Bernard Schaffer

Bernard Schaffer is an author, full-time police detective, and father of two. As a twenty-year veteran police officer, he’s a court recognized narcotics expert, a graduate of the prestigious Top Gun Undercover Law Enforcement Training Program, child forensic interviewer, and possesses a Class A certification in the use of wiretaps. A child actor, Schaffer appeared in multiple television commercials, performances at the Walnut Street Theater (where his picture still hangs in one of the upper, darker corners), Saturday Night Live, and the Nickelodeon series Don’t Just Sit There. Schaffer is the author of multiple independently-published books and series, including Superbia, Grendel Unit, Guns of Seneca 6, and more. A die-hard supporter of the Philadelphia Union, he is proud to say that he’s never been ejected from a game. Yet.

Schaffer's new novel is An Unsettled Grave.

Recently I asked the author about what he was reading. Schaffer's reply:

I read in much the same way I write. Omnivorously. I don't favor genres or subjects. If I feel like reading a Star Trek novel from the 1980's and then going back to polish off La Brava by Elmore Leonard, I do it. I most recently finished Salem's Lot by Stephen King. It was obviously an early work of his with some significant low spots, but there are flashes of brilliance in there. Moments where it becomes clear what the man would produce in due time.

Some books are long-distance marathons for me. I'll flirt with them for a long time. They sit on my nightstand or in my eBook library and I pick them up and knock off a few chapters here and there. Right now, they would be Grapes of Wrath, Hugh Howey's Silo Series, and Furious Hours, a new non-fiction book about Harper Lee's efforts to write a true crime novel. Harper doesn't show up until halfway through the book and it kind of lost me. Maybe I just need the right frame of mind to get back into it.

Other books, I consume immediately. I'll buy the print, eBook, and audiobook versions, and read them all simultaneously. I listen to the audiobook when I drive, pick up where it left off on my desktop at work when there's downtime, and get right back into on my couch when I get home. The last one to take off for me like that was Lonesome Dove, a few months ago.

Visit Bernard Schaffer's website.

My Book, The Movie: An Unsettled Grave.

The Page 69 Test: An Unsettled Grave.

--Marshal Zeringue