Lost Evidence: Lost & Found Department (series) #author Frank Racioppi

Lost Evidence: Lost & Found Department: Book 2 (in series)

Nathan Jameson and Heather Sandberg, who co-own Lost & Found Investigations, take on separate cases for the first time. Heather is hired by Jersey Mike’d, a popular South Jersey DJ on 101.4, WLKW, a talk news format. Jersey Mike’d is running for the Republican nomination to be New Jersey's governor. He wants Heather to find his ex-wife because he’s afraid she will reveal specific facts about him that would hurt his chances in the election.
Nathan is hired by a woman who lives in the Birches section of Washington Township. A $50,000 heirloom ring is missing from her closet safe. She doesn’t want the police involved. She wants Nathan to find it and return it. The woman suspects her husband has stolen it to pay off gambling debts.

As Nathan investigates, he finds that his client’s 20-year-old son is planning to buy Fentanyl in Philadelphia and then sell it in his town; his client's 18-year-old daughter is posting videos of herself on a porn site; and his client is having multiple affairs – one with her boss at a medical device company, and the other with a cardiologist.

After there is a brutal murder, Nathan and Heather discover that their cases are connected, and that Nathan’s secret past is jeopardizing his life and those closest to him.

Frank Racioppi is a South Jersey-based author who publishes his daily podcast e-publication Ear Worthy.

To connect with Frank ...
https://www.frankracioppi.com/
https://podalization.substack.com/s/frankracioppi
https://podalization.substack.com/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/frank-racioppi-6072697/
https://www.instagram.com/earworthy141
https://medium.com/ear-worthy

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:02

It's good morning, Frank Richoppi. Welcome to Yellow Shelf.

SPEAKER_00 0:06

Joanna, good morning. It's so great to talk to you. I'm excited about this. It's been it's great to finally meet you.

SPEAKER_01 0:13

Yes, we have known each other for a while in this wide global world of ours. Frank, you're coming from New Jersey this morning, chatting to me. Or this evening for you. Yes. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 0:25

Yeah. Yes. But it worked out perfectly for I think for the both of us time-wise. It's earlier in the morning and it's not too late at night. So it's perfect.

SPEAKER_01 0:33

Ah, Frank. Frank, uh, congratulations. Your latest book is out now, and that's what we're talking about on Yellow Shelf today. Um, super excited for you. Lost Evidence. Tell us all about the book.

SPEAKER_00 0:46

Thank you, Joanna. So Lost Evidence is the second in the Lost and Found Department series. Uh, and it started with book number one, which was the Lost and Found Department. This is the second one. It has the same two characters, which are Nathan Jameson, who owns the bookstore and is an investigator. And his uh manager, Heather Sandberg, who uh manages the bookstore, is also an investigator. So in the first book, they handled uh a few cases, and in the second book they have uh several different ones. Uh but uh I do have to say that really this is these are these two are classic mysteries. What makes them I feel different are the two main characters. Uh, because I really started this because I wanted to I wanted to explain how people's childhood can impact their uh their adult life. And for both of them, that's exactly what's happened. So, for example, Nathan Jameson was somebody who was abandoned by his father in a grocery store lost and found at four years old.

SPEAKER_01 1:56

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 1:57

Heather Sandberg was uh a young lady from West Virginia who uh, as she discovered that she was gay as a teen, was then shunned by her parents who were conservative uh Christians and then had to leave home because of that. So these are two people that really are cast out by society, they find each other, and then they are able to now they're not romantically involved, of course, but they're able to find a life together, and then from that help other people, especially the whole lost and found thing is about Nathan really being lost as a child and becoming very adept at finding things.

SPEAKER_01 2:43

Yeah, that connection piece. It's it's lovely, Frank. Frank, do you want to tell us about the series and and writing the books? So um, I know you've written books previously, um, but tell us about this series. Are there more books to come? What's what's what's in store?

SPEAKER_00 3:03

Uh that's a great question. And actually, there are more books to come. And I'm gonna be very honest with you. I've been to some writer workshops, and what and one thing they'll generally tell you is that as a uh unknown author, in order to make some money, you you really need to have a series. Okay. Series make money. And one of the ways that it's recommended you do that, and actually, I just tried it and it worked out pretty well. So uh about two months before Lost Evidence came out, which is book number two, I gave away in a marketing campaign, Lost and Found Department book number one for free. And 3,000 people actually took me up on the offer of getting my book for free. So then when my second book came out, it gave all those people who read it time enough to read it, and for anybody who liked it, so in the first month, uh, which is for someone like me who's unknown, this is great. Yeah, I sold see 600 copies, 550, 50, 550 books and 50 uh hard cut paperback copy, trade paperback copies. So that's never happened to me before, and it's all because sort of this template, which is you create a series, and and so I have to tell you that this actually worked on me. I I got a book from I think Barnes and Noble or maybe Amazon for free, and it was about a private detective in the state of Oregon who lived right at the beach, and it was so good. Uh I said, Oh, I have to check out this author. Yeah, uh Scott William Carter. And he had eight other books out, all in the same series. And in the space of six months, I had purchased and read every one of them. With the first one being free. So yeah, that I think that's a good strategy.

SPEAKER_01 5:01

Of course, you have to have that's very clever, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:05

Of course, you have to have people like the first book in order to buy the second one, so yeah. Yeah, but so that's not the total main reason why I'm do continuing the series, but it does help to sell some books.

SPEAKER_01 5:20

Of course, and if there's more to come in in their connected connection and their complex lives, I think there's definitely more to write about.

SPEAKER_00 5:30

Absolutely, and and you had asked this kind of before, and one of the reasons I started writing this is uh again, uh I do numerous writer workshops, so I want to learn more, not just about the craft, but also about the business of having to sell your books. The uh the two of the largest genres as far as selling, romance is number one by far. Yeah and and I did write a romance novel called The For the Love of Books a couple years ago, and it actually it was my second best-selling book with about 2,000 copies. Uh and I still still sell now, like every every month, uh two, three people will buy simply because romance is a very popular uh genre, and then so is so is mystery too.

SPEAKER_01 6:20

Yeah. And Frank, he is hoping people get curious listening to Yellow Shelf. Get curious about your previous work, your current work, and any future work, Frank, because I think you're onto something here. There's um plenty to write about. Frank, do you want to tell us a bit about you? Because you and I are connected initially through the podcasting space, um, supporting indie podcasts. Um, Frank, tell us about you, your work, your career, anything we need to know about you as a writer.

SPEAKER_00 6:49

Sure. Uh thanks, Joanna. So I worked for 37 years for a large transportation company in the U.S. I was a writer for them, a speech writer. I also uh did did feature writing, editing, and my last couple of years, because I have a teaching degree, I actually taught adults uh for the for the corporation. Then I retired, and because of my love of podcasts, I started a uh podcast review publication called Ear Worthy. And in the beginning, because podcasts weren't that popular around the 2008 or nines, I really, if I had five readers in a week, that would be a lot. But you know, I kind of just hung with it all those years, and now 2026 uh podcasts are obviously a lot more popular, a lot more people are looking to discover new podcasts, and I will say Yellow Shelf is one of my favorites, and I think one of the best out there. Uh so that's what really keeps me busy, and then the other part of that is I was fortunate enough to get a job with Forbes magazine, yes, writing writing about podcasting, and that's been quite an experience as well. And in between, I try to write uh some novels and books and things if I can.

SPEAKER_01 8:14

Yeah, and Frank, I don't want to skim over this. You're highly respected. I have spoken to people in many different countries saying to me, Did I know Frank? So I I I want I want everyone to know you're you have a lot of credibility out there, and your work is really impressive. So I'm gonna put some links in the show notes to your work, um, but obviously to the book. Frank, do you want to point us in the direction of where if we're gonna get curious about you, get curious about the books, the series, previous books, where do we go? Point us in the direction.

SPEAKER_00 8:48

Sure. Just like I think a lot of people uh I listen to your podcast religiously, and so I'll probably say the same thing that actually the gentleman just before me, he said, I think his last name was Johnston, and he said how pronounce it. I'll say the same thing. You can go to frankrassiope.com, and that's spelled frank r-a-c Io P-P-I dot com, and you'll find all the information about my books. And if you're interested finding great podcasts like Yellow Shell, I also have a page in there about earworthy. So you can get a two two for one there.

SPEAKER_01 9:22

Yeah. Oh, Frank, people need to check out your work, your books, and support you. Um, congratulations on book number two.

SPEAKER_00 9:31

Uh oh, thank you.

SPEAKER_01 9:33

I hope you're coming back to talk about book number three, four, five. I I um I I love supporting you, Frank.

SPEAKER_00 9:41

I would love to do that. This is this has been wonderful, Joanna. I really do appreciate it.

SPEAKER_01 9:46

Thank you so much. Thank you for joining us, Frank. All the best. Thanks. Cheers.