This week I’m hosting Sandra Robbins with Dangerous Waters and Lisa Harris with Dangerous Passage. If you want to enter the drawings for the books, please leave a comment on one of the post during the week with your email address. I will not enter you without an email address (my way to contact you if you win). If you don’t want to leave an email address, another way you can enter is to email me at margaretdaley@gmail.com. The drawings end Sunday (Sept. 8th) evening.
Interview with the hero from Sandra Robbins’s Dangerous Waters:
1. Alex Crowne, tell me the most interesting thing about you.
I’ve never really thought of myself as an interesting guy. My father who owned a landscaping business in Memphis worked hard to raise me after my mother died. We never had a lot of money, but because I was a good football player, I landed a scholarship to one of the best private schools in Memphis. Our senior year as quarterback, I led our team to the state championship. Now I’m a detective with the Memphis Police Department, and I work the Cold Case Division.
2. What do you do for fun?
Fun isn’t a word in my vocabulary at this point in my life. I work a lot, and that leaves me little time for a social life. Maybe that’s because I still haven’t gotten over the girl that I fell in love with when I was ten years old. When she walked out of my life when we were in college, I put everything but my career on hold. I suppose that’s why I’ve able to rise through the ranks of the police department as quickly as I have.
3. What do you put off doing because you dread it?
Even though I went to one of the best schools in the city, I never really fit in with the kids there. I tend to stay away from any event where my classmates will be because I have no desire to see any of them. The one exception is Brad Austin, the one guy I would lay down my life for. In fact we often say that about each other because we not only attended high school and college together, but we graduated from the Memphis Police Academy together and went on to be partners with the Memphis PD. Now we’re detectives with the Cold Case Division.
4. What are you afraid of most in life?
I’m afraid of being hurt again like I was when Grace Kincaid broke our engagement. I haven’t dated much since then, and I still have unresolved feelings about Grace. I try to engulf myself in work, but now that my father has retired to Florida, I find I’m very lonely at times. I don’t like that feeling.
5. What do you want out of life?
I’m just a normal guy with needs like everybody else. I want a family and a home to come to after a hard day’s work. Coming into an empty apartment after a long day isn’t the way I want to spend the rest of my life. I suppose I’m going to have to do something about that, and it will have to start with me getting out of my comfort zone and meeting some new people. The problem is I don’t think I can find anyone I’ll ever love as much as I did Grace.
6. What is the most important thing to you?
My father is important to me. He’s in bad health now, and I’m trying to decide if I need to quit my job in Memphis and move to Florida. He was there to take care of me when I needed him, and now it’s my turn. The problem is I dread leaving Memphis. I love this town.
7. Do you read books? If so, what is your favorite type of book?
I read some. I tend to stay away from fiction that involves crimes. I have a steady diet of that on my job every day, and I don’t need more of it when I’m not working. I enjoy reading non-fiction about sports figures. Some of my favorites are stories about people who have overcome great odds to make it in their chosen sports field.
8. If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?
I would try to be more humble when dealing with people around me. I’ve often wondered what would have happened when Grace broke our engagement if I had followed her to Philadelphia and told her how much I loved her and how I couldn’t live without her. Would she have reconsidered? I don’t know because I let my pride stand in the way. I thought she’d come back to me, but she didn’t. And I don’t think either of us has been happy since.
9. Do you have a pet? If so, what is it and why that pet?
I had a dog when I was a boy. I’d like to have one now, but I’m gone from home so much it wouldn’t be fair to the dog. I look forward to the day when I do have a family and a house that has a fenced in back yard where I can play with my dog
10. If you could travel back in time, where would you go and why?
Since I’m a policeman, I think I would like to go back in time to London when the police were trying to find Jack the Ripper. I think being in on that investigation would have been exciting.
