Behind the Pages: The Real Politics of Energy in LA Starks' 'Winner's Curse'

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Welcome to true crime authors and extraordinary people.

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Here is your host, David McClam.

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And welcome to another episode of true crime.

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All right.

If you're following the calendar, you know, again, it is time for yet another author.

And I have a good one here for you today.

Let me tell you who our guest is.

She earned a b's in engineering at Tulane University and an MBA at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.

Besides writing high stake thrillers, she is a paid contributor to seeking alpha for her energy investment articles and has run 21 and a half marathons.

She is the author of winners Curse.

Please welcome LA Starks.

Hey, LA, how you doing today?

Great.

I'm delighted to be here.

Thanks so much.

David, I don't know if you are a wrestling fan.

I told my daughter's gonna say this, but she jumped out of her seat because I said, I have an interview with LA.

And she let me finish.

She goes, why would La Knight?

I'm like, no, LA Starks.

There's a guy named LA Knights in wrestling.

I'll have to look him up.

But first, let me say happy pub day to you.

At the time of this shooting, your book winner's curse was released August 20.

So congratulations on getting your book out to the world.

It's very exciting.

We've worked on it a long time, and it's a big day.

So before we jump into that, here's a question I ask everyone that comes on the show.

Is there anything else about LA Starks that we should know that we don't?

Wow.

Let's see.

It takes me a long time to write the books.

How about that?

They don't.

It's not an overnight process, so nobody should get too excited about the next one soon.

Well, none of the great books ever comes quickly, and you are definitely one in that as well.

I do want to tap into this when we get into the book, because there's a lot with this.

You know, you have a b's in engineering.

You do deal a lot with energy.

So can you tell us a lot about what your job is dealing with energy?

Well, yes, exactly.

In fact, I started as I was, I'm a reader, still a reader.

Love to write.

Authors are, you know, the people I really like.

But I grew up in a refinery town, and there were lots of scientists and engineers around me.

And plan b, when I figured out I needed to support myself, was engineering, and I got into it.

And I particularly like the energy side.

And the energy side really lends itself to thrillers because it's not just in one place.

It's not just in the United States.

It's not just in Texas or Louisiana.

You're dealing with countries all over the world, and they're either trying to get energy, trying to buy it or sell it, or both.

And the stakes are just really high, which is perfect for thrillers.

So that's, I've, you know, I've been able, I've been fortunate to work in the energy business, and to me, it was just a natural for this other, you know, business that I love, thing I love, which is writing.

Now I'm going to read the audience the synopsis that's there, because when I read the synopsis of this book, and now that I'm reading the book is very close to home right now with what's going on in politics, especially around oil.

So let me kind of read that first.

So the first ever woman to lead the drilling division of Trico's energy protagonist, Lynn Dayton, is determined to prove herself capable, but finds herself facing more than just the usual water cooler backstabbing.

Undercutting her at every turn is former Trico's executive, Henry van der Voos, who blames her for his humiliating fall from power ruthlessness.

Competing with Lin for control of Mitlin Oral, his own Playboy Sons company has revolutionary energy technology that people will kill for.

Lynn must battle van der Voos and international power players who conspire to eliminate her and her colleagues for conspiracies to sabotage natural gas plants and complete a merger that will ensure that the technology remains in the hands of those that will use it to benefit the world.

When I read this, my mind goes to Kamala Harris, Donald Trump, other than just putting in there the presidency, if you change a few things here, it could be swung that direction.

If anybody's paying close attention to politics right now, Donald Trump is making a big play for oil and to drill on that, and that's what he wants to do.

Do you realize how close your book is to current politics?

And if so, what made you want to write that one?

These thrillers are kind of the work that I do.

I'm always kind of paying attention to what's going on.

So I'll look at who's exploring where in what part of the world, and because energy is so high stakes and because it's the basis of the economy, anybody, any country's economy, of course, it's fundamental to presidential politics.

So, yeah, it kind of all goes together.

And there is a scene, there's a scene in Washington.

The plays on a national level, it tends to play sort of a regulatory constraining role.

On an international level, it's much more kind of who's doing what deals with whom, who's selling to whom.

So let's talk a little bit about Lynn.

So Lynn is the protagonist.

She is the main character of this book, a strong woman, for one.

Congratulations.

We don't have, in my opinion, enough stories that is done around strong women.

In a lot of books that I've read where a woman has a part, she's usually very watered down or she has a little power, but not as much as the man.

Lynn Dayton has all the power and she's fighting the big boys in this book.

How did you come up with Lynn as a character?

It's drawn, of course, from my own experience and from experiences of people that I know, but also a lot from reading and kind of a lot from just what anybody would think.

You know, here's the situation.

What would I do in this situation?

It is true.

It is true.

It's kind of a weird thing with, with oil and gas that there, it's not a lot of people, but they control a lot of resources.

What's the best way to put that?

Like reserves that are worth a lot.

And so in my other job, I talk about oil and gas companies, and there'll be a few thousand people, but the reserves they control will be in the billions of dollars.

And so that is a natural part of the oil and gas business is not specific to Lyn as a protagonist.

Well, whenever I read her, I, my mind goes to the show Yellowstone.

If you ever read that or watch that show.

Beth is the woman that you really don't want to deal with.

Well, here I think the role that she has that's maybe different than like the prototypical sort of oil and gas or, you know, Guy role is, is that she is really focused on, as all engineers are, safety, the safety of her people.

You know, she's responsible for a lot of people and she feels that responsibility very, very deeply.

And so when her people are threatened, that's kind of, that's her like, call to action, if you will.

So I don't want to give too much of the book away because the book is great.

You guys need to go and read this book.

Now this is only one book in the series.

There's three other books that deals with Lynn Dayton.

Does a reader have to read those other three books before they read these?

This one or is these as standalone books?

These are these.

They work as standalones.

It's the same protagonist, but the story, you know, and there'll be a reference here and there, but they definitely work as a standalone.

So you can come in at any book in this series and it's self contained.

So how did you come up with the plot of the book and especially Henry van der Voost?

Henry van der Boost, well, he is a character from the first book, but what I really drew from was situations I've seen.

And this is a, for your readers who read the Bible, there's Abraham and Isaac.

And this is kind of an Abraham and Isaac story that's a father son.

And it's kind of how much will the father, will the father sacrifice his son?

I mean, I don't think I'm giving too much away by saying that that's sort of the meta part of it with the plot.

I wanted to really start with the hub of the energy business, which is Midland.

But as you see when you read it, kind of goes everywhere.

So to Spain, to hungary, to the UK and those threads that involve all of those.

But I really, I have wanted for a while to write about Midland because it's not like any place else.

It's not, you know, sort of, it's not giant.

It's not east Texas.

It's real.

It's really fast.

It's really aggressive.

And the people there are really just, you know, kind of wary because there's, because there's, it's so boom and bust and so, you know, you can be paying, you know, $500 for a hotel, you know, one night and, you know, 100 the next or 75 the next.

And it's, you're kind of like, okay, well, it's fine, you know, whatever.

So that's, and it's, it's, it's sort of like the desert, but not exactly.

So I wanted to, to capture all that.

Well, you do a good job in doing that.

I'm being very careful because your book takes off.

Right.

So if you read the book, you're not Lily gagging around before things starts to happen in the book.

So it's kind of one of those, when I interview other authors, if I say, hey, I can tell you like five minutes, but your book takes off.

I appreciate that because to me, in the thriller, I love authors who just gets to whatever I'm getting to because I have a short period of time that I can read throughout the day.

And if I'm reading the first 40 pages and it's leading me to the story, I've lost interest.

And that is definitely not the case in your book.

I'm like, wow, this was going to really just introduce and we just going to go.

So doing what you do, you know, how did you go from being a chemical engineer and how did you wind up writing thrillers?

Well, I am, as I said, kind of chemical engineering wound up being sort of my plan b.

And I do, you know, I love it.

I mean, it's this, it explains a lot.

And so, you know, got my bachelor's, decided I worked in a refinery, decided I didn't want to work in a refinery sort of the rest of my life.

So went to business school, and then, you know, the energy business kind of goes up and down, booms and busts.

And I caught a like toward the end of, of a boom, and it was kind of headed down, but worked in it for a long, long time.

Took some time off with my kids.

I was lucky enough to be able to spend time with my kids.

And then it sort of came back up.

And by this point, I was starting to.

The Internet was far more available, and it was kind of like, okay, I know something about this business.

I really care about it.

I'm looking at the supply and demand situation.

Is there something I can write about?

Is there a way I can write about investing in the business?

That's what I've been doing for the last several years on what you would call the nonfiction side.

Simultaneously, I was able to finally start, you know, version one of book one several years ago and 50 revisions later.

It was a book, but it's a any, as all I'm sure of your writers tell you, it's a process.

And I seemed to find as many blind alleys as anybody when I was first starting.

So I'll ask you this question, because I ask all authors this, and I usually get the same answer.

Some, I get one that's different.

So these characters that you create and you're, and, you know, to put on paper, do they become a living, breathing person to you?

Do you live with them in your head all times?

Sometimes they go to sleep when I've, when I, when I've paused or when I'm not, you know, I'm, when I'm not in the middle of writing a book, I don't think about them as much when I'm writing the book and particularly when I'm revising him.

They are real to me.

And I do think particularly, why are they doing what they're doing?

What are they after?

What's their motivation?

And what drives all books, certainly, at least all thrillers, is conflict.

How many kinds of conflicts can I put in there?

So then I am trying to perpetually put them in hot water.

Now, I know that this is book four in the Lynn Darton Dayton series.

Is it ending or do you have plans of writing more books based on Lynn Dayton?

It's, you know, and that's actually many people.

And this, one of the keys for writers, at least for me, is to name the characters.

And so Lynn Dayton wasn't her first name.

It was something else.

Very often you'll see the names of cities, and that's here, that's delivered.

Dayton, like Dayton, Ohio.

So that's, you know, sort of reals, Ohio central, you know, kind of basic american.

I would, I don't have a contract for the next book, but I do have places.

I, you know, at least often I start with locations, and I do have two locations that I would love to put into the next book.

So, so that's where I am with it now.

I know that probably this question I ask you probably sparked some of lint dating in the, in the book.

But as a female, that is an energy investor, how hard is it?

A lot of things we read in the book is, you know, is that true?

I'm sure by other dudes.

Are you trying to be shut down by men because you are a woman?

How do you feel it is for you as an energy investor?

On the energy investing side?

I get a lot of what I would call just sort of normal responses, and that's a measure, really, of how far things have gone and how much things have changed in that role.

I'm not exerting a particular kind of power.

And very often, you'll see this kind of, oh, not psyop stuff, but certainly, you know, the backstabbing, the struggles, whatever, over something that's really just lies, as with the presidential election we're talking about, that has a lot of.

That's important.

That's really.

And here on the energy investing, it's, I think, a lot about my investors.

I want to get things right.

I want to get things right for myself, but it's not life or death.

And so with the book, I'm really trying to, you know, up the ante, which means a lot less meetings in the book.

So I have to ask.

I know you probably knew I was going to ask this, but I got to know.

So can you tell us exactly what a cooling tower is and how you got trapped in one?

Okay.

Yes.

Well, this was when I was a baby engineer, and it was either an accident or it was hazing.

I really, to this day, I don't know which it was.

I was working in a refinery, and I was a tech service engineer.

All the baby engineers start out as tech service engineers.

And so you're doing projects around the refinery, and this project was to measure the temperature differential in.

In a water tower.

It's not the.

Not the cooling tower that you think of with, like, a nuclear plant, but it's more like a big, square wooden box.

The water runs through it, and by, you know, being exposed to the air, it cools off.

It has it.

And so I was.

I measured the water on the top, you know, and that's great.

You measured the temperature.

But then I had to go inside, and inside, it's like, it's dripping, it's wet, it's dark, you know, it's like being in a cave, really.

And the door only latched from the outside.

So I'm inside, I'm taking the temperature measurements, and I can't open the door.

And I can't open the door, and I can't open it.

And it seemed like, you know, an hour.

Well, finally, somehow, some way, I got the door open.

But for everybody who's ever experienced any kind of claustrophobia, it just.

It really.

And it came back really hard, you know, when I wrote this scene because, oh, my God, that was awful.

That's.

That's.

That is.

That is that story.

People have been.

If you've been in caves and kind of like, are been lost, it's like, oh, my God.

And that's.

That's what I was trying to portray.

I mean, and that, and that is, I mean that's what happened.

But that's also, I was trying to describe that and that there's a reference to that experience in the first book.

So tell me, why do you think politics and, you know, things like energy and things like that, why do you think that those make great thrillers?

Because they, things happen fast, which is part of thrillers.

There's a strong, pretty strong element of suspense.

You don't know how things are going to turn out.

It affects millions, billions of people.

So the stakes personally from a people standpoint are high and from a financial standpoint are high.

I think about this a lot with new economy, developing economies and there's some discussion.

Well they should start off with renewables.

Well, most developing economies start off with the coal.

And the reason for that, which is, you know, I, and which I totally understand the reason for that is it's affordable.

It's, you know, it's, it's always there.

You know, it's, you can, you can get your electricity twenty four seven and you just, you know, people know how to do it and that's, that's okay.

I mean you start with, you know, some basic energy and you build your, your economy and then, and then as we get richer and we're fortunate to be in that position, you know, we think of ways to reduce emissions, to be cleaner, to be, you know, more environmental.

And that's all important, too.

Yes, it did greatly.

I just always wonder that because, you know, a lot of the thrillers that we read deals with kidnapping, death, murder.

I have run into a couple that does deal with politics.

And I always wondered, okay, why does politics really, you know, make a good, I mean, with the scene we have playing out now, I mean if anybody wrote a book the way this is going, it would be a great read.

But I always wonder that, I mean, to tack onto that question, do you ever get any backlash from people that is political or from people that is in the energy field?

I don't think so.

I mean I, not really.

There are definitely people who have, you know, this have a certain view.

There's a stereotype, you know, oil and gas is bad and then they don't, you know, so they can't, they don't, there's no nuance.

That's kind of like not interested.

I mean, in fact, the second, the third book, I have scenes, it's set in New Orleans and in northern California and I recall a northern California bookstore, you know, beautiful place, all that kind of stuff.

And they just said you know, you know, could you make your next book about renewables?

So that's, I do, you know, people do definitely have opinions.

And what I, what I really wanted to do here and throughout is there are these very interesting risk takers in the energy business, in the oil and gas business, and they're perfect for thrillers.

And I wasn't seeing that and I wanted to portray that not unlike the way that we've been introduced to ranch life in Yellowstone and kind of how.

That works, being that you are an energy, I have this question for you.

This is another thing that's kind of on the ballot this year, is when it comes to, you know, gasoline cars versus electric cars.

I know in my state, which is California, Gavin Newsom, who's the governor here, is pushing a collective to move us more towards the electric side.

Biden is trying to put things in play that I guess by 20, by 2030 they would all be gone.

Do you feel like that there still is a spot for gasoline driven vehicles when electric vehicles now is cleaner, seem to cost less energy than gas at the pump.

What's your thoughts on that?

I absolutely do, of course.

But for me, I've got some friends who've got, for example, Teslas, and they're sweet cars.

The acceleration is beautiful.

They're quiet, all the things that we love about electric cars, so they are amazing.

Now, I will say in terms of them being clean, electric cars being clean, you look to what your energy source is.

Electricity is a secondary source, and it's fueled by primary sources.

And the primary sources that we think of as clean are solar and wind, hydro.

Nuclear is coming back in, but there's also a lot of electricity that's fueled by some still by coal less and natural gas, which is kind of low carbon.

So I think in California, the electricity is natural gas and renewables, and that's all pretty low carbon.

In China, your electric car is basically, you're running your car on coalition.

So it's not quite as clean as one would think.

I worked for a company that became part of BP that was based in California, and I went to, I was out in Los Angeles several times, and I just really, really, really sympathize and understand it's a beautiful state.

And if you're in Los Angeles and you're there when there's the bowl effect, you're getting the smog and the clean air.

We're all about clean air.

We're all about clean water.

And I totally get that.

I've always said when it came to clean air and water, things like that.

As horrible as the pandemic was, it showed us a lot of different things.

The United States was never as clean as it was in 2020.

We had animals that has never communicated with their young underwater doing so again, I think there's a lot of things to be learned from that.

Do you think, in the energy field and beyond that, they took a lot of cues of what happened and tried to make things better.

At this point, after the pandemic, I.

Think that if you'll talk to, for example, when I listen to, and I listen to a lot of different folks in the energy business, but in Pennsylvania and Midland, wherever.

But what strikes me as Pennsylvania, because Pennsylvania is first, where the.

Where the shale oil was developed.

Shale oil, more shale, natural gas was developed.

And the guys who run those companies say, we hunt, we fish, we want everything to be just as clean as everybody else does.

So the industry has a pretty vested interest in keeping things cleaned up and keeping it rolling.

It's absolutely true that what the pandemic showed us is just like what we're doing right now.

We could have these conversations at a distance without being in the same room, and that was just.

It was enlightening.

And honestly, it's a wonderful thing.

I go to write to my parents.

My parents don't live here in the same town that I do.

They're 300 miles away.

But one of the first people I knew who used Zoom was my mother.

And all of a sudden, we're communicating much better and on a much more regular basis.

So I almost think what it was particularly good for, what the pandemic was particularly good for was improving, enhancing our ways of communication and.

Yes, exactly.

You didn't have to, you know, get on a plane every time you wanted to talk to somebody.

So, in regards to winners curse, can you tell us, what do you want readers to take away from the book?

I really.

My first thing with every book is I want people to be entertained, and I want them to, you know, have a good story and, you know, want to turn the pages and.

And get to the end of it.

I, you know, I'm very cognizant and sensitive to the difference between fiction and nonfiction, and so there's some, you know, there's definitely real life stuff in there, and I want people to kind of, you know, here's what goes on with Midland and here, you know, all this kind of stuff.

But.

But really, it's just, you know, I want them to have fun with the book, and that's a.

That's primary.

Why should someone go out and buy a copy of winner's curse?

Well, it's, it's entertaining.

It's my quick summary.

It's a suspenseful thriller filled with energy intrigue, as my folks say, ripped from today's headlines.

And it's a story about conspiracies to get control of a valuable oil field technology and to sabotage natural gas plants.

And as the first woman to lead her drilling division and her company, the protagonist, Lynn Dayton, her challenges escalate to thwarting these conspiracies.

So it's a, I put a lot into, into making it a good story.

So in closing, is there anything you'd like to say to your fans or anyone that's listening today?

Buy the book.

But no.

Yes.

I mean, of course.

But I really, I appreciate all my fans and all my readers and I think of you as I write the book and particularly as I revise it to make it interesting to you.

And so it's my, you are my audience and I want to, I want for you to find the book interesting and suspenseful and to be flipping the pages past midnight.

Well, hey, thanks for coming on the show.

I could tell you the book is fabulous.

I'm going to go check out your other books now because you write really well.

It really was intriguing as a page turner and you're dealing with today's headlines.

And I do think as an author, that's bold, because now in today's climate, if we just say anything about politics, whether it's for or against, you get your throat jumped down.

So I do think that you were very courageous writing about this.

Anytime you want to come back on the show, you know how to get a hold of me.

Please let me know.

David, thank you so much.

This has been so much fun.

All right, guys, that was the fabulous La Starks.

You can get her book winter's curse at Amazon and other places books are sold.

If you are a Kindle unlimited subscriber, you can read it for free.

However, I remind you, as always, just because you download it does not support LA.

You need to read the book and turn to pages for her to get paid.

Also, while you're there, go ahead and check out her other books, which I'm sure is just as great as this one.

Alright, once again, thank you for joining me today.

I know you have many choices in true crime and interview podcasts.

I am grateful that for the last two and a half years you have chose me.

You have been listening to the only three faceted podcasts of its kind.

Be good to yourself and each other.

And always remember, always stay humble.

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A little love and compassion can go a long way.

And remember that there is an extraordinary person in all of us.

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