Harvey Valentine
is not your typical private detective and neither is,THE CASE FILES OF HARVEY VALENTINE Private Dick in GOLD DIGGER, the first full length novel from noted best selling short story author, R. Archer.
When Hard Boiled Books asked the author about Harvey Valentine, this is what he had to say:
HBB: How did you create Harvey Valentine?
R. Archer: Harvey was created after listening to several different Old Time Radio shows, notably Crime with Peter Chambers by Henry Kane, Jeff Regan, Phillip Marlowe, among a few others. Listening to these shows reminded me of my early child hood, early 70's, when some of these shows were still broad cast on regular radio on occasion, and found on audio cassette. It also brought back memories of TV shows like Mike Hammer, and Magnum PI, though Magnum is not of the same Hard Boiled detective types as the others noted.
HBB: Describe Harvey Valentine for our readers.
R. Archer: Harvey Valentine is cut from the tough guy cloth of private investigators. He looks at things in a gritty point of view, reason I wrote the novel in first person, to capture the narration of Harvey's way of thinking, and putting things together. Yet Harvey is almost insanely conscientious about everything he does.
HBB: You mention that Harvey Valentine is a middle age man, 50 years old, he seems to be in good shape, somewhat of a ladies man, what else can you tell us about Harvey Valentine?
R. Archer: His calling card reads, Harvey Valentine - Private Dick. Harvey can be a dick in more ways than one, and I do not mean sexually either.
HBB: Are you working on another Harvey Valentine Novel?
R. Archer: Of course, Gold Digger, was the pilot novel for The Case Files of Harvey Valentine as I like to think about. A chance for me to explore the character and my readers as well. I really enjoyed writing Harvey Valentine, the novel flowed from my fingers tips. I might dare say it was channeled from my Muse. It was strange, I have written everything but a novel as far as a story goes, from flash to novellas, but could never seem to break the hurdle of a novel length story, until I starting writing Harvey Valentine.
HBB: How long did it take you to write Harvey?
R. Archer: That was the crazy part, little more than a week, part time. Almost 50,000 words, 210 pages. The next Harvey Valentine novel I am planning on being longer, about 300 plus pages, not sure, Started writing it already and about a third of the way to my goal.
HBB: How long do you think it will take to write this one?
R. Archer: Not sure, I put about 4 days into it part time. Once I get going, it just flows, but I been busy with other projects, but will have it finished up by the end of the month I would think no problem.
HBB: What's the name of the next book in the series.
R. Archer: The next book I hope will be released JULY 1ST. The working title of it is, The Judge and the Jesus Freak.
HBB: Can you give us a synopsis of the next the Harvey Valentine adventure?
R. Archer: Not at this time, I would prefer not to, other than to say, the subtitle should give you an idea what the story will be about.
HBB: Is there anything else you would like to say about Harvey Valentine?
R. Archer: The Case Files of Harvey Valentine, is more than just a private detective story, it contains the elements of life that we all encounter, but do not normally read about.
HBB: Can you give us more detail about that last answer?
R. Archer: Sure read the book!
