John Bishop MD Interview - Act of Murder ~ JeanBookNerd

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John Bishop MD practiced orthopedic surgery in Houston, Texas, for 30 years. An avid golfer and accomplished piano player, Bishop is honored to have once served as the keyboard player for the rhythm and blues band Bert Wills and the Crying Shames. The Doc Brady medical thriller series is set in the changing environment of medicine in the 1990s. Drawing on his years of experience as a practicing surgeon, Bishop entertains readers using his unique insights into the medical world with all its challenges, intricacies, and complexities, while at the same time revealing the compassion and dedication of health care professionals. Dr. Bishop and his wife, Joan, reside in the Texas Hill Country.

What inspired you to write ACT OF MURDER?
The inspiration to write came about due to a number of factors. I had been an academic Orthopedic Surgeon for 14 years, and that position entailed teaching medical students, residents, and fellows, and brought with it the obligation to make presentations at national Orthopedic meetings and publish orthopedic articles in the various journals associated with my specialty. When I left academia behind, I still had a very busy clinical practice, but without the teaching and academic responsibilities, I found myself with free time. I had been playing the piano and organ since childhood, and I started playing music on the weekends with Bert Wills and the Crying Shames, an R & B band. The road travel became more than I could handle after a few years, and shortly after leaving the band, I began writing. I would have to term it a "spark" of some sort. I had always been a voracious reader of mystery novels, medical and otherwise, so that was an influence. Also, my marriage to Joan Berry provided me with a loving and supportive partner, and a newfound sense of peace had come over me at that time of my life. And, I had suffered along with my best friend and his wife over the loss of their child, and I wanted to try and put that grief into words.

Who or what has influenced your writing, and in what way?
I have to give credit to the authors I have treasured over the years and who have influenced my life in alphabetical order: Jeffrey Archer, Lee Child, Harlan Coben, Michael Connelly, Robin Cook, Michael Crichton, Nelson DeMille, John Grisham, Robert B. Parker, Thomas Perry, John Sandford, and Stuart Woods. In addition, my medical school training, and the experience of being a practicing orthopedic surgeon for many years has had significant influence in my being able to write medical thrillers.

Tell us your most rewarding experience since being published.
I think it has to be the day Fauzia Burke emailed me to let me know the website she had created for me was up and running. FSB Associates took me on as a client, in charge of public relations and marketing. She and Anna Sacca have been invaluable in advancing the series of Doc Brady novels, starting with Act of Murder. At any rate, when I opened that web site and saw the info about the book and my biography, it was a feeling like no other.

For those who are unfamiliar with Dr. Jim Bob Brady, how would you introduce him?
Dr. Jim Bob Brady is a fictionalized character, an amalgam of myself and many other people I've come to call friends over the years.

He is a specialty hip and knee orthopedic surgeon in Houston who has a busy practice, plays blues on the weekend on occasion, and has an intense love for his wife, Mary Louise, and an admiration for his son J.J.'s capabilities in gathering information as part of his firm which is in essence a detective agency. Brady is a brilliant, talented surgeon with a large clientele, who is confident yet still humble. He is a genuinely nice and funny guy who happens to have a knack for solving medical mysteries. He is above all the doctor who will cure the reader of their blues and boredom.

What was the most surprising thing you learned while creating J.J. and Mary Louise?
Obviously, writing fiction encompasses writing about people you know to some extent. I found that writing about Mary Louise and J.J. made me admire my real-life wife and son even more than I did before I began writing. I think when I started to put into words how I felt about them in a fictional sense, it allowed me to see them from outside the box, and appreciate them that much more.

If you could introduce one of your characters to any character from another book, who would it be and why?
I have long admired Robert B. Parker. He died too soon. I would enjoy seeing Spenser and Dr. Jim Bob Brady get together for wine and dinner. Spenser is brilliant, and funny, and cares deeply for Susan Silverman, just like Jim Bob.

TEN REASONS TO READ ACT OF MURDER

1. It's a fairly short book...268 pages..with short chapters, and is easy to read.
2. Friends tell me that once they started reading, they couldn't put it down. They had to find out what happened.
3. Dr. Jim Bob Brady is quite a character, smart, funny, likable and fun to read about.
4. Mary Louise Brady is her own character, sexy, voluptuous, and the voice of reason for the often impetuous Doc Brady.
5. J.J. Brady, the son, is a computer genius, who runs B & B Investigations, and is essential to Doc Brady solving mysteries.
6. Reading about physician politics and the inner workings of medical institutions is enlightening.
7. Reading about Houston and Galveston restaurants will make the reader hungry. The Bradys do a lot of eating out.
8. Reading about Doc Brady's patients and his clinics and surgeries will be a learning experience for non-medical personnel.
9. Reading about Dr. Jeff Clarke, renowned pathologist and a Brady friend, is a treat in itself.
10. Lastly, tracing the steps of the murderer is like putting together a puzzle. Can you figure out who did it?

What is something you think everyone should do at least once in their lives?
Stand near the first tee of the Links at Spanish Bay in Pebble Beach and watch the sun set while the bagpiper plays.

If you had to go back in time and change one thing, if you HAD to, even if you had “no regrets” what would it be?
Probably try and have a better relationship with my deceased mother. She was a narrow-minded religious zealot who was always right about everything. I spent a great part of my life in conflict with her. Looking back, I should have approached the situation differently, but perhaps my own lack of maturity held me back. I will never know.

Where can readers find more information about you and your books?
Please visit my WEBSITE

Doc Brady became an orthopedic surgeon to avoid being surrounded by death. But now it's everywhere around him.

One spring day in 1994 Houston, Dr. Jim Bob Brady witnesses his neighbor's ten-year-old son killed by a hit-and-run driver. An accident, or an act of murder? After the death, Brady enlists the help of his twenty-year-old son J. J. and his wife Mary Louise in chasing down clues that take them deeper and deeper into a Houston he never imagined existed. In the process, they discover a macabre conspiracy stretching from the ivory towers of the largest teaching hospital in Texas, to the upper reaches of Houston's legal community, to the shores of Galveston.

Doc Brady soon realizes that the old adage remains true: The love of money is the root of all evil.

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