It’s a real pleasure to welcome back Nancy Boyarsky to chat with me again today. Nancy was last here when we discussed her thriller The Moscow Affair and with another new book on the horizon, I thought it high time she paid a return visit.

Staying in with Nancy Boyarsky

Welcome back to Linda’s Book Bag Nancy! Tell me, which of your books have you brought along to share this time?

I’ve brought my latest Nicole Grave’s mystery, The Big Shakeup, number seven in the series. The publication date is tomorrow, September 26^th.

How exciting. Happy publication day for tomorrow. What can we expect from The Big Shakeup?

It’s set in Los Angeles, but it’s a bit of a departure. Two murders take place during and in the wake of the massive earthquake that’s been long predicted for Southern California. Our PI, Nicole, has the bad luck to be on the scene of the first murder. She becomes the prime and only suspect in the eyes of the police. So the mystery takes place in a broken city, which puts our heroine in even greater danger than she’s encountered before.

Sounds great! I love the sound of The Big Shakeup. Tell me more about it.

P.I. Nicole Graves arrives early at work just as Los Angeles is hit with the “Big One,” the long-predicted, devastating earthquake. When the building stops shaking, Nicole finds Jerry, her boss, in his office dying of a gunshot wound. It appears to be suicide.

Nicole is shocked to learn that the police have decided Jerry’ s death was murder and even more shocked that she’s their only suspect when there’s no shortage of people with motives. And there’s the question of why the detectives are pursuing this case when city workers, including the police, are in an all-out search and rescue operation for survivors. Soon she realizes that the killer is on her trail. All she can do is hide and evade capture long enough to prove her innocence and catch the real culprit.

It must be quite challenging keeping a series going with all the AI swirling around now Nancy. What are your thoughts?

Yes, AI and its threat to authors like me, writers of all kinds, and people in other creative fields. The current Hollywood strike points to AI as an enormous threat to the livelihood of writers and actors. Then, by some quirk in the cosmos, I was benefitted by AI. Apple Books recently released audio versions of my last three mysteries, which had not been recorded previously. They used voices created by AI.

Crikey. That sounds a bit different.

My publisher submitted them, and the project was very hush-hush. So I didn’t learn, nor did they, that my books had been accepted until the recordings were up for sale on Apple Books. At first I was delighted. It’s very expensive to create an audiobook. But Apple’s AI-produced recordings means that more people will have a chance to hear my stories, especially since they’re available for the rock-bottom price of $2.99. But as I listened to them, I noticed how uncannily human the voices sounded. That made me consider what impact AI could have on narrators who depend on this work. And for authors and all kinds of writers, AI is an existential threat.

Hmm. Split opinions there then!

Before this, I’d toyed with AI tools available on the web. I asked one to rewrite an excerpt from my book in the style of Dickens. The result was pretty silly and not at all Dickensian. So I was under the impression that any real threat from AI would be years, maybe decades in the future. My eyes are certainly open now!

I agree. My husband asked AI to write a review of a book in my style. Apart from a couple of incorrect plot references and a couple of phrases that were not my style, it produced a creditable effort of over 400 words in about 40 seconds. I found it most disconcerting!

Thank you so much for staying in with me to chat. You put the kettle on and I’ll give Linda’s Book Bag readers a few more details:

The Big Shakeup

Everyone is innocent until proven guilty, or so they say.

P.I. Nicole Graves arrives early at work, just as Los Angeles is hit with “the Big One,” a long-predicted, devastating earthquake. When the building stops shaking, Nicole finds Jerry, her boss, in his office dying of a gunshot wound. It appears to be suicide.

Nicole is shocked to learn that the police have decided Jerry’s death was murder and even more shocked that she’s their only suspect when there’s no shortage of people with motives. And there’s the question of why the detectives are pursuing this one case when all city workers, including the police, are in an all-out search and rescue operation for survivors. All she can do is evade capture long enough to prove her innocence and catch the real culprit.

Published tomorrow, 26th September 2023, The Big Shakeup is available for purchase on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Robo, Bookshop and Apple books.

About Nancy Boyarsky

Nancy Boyarsky coauthored Backroom Politics, a New York Times notable book. She has written several textbooks on the justice system and contributed to political anthologies, including In the Running, about women’s political campaigns and The Challenge of California. She has also written articles on a variety of subjects for the Los Angeles Times, West magazine, Forbes, McCalls, Playgirl, Westways, LA Observed and others.

Nancy’s mysteries include, The Swap, The Bequest, Liar, Liar, The Ransom, The Entitled, The Moscow Affair, and The Big Shakeup.

Aside from writing mysteries, Nancy is director/producer/sound engineer of the podcast Inside Golden State Politics. She lives in Los Angeles with her journalist husband, Bill Boyarsky.

You can find out more about Nancy by following her on Twitter @NancyBoyarsky, visiting her website, or finding her on Facebook.