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The Crime CafeAuthor: Debbi Mack
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Interview with James Polkinghorn – S. 11, Ep. 12
Saturday, 22 November, 2025
My guest interview this week on the Crime Cafe podcast is with semi-retired attorney and crime writer, James Polkinghorn. Check out our discussion of Liquid Shades of Blue. And a little about the practice of law. You can download a copy of the transcript here! Debbi (00:54): Hi everyone. My guest today is semi-retired litigator and trial. He was a semi-retired litigator and trial attorney, is a semi-retired litigator and trial attorney. One of those tenses. And while he was based in Miami and Fort Lauderdale for 39 years, he handled some very interesting, a variety of cases of highly complex matters sometimes. He is originally from Pittsburgh, which fascinates me because I lived in Monroeville for a while. You probably know where that is. Jim (01:31): Went to the Monroeville Mall. Debbi (01:32): Oh, yeah. I remember the Monroeville Mall. It was a big deal when I was there. It was new or something, but he moved to Florida when he was 14 with his family, of course, and he now lives in Key West and is working on a follow-up, as I recall, reading from another interview on your novel, Liquid Shades of Blue. Am I correct? Jim (01:56): That's right, yep. Debbi (01:57): Excellent. Very good. It is my pleasure to introduce the author James Polkinghorn. Hi Jim. How are you doing? Jim (02:05): I'm doing great. How are you? Debbi? Debbi (02:07): Oh, I'm hanging in there. I'm busy. Busy, but I'm hanging in there and glad to hear you're doing well. I like your shirt. It goes really well with, even though you're not in Key West at the moment, you've brought a little of that with you. Jim (02:21): Yeah, believe it or not, this was work attire for me for probably the last 15 years of my career. I sort of stopped wearing suits in the office if I could avoid it. It worked out for me. Debbi (02:36): Excellent. That is an excellent choice there. Who needs suits? I'm always happy to meet another lawyer turned crime fiction writer. What was it that made you turn to crime fiction as a way of expressing your stories? Jim (02:54): Well, I'll tell you, Debbi, for me, it all really goes back to college, when I sort of dabbled with the idea of becoming a writer. I took the usual classes. I was an English joint major. I also majored in political science. But what really happened was my family circumstances at the time were terrible, and I made a conscious decision that I didn't want to be poor anymore. (03:32): And so for me, the quickest way to an actual paycheck that was substantial was by going to law school. And so I made that conscious decision to go to law school, and I started that career and God knows it all turned out just fine. I had a long and good career, made money, did all that, and throughout all of that, I was thinking to myself, I always had this idea for a novel in my head, and I never wrote it. And I went on 40 years and finally it was I was about to turn 60 and I was thinking about retiring. I'd had the idea of retiring by age 60, and I was thinking to myself, if you don't write this novel, if you don't do it, you're never going to do it. If you don't do it now, now's the time. And so that's what I did. So I retired and the first thing I did upon retiring was write this book. And it was fairly well received and I enjoyed the process, all of that. And so after it came out and I started writing another one, and so I've done that and that'll be out next year. Debbi (05:01): Excellent. Jim (05:04): So anyway, that's how it all started. Debbi (05:07): Wow, very interesting. You still are doing the legal work? Jim (05:13): Well, I have a relationship with my law firm. I don't actively practice anymore, but believe it or not, this is a national law firm. We've got, actually, it's an international law firm now. We've got 35 offices all over the place, and I am now the ethics partner for the whole firm. And so I handle any ethical issue, any lawyer anywhere has, they will call me and we'll work it out one way or anoth...
