Today Tootsie is visiting Ascroft, eh? to tell us about The Hasidic Rebbe’s Son, the latest novel in the Becks Ruchinsky mystery series.

Welcome, Tootsie. Let’s get started, shall we?

Tell us about the novel that you live inside. Is it part of a series? If so, please tell us about the series too.

Thanks, Bud, for having me here. I’m Tootsie and my daughter, Becks, thinks she’s the protagonist, but she don’t know nothing. Tries to foist me off as her sidekick. This writer broad, Joan Lipinsky Cochran, included me in her Becks Ruchinsky Murder Mystery series because she knows what’s good for her. Last book, The Yiddish Gangster’s Daughter, is about Becks search into my past as a member of the Jewish mafia. Claims it nearly cost her life.  The Hasidic Rebbe’s Son is about the murder of a Hasidic kid Becks told her son she’d protect … and blew it. Found him floating in a canal and had to go gallivanting off to secretive Hasidic communities and into the South Beach night club scene to find the killer.

Does the writer control what happens in the story or do you get a say too?

Like I said, this writer broad knows what’s good for her and if I want to take over and go in my own direction, so be it.

How did you evolve as the main character?

Okay, maybe I’m not the main character. But I should be.

Do you have any other characters you like sharing the story with? If so, why are you partial to them?

Finally, the old man lets me talk. I’m Becks and, to tell you the truth, I never know what’s going to come out of Tootsie’s mouth. So that’s fun … usually. He’s got a lot of connections, some of them not so nice, in Miami so he’s helpful there. Plus he’s smart and determined and occasionally provides some useful advice. My friend Maya’s a sexpot/private eye so she’s great at digging up information –mostly through her databases and police buddies – and has the savvy and charm when I need her to hit the club scene. I’m a former investigative reporter working as a food and cookbook writer. I keep stumbling over murders that the police claim are accidents.

What’s the place like where you find yourself in this story?

My husband, Daniel, just moved back in after a one-year separation and we’re working that out. He’s not that thrilled with my detecting and I’m not that thrilled with his trying to tell me how to live my life. My son Gabe’s getting along better, despite his Asperger’s syndrome, which is why I couldn’t disappoint him when he asked me to shelter his Hasidic friend.

Is there anything else you’d like to tell readers about you and the book?

It was tough breaching the Hasidic community and much of what I learned there challenged my basic belief systems concerning religion. My son, on the other hand, dove right in, growing sideburns and praying around the clock like the friend who was murdered.

Thank you for answering my questions, Tootsie and Becks, and good luck to you and your author, Joan Lipinsky Cochrane, with The Hasidic Rebbe’s Son, the latest book in the Becks Ruchinsky mystery series.

Readers can learn more about Tootsie and Becks and their author, Joan Lipinsky Cochrane by visiting the author’s website and her Facebook and Instagram pages. You can also follow her on Twitter.

The novel is available online at  Amazon

About Joan Lipinsky Cochran: Joan is a South Florida-based writer whose crime and mystery novels focus on subcultures of American Judaism. In her latest novel, The Hasidic Rebbe’s Son, her protagonist is compelled to explore the glitzy South Beach nightclub scene and the secretive world of Hasidic Judaism to find a killer. It is the second in The Becks Ruchinsky Mystery Series. The first, The Yiddish Gangster’s Daughter, is the story of a woman whose world is upended – and life threatened – when she discovers her father was a member of the Jewish mafia.