N, and from my website.
How do you celebrate finishing a book?
KC: When a finish a new book I dip into my good scotch collection and give myself a pour of something wonderful – a Glendronach 21 or a McCallan 25, for example. Mmmmmm. That’s a reward!
you use for writing? What advice would you give to a writer working on
their first book? What’s your writing software of choice?
KC: I write in Microsoft Word, which is fine. I have seen writers who use some of the advanced tools for tracking plot and keeping track of characters, which is great, but I never learned to use them. My advice for new writers is to take your time. Don’t rush. Don’t rush the writing, the editing, the story development, or the marketing. Write your first two books before you publish either of them. It takes patience that not many have, but I wish I had received that advice before I published the first book in my Mike Stoneman series (Righteous Assassin). Your first book in the series will always be book #1, and many people will only want to start reading with book #1. Make that book as good as it can be, because you will always be judged by it, even if your later books are much better.
How do you organize everything and finding the time to sit down and write?
KC: Since I no longer have children at home, my writing time is all that time that used to be devoted to them. Really, any evening when I don’t have work homework I will sit with my wife and watch TV (preferably a baseball game) and write.
As an author, what would you choose as your spirit animal?
KC: My spirit animal would be a fox. Quick, crafty, and resourceful. Always ready for an adventure.
Who has been the biggest supporter of your writing?
KC: I’m very lucky that my wife, Sharon, is a huge help and support for me. She helps me plot my books, takes a detailed interest in my subplots and characters, does my “alpha” read for every book, and is my most ardent marketer and promoter.
How do you name your characters?
KC: Sometimes, I have a name in mind that has special meaning for the character’s role in a story. For example, the murdered girl in my novel, The Other Murder was always Angelica Monroe. (Angelica was considered an angel, but that was not a true picture, as things turned out.) Lately, I’ve been asking my newsletter subscribers if they want their name to be used as a character in my next book, and many have volunteered. That way I’m using real names, although the characters don’t match their namesakes. When in doubt, I’ll use a name-generator program to give me ideas, then cross-check to make sure I’m not using a name that has been used as a major character by another author. Names are hard!
Can you describe a typical day in your writing life?
KC: Typically, I’ll finish day work day in my home office, have dinner with my wife and our live-in middle child, then put on my PJs and sit down in my chair in the living room and pick up wherever I was the night before. Sometimes it’s working on the first outline of a new story. Sometimes it’s filling in details on a detailed outline. Sometimes it’s working on a timeline of events, and sometimes it’s drafting the first draft. There is always something to be done. (And, sometimes, it’s marketing, or putting together my monthly newsletter, but that’s not nearly as much fun.)
Kevin Chapman, Thank you for being here with Always Reading-Melissa
About the Author
Kevin G. Chapman is, by day, a buttoned-down corporate labor & employment lawyer who works for a major US media company. He frequently speaks at Continuing Legal Education seminars, has taught legal writing to law students, and is the past chairperson of the Labor & Employment division of the global Association of Corporate Counsel. When the work day is done, however, Kevin lives a much more exciting fictional life of crime and romance as the author of the award-winning Mike Stoneman Thriller series and other novels and short stories. When not busy writing, he enjoys playing tournament poker and cheering on his beloved New York Mets.
The awards are still coming in for Kevin’s six-book (so far) Mike Stoneman Thriller series. This series of police procedurals includes the WINNER of the 2021 Kindle Book Award (Book #3, Lethal Voyage) and the WINNER of the CLUE Award for best police procedural of the year (book #4, Fatal Infraction). Find all the Mike Stoneman Thrillers at your favorite local bookstore. If they don’t have it – ask them to get it, or contact Kevin directly at his website to order copies.
Kevin’s two stand-alone mysteries have also garnered major awards. Dead Winner (2022) was named best Suspense/mystery of the year (CLUE Award best-in-category), while The Other Murder (2023) was the GRAND PRIZE WINNER of the CLUE Award (best suspense/mystery all categories) and a NEIA Book of the Year Finalist. Kevin also has several short stories and one novella, all of which are available on his website for free. Grab the prequel to the Mike Stoneman series, Fool Me Twice, for free: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B086Z8GRCJ or at Kevin’s website: https://www.KevinGChapman.com
Contact Links
Twitter: @KGChapman
Instagram: @KGChapman
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