January 8 2026
Ep9 Tim’s Travails: Today we invite you to listen to two attorney turned authors talk about their journeys, art and craft as Tim welcomes award-winning noir author Christopher Chambers
January 2026 — This month on IP attorney and author Timothy Trainer’s podcast/video show we meet attorney turned award-winning noir author Christopher Chambers
Today’s Topic: Author to Author • Attorney to Attorney
Tim will talk with Chris about:
- How does being a life-long Washington, D.C., resident influence your writing?
- What allows you to capture the “gritty” aspects of your novels?
- Washington, D.C., has historically been viewed as a high-crime city, but that crime is often concentrated in neighborhoods where the victims are nameless, faceless people. Yet, if a staffer from Capitol Hill or someone with political connections is a victim of crime, it hits the front page and national media, how do you reconcile this, or is that possible?
- Why is it that when a DC resident is the victim, few seem to care, but earlier this year when someone who was part of the DOGE army was a victim, it got the attention of the White House. Similarly, the recent shooting of National Guard members caused the White House to threaten a more uniformed presence. Why such a different reaction?
Don’t miss it!
About our guest: Chris is a lecturer at Georgetown University, Chair of the International Conflict Resolution Center and is General Counsel to a not-for-profit benefitting HBCUs: Student Housing of America. He is the author of the Angela Bivens thriller series for Random House, The Rocket Crockett pulp noir series, and Black Pulp for Prose-Press, and editor, along with Gary Phillips, of The Darker Mask graphic short story collection, the Bronze Buckaroo Rides Again: Honoring Harlem’s Herb Jeffries. He was a finalist in 2008 for the PEN/Malamud Short Story Award for “Leviathan.”
He’s contributed short stories to The Obama Inheritance: 15 Stories of Conspiracy Noir (Three Rooms Press) and is the winner of the Anthony Award. The Black Panther: Tales Of Wakanda, The Faking of the President, and Midnight Hour, Witnesses for the Dead with Gar Anthony Haywood–all major award-winning collections and bestsellers. His noir hardboiled mystery Scavenger (2020) won a starred review and profile in Publishers Weekly; the sequel Standalone sees the return of the indestructible homeless addict turned PI Dickie Cornish, patrolling the unforgiving city streets ravaged by COVID, with the third in the trilogy Streetwhys in 2025. His next Marvel contribution is in Captain America: The Shield of Sam Wilson.
About Chris’s latest book, “Street Whys:” We again meet Washington, DC’s notorious detective, former street denizen Dickie Cornish, who faces off with bloodthirsty cops and the justice department. Underground detective Dickie Cornish faces a vindictive murder rap from his past if he doesn’t agree to help prove that the fentanyl ravaging the streets of DC is bankrolled by shadowy donors of a certain former president. Broke and desperate, Cornish soon finds himself on a collision course with shady public defenders and corrupt police officers, forcing him to use his street connections to flip their plan. Or die.
The Dickie Cornish series has met with widespread critical acclaim: Publishers Weekly dubbed the series debut, Scavenger, “[A] no-holds-barred crime novel…a 21st-century twist on traditional hardboiled noir.” The Strand Magazine selected Standalone, the second book in the series, as one of the “Top 25 Mystery Novels of the Year,” adding, “It’s apparent that the modern heir to Chandler, Woolrich, and Cain is Christopher Chambers, enough said.” And renowned crime author George Pelecanos raves that the series “really nails Washington, DC in the current environment.” Click here to buy the book.
Photos of Tim by AnnaGibbs.com
About Tim’s Travails: In this podcast/video sereis, IP attorney and author Tim Trainer introduce us to experts around the country who have insight into the law, international trade, and more, to help us better understand our world in 2025 and beyond.
Tim, himself, fits the bill for he worked for three decades for the US government and private law firms focusing on international trade, and has developed a deep understanding of global economics and politics.
Writing books is his passion. The author of seven books as of 2025, he has penned several non-fiction tomes, including his first book, Customs Enforcement of Intellectual Property Rights; the 15th edition was published in 2020. Thomson Reuters’ Aspatore Books published Tim’s next title in 2015, Potato Chips to Computer Chips: The War on Fake Stuff. Fiction was a genre he always wanted to try. In 2017, Pendulum Over the Pacific was released by Joshua Tree Publishing. “This political intrigue story is set in Tokyo and Washington, D.C., and centers on trade tensions between the U.S. and Japan in the late 1980s,” Tim explains. In 2023, his first series hit bookstores: The China Connection. In December 2024, he followed it with The China Factor.
Stay tuned for more episodes on InkandescentRadio.com and Inkandescent.tv, and of course, log in regularly for new blog entries and other information on Tim’s website, www.TimothyTrainer.com.
