This interview originally appeared on the Partners & Crime website www.crimepays.com.

Your dust jacket bio says that you write for books, periodicals and magazines. Which ones?

I have an expertise in underground Manhattan, and my day job is as a Utility Specialist (sort of a manhole detective), so I've published related articles in Mercator's World, Tribeca Trib, and in the anthology Concrete Jungle (Juno Books). I also have an expertise in fly fishing, and have written for a number of magazines including American Angler, Mid Atlantic Fly Fishing Guide, Fly Fish America and several on-line magazines.

The fishing connection makes sense with your novel, but what made you chose to write about the mob character Sid Bifulco?

My day job brings me into contact with a lot of people in the construction "bidness." They're not mobsters themselves, but act like wise guys just the same, maybe because they hang out with the genuine article or maybe just because they use it to intimidate people. I find the wise guy posturing and perspective a lot of fun to interact with first hand, and spun my experiences into the character Sid. 

Your bio mentions that you went to NYU Film school and then were suddenly video taping sewers. How'd that happen?

When you exit of film school, it's not like you're recruited by the film studios. You have to hit the pavement and find work, which is usually freelance and technical. So I did a lot of slate and boom work, getting stiffed for my meager $50 a day wage by little shady film companies. I had to sell newspapers at the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel to make ends meet. The short version of the transition is that I landed another side job videotaping sewers, which turned into mapping underground utilities for an engineering firm. Over the years I developed an expertise in utilities that's allowed me to make a living. The film tech work was going nowhere fast into the creative end of the film industry, so I started writing. I wrote two screenplays and then started on novels, the idea - all along - to enter the creative end.

Well, if Sleep with the Fishes were to be a movie, who would you see playing the lead roles?

Frankly I hadn't given that any thought. I don't really picture my characters as any particular actors. Maybe Chris Noth for Sid? For Russ Smonig, perhaps Mathew Perry - I really liked him in The Whole Nine Yards. As for Jenny, jeez…oh, maybe Heather Locklear? Chik: let's say Paul Rubens.

How do you come up with your stories and characters?

Many of the stories are inspired by items I pick out of the newspaper. I keep a file of clipping dating back to 1987, and browse for story ideas or characters. But other things just come to me. You could call it inspiration, or perhaps droppings from a fertile mind.

How do you tackle the writing process? Are you able to work on a laptop or in longhand?

Haven't gone the laptop way yet, and I can barely write longhand any more. I'm down to typing shopping lists. At home I have a cell some might call an office in which I sequester myself. It's hot in the summer and cold in the winter, but I've come to like the gritty, monastic atmosphere. For me, the best method is to write two hours at a time weeknights after work, maybe on weekends. I used to drink a tall flagon of iced coffee to help the creative juices flow, but now rely mostly on toffees in combination with some mood music.

What kind of music do you listen to while writing? And why toffee?

It depends, but I use it like a movie soundtrack. So for a chase scene, I might use a Beethoven symphony or an Elmer Bernstein soundtrack. A country bar scene would require The Derailers or BR549. Perez Prado and Tito Puente are regulars, as are Los Straitjackets and Cigar Store Indians. The toffee? It helps distract my other senses from squirming while I get down to business. 

Do you feel any other writers influence your writing? 

I write in a humorous vein, so I'm particularly intrigued by authors that manage to fuel complicated plots with a range of characters and unusual, comic circumstance. In that regard, I'm impressed by Henry Fielding's wit in Tom Jones and Joseph Andrews. Carl Hiaasen is particularly adept in this department. Both Hammett and Chandler, of course, loom large for lush scene-setting technique and dialogue. Fielding and Chandler in the same mix - that's a bizarre thought.

What books do you wish you had written? 

Donald Westlake's Dortmunder novels, his most recent being Bad News. They are the kind of pithy and hyper-clever books most of authors can only dream of writing. (If only the entire series would come back in print.)

You say you've written other books. Are they like Sleep with the Fishes and will we be seeing any of them in the near future?

There are four past works that I would consider publishing. Two are the beginning of a series centered on what I characterize as a contemporary "downtown Nick and Nora Charles, but with taxidermy." These are mysteries that have a touch of the bizarre and the fantastic. The two others are caper novels about a compulsive thief and Utility Specialist who becomes tangled in the machinations of insurance investigators, and these novels emphasize underground New York and the art world. I think the more recent "Nick and Nora" books would be the next out before the sequel to Sleep with the Fishes, which I have already started. But my plans all depend on demand.

Do you let anybody read your material before the book is finished?

That all depends on what you consider finished. I mean, going through the finalization process, you feel like a book is never ever really finished, there's just a point where you stop messing with it. No, I don't let anybody read it before I've cranked out the first draft. Having my readers hack through my rough-hewn prose is an imposition. But it is crucial to acquire feedback from one or more people who've read a lot of your genre and who also appreciate your voice. 

What don't you like about writing?

I guess somebody once said writing is mostly rewriting, and that's fine too, as far as it goes. It can be fun to go back over a book and punch it up, tone it down, whatever, especially if you've walked away from it for a while. But eventually, I come to the overwriting phase where I've worked over the manuscript so many times I can't see even obvious errors and start to ruin what was once fresh, flowing prose with awkward wording. I approach the verge of being sick of my own writing. That's an unnerving phase of the process. After I pass that point, I'm into the niggly phase where it's less about actual writing and more about spelling, ellipses, em dashes missing spaces, properly orientated punctuation and all manner of annoying minutia. 

What is the best advice you've had on writing?

Donald Westlake in a recent interview cited Nike's edict "Just Do It." While writing classes are obviously useful, it seems a number of starting authors spend a lot of time trying to learn writing like you would car mechanics without a car. Believe me, after I finished my first book, I was as crestfallen as any other writer to find it wasn't primed for the Times best seller list. The fact of the matter is you'll probably have to write several novels to become the writer you want to be anyway, so you might as well start cranking them out. I'll also defer to a quote I heard ascribed to Edgar Rice Burroughs, which goes something like "A story is only your character's footsteps in the snow." That is, it's all about the characters; let them lead the story. Too many good plot twists and emotive material come from the characters while in the process of writing for me to plot out the whole story on 3x5 cards before I start. The fun part for me is not knowing where the book will end while I write. It keeps me engaged, eager to write and find out what the characters will do next.