Patrick
is a published author who has generously agreed to be our guest this
week with a 4Q Interview and is sharing an excerpt from
What the Little Dog Witnessed: The True Crime of Ed Hubbard &
Willie Roberts from Pulpular
Media.
Patrick
Bowmaster is an experienced freelance historian and writer who has
written for both scholarly and popular audiences and published
widely. His writing has been cited in at least thirty historical
works including four books published by university presses, two Ph.D.
dissertations, two scholarly bibliographies and one foreign language
title. Patrick's unpublished research and graduate student writing
can be found in the collections of several leading research
universities and other prominent repositories. He has been mentioned
in the acknowledgments
of nine historical works. Patrick is a career archivist and records
manager who holds both an M.L.I.S. and an M.A. in History. He is a
native of New York who now lives with his wife, child and a cat in
Massachusetts.
4Q:
You’re quoted as a “crime writer”. What do you think draws us
as readers and authors to writer and/or read about crime?

4Q:
Please tell us about your writing, what inspires you?

4Q:
Please share a childhood memory or anecdote.
4Q:
What’s next for Patrick Bowmaster, the author.
PB:
I am currently seeking a publisher for a book I am writing on my
uncle. His name was Harry J. Schmitt. He was the type of person who
seemed to be good at everything and wanted to be the best at
everything he did. As a very young boy he won yo-yo championships. He
was an expert musician and had a good singing voice. He tested so
high on an IQ test that he was able to combine three years of junior
high school into two and begin college when he was only 16. In
addition to being a star student he was also a star athlete. He
played varsity baseball in high school and college and was offered
tryouts by two major league baseball teams. He graduated as the top
Air Force ROTC cadet at Queens College in 1956. He wanted to be a jet
pilot but an inner year issue disqualified him.

An
Excerpt
from What the Little Dog
Witnessed: The True Crime of Ed Hubbard & Willie Roberts.
This
is how Pulpular Publishing describes Patrick’s book;
"A
conniving couple finds a deadly way to rid a farmer of his wealth,
but the little dog Jim isn’t going to let them get away with
murdering his master. Career convict and con artist Ed Hubbard and
his accomplice Willie Roberts, a young and attractive prostitute, set
out to play a long game against the farmer Pleas Burns, who owned a
spread on the Spring River in Arkansas. But Willie grows tired of
waiting and pressures Hubbard to “fix the old man.” Even with a
backstory of multiple marriages, extramarital affairs, an incompetent
judge, an extremely messy divorce, a death sentence, two jail breaks,
incest, a connection to one of the most infamous criminal gangs of
the 1930s, three murders, a terrible miscarriage of justice, and two
sensational murder trials, the most fascinating part of the story is
an amazing and heroic canine."
Not
long after dawn on June 30, 1905, an elderly, wealthy farmer
named
William Pleasant “Pleas” Burns and his houseguest of the
previous
several days, Edward “Ed” Hubbard, walked a short
distance
to Burns’s Ferry on the Spring River, about two miles north of the
town
of
Black Rock, in Lawrence County, Arkansas.
Burns
unlocked the skiff that served as his ferryboat and he and Hubbard
began
boarding. A loud bark resounded from under the stairs to the backdoor
of
the
farmhouse. It was Jim, a little, scraggly black-and-white mutt, the
farmer’s loyal
companion.
He had just awoken, bounded down to the water and attempted to
join
the men on the boat.
“Don’t
let’s take the dog,” said Hubbard, giving poor Jim a kick. “He
might
follow
me after we get across and get lost.”
It
was Jim’s usual practice to accompany his master when passengers
were
ferried
across the river. He had done so on countless occasions. But the kick
deterred
him, and as the skiff left the riverbank, he remained behind. Jim’s
whimpering
betrayed the fact that he was not at all happy about this. Twice, the
scrappy
little canine dove into the river and swam toward the boat. Both
times
Hubbard
drove him off.
As
the ferryboat neared the midpoint of the Spring River, Burns was on
his
feet
when Hubbard moved toward him from behind. With a shove he attempted
to
force the farmer into the water. Burns fell forward, a portion of his
body in
the
water and the remainder in the skiff. His life in jeopardy, he tried
to right
himself.
But the twenty-one-year-old Hubbard was nearly fifty years younger
than
the
feeble, elderly man and had little difficulty grabbing Burns by both
feet and
flipping
him over the side into the river.
For
my book’s trailer see:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rCaH7SHnrF0&t=5s
For
your readers wanting to know more about Patrick and his writing,
please follow these links.
Facebook Author’s Page: Patrick Bowmaster’s Author’s Page
Facebook: Patrick A. Bowmaster
Twitter: @PBowmaster
My blog about my book: https://patrickbowmaster.wordpress.com/blog/
My Amazon link: https://www.amazon.com/What-Little-Dog-Witnessed-AbTwo-Dollar-ebook/dp/B07C4BNWNR/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1544907363&sr=1-1&keywords=patrick+bowmaster
Thank
you Patrick for being our guest this week. Best of luck in your
future stories & Happy Writing.
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