Peter S. Berman

ABOUT PETER…

During his career as a Head Deputy District Attorney in Los Angeles, Peter S. Berman oversaw the daily operations in a series of courthouses and specialized divisions, including the Hardcore Gang Division, the Sex Crimes Division, and the Career Criminal Division. He retired in 2002.

He has lectured and trained prosecutors throughout the United States. His work has been profiled on a number of television shows, including CBS’s Sixty Minutes.

Between 2008 and 2018, Mr. Berman donated his time as a Specialist Volunteer with the LAPD’s Robbery-Homicide Division, Cold Case Specials Unit, where he investigated unsolved homicide cases. He was honored by the LAPD Robbery-Homicide Division as their 2008 Reserve Officer of the Year. 

He has been writing novels for the past twenty years, many of which are lined up to be released in the future. In pursuit of authenticity for his stories, he has traveled to more than sixty countries to scout out locations that appear in his novels. 

Mr. Berman resides in Southern California where he currently volunteers some of his time to assist cancer patients receiving chemotherapy. 

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Interview: with Peter S. Berman

7-22-19

Question: Mr. Berman, what got you started writing novels?

Answer: My family background was in film. I used to spend every Saturday and Sunday as a kid in our local theaters. Always double features and twenty cartoons. My father produced movies at MGM, so I used to study the films and the arc of the characters, and as an adult, when I thought about telling stories, I began to see scenes which would translate into chapters. I started writing dozens of times, but this was before computers, so a lot of times I never got past the fist five pages because I was always going back and rewriting. Finally, personal computers hit the scene, and I slowly got my first story written. What I enjoyed most was that I was creating a fictitious world where I controlled everything that happened. It was akin to playing God.

Question: How long did it take to write the first book?

Answer: The actual first novel was Web of Betrayal. It took five years. I knew how I wanted to begin the story and what the ending would be, but the middle of the story was a blank. I began to develop an outline, but I kept writing dialogue, so the outline came out at about a hundred pages, and I still hadn’t reached the ending. So I just started writing, using the unfinished, overly-detailed outline, and eventually, the rest of the story came to me in scene by scene fashion.

Question: Five years? Did you write every day?

Answer: Almost every day, but I was working full time as a District Attorney, and I had trials and responsibility for a lot of other lawyers, so there wasn’t a whole lot of time for protracted writing. I was also helping to raise three kids, and that took precedence for me. So, it took forever, but I learned on that first effort how to construct a good story, and how important it was to have the story completely outlined before starting, so after that, it was much easier.

Question: Did you try and shop the story around?

Answer: Actually, it was about six-hundred pages long, so I showed it to an editor who made contact with a prestigious literary agency and they asked me to come by. I showed them the book and they liked the story. They wanted me to cut two-hundred pages out of it, which I agreed to do. Because of my family situation, it took almost a year to get that done. It was a lot of work, harder than writing the initial story, but I got it down to four-hundred pages. I took it back, they reread it, and I was asked to cut another hundred pages from the story. I brought it home, and always planned to do the editing, but the family situation changed dramatically, so I spent the next five years writing new stuff whenever I could. I needed an outlet, and editing was too technical to be liberating. When I took an early retirement in 2002, I began writing on a daily schedule, and I’ve been doing that still to this day. Anyway, ten years later, I went back to Web of Betrayal, updated it because of changes in technology (pagers to cellphones), and because the story still held up, I released it as a thriller.

Question: How many novels have you written?

Answer: I’ve published six, and as of today I have five more that I plan to release, and two others that will likely never see the light of day. I have one that is half finished, one that is completely outlined, and one that is a good story, already written, but I’m just not sure that I want to show it around.

Question: Oh?

Answer: It doesn’t fit the format of a traditional thriller. In many respects, it’s very personal. I’ll have to think long and hard about whether or not I’ll ever make it public.

Question: Well, thank you for your time.

Answer: You’re quite welcome.