Meet Helen Goltz

Today in Promote me Please Helen Goltz answers five curious questions about The Fourth Reich, Book 3 in her Mitchell Parker crime series.

Q. Tell us a bit about the Mitchell Parker thrillers. How did the idea for the series evolve?

Crime thriller is my favourite genre to write and I wanted a strong character who was also a little flawed - which made him vulnerable. My inspiration was Matthew Reilly's Scarecrow. I went to one of Matthew's presentations about a decade ago at the Queensland Writers' Festival and after, I was inspired to try my hand at crime. I've just released the third Mitchell Parker book.

Q. Give us three words (or phrases) to describe Mitch.
Driven, enigmatic, vulnerable

Q. In The Fourth Reich, various characters are struggling with the fall-out of earlier adventures. This means the books need to be read in order.
Have you thought of going back and writing a fill-in or spin-off novel?

I think they can be read in any order, but it is ideal if they can be read from book one. I try to make them all stand-alone, and I'll explain in a sentence or two if a little background is needed to fill in the blanks. I thought of doing a spin-off with the English agent, Adam Forster, but decided to bring him back in for one volume instead.

Q. What made you decide to cast Mitch as a developing character rather than a series character who doesn’t change a lot?

Mitch has serious trust issues resulting from his childhood. As he builds relationships with his team and the people around him, he becomes more trusting and he develops and grows a little. Some characters that cross his path from his past reveal things about Mitch too. As a journalist, I've worked in very male-dominated fields for years and I find most men are slow to reveal themselves, their emotions and their life stories. Mitch is definitely in that category.

Q. Do you envisage the team make-up changing with each book?

I want to keep the nucleus team ... readers are comfortable travelling with them and I don't want to kill off main characters. I don't want to read all that emotional drama—I want good fun action. But I will lose minor characters and introduce new personalities to the team.

Thanks for reading!

 For more about Helen Goltz and her Mitchell Parker series, click here.