Fiction Writer looking for mentor

First... DSI... You have no idea how 'dead on the money' you are describing my location and operation... only last week I bonded two sisters who were arrested for selling 'home brew' in the local service station.... a proverbial crime wave ensued when their customers started having withdrawals and began fighting for the leftovers, one in particular pulled a gun on another but when he tried to shoot, the gun was not loaded so he picked up a brick. Just proves that banning guns will not stop crime.... we all fancy ourselves "James Bond" types when we start out but reality quickly sets in and if you remain for long in this business, you quickly become... shall we say more 'proficient' in your operations.

There are so many, many qualified people on this site that Ms. Daniels will have no trouble with factual sources. Many books and movies have been made about our life's work but there's always room for more. The disclaimer on my 'sig' attests to the humor I drop on everyone... even when I am serious, I am usually smiling... just my MO...

All of you guys and gals can provide this lady with all she needs in resources but I regress... the stuff I do is insignificant in the course of story telling... even the 'fictional' stuff I lay on ya is not really that exciting... as for the percentage of skips in my business... quite small in the scheme of things....... and I usually do my own 'hunting'... although there are times when a true professional is needed and on those occasions...... this website is the place I go for info and help.

I think you, DSI, could probably be on the list to provide Ms. Daniels with insight, stories and info from your standpoint... being in such an urban environment... close to the capital... (with so many crooks ) you and Scott will be great as will all the info that will no doubt start to fill this thread with good intel.

BTW...... we had a deputy some years ago that looked exactly like 'Fife'... for real.... he came by my house one day to serve me a 'show cause' and my German Shepard bit him on the arz.... that is a true story...... so yes Aunt Bee... there is a Mayberry...

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Bill Marx, Sr.
"FREE STATE BAIL BONDS"
"FREE STATE INVESTIGATIONS"
DCJS: 99-176979
Cell: 434-294-0222

"Endeavor to Persevere" "Lone Watie"

"Good judgment comes from experience, and a lot of that , comes from bad judgment" "Will Rogers"

"Aunt B., Where's my bean pie?" I had to hear that every day for 2 years, when I would go to the galley.

Ms. Daniels, I agree. If you ask, there will be an answer. There are so many reputable sources in this network that they are too many to name....If you want a female point of view, any of the sista's can answer (LuVonda, Kathy, Angela, .....) If you need a new professional's view, there are several people with 3 or less years in this industry. Then, if you want an old timers point of view.......yea, I'll leave that one alone. I may need some help from some of these folks, later .

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Thomas SnoWolf
FRN# 1999
GAPB 20120726
NSIS ST0707
http://www.rocksolidrg.com
"The hero is not the man that acts without fear,
He is the man that acts inspite of fear"

Yeah, I saw you online just a sec ago........... as a guy told me once... "I know who you are and where you live..." and I also know what you look like SWolf.... you old bald headed fart........ don't you dare call me old........ I am aging gracefully... and although I probably can't whip you....... I bet I can out cook you in the kitchen...... and I bet I can drink more Mexican beer than you

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Bill Marx, Sr.
"FREE STATE BAIL BONDS"
"FREE STATE INVESTIGATIONS"
DCJS: 99-176979
Cell: 434-294-0222

"Endeavor to Persevere" "Lone Watie"

"Good judgment comes from experience, and a lot of that , comes from bad judgment" "Will Rogers"

About 1 1/2 beers and I would be asleep....I don't drink. I might take you up on the cooking thing, though....as long as we can eat everything afterwords. I can't cook that well but I love to eat.

Have a great one, Bill.

_________________
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Thomas SnoWolf
FRN# 1999
GAPB 20120726
NSIS ST0707
http://www.rocksolidrg.com
"The hero is not the man that acts without fear,
He is the man that acts inspite of fear"

You really do have to do a ton of research on this industry to get it "right".

1) Bonding company: Insurance backed or property ? Most Insurance backed companies have "in house" recovery teams/fugitive investigators or they have 1 fugitive investigator on retainer. Most property bonding companies will do thier own recoveries/investigations.

2) Mandatory 10% jurisdiction or cut throat ?

3) High bond Jurisdiction or low bond ? Ex. Most major cities set extremely high bonds such as Atlanta, La, NYC, Memphis, Baltimore, etc. as opposed to smaller cities who for the same crime will set a bond as low as a few hundred dollars. In my city, an arrest for murder is only a $30,000.00 bond..so for $3,000.00 you can bail out for killing someone. Whereas in a major city, that same bond amount could be in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.

4) Then some states have annual licensing requirements, certifications, Bail commisioners, etc etc.

5) Politics: Wherever there is the appearance of a cash cow, you will have greedy/corrupt politicians holding thier hands out. This is a really wierd and twisted circle. In some jurisdictions it is a political catch 22.

Please allow me to try to explain:

Joe/Jane Citizen complain about crime rates. Politicians, eager to please voter's, campaign "tough on crime" platforms. However, if and when they get elected, they soon relaize the money crisis most governments are currently facing. Tough on crime promises are now extremely expensive to fulfill. Hiring more officers, training them, police cars, Criminal justice payrolls, computers, buildings, jails, medical, food, etc. etc. So 1 source of revenue is the allegedly lucrative Bail Bonding business. CJ politicians (Judges, DA's, Sheriff's, Police Chiefs, etc) soon figure out that by constantly ordering/collecting the cash forfietures of posted bonds they can save the tax payer's money, pay for some of the CJ industry expenses, and line thier own pockets all in 1 fell swoop.

There are several documented cases of CJ politicians refusing to list felonius criminals into NCIC or to extradite them nationwide due to the expense incurred in that procedure, and illegally forcing a high dollar bond forfieture against a bail bondsperson. Whenever you have a wolf guarding the hen house, you will soon lose all of your hens.....

To help illustrate my above point, here is a question: Why should CJ politicians go through all of the time, trouble, expenses, incur liability in NCIC procedures and LEO extraditions when they can simply forfiet the bond and collect the cash money ? $10,000.00 here, $5,000.00 there, $25,000.00 over there, etc. etc. Now, bear in mind major cities have literally dozens of bonding companies...20, 30, so on. Now imagine 1 county forfieting 10% of all bonds DAILY from all 20 companies ? The dollar amounts soon swell into the millions when computed annually.

So now the CJ cycle expands continuing to feed other CJ professionals. The bonding compnaies now have to hire attorney's to fight the forfietures, the attorneys have paralegals to pay, etc etc..so now you can see for yourselves the perpetuating cycle/circle of this entire industry. For alot of CJ professionals its not about justice, but the almighty dollar.

Elected CJ officials have 2 duties to the voting citizens: Be tough on criminals AND do so frugally. An almost impossible task.

If any of you doubt any of what I have written, drive by your Judge's, Da's, Sheriff's, etc houses/nieghborhoods. Check out the private schools they send thier children to, thier vacation homes on the shore, etc etc. While doing so, you should be asking yourself how can they afford all of this on my tax payer dollar ?

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River City Associates
Decatur, Al. 35601

Bill,

You are a funny dude, and I always enjoy your postings. Yet I know that you are a serious player in this industry. I know people that know and respect you. As you may know I teach DCJS courses to include the Bail Bondsman course. You maybe a small town Bondsman but you have a big city representation.

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Domestic Security Investigations
P.O. Box 4462
Rockville, MD 20849
Tel: 1-800-387-0787
Anti-Moral Majority Club President
"Fear not the unknown, Fear the person who controls the unknown" Gene 7:14

Got my questions answered off board. Thanks so much!

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~Allyn Daniels~

Just Curious,

Why a bounty hunter as main character?

It seems that you have no experience or basic knowledge of the business. And that is not necessarily a bad thing, if your character, his interactions, etc are the focus of the story. His "occupation" may not be that important other than to set up some of your scenarios.

However, if someone skipping bail and the chase, such as in Midnight Run, is the setup for your book then you have a lot of learning to do.

Does it have to be 100% techincally true? No it dosn't. But it would help to make it more believable?

But then its fiction.

Just let me know when it is finished. I'll read it and give you a heart felt critique..... just kidding. I would like to read it, though. Not kidding about that.

_________________
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Thomas SnoWolf
FRN# 1999
GAPB 20120726
NSIS ST0707
http://www.rocksolidrg.com
"The hero is not the man that acts without fear,
He is the man that acts inspite of fear"

Speaking for myself only, I prefer and enjoy stories, even fictional ones, that have some basis of reality. For example, Tom Clancy's earlier works...Red Storm Rising, Clear and Present Danger, Hunt for Red October...etc all fictional works, but incorporating realistic causes and effects action.

Another Example is WEB Griffin's Bade of Honour series set in the 1980's featuring a fictional detective but correct factual places, agencies, departmental organizations, etc.

I'm one of these amateur critics that actually counts the number of rounds a guy fires before changing clips, I notice when in 1 scene a guy is holding a semi-automatic...the next scene he's holding a revolver...I can't tell you how many movie directors have missed that continuity...or, and I especially love this one, movies involving large amounts of cash that seems to get forgotten about in the script..what happened to the duffle bag of $500,000.00 ?..of course this one always gets fouled up..firefights. Your guy runs out of ammo, after killing a few of the bad guys, so he "Rambo's" it...he fights with everything else...nail guns, saw blades, shirts, towels, etc...when in reality a person under heavy fire that had access to other wepons via killed enemies, would indeed collect those wepaons and ammo and use them to save his life... etc etc. So the more factually correct a writer gets a movie or book, the more enjoyable it is to me.

Get it right, factually correct, and realistically feasible.

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River City Associates
Decatur, Al. 35601