Tag Archives: Writing

Verisimilitude – Getting ahead of behind-the-headlines

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Was I a little ahead of the curve again, but this time with my short stories? Guns, cocaine, fentanyl—but no coffee—in Cumberland Coffee & Snacks in North Philadelphia…The police arrested a drug ring fronted by a coffee shop.

My short stories have focused on Philadelphia and crime—on desperate people making bad choices. In “Nostalgia,” a young man does stress tests on the facades of businesses used as fronts for illegal activities to make sure they seem legitimate. He knows he’s working for bad people, but he didn’t realize just how bad, until…. (collected in Low Down Dirty Vote, vol. 3).

The folks at Cumberland Coffee could have used my unnamed, nostalgic narrator as a “consultant.”

And in “Raccoon Summer,” (still, alas, homeless) a delivery driver and a corner store owner who has been strong-armed into being a front see a way out. But they’ll have to hold their nerve.

For stories to ring true, to have verisimilitude, the writer has to work out just how something might work in the real world if s/he has any hope of it working on the page. My first reader, and harshest critic (my wife), is excellent at poking holes in scenarios that I think are bullet proof, often sending me back to the drawing board.

This attention to detail extends to the “bad guys” themselves. The characters may know that what they do is wrong, but they feel justified in doing what they do. Only Iago and Richard III know that they’re evil, and they revel in it.

But to have verisimilitude—and tension—they both protagonist and antagonist must believe they’re in the right. And for a story to maintain tension, the reader has to believe that what’s happening on the page could happen in real life.

And sometimes, it sort of does.

The two short stories I mention above are not available online, but the list below gives links to titles you can find online, and buy links to those in anthologies or physical books.

FREE ONLINE
“Coffin Corner,” in Tough/Redneck Press July, 2025
In a small corner of Philadelphia, a funeral director steals a man’s car as payment on a debt…

“What’s Hidden,” in Killer Nashville Literary Magazine, Feb. 2024 issue
An old map reveals a crime and offers some redemption

“Eight O’clock Sharp,” in Retreats from Oblivion: The Journal of NoirCon Jan./2022
There’s freedom when the past forgets you. Set in Philadelphia’s 9th Street Market

ANTHOLOGIES (available for purchase):


“Ultimatum Games,” in Rock and a Hard Place magazine – Winter/Issue #7 – Jan./2022.
“Nostalgia,” in in Low Down Dirty Vote, vol. 3, May 15, 2022.
“Numbers Don’t Lie,” a short story LOW DOWN DIRTY VOTE, Vol. 2 – July, 2020

James McCrone’s stories raise questions about the nature of power, the choices we make and the lessons we don’t learn.

He’s the author of the Imogen Trager political suspense-thrillers Faithless Elector, Dark Network and Emergency Powers–noir tales about a stolen presidency, a conspiracy, and a nation on edge. Bastard Verdict, his fourth novel, is about a conspiracy surrounding a second Scottish Independence referendum. His current novel, Witness Tree, is out on submission.

All books are available on BookShop.org, IndyBound.org, Barnes & Noble, your local bookshop, and Amazon. eBooks are available in multiple formats including Apple, Kobo, Nook and Kindle.

James is a member of Mystery Writers of America, Int’l Assoc. of Crime Writers, and he’s the current president of the Delaware Valley chapter of Sisters in Crime. He has an MFA from the University of Washington in Seattle, and he now lives and writes in Philadelphia, PA.

For a full list of appearances and readings, make sure to check out his Events/About page. Follow this blog, or follow him on Substack!

Some of his short stories are available FREE online. Links are HERE toward the bottom of the page.

From the Dust is a compelling, insightful whodunnit

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I was fortunate enough to read an early copy of David Swinson’s From the Dust on NetGalley. Here’s my review.

Retired DC homicide detective, Graham Sanderson has returned to his father’s home in Upstate New York. “It was my father’s death that brought me here, but my brother’s condition and need for company that made me stay,” he says. Death used to be Graham’s business, but he’s happy to be retired. Or so he says.

But something isn’t right. The small, rural town where he finds himself had only two murders in the past three years, and they were crimes of passion easily solved. Now, a body is found near the canal, probably killed elsewhere and brought to the site so that it would be found.

The local sheriff, himself a retired big city detective, worries that his new detective may not be up to the challenge. When a second murder occurs, with all the hallmarks of the first, he enlists Sanderson to help the rookie.

Swinson has crafted an intriguing and compelling whodunnit that is insightful and poignant. The weight of the past drags at Sanderson, and indeed on many of the characters here. Sanderson’s investigation will take him into places, and pit him against forces he never dealt with in DC.

And it will force him to confront not only his preconceptions about the investigation, but what lies behind them. The story moves along well. The pacing is good as suspects are introduced and the motive behind the crime comes into focus.

There is a noble doggedness about Sanderson’s approach, exhausting the leads, that reminded me of Georges Simenon’s Maigret.

I enjoyed this story, and I particularly liked that it didn’t fall into the trap of portraying rural citizens as quaint or cute, but as fully realized characters, each contributing something to the story.

Highly recommended.

From the Dust, by David Swinson ISBN: 978-0-316-52865-8

James McCrone’s stories raise questions about the nature of power, the choices we make and the lessons we don’t learn.

He’s the author of the Imogen Trager political suspense-thrillers Faithless Elector, Dark Network and Emergency Powers–noir tales about a stolen presidency, a conspiracy, and a nation on edge. Bastard Verdict, his fourth novel, is about a conspiracy surrounding a second Scottish Independence referendum. His current novel, Witness Tree, is out on submission.

All books are available on BookShop.org, IndyBound.org, Barnes & Noble, your local bookshop, and Amazon.

eBooks are available in multiple formats including Apple, Kobo, Nook and Kindle.

James is a member of Mystery Writers of America, Int’l Assoc. of Crime Writers, and he’s the current president of the Delaware Valley chapter of Sisters in Crime. He has an MFA from the University of Washington in Seattle, and he now lives and writes in Philadelphia, PA.

For a full list of appearances and readings, make sure to check out his Events/About page. And you can also follow him onSubstack!

Some of his short stories are available FREE online. Links are HEREtoward the bottom of the page.

Faithless Elector is 10 Years Old

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Prescient then, dismayingly relevant now…and hopeful

This week marks the ten-year anniversary of the publication of Faithless Elector, a thriller about stealing the presidency by manipulating the Electoral College. It kick-started the (fictional) career of Imogen Trager, a Justice Department agent in the FBI’s Voting Integrity.

The novel debuted in March of 2016, and its plot presaged many of the alarming things we contend with today—a shadowy, mendacious elite interested only in naked power, compromised officials, questions about voting integrity and much more.

This reminder cropped up this morning.

In Faithless Elector, an idealistic, young graduate student working on his dissertation stumbles across a deeply suspicious number of deaths among Electors that no one else seems to have noticed.

He needs to get the information to someone who will believe him (he’s had conspiracy theories before), and who can do something to stop the plot before it’s too late. Which is where my recurring heroine and alter ego, Imogen Trager, a Justice Department agent in the FBI’s Voter Integrity makes her entrance.

The action covers just six weeks—a lifetime in politics…or the end of one—beginning in November, on the night of the 2016 general election and culminating on the day of the real presidential election, December 16, when Electors meet in their respective state capitols to cast their votes for president and vice-president.

As Imogen digs deeper into the case, she begins to suspect that some of her own colleagues might be working against her.

The novel sold well, and though I’ve since published three more (with another on the way!), it remains my best seller. The book was many years in the making, and as a result, it’s not about the current administration (Trump was not even the GOP’s candidate for president when the book came out) but about well-heeled forces undermining democracy, so intent on control that they’re willing to “shoot the hostage.”

What surprised many readers was that the conspiracy wasn’t tied to either of the main political parties, though it was parasitic on one of them. The most personally disturbing part of the book’s journey has been the continued sclerotic polarization of politics.

Imogen was (and is!) a heroine for our times not because she had an axe to grind but because she believed in justice, fairness and the sanctity of the vote. At the time, her stance was the least controversial or partisan part of the story.

James McCrone’s stories pose questions about the nature of power, the choices we make and the lessons we don’t learn.

He’s the author of the Imogen Trager political suspense-thrillers Faithless Elector, Dark Network and Emergency Powers–noir tales about a stolen presidency, a conspiracy, and a nation on edge. Bastard Verdict, his fourth novel, is about a conspiracy surrounding a second Scottish Independence referendum. His current novel, Witness Tree, is out on submission.

All books are available on BookShop.org, IndyBound.org, Barnes & Noble, your local bookshop, and Amazon.

eBooks are available in multiple formats including Apple, Kobo, Nook and Kindle.

James is a member of Mystery Writers of America, Int’l Assoc. of Crime Writers, and he’s the current president of the Delaware Valley chapter of Sisters in Crime. He has an MFA from the University of Washington in Seattle, and he now lives and writes in Philadelphia, PA.

For a full list of appearances and readings, make sure to check out his Events/About page. And you can also follow me on Substack!

Some of his short stories are available FREE online. Links are HERE toward the bottom of the page.

New Philly Soccer Page coming soon

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“The Ball is Round, the place is Philly!”

For those of you in the Philadelphia area, make sure to check out the new look Philly Soccer Page coming next week!

I edit some of the stories and analysis for the site, and I write the occasional match report throughout the season. There’s great coverage and great writing–and PSP does quality work analyzing upcoming games, profiling young players, or breaking down what happened over the weekend. PSP also keeps an eye on the talented young players moving through the academy and/or getting minutes for Union II.

“For the better part of 17 years, The Philly Soccer Page has been covering the beautiful game across our region – from amateur youth leagues to the US National Teams. We’re continuing that dedicated coverage, soon with a new and more modern website.

The “retro” design of PSP has set the site apart from other pages dedicated to sports journalism. While that design has been unique, it’s also started posing problems. PSP’s current theme is losing support within the WordPress architecture and many of our readers have seen the impact that has on the site’s usability. We’ve had issues with readers losing access to comments, with pages not loading properly, and on the backend for our editors and contributors in publishing.

It’s time to update to a modern theme not only to restore PSP’s usability to its fullest, but to give the content our contributors are producing the place it deserves to shine brightest. Over the course of the next week, we’ll perform final checks on the new design’s features and next weekend we plan to bring the new site online“(Jan 31 or Feb 1).

Full Notice Here: https://phillysoccerpage.net/2026/01/25/a-new-look-for-psp/

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James McCrone’s fiction poses questions about the nature of power, the choices we make and the lessons we don’t learn. He’s the author of the thriller trilogy Faithless Elector, Dark Network , and Emergency Powers–noir tales about a stolen presidency, a conspiracy, and a nation on edge. Bastard Verdict, his fourth novel, is about a conspiracy surrounding a second Scottish Independence referendum. His novel-in-progress, currently under review with a publisher, is called Witness Tree, a (pinot) noir tale of murder and corruption set in Oregon’s wine country.

James is a member of Mystery Writers of America, Int’l Assoc. of Crime Writers, and he’s the current president of the Delaware Valley chapter of Sisters in Crime. He lives in Philadelphia. James has an MFA from the University of Washington in Seattle.

All books are available on BookShop.org, IndyBound.org, Barnes & Noble, your local bookshop, and Amazon.

eBooks are available in multiple formats including Apple, Kobo, Nook and Kindle.

For a full list of appearances and readings, make sure to check out his Events/About page. And follow this blog!

You can also keep up with James and his work on social media:
Bluesky: @jmccrone.bsky.social
Facebook: James McCrone author (@FaithlessElector)
and Instagram/Threads “@james.mccrone”