Maine Crime Writers

James W. Ziskin (Jim) is an American author known for his award-winning crime fiction, particularly the Ellie Stone mystery series. Jim pursued his passion for languages by studying Romance languages and literature at the University of Pennsylvania. His academic background in linguistics, including a focus on Italian and French, has significantly influenced his writing style and story lines.

Before becoming a full-time writer, Ziskin worked as a photo-news producer and writer in New York City and served as the director of NYU’s Casa Italiana Zerilli-Marimò. He also spent fifteen years in the Hollywood post-production industry, managing large international operations in subtitling, localization, and visual effects. His international experiences include years living and working in France, Italy, and India. He speaks French and Italian.

Ziskin’s Ellie Stone series, set in the early 1960s, has garnered much critical acclaim. The fourth book, Heart of Stone, won the 2017 Anthony Award for Best Paperback Original and the Macavity Award for Best Historical Mystery. His novel Turn to Stone received the 2021 Barry Award for Best Paperback Original and the Macavity Award for Best Historical Mystery. Additionally, his novels and short stories have been finalists for the Edgar, Agatha, Lefty, and Sue Grafton Memorial Awards.

I was thrilled to talk to Jim about his latest book, THE PRANK, out on 7/26.

GS: One of the things that I really admire about your writing is how well you develop a setting. You evoke a specific time and place without being overly prescriptive. For THE PRANK, you capture this almost nostalgic town of Hephaestus, NY in the late 1960s. I recently read William Boyle’s SAINT OF THE NARROWS and Megan Abbott’s EL DORADO DRIVE and these stories had a similar, almost tender, approach to setting. It didn’t surprise me when I learned they are both about a time and place deeply personal to the writers. How did you land on Hephaestus in the late 1960s? And the allusion in the name itself isn’t lost on me. 

JWZ: Thank you, Gabi, for the kind words about setting. I try to create compelling locations in my books, and inventing Hephaestus gave me a wonderful opportunity to do just that. By the way, I commissioned a high-school student of mine to draw a map of Hephaestus, and it’s going to be in the book. It’s a wonderful map.

There are so many places in New York State named for European cities, including lots of Greek places. That’s where the name Hephaestus came from. There was already Ithaca, Utica, Syracuse, Troy… So I thought long and hard, searching for a name that hadn’t been used, and I came upon Hephaestus. Unusual, yes, but memorable. And, of course, we can certainly imagine symbolic connections between the Greek armorer of the gods and some elements of my story.

In more general terms, I wanted to write about a small working-class town, the kind of place I know so well from my own childhood. As a writer, however, I find it extremely satisfying to create fictional places, probably for the same reasons I like to make up characters and stories. In so doing, I have a great deal of freedom to paint something new, even if it has to fit inside the real-world limits of a region or timeframe. In the case of THE PRANK, that’s Central New York of the late 1960s. It seems after nine books that I only write novels set in the recent past. I love writing about the 1960s and 1970s, but without relying on some of the more common notions of nostalgia for that era. The sixties weren’t all hippies and druggies enjoying free love. There was middle and lower-middle America, too. That’s what I remember about growing up then and what I wanted to write about in THE PRANK.

GS: Jimmy. Let’s talk about him. You spend about half of the novel in his POV. And, as somebody who spent a great many years working with middle schoolers and who currently has one of my own living with me, you really capture that age. But you also capture something a little dangerous. He’s not a flat character, which is something that I think people really struggle with when they try to write children. Can you tell me a little about Jimmy? How did he change and grow as you worked through the book? 

JWZ: Jimmy is a character I love. But I wouldn’t want to cross him. He’s a sociopath, for sure, but he has an odd sense of responsibility and his own moral code, which is—okay—fairly self-serving. Jimmy is tough, stoical, uncomplaining, and extremely charming. At least as charming as thirteen-year-old boys get. And he can be funny, though sometimes not on purpose. Such as when he reflects on religion and his mother’s death:

Anyways, it was mostly Dad who didn’t want to go to church. And he was right. A fat lot of good God did for Ma, seeing as she passed away at thirty-three from some kind of heart problem. A “genital” condition she was born with, the doctors called it.

Jimmy’s language was fun to write. There’s repetition, bad grammar, some swear words—everything you’d expect from a seventh grader. But he’s also quite able to tell his story competently.

The loss of his mother three years before clearly has had a profound effect on his emotional makeup. And having watched his father care for her throughout her sickness instilled a strong sense of duty in Jimmy, even if he doesn’t feel grief or empathy the way most people do. As for his growth over the course of the story, I don’t want to give away too much, but I will say he becomes more volatile. Scarier and more dangerous, for sure.

GS: The other POV, Patti, is a very well-intended, if somewhat naive teacher. She constantly misreads and underestimates Jimmy, which is definitely something I’ve seen many adults do. Kids are capable of a lot more than we give them credit for. Which POV came more easily, or came first? Were there challenges you faced writing in this almost cat and mouse sort of manner?

JWZ: Jimmy definitely came first. Patti’s an adult, of course, so she could narrate in a style more closely aligned with my own voice. She’s clearly intelligent, but naïve, as you say. She fails to understand just how powerful Jimmy’s attraction to her is. And, of course, she’s tremendously vulnerable due to the tragedy she’s just suffered—the loss of her love in an electrocution accident. Oh, sorry. Did I mention that Jimmy caused the accident that killed Patti’s boyfriend? And she doesn’t know that Jimmy is responsible? No, Patti is ignorant of all that, and she allows Jimmy Steuben into her life to distract her from the crushing grief that’s consuming her. She’s grateful to Jimmy and develops a dangerous dependence on him.

Regarding the challenges of two narrators taking turns telling the same story, I worked hard to keep them in sync. To maintain the suspense and to propel the story forward, it was necessary at times to let one character’s narrative get a little ahead of the other’s. Even if it was only by a couple of hours, it still fractured the chronology a bit. Despite being difficult to manage, that kind of narrative back-and-forth works. It ratchets up the tension for the reader and the characters.

GS: Last year I moderated a panel on theme with some pretty amazing writers. They discussed how there are some thematic threads that seem to pull their stories together. When you reflect on your Ellie Stone series, Bombay Monsoon, and now THE PRANK, do you see any threads emerging? What are they? Why do you think you come back to these ideas?

JWZ: Since THE PRANK is more of a suspense novel or psychological thriller than my Ellie Stone mysteries, it’s bound to be different. Ellie seeks justice and recognition. There are societal issues front and center. Jimmy couldn’t care less about those things. In Bombay Monsoon, Danny Jacobs is ambitious like Ellie, but he’s also foolish at times. Ellie is not.

I think I always include themes like secrets, bad choices, deception, and seduction in my books. And why do I come back to themes like seduction? Because it illustrates human weakness so well. And it gives me as a writer the chance to spice things up with some sex, even if I don’t put the sex on the page.

GS: I love talking to other writers about process. How do your stories come to you? You write long and you write short. How do you know when something is going to be longer or shorter? How do you know who is telling the story?

JWZ: If I knew how to answer this question, Gabi, I’d write a how-to book. As it happens, I don’t know where my stories come from. The only thing I can say with certainty is that I adore writing first-person narrators, especially in my long fiction. That’s probably because I feel it’s better suited to plumb the depths of motivation and desire from the point of view of the person experiencing those things. My short fiction tends to rely more on humor and eccentricity than my novels do. Not sure why that is.

GS: I read your post on Criminal Minds about your journey to writing. From New York to Los Angeles, it sounds like you’ve lived a few lives in one. I’d love to know about how some of your lived experiences creep into the stories you tell. In what ways is your writing personal? In what ways is it escapism?

JWZ: Of course a broad variety of experiences provides raw material for a writer. I’ve lived in New York City, Philadelphia, France, India, Los Angeles, Seattle, and Boston. Wouldn’t trade those years for anything. My time in India—about four years—inspired Bombay Monsoon and gave me countless details that helped make that book ring true and authentic. I also worked in a photo-news agency in New York. That gave me some very useful background on the challenges journalists faced covering news in difficult situations, particularly before the digital age. Things moved much more slowly. Almost quaintly in comparison to today. I’ve spent years studying and speaking foreign languages—French and Italian in particular. My love of languages has dominated and influenced every aspect of my life, including my fiction. And, of course, my teaching career contributed ideas for THE PRANK. No work/life experience is wasted in the writer’s training. And, by the same token, the longer you stick around on this earth, the better equipped you are to write fiction, provided you resist the tragedy of a closed mind.

GS: I’d love to hear a little about what you love most about writing and about what is most challenging for you. 

JWZ: I love having written. Okay, I didn’t coin that phrase. But it is indeed gratifying to have created something from nothing. I can think of no greater joy. That’s why AI holds no interest for me. I want to be a writer, not a prompter.

What’s most challenging for me? I’d say overcoming my sloth. I don’t believe in writer’s block. If I’m not writing, it’s because I’m avoiding it. Just like exercise. I avoid exercise, but I don’t call it exercise block. It’s laziness.

GS: What does the initial W in James W. Ziskin stand for?

JWZ: It’s a secret. Like Rumpelstiltskin. But I insist on using the middle initial professionally Just in case another James Ziskin runs afoul of the law. I want there to be a clear distinction between us.

Jim will be in Portland for the Maine Writer and Publisher Alliance’s Crime Wave and the Noir at the Bar at Bellwether on Friday 5/28 @ 7:00.  More information about both HERE.

THE PRANK. A picture clipped from Playboy magazine, a missing Swiss Army Knife, and a prank gone terribly wrong conspire to make Christmas 1968 a deadly holiday to remember.

“The Holdovers meets The Bad Seed,” THE PRANK features a charming but volatile thirteen-year-old named Jimmy Steuben. He befriends his seventh-grade English teacher, Patti Finch, just days after her boyfriend is killed in an electrocution accident while hanging Christmas lights on his roof. Patti desperately needs respite from her grief, and a chance encounter with Jimmy provides just that. Ignoring the dangers of a potential scandal, the mismatched pair begins spending time together over Christmas break. Patti finds solace in Jimmy’s company; Jimmy discovers desire and infatuation. But what Patti doesn’t know is that it was Jimmy who caused the tragic accident that killed her lover.

You can find more information about Jim HERE or by following his contributions to the Criminal Minds Blog HERE.

I’m going to ask a slightly personal question. One that I’ve been thinking about a lot.

When was the last time you really, deeply listened to somebody else?

Lately, I’ve been doing it a lot. Most recently, I held listening sessions for a wonderful small community in Maine that, like many other communities across the region, is facing significant changes within the next few years.

Change is not always bad.

But it is usually hard.

I asked questions like: What are your hopes and dreams for children in your community? What skills, knowledge, and traits do you believe are important? What are some things your community does really well that you want to continue to invest in? What are some things you believe your community should invest in more?

During these sessions ten to twelve community members took turns responding. I listened, wrote down what I heard, and repeated the themes that emerged. We had a few simple rules. Center children. Phones off and away. And wait your turn in the speaking order.

At the end of my last session, which went thirty minutes over the allotted time, one man hung back. At the beginning of the conversation, he was upset. He felt there was an agenda. One he wasn’t part of. But as he listened to others and as others listened to him, his demeanor changed. He expressed real concerns and shared things in the community he valued. As his tension eased, so did the tenor of the conversation. By the end, the group was joking and laughing together.

As I was packing up my chart paper and getting ready for the long, dark, rainy drive back to Portland, he said, “I feel really good right now. We should do stuff like this more often.”

I left feeling deeply hopeful.

And deeply sad.

The loneliness epidemic that we are grappling with now is not new. Robert Putnam wrote extensively about this in his 2000 book BOWLING ALONE. In it, he chronicled the decline in American community and connectedness.

Fortunately, there are things we can do. They just take effort and attention.

There are a great many studies that show the simple act of listening to other people, when there is a shared community value – like children and learning – has significant benefits that include reduced stress, lowered blood pressure, improved mental health, reduced loneliness, boosted self esteem, and increased empathy.

Listening is a strategy marketing teams and people in leadership have been leveraging for years. Take the 70/30 Rule. To goal is simple. The other person talks 70% of the time. You listen actively, paraphrase, and ask follow-up questions 30% of the time. This strategy prevents you from jumping to solutions before you have an understanding of the real needs and root causes of an issue while building trust and connection.

As a parent, I often employ a strategy I like to call “The Captive Audience.” It’s simple. You sit in the car with your child for a 20-30 minute stretch with no music. No technology. Just you and your kid and the open road. Usually, at around the twelve minute mark, my son will say something. Usually it’s a question. Usually I answer by saying something like, “Hmmm,” (insert long pause here). “That’s a really good question. I have to think about it. What do you think?”

And then we’re off.

So what does listening have to do with writing?

Reading is a way to connect, to feel heard and seen and understood. Good books communicate values, ideas, questions, and characters that help us see the world more clearly. And by extension, help us see ourselves in a new light.

Listening can help writers develop an “inner ear” about cadence and vocabulary. It can allow writers to empathize with characters. It also deepens the ability to integrate subtext and ambiguity.

And then, of course, there is the inspiration.

Every writer has borrowed a snippet of a conversation from a corner store or airport or crowded bar. So if you take nothing else away from this, always be mindful of what you say in public.

You never know if it’ll end up in somebody’s book.

What I’ve got going on

Big news. My story “Beautiful, Dangerous Things” was selected for inclusion in the Best American Mystery and Suspense of 2026 edited by Megan Abbott and Steph Cha.

I just found out about another acceptance to Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine for the September/October issue for the second of my Portland PI stories. That brings my run to: “Generous Strike Zone” in AHMM (March/April),  “The Best and Sweetest Things” in EQMM (May/June), “A Well Worn Path” in EQMM (July/August), and “We, the Aging” in AHMM (Sept/Oct).

I was invited to the Edgars in NYC thanks to Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine Readers Award. I had a great time, saw some old friends, and am really very grateful. I wore a fancy red suit and saw some great friends. (Me and Kate Hohl.)

There is nothing quite like seeing Times Square lit up at night with the rain coming down and all sorts of people from all sorts of places brushing shoulders and taking pictures.

Talk soon. Be well. And let me know what’s up with you.