Interview with James Ponti, Author of Hurricane Heist (The Sherlock Society #2)

Welcome to Smack Dab, James! Please tell us about Hurricane Heist.

So nice to be here! Hurricane Heist is the second book in the Sherlock Society mystery series. The series is about Alex and Zoe Sherlock, a brother and sister who form a detective agency with their grandfather, a retired journalist from the Miami Herald, and their best friends Yadi and Lina.

 

In the first book, they search for Al Capone’s buried treasure in the Everglades only to uncover some environmental wrongdoing that needs immediate attention. In book two, they look reopen a cold case from 1964 when a Miami Beach resort was robbed during Hurricane Cleo. (The Capone story was real, but I made up the heist in book two.) What’s especially fun about this is there are three chapters set in 1964 and we get to see Grandpa when he was twelve years old.

 

Each character has distinct skills. Lina’s the bookworm, Yadi’s the aspiring cinematographer. How did you make sure each team member would have meaningful contributions to solving mysteries?

 

My friends and I have a lot in common, but we each have specific passions. I wanted the same for the kids in these books. For example, I always loved movies, so much so that I majored in filmmaking in college. I gave that to Yadi. I’ve made so many little films that I know what he’s dealing with and the workarounds that come with trying to make a movie with no money and only friends for a crew.

 

I came up with something for each of them, picking the interests first and then figuring out how those interests might factor into solving a mystery. That approach seemed more organic than starting with a list of mystery needs and then reverse engineering interests that went with them.

 

How did you come to choose Miami and South Florida as the setting, and how did you research famous people and events like Al Capone and Hurricane Cleo that play a role in the books?

 

I grew up in a Florida beach town and wanted a book series that reflected my youth. The problem with my hometown, though, is that it’s a little sleepy. That’s wonderful for growing up but a little less useful when you’re trying to create mysteries. (I was always confused by that fact that in Murder, She Wrote, Cabot Cove seemed like the murder capital of the US.) With that in mind, I moved my childhood the Coconut Grove neighborhood of Miami. The beauty of the city is that it’s so diverse and a gateway to so many cultures that I have really large palette to work with.

 

As for the research, Miami has such a rich – and at times checkered – history. There’s a great saying about the city that I incorporated into the series, “Miami is a sunny place for shady people.” I look to real things that took place there and try to figure out how those might still come into play. Like in the first book, Al Capone really did bury a treasure that was never found. I think he buried safe deposit keys, but I made it money to streamline it a bit.

 

The books with corporate corruption and environmental themes. How important was it to weave these real-world issues into a middle-grade adventure?

 

Environmentalism was always part of my life because I grew up at the beach, where the issue remains in the forefront. There’s a reason environmental issues play such a big role in books by Florida writers like Carl Hiaasen and John D. MacDonald.

More importantly, the environment is a key concern for young people and an arena in which they see that they can have an impact. I also think young readers are deeply concerned with the concept of fairness and like to see the corrupt get their comeuppance.

 

You’ve been open about hating reading as a kid and being “terribly slow” at it. Did that help contribute to the development of such a conversational tone? It did such a great job of drawing the reader in. It’s almost like listening to someone rather than reading!

 

I always struggled with reading as a kid and I try to keep that in mind while I write for young readers. My natural writing style is conversational, which also may connect to my background at the beach, where everything is laidback. It’s especially conversational in this series because it’s narrated by a twelve-year-old boy. Mostly, though, I think my style is the byproduct of years and years of working in television on scripts that were centered on dialogue.

 

I was a huge Nancy Drew fan growing up. What do you think makes mystery such a perpetually great middle grade genre? 

 

I think the not-so secret sauces of middle grade mysteries is that they’re so interactive. More than any other type of a book, a mystery asks the reader to be a participant. There’s an implicit contract with the readers that I will give them fair and honest clues so that they can try to solve the puzzle alongside the characters. The trick on my part is that I don’t want them to solve it before the book reveals the answer. Then I want them to think that they should’ve seen it all along.

 

The premise hinges on the idea that having the surname “Sherlock” almost destines Alex and Zoe to become detectives. Did you always know you wanted to explore the theme of whether we’re shaped by others’ expectations or whether we can forge our own path? Or did that come about as you were drafting?

 

I don’t think I did that intentionally, but it’s a core issue for me, so it may have well been subliminal. I was born in Italy and never met my father. That’s where I got Ponti. For years, I went by my step-father’s last name, but he was out of my life by the time I was thirteen. I wasn’t his biggest fan and felt encumbered by that name. Legally, my name was still Ponti, so I went back to using it in the ninth grade. Because my father never came to the states, I thought the name was pure and had no baggage associated with it in America. It was mine and mine alone. I was determined that I was the one who would give it meaning. That dramatically shaped how I lived my life. However, if my last name was Sherlock, I would’ve definitely leaned in and become a detective.

 

The kids uncover decades-old secrets that implicate powerful people. How do you explore the theme that seeking truth sometimes comes with real consequences and risks?

 

That’s the core battle they face. I try to mitigate the risks by have the parents and Grandpa thoroughly involved. Ultimately, they are driven by the search for truth and honesty in pursuit of justice.

 

The Sherlock Society features a unique three-generation team with Grandpa as both mentor and active participant. What drew you to exploring how different generations can work together, and what does Grandpa’s journalism background bring to the kids’ detective work?

 

It was born from a very practical need. I wanted the team to travel throughout South Florida, including the Everglades, the Keys, and Miami Beach, which meant I needed someone to drive them around. That led me to Grandpa, which led me to questions about what type of adult would help these kids. It shaped his personality and their relationship, which was also inspired by the fact that my mother lived the last years of her life in our house and had a very special relationship with my sons.

 

When I came up with the idea that Grandpa had been an investigative journalist who still had a storage unit filled with old notes and interviews, I was off to the races. I really like how young readers have responded to the fact that a 73-year-old is a main character in the series. And I love that we get to see him as a kid in Hurricane Heist.

 

What’s next for The Sherlock Society?

 

I’m currently writing Sherlock Society 3, in which the team gets caught up in a mystery surrounding Miami’s dynamic street art and graffiti community.

 

Where can we find you?

The first stops are jamesponti.com, which is for all of my books, and sherlocksociety.net, which is more Sherlock-specific. I’m on IG (@jamespontibooks) and X (@jamesponti). I’m also doing a book tour and some other public events in the coming months. You can find those details on my websites or at linktr.ee/jamespontibooks.

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