10
Questions for Ramesh Nyberg,
author of Badge, Tie, and Gun: A Memoir
Q: Tell us about your family and
growing up in Miami. Eliot Kleinberg said he went to high school with you in
Pine Crest. How did you come to be there?
My parents first settled
in the Grove in the late 1950’s, and in 1962 moved to a house in South Miami,
near the Hospital. In 1969, (when I was 11) they bought a house in what was
then known as “Suniland,” just a block from Suniland Park. They paid a whopping
$29,000 for it. That meant I would go to school at Palmetto Junior High and
later, Palmetto Sr., where I met Eliot. Suniland wasn’t an “elite” place to
live, as Pinecrest is considered now. The house my parents bought for $29,000
in 1969 is now valued just under $850,000.
That would be around 1977.
I was a music major at Miami-Dade College, but my focus suddenly shifted to law
enforcement after a I had a near-mystical encounter with a police scanner. That
story is detailed in my book.
Q: Tell us
a brief synopsis of your book. It’s subtitled “Life and Death Journeys of a
Miami Homicide Detective” which is a real attention-getter.
I’m glad it is. I wanted
readers to know that this isn’t just a compilation of police stories side by
side. This is also about my growing up with Miami (not just “in” it),
and how certain events in my childhood re-merged in significant and meaningful
ways in my law enforcement career. Yes, the book is filled with many police
stories, but I wanted to convey to the reader how life lessons you learn in
your youth often surface and hopefully help you understand situations on a
deeper level. There is rich detail about death investigation, but there is also
a lot about life, and how I navigated it—sometimes unwittingly—because of my
experiences as a youngster.
Additionally, the Miami I
grew up in was a fairly quiet, innocent place until the late 1970’s. There is
some irony—and hopefully, meaning—in the fact that I turned 18 in 1977, and
entered the police academy in 1979. Miami and I grew up together; it’s safe to
say we also both lost our innocence together.
Q: When
did you decide to become a writer, and why?
It was never a conscious
decision. I started writing when I was about nine years old, starting with a
poem I wrote in school. I also was a big football fan at that time, and after I
went to my first pro football game, I was enthralled with the way a reporter in
the Miami Herald wrote about the game. I started writing similar articles about
our softball games at South Miami Elementary School; no one asked me to, and we
didn’t have a school newspaper. It was just something I enjoyed doing. From
that point on, I wrote about any memorable life experience I had. Once I
entered police work, I wrote about the many strange and memorable calls I went
on as a uniform officer, and later, as a detective. It wasn’t until right about
the time I retired that I started thinking seriously about putting it all
together in a book.
Q: Did you
get any help when writing your book? If so, from whom?
I definitely got feedback
and encouragement. Two very close friends of mine became beta readers, of
sorts, so I considered that help. The content of Badge, Tie, and Gun is deeply
personal, however, so no one could really help me with how I wanted to express
the stories and emotions involved in police work.
Q: Is
there a second book you are working on?
Yes—a second and a third,
in fact. When I finished BTG, I sent it to an agent who had agreed to represent
me, and I immediatley went to work on a novel called “The Flyboys,” a police
procedural set in 1986 Miami. After I finished that, I wrote “Dear Chief,”
another police procedural set in modern-day central Florida. After a year with
no luck selling BTG, I decided to self-publish it, and right now I am working
on the second draft of “Dear Chief.” I will seek agency representation for the
novels. I want to try and go the conventional route with the novels.
Q: Where
can people reach on social media? Do you work at posting new information?
Yes, I’m moderately active
on Facebook (just search up Ramesh Nyberg—I am the only one) - https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61557234681168
I’m on Twitter:
@NybergPI and TikTok (@MiamiAuthor). I’ve just learned TikTok and found it easy to put together simple, short messages
to promote the book. It seems to be gaining some traction. I try to do one
every day, usually a teaser to get people to search for BTG.
Q: Who do
you read and admire?
For non-fiction, I’m a big
fan of TJ English (who wrote me a terrific review for BTG, by the way), and
David Grann. Mark Bowden is also a fine writer and wrote an excellent book
about Pablo Escobar (“Killing Pablo”). I’m a fan of sea exploration and history,
so I greatly enjoyed “South” by Sir Earnest Shackleton, and “Over the Edge of
the World” (the story of Magellan’s voyage) by Lawrence Bergreen. Bruce
Catton’s works of the Civil War are terrific, as is Colonel Joshua
Chamberlain’s first-person memoir, “The Passing of the Armies.”
Where fiction is
concerned, I hold in high regard the works of Nelson DeMille, Larry McMurtry,
John Irving, Joseph Wambaugh, and John Grisham. I’m also a big fan of Carl
Hiaasen and Scott Turow.
Q: Where
can readers purchase your books? Please provide links to those sites.
“Badge, Tie, and Gun” can
be found on Amazon, BarnesandNoble.com, and several other online book outlets.
You can also find a link to it on my website, rameshnybergauthor.com
Amazon:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CTQQKQTV
Q: Do you
read popular police procedural novels and stories?
I’m guilty of not reading
enough of them. The problem I have had over the decades is that most of them
fall miserably short when trying to describe procedures and realistic detail.
It’s a curse of sorts, due to my having been a homicide investigator for twenty-two
years. Even some of the most famous police procedural novelists such as Michael
Connelly get some things so badly wrong that it ruins my enjoyment and I often
end up putting many books down. I should mention that Connelly gets a lot of it
right, and for not having a background in law enforcement, I’ll give him credit
there. But a note to writers of crime stories: if you’re not sure of a detail,
ask someone who knows, otherwise, you’ll be causing many criminal investigators
and even lawyers to close the book and move on.
I promise to keep giving
new voices in police procedurals a chance, and I’m trying to be less critical
with the details. (But for heaven’s sake, make the effort and get it right!)
When I’m not writing, I
teach—I’m a teacher at Coral Reef Senior High in Miami, in their Academy of
Legal and Public Affairs, teaching Crimina Justice classes and heading up our
Mock Trial Club. We recently won our District competition and went to Orlando
to compete for the state championship. We didn’t win, but to watch these young
people embrace the practice of law with such enthusiasm is truly thrilling.
I’m also a law enforcement
instructor and through Training Force USA, I teach police officers in the
subjects of Homicide Investigation, Interview Techniques, and Trial Prep and
Testimony. I’ve done both in-person and Zoom classes.
My wife and I enjoy
finding good things to watch on Netflix and Max, and we love travel. I would
welcome a way to survive on 2-3 hours of sleep. It’s a very busy life, and I’m
enjoying myself. I do, however, look forward to a day when I can write for a living
and spend more time traveling and spending time with my grandchildren.
