Look and Listen

Biography

Kinqade was born in a small Midwestern town just a stone’s throw west of Chicago, Illinois. He spent his childhood running wild thru the countryside. He’s lived in the country most of his life and prefers it to dwelling in the city. As a young boy he elected to attend private school and continued to do so until his college years. He attended some of the most prestigious and top ranked educational institutions not only in the state, but in the entire nation. At least, they were some of the best schools in his day. By his own admission, Kinqade was a lazy student and, more often than not, refused to participate in class. He recalls being constantly admonished by members of the faculty for that and not working to his potential. Despite such facts, he managed to stand well ahead of the crowd, academically speaking, and with very little effort. It was soon discovered that his IQ was highly above average. Additionally, standardized test scores revealed his quality of education was far beyond expected levels. In a total graduating class of over 500 students at a nationally top rated school, Kinqade was ranked in the top 5% of his class. “…I was always ditching class. My attendance record was atrocious. In fact, it was so poor that I was nearly forced to appear in front of the educational board to explain my excessive absences. When I did attend class, I rarely completed any assignments. I almost never cracked a book or studied for an exam. Nevertheless, my appetite for knowledge was insatiable and the amount I had amassed was formidable. Generally, I was well liked by the instructors and I outperformed most of my classmates. I always excelled and was far above average in an environment that was above average to begin with…” - DK Growing up, Kinqade loved books. He loved to read and did a great deal of it. He credits that fact to the encouragement he was given by his parents to pursue literary, artistic, and musical interests. “…My parents have always been supportive of nearly every endeavor I’ve undertaken and whatever interests I had at the moment...” -DK “…By the time I was twelve years old, I was very interested in philosophy and theology. While most boys my age were playing football, I was reading textbooks on logic, philosophical treatises, and theological texts on religious dogma and catechism. While other boys were chasing after a baseball, I was reading Lao Tzu and Plato…” -DK “…As a child I never owned a single comic book. I was an adult before I discovered that guilty little pleasure…” -DK “…As a kid, I read a great deal of educational or reference material. I also read many paperbacks. I was particularly fond detective and spy novels. However, I read my fair share of trashy novels and even some lurid romance type stuff. One of my favorite paperback novels was titled The Ninja and was written by Eric Van Lustbader. That, by the way, has to be one of the coolest names of an author I‘ve ever encountered. I found that novel in a box of books in my grandparents basement. I was about six years old when I read that. Anyway, The Ninja and The Carpet Baggers by Harold Robbins was the beginning of my love affair with paperbacks…” -DK Adult Life After college, Kinqade spent two years being, as he states it, “…a professional bum and doing absolutely nothing…”. That ended when, as he says, “…I met a girl and fell stupid in love. That effectively put an end to my carefree and easy life, at least for the time being…”. They dated for a year, were engaged for another year, and married for four years. The entire relationship lasted six years. Then they divorced. Over the years, Kinqade had many professions. He’s been a fry cook, line cook, kitchen prep-man, head chef and a dish washer. He’s milked cows on a dairy farm, worked construction, retail sales and he's been a customer service representative. He’s worked in hardware, lumber, construction materials and supplies. He’s been a shipping and receiving clerk. He’s done assembly work, packaging work, and CNC programming in factories. He’s also been middle management. Primarily and most profitably, he was a professional commercial driver, which is a fancy way of saying that he drove semi-tractor trailers for a living. That’s right! He was a truck driver, driving big rigs and specialized in bulk tankers transporting liquid hazardous material. He also drove regular dry van for a significant period of time. For a period of eight and a half years following the divorce, Kinqade buried himself in work. He spent upwards of twelve to sixteen hours a day with his nose to the grindstone. During that time, he found himself in a very comfortable financial position. He’d managed to settle any outstanding debts and to save a respectable little sum of cash. Since then, Kinqade has quit his job and returned to being a professional bum or as he now prefers to call it “a gentleman of leisure”. To earn a living, despite his self-proclaimed lack of creative writing talent, he began writing pulp style detective fiction in January 2009. It all began with, what he calls, “The Pulp Revival Project”. The project has resulted in a collection of short stories which have been published in a series of paperbacks entitled Black Book Detective Tales (BBDT). Black Book Detective Tales is a series of books intended to be reminiscent of detective pulp magazines such as Black Mask and Dime Detective. His first short story introduced the fictional private detective Jack Dylan. The character of Jack Dylan is foremost within the genre of hardboiled crime fiction that originated in the 1920's, most notably with Black Mask magazine, in which Dashiell Hammett's Sam Spade and Raymond Chandler's Philip Marlowe appeared. Dylan first appeared in a short story entitled Crystal Blue Persuasion, published in BBDT Volume # 1. In December 2008 Dixon began work on his first full length novel entitled The Shadow of Fu Hong Wu. At present this is still a work in progress, but should be completed shortly. More information to be announced.

Inspiration

Kinqade’s creation of the character Jack Dylan was clearly influenced by the school of hardboiled detective fiction made famous by predecessors of the genre.His protagonist, Jack Dylan, is synonymous with “private detective” along side Dashiell Hammett’s Sam Spade, Raymond Chandler’s Philip Marlowe, and Mickey Spillane’s Mike Hammer.