Joshua Graham grew up in Brooklyn, NY, where he lived for the better part of thirty years. He holds a Bachelor and Master’s Degree and went on to earn his doctorate from Johns Hopkins University. During his time in Maryland, he taught as a professor at Shepherd College (WV), Western Maryland College, and Columbia Union College (MD).
Today he lives with his beautiful wife and children in San Diego. Several of Graham’s short fiction works have been published by Pocket Books and Dawn Treader Press under different pen names.
Beyond Justice is now available in Trade Paperback through Amazon.comas well as Barnes and Noble. It’s available at the Kindle store for $2.99 for a limited time, and can be purchased for other ebook readers at Smashwords, and is now available for the iPad and iPhone at the Apple iBooks store.
You can visit his website at www.joshua-graham.com, connect with him on Facebook at www.facebook.com/j0shuagraham or twitter at www.twitter.com/j0shuagraham.
We interviewed Joshua to find out more about his latest book, Beyond Justice.
Q. Thank you for this interview, Joshua. Can we begin by having you tell us why you chose suspense thrillers to write?
Maybe it’s due to my short attention span with reading (isn’t that ironic?) but I love books that keep moving and don’t squat on certain points too long. That’s not to say I don’t love beautiful prose, setting and dialogue, I do. But all of that must serve to move the story along. With a good suspense thriller, you are guaranteed that something interesting is always happening, be it a disagreement with a friend or a full-blown murder trial.
Q. Did you outline before you wrote your book or did you just go with the flow?
A bit of both. I knew the book was going to be written in three distinct acts. I knew the kind of scenes that would take place. But as for a full outline? Not this time. Sometimes when I am writing a large section of a book, I will write out plot points in a sequence. This is like looking at the directions list from Google maps before you embark on a long road trip. That way, at every turn, you know where you are heading. In order for me to surprise you the reader, I really must know what’s coming at every turn. That said, my characters have on occasion done the equivalent of jumping out from behind a corner and shouting, “BOO!”
Q. Who was your favorite character in Beyond Justice and why?
Definitely Sam Hudson, the protagonist. To me, Sam Hudson is every man. He knows he’s not perfect, but he always tries to do right. But as in real life, bad things--REALLY bad things happen to good people. While Sam is not an extension of my personality per se, I believe his response to circumstances are genuine, sincere, and resonates with most people.
Q. Who was your least favorite character?
I like all the characters I wrote, even the villains--because they were interesting to write. I guess my least favorite was the Thomas Walden, the district attorney. He was a person who lacked character and moral fiber, yet put in a position of frightening authority. How many people have we met like this in our own lives?
Q. Can you tell us about the setting and why you chose it?
This book has two primary settings. The first and primary setting is the suburbs of San Diego. Sam’s house is set in Rancho Carmelita, a place that exists only in my imagination. It is based on a neighborhood in which I once lived. The opening chapter (which I will talk about in the next question) was set entirely in the house I owned in that neighborhood. It had to be set there because in order to feel what Sam felt, experience it inside his head, I had to imagine it happening to me. Every detail, every visual, and ever other sense, was based on my house.
