Behind The Book With Jeffrey L. Diamond

I’m honored to have Jeffrey Diamond back for this edition of Behind The Book discussing his new novel in the Ethan Benson series titled Full Live Rehearsal. I read the book back in June or May and you are in for a wild ride as we join Ethan Benson try to stop a serial killer before its too late!

Q: Jeffrey, for those who haven’t read Full Live Rehearsal, would you please give a brief description of the novel?

A: Full Live Rehearsal is the fifth novel in my Ethan Benson thriller series. Ethan is a TV News journalist who works for a fictional television newsmagazine, The Weekly Reporter, and who specializes in producing stories about crime—mostly about killers who are very difficult to capture. He is an award-winning producer with an uncanny ability to drop into an ongoing investigation, assess all the clues, see a pattern, and then work with the authorities to solve the mystery and track down the killer.

I live in South Florida and the setting for Full Live Rehearsal is the Florida Keys. There have been a series of murders, mostly men, mostly tourists, up and down the archipelago. Local authorities have been stymied for over three years, and Ethan has been asked by an FBI profiler, specializing in serial killers, to join a task force of local and federal officials, and to assist in bringing the killer to justice. The book is fast paced, with twists and turns, and a surprise ending. It follows Ethan as he tracks down the killer, working with the task force, bringing in his own team of experts, and quickly going off on his own as he searches for clues, creating tension in the task force, and especially with the profiler, that threatens his story.

As part of a series, Full Live Rehearsal also follows my hero as he develops as a character. He is divorced, has a son who he never sees, and is an alcoholic who is constantly battling with his sobriety. My novel explores Ethan’s personal struggles, his insecurities, and his search for the truth—both the truth about the killer and the truth about himself. The novel is a great read, and though it is part of a series, it is also a standalone book with a true beginning, middle, and end. You can enjoy the storytelling whether you read it on its own or as part of the series. So, pick up a copy of Full Live Rehearsal and explore the world of television news through the eyes of my hero, Ethan Benson as he hunts down a killer. I think you’ll like it. 

Q. Where did the idea for Full Live Rehearsal come from; how long did it take you to write this novel?

A: Like all the novels in my Ethan Benson thriller series, I got the idea for Full Live Rehearsal from a series of murders that took place several decades ago here in Florida. As a TV News journalist, I’ve been trained to thoroughly research ideas that I produced during my career, mostly for the ABC Newsmagazine, 20/20, where I worked for twenty-five years. Most of these ideas came from newspapers, magazines, and social media, or from cases pitched to me by sources in law enforcement. This is how I got the idea for my thriller and how I created the killer in my new book. 

And since Ethan Benson is also a TV News journalist like me, the storyline in Full Live Rehearsal unfolds based on the same strategy I used as a producer in real life. Ethan is pitched the idea by a source, spends time carefully developing the story by reading primary documents, scouring the internet for research on the killings, and then joining the task force and producing his story in the field—searching for leads, shooting visuals with camera crews, and interviewing experts on camera—as he hunts for his killer and investigates the crimes.  

So, the origins of the idea for Full Live Rehearsal is based on the skills I learned during my career as a journalist. Without giving away the story, the thriller is based on this real-life killer who rampaged through the state of Florida in the 1990s. There were hundreds of newspapers, magazines, and ‘real crime’ books written about murders. There were TV News reports, television newsmagazine stories, and a feature film that depicted the killer and the crimes. I spent months digesting all this material before I sat down and started writing—reading about these murders, watching many of the TV News stories that followed the investigation, and screening the movie. That’s how the storyline for my novel took shape and how the character and the personality of my killer came to life.

Then, when I had enough background to write my thriller, when I knew my fictional killer inside and out, I sat down at my computer and wrote Full Live Rehearsal. That took me close to a year—writing and rewriting, refining the storyline, and polishing my characters, before I sent it off to my editor and then to my publishing company. 

Q. Looking at our Q&A from almost two years ago, you briefly spoke about Full Live Rehearsal. To create the serial killer, did you base it off one serial killer or a blend of different ones?  

A. Most of the psychological profile of the serial killer in Full Live Rehearsal is drawn from that one serial killer who committed crimes up and down the state of Florida over twenty-five years ago. But in order to develop the profile of my killer, to make my killer unique, I actually blended the personalities of several killers, rapists, and drug dealers—which by the way, is the subject of my next Ethan Benson triller, tentatively titled, Live to the A-Camera—who I met during my years producing stories for 20/20.  

One of these killers, a real psychopath, who I profiled on 20/20 was Henry Lee Lucas. He was an infamous serial killer who murdered dozens of men and woman around the country back in the 1980s. I spent a full weekend with Lucas on location at a small jail in Texas. I worked with a camera crew shooting sequences of him in his cell, being led through his cellblock shackled in chains, and walking around on the prison grounds, before producing with a correspondent and a ten-man production crew a two-hour interview where we explored his crimes, his life, and the reasons why he killed. So, I really got to know Lucas and to build a psychological profile of him firsthand.  So much of the psychological profile of my serial killer in Full Live Rehearsal is based on this killer, Henry Lee Lucas, who I met and studied for months as I was building my television newsmagazine story. But in Full Live Rehearsal, the methodology of my killer, the victims, and the location of the crimes are all pulled from the series of killings and the killer who rampaged through the state of Florida in the 1990s.

Q. Which scenes did you have fun creating? I had fun reading the entire book, it kept me on my toes as though I was watching an action movie. I did enjoy the tender moments between Ethan and that woman friend of his & the ending was interesting too!

A. For me, every scene in my novel was a challenge to create. That’s the struggle most novelists face when they are writing a murder mystery with suspense and intrigue, with characters who seem real and compelling, with a story that will keep readers interested from beginning to end. When I was writing Full Live Rehearsal, I worked every day, and when I wasn’t physically at my computer, I was thinking about the story, what I’d just written, and where I wanted to head next. I work particularly hard on character development. In Full Live Rehearsal, Ethan has recently divorced. He’s lonely, insecure, and struggling to keep the monkey behind his back as he faces his demons and battles the bottle. 

He is also working alongside a woman, a friend and a colleague, who he has known for a decade, and part of the challenge for me in developing Ethan as a character is to see where his life goes next, to see if he can overcome his struggles, to see if he can fall in love again and find happiness. So, in Full Live Rehearsal, I explored the developing relationship between Ethan and his new love interest and struggled with the direction of this relationship, how to shape it, how to move it along so it seemed real and took Ethan to the next chapter of his life. To me, this process was thrilling, and those moments when he shared his new feelings with his new love interest were fun to write.  

Q. What do you hope readers will come away with after reading Full Live Rehearsal?

A. I hope what most novelists hope—that readers enjoy my book, that they are fascinated by the characters, by the storytelling, by the mystery, and by the world I’ve created in Full Live Rehearsal. I hope my readers come away with an appreciation   of television news, with an understanding of how a TV News journalist tells a story, how he works with his team, how he goes about investigating a series of killings as he searches for the truth. I hope my readers like my hero, Ethan Benson, that they care about who he is, how he feels, where he’s headed in his life. And after reading Full Live Rehearsal, I hope they go back and read the other four books in my series to learn more about where Ethan has come from, the stories he’s produced, the other crimes he has solved, and where he might be headed next in his life as a journalist, as a character, and as a human being.

Q. With how Full Live Rehearsal ended, will the sequel continue with this storyline, or will the sequel have a different storyline? 

A. The sequel to Full Live Rehearsal, book six in my Ethan Benson thriller series, will continue to explore Ethan’s personal life as he investigates a new crime with a brand-new storyline. In Live to Camera-A, Ethan will be producing a story about drug dealing, about the Zombie drug, and about how a teenage boy’s overdose has left a family reeling. The book will also continue to develop Ethan as a character with his fears and insecurities, his hopes and dreams, his triumphs and failures. The manuscript is already written, is about to go to my editor, then off to my publishing company, and with a little bit of luck, my next novel will hit the bookstores sometime in late 2026. So read Full Live Rehearsal, read my other books, and look forward to the next installment in my Ethan Benson thriller series.