Jeff Tanner Interview by Teresa Inge

Meet Jeff Tanner, whose novel The King's Collar will be released by Koehler Books on June 30, 2026.

Jeff holds a PhD in marketing and published fifteen books on sales and marketing, including two bestselling textbooks. He spent his career in higher education, retiring as dean of the Strome College of Business at Old Dominion University. You may recall his daily business program on NPR.

In addition, he has published short stories in several anthologies and written/produced multiple plays. He, his wife, and a four‑pound Maltese named Boo divide their time between grandkids in three states and Virginia’s Eastern Shore. They add a bit of excitement by owning and racing thoroughbreds.

He is a member of Sisters in Crime and its Southeastern Virginia Chapter, Mystery by the Sea.

Tell us about your new novel, The King’s Collar.

I wanted to write a mystery that was part Maltese Falcon, part Indiana Jones. I’ve been surprised at how many readers described The King’s Collar that way without any prompting.

Expelled at Harvard and disowned by his father, Charlie “Bones” Bohannon quickly falls to the underworld’s fringe. Befriended by former sailor Punchy, he begins buying and selling smuggled items. Charlie discovers a statuette in a speakeasy bar, similar to one stolen from his dean, who says return it and graduate. But it vanishes, and the man who took it is found murdered. The dean accuses Charlie, whose ironclad alibi doesn't deflect the pressure to find the statuette.

Through a series of misadventures, Charlie and Punchy become members of the Solomon mob. Solomon demands the missing statuette and its legendary counterpart, the jewel-encrusted King’s Collar. Charlie, Punchy, and bold Beacon Hill socialite Olivia search while dodging rivals for the Collar, one of whom gives Charlie a week or face death.

When Olivia and Punchy are kidnapped, and the Collar is the ransom, Charlie’s time is running out. But finding the Collar is no guarantee that he—or his friends—will survive.

What kind of research did you do for the book? Any strange or odd fact that you uncovered in your research?

Comprehensive! I relied on books, archival websites, and historians’ YouTube videos. I even followed Charlie’s walks through Boston to ensure that I reported the distance and time accurately.

Irish Catholics weren’t permitted in the elite Protestant men’s clubs, so in the book, they meet at the Parker House Hotel. I visited the hotel and learned that my choice was accurate. In fact, Joseph Kennedy proposed to Rose at Table 40, which you can now visit!

Where are your books available for purchase?

The King’s Collar is now available for pre-order on Amazon, and Bookshop.

What are you currently writing?

Dolls, book two in the series, publishes in December. Books three and four I intend to bring out in 2027. I’m currently working on book five.

Anything else you want readers to know about you?

Besides being an avid golfer and skier, I’m also a furniture-maker. I took up the saxophone after a very long hiatus, and I’m loving it!

Jeff Tanner https://www.authorjefftanner.com

WHO RODE WITH YOU, PAUL REVERE? by Yvonne Saxon

“Listen, my children, and you shall hear

Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere,

On the eighteenth of April in Seventy-five,

Hardly a man is now alive

Who remembers that famous day and year.”  -from “Paul Revere’s Ride” 

 

by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow-1860

THE 1950S KITCHEN: MODERN CONVENIENCE MEETS DOMESTIC IDEAL by Ellen Butler

Ariadne Winter is far too busy clawing her way up the journalism ladder to fuss over perfect meringues. Ambitious, driven, and unapologetically career-minded, she has little patience for the domestic ideals so carefully prescribed for women of the 1950s. Fortunately, she isn’t married—yet. In her world, middle-class wives are expected to surrender their professions for aprons and routines, trading ambition for spotless kitchens and well-fed husbands. Should Ariadne ever yield to the life her mother envisions, she might at least find some consolation in the gleaming promise of modern appliances—those marvels of convenience designed to make domesticity seem less like confinement and more like progress.

BIBLIOTHERAPY AND LOSS by Jeff Tanner, Guest Blogger

[I had another blog post ready to go, but recent events have pushed that aside.]

When I was young, I was the kid who checked out a stack of books from the library as big as I could carry. I read everything – from Encyclopedia Brown to classics like Twain and Dickens, then Agatha Christie to That Was Then, This is Now, Watership Down, and short stories like “Success” and “The Lottery.” I learned so much from books.

But not everything.

THE ART OF STORYTELLING: PART I: THE CONNECTION TO CHARACTER By Penny Hutson

Have you ever wondered what makes readers like some stories more than others or why some stories last for ages and others do not?

Just as Robert Ripley's famous series dares us to "Believe It or Not!" I assert that while all good stories contain many of the same elements, to create a riveting tale that readers can't put down, there is one simple yet powerful tool you can use to create such stories. 

Common Elements in a Good Story

First, and foremost, a story must entertain. I don’t mean it can’t be serious or important, nor am I suggesting stories should all be amusing or light-hearted; but a good story is engaging, interesting, or enjoyable to its audience. This may account for the popularity of the traveling troubadours and bards of the Middle Ages. They knew all the popular tales, as well as the noteworthy theses from the universities, the healing power of herbs and simple medicines, and the scandals of the royal court. Many also played one or more instruments and could compose poetry at a moment’s notice. Essentially, they knew what their audience wanted to hear, and they delivered it. 

VOICES OF THE ELYSIAN FIELDS: AGATHA FINALIST by Michael Rigg

Each year, attendees (authors and “fans” a/k/a readers) at the Malice Domestic conference in Bethesda, Maryland vote for nominees in six categories to receive an “Agatha.” According to the conference website:

The Agatha Awards celebrate the TRADITIONAL MYSTERY, best typified by the works of AGATHA CHRISTIE. The genre is loosely defined as mysteries that contain no explicit sex, excessive gore, or gratuitous violence, and would not be classified as "hard-boiled."

​The Agatha Award categories are:

• Best Contemporary Novel
• Best Historical Novel
• Best First Novel
• Best Nonfiction
• Best Short Story
• Best Children's/Young Adult Novel

(For more information about the Agatha Award process, see: Agatha Award Process | Malice Domestic Ltd.)

PROMPTS TO INSPIRE YOU, PART FIVE, by Max Jason Peterson

For our January meeting of Mystery by the Sea – The Southeastern Virginia Chapter of Sisters in Crime, I presented a session of prompts to inspire us all to create new material. I figured others might also enjoy this Micro Mysteries session of Max’s Writers Café. (This is an offshoot of the ongoing series I present for Hampton Public Library. Sessions are for ages 18+ and are free via Zoom, but registration is required for each individual session. I hold sessions each spring and fall; we have more coming up in April 2026).