CTP (S3EOctSpecial6 BAWks:1-4) Edgework: Writing Crime, Tech, and Trust [BOOKS / AUTHORS Weeks - Week 1 sub-episode 4 (Thu. 20251016)] Two veteran technologists turned co-authors unpack how they built the Enigma Heirs trilogy, from real-world research and composite villains to an AI ally named SIKABOD and a workflow that keeps one seamless voice. We swap tools, backup rituals, and the “literary ping-pong” that powers their chapters without losing control of versions. • origins of the Enigma Heirs trilogy and Enigma Jewels • the three half-brothers’ crime dynasties and stakes • moving from tech manuals to fiction for durability and freedom • composite characters drawn from real encounters and travel • research practices to ground technology and plausibility • collaborative process using outlines, spreadsheets, and daily passes • ensuring a single narrative voice through iterative editing • acronym humor and the AI SIKABOD as a series mainstay • backup strategies, version control, and naming conventions • tool talk, file transfers, and email spam mishaps • links to the series site (http://EnigmaSeries.com) • future guest invites
00:00Hello, everyone. Welcome to Books, Authors, Weeks, October of 2025.
00:10I had Health Weeks in February of 2025.
00:15I had a Music Weeks, three of those, in the month of March 2025.
00:22So here we are, October.
00:25I have a lot of fellow authors.
00:27I have the chance to have discussions with, though, Books, Authors, Weeks, October 25.
00:36Without further ado, let's head into a discussion with a fellow author.
00:45Welcome to Constitutionalist Politics Podcast, a.k.a. CTP.
00:52I am your host, Joseph M. Leonard, and that's L-E-N-A-R-D.
00:57CTP is your no-must, no-fuss, just-me, you, and occasional-guest-type podcast.
01:05Really appreciate you tuning in.
01:07As Graham Norton will say, let's get on with the show!
01:11Hello, everyone.
01:14Welcome to another episode of Constitutionalist.
01:17For those viewing on behind-the-scenes, you see, yes, I'm wearing my The Book of Kennedy, my latest book shirt.
01:26I'm not going to go into the whys and wherefores that the Kindle cover, the soft copy cover, and the hard copy cover all look different than this.
01:38Joining me are a couple of authors, those behind-the-scenes can see I've got a couple of guests rather than one here.
01:48So, I have to break the normal interview routine, so let's start for those on the 25-plus audio-only platforms that may be listening.
02:02We'll go around the room with an introduction to this question.
02:06Where were you born and raised, and where are you now, right?
02:11I like to joke, cue the who song.
02:13Who are you?
02:16Who, who, who, right?
02:17Ladies first.
02:19Rocks.
02:19So, I'm out of Dallas, Texas.
02:23I actually moved to Texas from California, which is quite a mental shift for me.
02:30But I've loved it, and I'm now considered by Charles, who is a native Texan.
02:36I'm naturalized, so I can almost behave everything Texan.
02:41Yeah, and for the audio and the transcript, that's Rocks, Berkey, B-U-R-K-E-Y.
02:49That will, of course, be on the bottom screen in the edited final video version.
02:56But for those listening and the benefits of the transcript, that's how you spell her name.
03:02Also with me, another of the duo, a writing duo.
03:08I'm so happy to have a writing duo as opposed to just yet another single author.
03:15It opens up some wonderful new different questions.
03:19Charles Brakefield, welcome.
03:25Joseph, I have to admire your level of energy.
03:29It's, I'm already tired, just, you know, and we haven't even gotten started on this particular show.
03:35So, yes, I'm the co-author with the fabulous Rocks Berkey.
03:41I'm Charles Brakefield.
03:42I'm an Air Force brat.
03:44I was born in Austin, Texas.
03:46So, I have, you know, I got to claim the, that particular title of being a naturalized Texan.
03:52But, because you're, when your dad says, hey, moving, we've picked up and moved every two years.
04:01I didn't realize people didn't live out of a box until I was 13.
04:04Okay.
04:05That's, yeah.
04:10I, born and raised in the Downriver Detroit area.
04:15And I've been here my whole life.
04:17So, yeah, you and I are kind of antithetical to each other in that regard.
04:25But the reason they are both here today is Enigma Jewels book series is a gripping techno thriller that will keep readers on edge of their seats.
04:38Award-winning authors, Brakefield and Berkey, weave a suspenseful narrative that will leave readers enthralled from the first page to the last.
04:48The Da Vinci Code and National Treasure fans will love this fast-paced and action-paced, action-packed novel.
04:58That's, of course, the propaganda that your PR guy, Mickey, that we both all know, sent out.
05:08And I love the Dan Brown books.
05:11I love the Dan Brown made movies.
05:13I love the National Treasure movies.
05:16Full disclosure, I've not read any of these books yet, but they already interest me based on that.
05:25So, Rox, what was the genesis of these books?
05:33Great question.
05:34Thank you very much, Joseph.
05:36So, this is actually the third book in the trilogy that we just released.
05:42Enigma Jewels.
05:43Yeah.
05:46What's the subtitle?
05:48Enigma Jewels is the overall series name, right?
05:54No.
05:55No?
05:55No.
05:56No.
05:57Enigma Jewels is this installment in the trilogy Enigma Heirs.
06:01So, Enigma Heirs is the next generation of our heroes.
06:04So, we've been writing for, like, 12-some-odd years.
06:09And so, it's kind of something that intrigued us as having stories that relate to three really bad half-brothers who all seem to have their own place in the world.
06:23Well, you can't have three halves.
06:26That would be right.
06:28The math don't work.
06:31Or three separate hairs of half-brothers.
06:35Charles?
06:38Explain that, Charles.
06:40Okay.
06:41So, they're half-brothers.
06:44They've got the same father, different moms.
06:48And his ambition was to have his own crime dynasty.
06:52And they took up where he was terminated early in his professional crime career.
07:01It's the back story.
07:03And then each one of them, each one of those brothers has their own criminal dynasty.
07:10So, everything is, they're related.
07:13They swap money back and forth.
07:15They do each other favors.
07:16You know, they whack people when they need to.
07:19You know, they launder money for using cryptocurrency.
07:22It's, you know, it's a great business model.
07:26Unfortunately, it's on the other side of the law.
07:29Okay, Rox.
07:30Since you're the transplant, I'll ask this of you.
07:34Because, again, this is fascinating to me since I write my own books.
07:39A collaboration with someone I find would be difficult.
07:44So, how did you come across Charles?
07:47How did the two of you come together to become this duo?
07:52Firstly, we were actually co-workers.
07:54And so, we came together from doing workshops for people, from crafting, you know, non-fiction
08:03kinds of white papers and publishing those for people and found we could work well together.
08:09And so, we set up our LLC to kind of create, you know, somewhere around 40 books right now.
08:17And so, Enigma airs.
08:20So, that trilogy starts with Enigma Tracer, then goes to Enigma.
08:28Forced.
08:30Forced.
08:30Forced.
08:31Thank you, Charles.
08:32And then goes straight to Enigma Jewels.
08:36So, each one, and so it's on the top left of my screen.
08:41Each one of those talks about one of the brothers and what happens to them at the end of the book.
08:48And the only one left standing is Julian in Enigma Jewels.
08:53And he has a fascination with jewels that are buried in the Caribbean from sunken ships.
09:00Okay, Charles, let's do the he said, she said.
09:04Well, we had the she said.
09:06What's your version of the tale of this marriage of convenience?
09:12Well, to be blunt, we were, we had just come off of our second tech manual.
09:19And if you've ever read tech manuals, they're.
09:23I've written them.
09:25Yeah.
09:25Yeah.
09:26Well, as soon as you finish with it, the publisher's like, we have a refresh on it because it's out of date.
09:32So, like, you know, I was, I got ticked.
09:35Okay, full disclosure.
09:37Like, I ticked and stomped off, grabbed my marbles up and just left.
09:40Said, I ain't doing this no more.
09:42I'm not, you know, but being the consummate saleswoman that she is, approached me a couple of months later and says, take a look at this.
09:52What is this?
09:53A couple of, just a couple of chapters.
09:54I think we can, we can take our, all the technology that we have and know, put it in the background, use fictional characters, and we'll make a great fictional story.
10:06I'm like, I don't know.
10:08I got to be, you know, I got to be romanced.
10:11I need flowers.
10:12I need, you know.
10:13And she's like, okay, all right, all right, all right, all right.
10:15And we can kill people and not go to jail.
10:17I'm like, sold.
10:18Okay.
10:19We're there.
10:19I love that answer.
10:24No offense, Rox, but that's a much more, I don't know what word to use here, but from an author.
10:34Yeah, there's the word, right.
10:36A much more intriguing and creative answer to that.
10:44You want to add anything more, though, to that, Rox, or is it like he said?
10:49No, that's the truth, and that's how we really started going down the path of fiction, because we could bend the stories and use live technology, and that's important.
11:01Yeah, I'm a former IT guy, so hence, like I said, I've written technical manuals myself, and yes, indeed, the minute it's done, usually things have changed and you've got to fix them.
11:14But so I forgot where I was going to go with that, but so I get right, but fictionalization, that's where I was going to go with that.
11:27Most people, like I've got a book, how to write a book and get it published, hints, tips, and techniques.
11:35The old saying, write about what you know, right?
11:39Yeah, like the old Dragnet TV, the names have been changed to protect the, right?
11:47You fictionalize parts of reality and write about what you know mixed in.
11:57Now, obviously, you don't know about killing, but so you're taking the fictionalization.
12:04Like, I don't know terrorism personally myself, though I've got terror strikes coming soon to a city near you, so I can relate in a way, right?
12:15I get to kill people in that book.
12:17So, that's kind of a fun thing in a way, right, Charles?
12:24You can, the old saying, like, living vicariously through others, you kind of get to break the law through your fictional characters.
12:35Well, part of that's true.
12:36We've brought in some people that we have known, actually come across, yes, one was a bank robber, and one was a drug, an actual drug dealer that had apparently, when I talked to the FBI about him, he apparently had killed his first wife to be able to get the insurance money to start his drug business.
12:59Because, you know, there's some things that you can't unhear, you just don't, you're always like, man, I'm going to remember that story for a long time.
13:11So, yeah, we do get some creative license to that.
13:18Yeah, creative people that we've come across.
13:20Yeah, we do sanitize them just a little bit, but, boy, they make great, we've got some great characters in our series and our books and backstories and short stories.
13:31So, a lot of us just, like you, I mean, you get to talk to new people, you get to find out some different, you know, what were you doing when you were 13, kind of thing.
13:42And you get these snippets of, like, yeah, I could use that for, you know, a real murderous character in number 10 or number 9.
13:51Yeah.
13:52Yeah, those are the things we get to, you know, people that we've met and perhaps didn't really work real well with them.
14:07Maybe we didn't like them.
14:08Maybe you were afraid they might murder you.
14:14Well, suffice to say, we got even with those people.
14:20Yeah, Rox, I hear exactly what he's saying.
14:24Like, my Terror Strikes book, I was never in the CIA or the FBI or a law, but I know those types of people.
14:34I don't out them as sources, but I know things, like you know things, learn things, that then, again, we can then all fictionalize to a degree.
14:47Right, Rox?
14:49Exactly.
14:50And we've been fortunate enough to be able to travel all over the world.
14:52So, the crazy people that we've met, you know, we either slice and dice personalities together to make...
15:01Composite characters, yes.
15:05And it works.
15:07It just works.
15:08And everybody says, oh, this technology can't be real.
15:12Yeah, well, it is.
15:14Because we do our research.
15:16And that's very important to us.
15:18Yeah, Charles, right?
15:20Yeah, composite.
15:21For those that don't know what a composite character is, if you've ever saw...
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