Andrew Madigan’s colorful job history — with positions based in Ohio, Japan and Dubai — comes in handy in his new endeavor as a crime fiction writer. His newest book, A Nice Safe Place, was published in August and includes locales that may be familiar to readers in the DMV. Photo courtesy of Andrew Madigan

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Writer Andrew Madigan, 55, has had his share of odd jobs. The father of three from Springfield, Virginia, has been a janitor, construction worker, substitute teacher, baseball groundskeeper, temp and beer taster. He even did a summer stint in 1995 as a stand-in for Bill Murray, pulling long hours in place of the actor during camera blocking and lighting setups.

Madigan, who went on to be a professor and published author, tackled all his side gigs with a strong work ethic.

“I looked at being a professor the same way as I did as a janitor,” he said in an interview with the Beacon. “Work hard, do my job, go home.”

But Madigan’s longest career has been in the field of writing, his day job. For several decades he has been writing poetry, short stories and articles for publications from Salon to The Guardian to the Washington Post.

Third novel just out

This month, Madigan’s third novel was published by Next Chapter, a publisher based in Japan and Finland. A Nice Safe Place tells the story of a missing girl in the fictional town of Belvue, Missouri.

“It’s an amalgam of places — from the St. Louis area, from a small town in Ohio where I lived, and from the D.C. area,” Madigan explained.

Some scenes are set in bars similar to a few in the D.C. area, including the former Cowboy Café in Arlington and Harry’s Bar in downtown D.C.

Although Madigan is a father of three daughters, he claimed he didn’t have trouble writing about an abducted child in A Nice Safe Place.

“I come from a long line of surgeons and military officers and nurses and people who aren’t too squeamish,” he said.

Madigan, who has lived in Japan, the U.K., the Middle East and South Korea, said his love of books came from his childhood in Springfield.

“I come from a big family, and we had a lot of books around. Even at age 10 I would read Mark Twain, Dickens, George Eliot. I would just read whatever I could get my hands on,” he said.

Madigan went on to receive his bachelor’s degree in English from William & Mary, then got a Ph.D. in American literature from St. Louis University, all the while picking up life experience in blue-collar jobs.

“While I was in school, I was delivering pizza and I worked as a janitor,” he said. “I didn’t take it all that seriously.”

Early inspiration from travel

He met his wife, Maura, in St. Louis, and “for adventure,” he said, the couple moved to Dubai, where he got the idea for his first novel, Khwala’s Wall.

“Someone told me a story, and I just started writing it up. First as a short story, then it grew into a novella and finally a novel,” he said. Khawla’s Wall: A Dubai Novel was published 10 years ago by Second Wind.

His second book, a crime novel called Dark Side of the Street, was published in 2020 by Gumshoe Books, an imprint of Next Chapter, and was translated into Spanish.

Although crime writing is a relatively new genre for Madigan, he’s always admired the noir novels of Raymond Chandler.

“My first novel was a literary novel, but now I’ve switched to only writing crime fiction. If I had to say there was one writer these books bear some resemblance to, it would be Elmore Leonard,” he said.

Indeed, some scenes in A Nice Safe Place are as darkly funny as a Leonard tome, and Madigan includes wry one-liners in many of his published pieces.

A Nice Safe Place is the first book in the “Cutler Trilogy,” three books about suspicious characters in Belvue. Madigan has finished writing the second book in the series, and it’s scheduled to be published next year.

In the meantime, he’s working on an unrelated novel set in the 1960s and is juggling other writing projects — all the while conjuring up new stories.

“I get up every day and I write for a few hours, then revise for an hour or so,” he said. “It’s very much an ingrained habit, so sometimes the ideas just come to you. I’m not really sure where they come from.”

Maura Madigan, who is an elementary school librarian, also writes fiction in her spare time.

Early in their marriage, she encouraged her husband to look for jobs abroad. Their daughters, ages 24, 22 and 14, were all born overseas (in Okinawa, Dubai and Abu Dhabi, respectively).

Twelve years ago, the family moved back to Springfield, where Madigan’s family has lived since the 1850s. Madigan said it was his children who wanted to settle down in America.

“Eventually they wanted to move back to the States and go to a normal school, by which they meant something more like the one in High School Musical,” Madigan said in an email.

“It was a good idea to come back, though disappointing for them that [movie star] Zac Ephron was not in any of their classes.”

A Nice Safe Place is available on Amazon.com.