Interview with Allan McLeod Interview for “The Money Washers, a Paige Harrington Mystery” by Allan McLeod Today, Tyler R. Tichelaar of Reader Views is pleased to interview Allan McLeod, who previously visited with me last year when his book “The Praetorian File” was published. Today, he is here to talk about his new book “The Money Washers, a Paige Harrington Mystery.” Allan McLeod was born and raised in a collection of small rural villages in Southern and Central Alberta. At the mostly four-room schools he attended, he was fortunate to encounter a string of dedicated teachers who fostered a love for reading and writing the English language, skills he took with him through his career in finance and then into writing full time. At age seventeen, he left home and went to work as a junior clerk in the local bank. Good luck and timing followed and he ended up having a rewarding and challenging career that took him to Calgary, Montreal, and New York. He has lived in New York City since 1970. Subsequent to leaving the banking business in 1982, he worked at a number of ventures and has been writing full-time since 2000. Tyler: Welcome, Allan. I understand “The Money Washers” is the third Paige Harrington mystery. For readers who have not read the first two, will you catch us up a little on who Paige is and whether you advise readers to read the first two books first?
Though each of the stories is unique, I like to think Paige will be a much richer character for anyone who reads all three in order, i.e. “Barely Dead,” “The Praetorian File,” and then “The Money Washers.” Tyler: Allan, will you explain what you mean by Paige’s distaste for government and corporate corruption that made her an investigative freelance writer? What types of news stories does Paige savor investigating? Allan: Because she grew up the daughter of a superior court judge in a pristine area of Western Canada, Paige learned early on that corporations and governments tried to influence her father, often by threats or with bribes, to bend laws to accommodate commercial activity that wanted to take short cuts concerning people and animal safety, and preservation of air and land quality, anything for a fast buck. Those early experiences, watching her father writhe under the pressure of powerful and dishonest interests, turned her into an active environmentalist with an inherent disdain for corporations and governments. It was only natural then, that she evolved into an investigative journalist who investigated and wrote extensively against world-wide pollution and contamination caused by giant utility plants; shoddy testing of reservoirs causing epidemic-like sickness and death; destruction of the rain forests, everglades, and other such ecosystems; and the destruction of fish and wildlife habitats. She has been to Chernobyl, Bhopal, Hungary, China, Japan, the Arctic and Antarctica, Atlantic and Pacific fishing basins; toured Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India, and Thailand after the 2004 Indian Ocean Earthquake and the consequent tsunamis that caused over 200,000 deaths; camped out in New Orleans for two months following Hurricane Katrina. She also spent time in Russia and the Middle East researching and writing about women’s rights. Tyler: Allan, what do you think makes Paige stand out as a detective compared to other fictional detectives, especially female ones? Allan: I don’t think of her as a detective. She has never been employed by a police force and doesn’t know anything about police procedures. To her, the necessary ingredient in any case in which she chooses to become involved is a strong attachment to the victim, either directly or through a close friend. All other support characters she encounters, including police, are equal opportunity resources, believable or not, trustworthy or not. In equal measure, I like Paige to trust everyone and no one. Tyler: What made you decide to create a female detective rather than a male one? Were there certain advantages to a female detective for plotting purposes? Allan: I think if I were creating a pure detective story, I would have probably developed a male protagonist. In fact, I have created several chapters of just such a novel, and I think I like the way it’s going. However, to me, Paige is a professional woman living in New York City doing all the wonderful things a beautiful and talented young woman living there ordinarily would do: theater, dining, dancing, socializing; and in the course of living that life, close friends or close friends of close friends end up getting murdered. That’s when her journalistic, investigative juices start to boil, and the outrage that wraps around her gut compels her to seek answers. Tyler: What is the situation that the title “The Money Washers” refers to with this new book? Allan: Money laundering by banks. Paige’s dearest friend from Columbia University is a senior female bank executive whose curriculum vitae is eerily similar to that of two female bank executives who have been murdered, both of their deaths occurring amidst swirling rumors that their respective banks were involved in money laundering for the Russian mafia. Paige becomes concerned her friend might be next. Tyler: So unlike many female protagonists who investigate murders, Paige doesn’t accidentally stumble upon a murder in a Miss Marple way but rather, she learns of the murder and then goes to investigate it as part of her work? Does she go to investigate the other bankers’ murders, or does she become involved in the case out of concern for her friend? Allan: When she believes her friend, Emily, might be at high risk, Paige decides to investigate if and how money laundering played a role in the murders of the other bankers. She desperately hopes what she learns might help save Emily’s life. Tyler: Allan, did your own experiences in the banking world help you with creating this plot, or did you need to do additional research? Allan: I know how banks operate, I know how their senior executives think, and I know they were all morbidly fascinated by what went on at Riggs and Bank of New York. I used those three things as a base, scoured the internet for additional clues, and then put my imagination to work. Tyler: Will you tell us more about Riggs and Bank of New York? Is that the basis for your fictional bank murders? Allan: Both of these fascinating cases are exhaustively covered on the Internet and would fill their own books. Neither involved murder, although they were laundering money, and government regulators were either incompetently, innocently, or collusively participating. I used Riggs and Bank of New York solely to give verisimilitude to the complexity of my story, and it is only on that basis that I included them. Tyler: Will you tell us a little about the role of Paige’s best friend in the book? Allan: Like Paige, Emily Parker is a real looker and a smart, tough bank executive to boot. She and Paige have been best friends since Columbia University, where they shared an apartment. Paige is drawn into this story after a Russian man follows Emily home from a business dinner, and Emily tells Paige that she’s received a lot of hang-up calls and someone has been inside her apartment. After some serious questioning, Emily steers Paige to senior bank executives and shows her incriminating evidence that tells them both they are getting into deep water. Tyler: Allan, I have to ask you, as far as the money laundering goes, how easy is it to money launder—how much of a stretch is the situation in the novel? Allan: Anyone with a mandate from the very top of a major power source, say a government agency, can, by working a bank’s senior executives, establish bank accounts anywhere in the world. Daily, trillions of dollars slosh through bank payments networks and a few billion can easily zip past unnoticed. As an example, though the current $750 billion bailout isn’t related to money-laundering, at least not purportedly so, it is easy enough to see how easily a few hundred billion in worthless paper, impervious to easy detection it seems, floats around the world banking systems. Moreover, as I point out in the front matter of my novel, The International Monetary Fund estimates money laundering to amount to anywhere between two and five percent of the world's Gross Domestic Product, about $600 billion dollars annually. Think of illegal arms. Think of illegal drugs. Think of importing and exporting to sanctioned countries. Alas, the fiction depicted in my novel is far from fiction. Tyler: Will you explain a little bit about the money laundering as it specifically occurs in the novel? Allan: I fear each specific would be its own book. My novel isn’t about money laundering transactions per se but rather about the vastness and scope of the process and the power and corruption of those involved in it. Tyler: What are some of the surprising or dangerous situations Paige Harrington finds herself in during the novel? Allan: Like the protagonist in all good suspense novels, Paige doesn’t know whom to fear for herself and then for Emily. They suspect danger, and although others have been murdered and they become increasingly afraid, they don’t realize how closely their peril, which grows larger with each passing chapter, looms. Tyler: Allan, a lot of female mystery novelists like to add a romance storyline into their novels, especially for their female heroines. Is there any romance for Paige in this book or can we hope to see some in future books? Allan: Three broad categories of men desire Paige: first, there are those who want her only because she is beautiful, sexy, and sociable; second, there are those who desire her because she is also smart, multi-talented, and tough; third and rarely, there are those who recognize and accept her intellectual equality if not superiority. In my stories, Paige attracts men from each category, and I attempt subtly to weave their potential relationships into the conflict. Tyler: How many more adventures do you think Paige Harrington will have, and can you give us a preview of what might be next for her? Allan: Paige will venture forth as long as I think she has an interesting story to tell, and I can wrap my mind around where she might want to go. I’ve started thinking about a Washington, D.C. based Paige mystery, with a character based on Chandra Levy, the government intern murdered in 2001, as the motivator. I’ve long been troubled by this case, and I think Paige will be also. Tyler: Where do you usually get your ideas for your mysteries? Is it usually something that has happened in the news that inspires you? Allan: I’m always collecting press clippings of complex white collar crimes, usually with an element of corporate and/or government fraud, especially those where the stakes are high enough for a murder to result, even though one may or may not have occurred; and I can start to conjure up a cast of interesting characters and events that I think I can mold into a good story. Tyler: Allan, do you think you’ll stick to writing mysteries, or would you like to try your hand at another genre? Allan: My next book, “The Gin Ride,” is an autobiographical fiction, though the story is not without mystery, and to make it interesting, it is more fiction, a lot more, than it is autobiographical, I think because someone once said—maybe it was me—that there is nothing duller than trying to interest people in your dull life. Tyler: Thank you for joining me today, Allan. Before we go, will you tell us about your website and what additional information may be found there about “The Money Washers, a Paige Harrington Mystery”? Allan: These are the links to my websites: http://wammac.web.aplus.net/ and http://stores.lulu.com/wammac The first is about my books, my blogs, my creative products, my family, and me; the second is my storefront on my publisher’s website, which contains details of my four books published in both soft and hard covers. Listen to interview on Inside Scoop Live
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