He turned one original screenplay, "Pest Control" into a novel and Warner Brothers Studios bought it which put him on the road to penning more novels. Universal Studios bought another of Fitzhugh's screenplays. Bill has 7 published novels including "Radio Activity" which was also instrumental in helping him land a weekly show on XM Satellite Radio. I recently posed several questions via email to him.
Corey: What's the premise of your book, "Radio Activity"?
Bill: The story came out of a tape I made (illegally, as it turns out) many, many years ago at a station whose call letters will go unmentioned. I heard the GM of the station say something wildly inappropriate over the production room speakers. Turned out the engineer had just put a phone patch in the board and the GM didn’t realize his phone call was going through the board.
Naturally, I grabbed a reel of tape and recorded the rest of the conversation during which the GM accused several people of serious crimes (arson for profit, defrauding a financial institution, and more) just in the course of bragging about all the women he slept with (none of whom were his wife). Decades later it dawns on me that the tape would have been perfect for a blackmail scheme. So I created a story that could have happened based on the tape. I transcribe the tape verbatim (except for names of people and places) in the course of the story.
All of that to say that the book is more or less about these things:
(1) the disappearance of a deejay leads to the discovery of this tape which suggests the deejay may have tried to blackmail someone (or several folks). The investigation leads to the discovery of several other crimes and ultimately to catching the bad guys.
(2) My lament about the fate of FM rock radio from freeform to ‘classic rock.’ Rick Shannon, the hero of the story, and the staff at the station decide to redefine what ‘classic’ rock should be, as compared to what it has become. Rick also reflects on what he has become and begins to think maybe it’s time to leave radio and find some other line of work. After solving the crimes, he decides to stay in radio but he also decides to become a private detective. Thus begins the series…
Corey: Why did you decide to use Radio as a backdrop for a novel?
Bill: My ten years of experience in the biz and possession of that priceless tape. Also, I thought it would be fun to write a mystery ‘series’. My first five novels were all stand-alone satiric crime fiction. Since my books were embraced by the mystery selling and reading community, I decided to write a series and figured the nomadic life of a deejay was a good hook.
The second Rick Shannon book, Highway 61 Resurfaced, finds Rick moved to Vicksburg, MS where he gets to do the night shift playing whatever he wants. He also hangs out his shingle as a PI. He calls his firm “Rockin’ Vestigatons.” (The New York Times gave it a glowing review, bless their hearts.)
Corey: The hero of "Radio Activity", Rick, is an FM DJ from a bygone era - as you label it. Is Rick preferable to today's DJs?
I don’t think Rick is preferable to today’s deejays, actually. But I think his format is vastly superior to today’s ‘classic rock’ format. One of the things Rick (and I) realized is that he (and I) are simply being nostalgic about an era of radio whose time has come and gone.
For a brief moment, FM rock radio was about a new kind of music. Songs in stereo that weren’t 3 minutes long and were sometimes about things of substance, protest, change, questioning the status quo. And I still think music radio sounds better when you let a deejay who knows the library select the music instead of using questionable research (research designed not to select songs that people LIKE, but to find songs people DON’T DISLIKE).
Radio has always been a commercial delivery system that uses music or personality to lure the listener. I just think the music could be done better – allowing people who know what they’re doing to do it. (Of course a lot of the progressive FM radio was terrible. A guy with three Iron Butterfly albums and a hit of acid doesn’t add up to good radio. But someone with a good ear can make you listen.)
