Scott Butki interview with Andrew Wilson

I bring good news for fans of Agatha Christie:  Author Andrew Wilson is writing a series I think Christie fans, and many others, will truly enjoy.

Wilson, an award winning journalist, has written biographies of Patricia Highsmith, Sylvia Plath and Alexander McQueen and that work enriches his other fiction writing.

Wilson, a big fan of Christie, has come up with a clever idea for a series: Have Agatha Christie as a character in the books.

In Death in a Desert Land, Agatha Christie gets a letter from a family who believes their late daughter, a prominent archaeologist, recovering ancient treasures in the Middle East met with foul play. While Gertrude Bell overdosed on sleeping medication, found near her body was a letter claiming that Bell was being followed and to complicate things further, Bell was competing with another archaeologist, Mrs. Woolley, for the rights to artifacts of immense value.

Christie travels to far-off Persia, where she meets the enigmatic Mrs. Woolley as she is working on a big and potentially valuable discovery. Temperamental but brilliant, Mrs. Woolley quickly charms Christie but when she does not hide her disdain for the recently deceased Miss Bell, Christie doesn’t know whether to trust her—or if Bell’s killer is just clever enough to hide in plain sight.

Wilson was kind enough to let me interview him about his novel and his series.

Scott Butki: How did you come up with the idea for this story?

Andrew Wilson: I’ve always been fascinated by the real-life travels of Agatha Christie and intrigued that the writer traveled from England by herself to the archaeological site of Ur in southern Iraq in 1928. It was the location for her 1936 novel Murder in Mesopotamia. The other source of my inspiration was the Mesopotamian collection, particularly the artifacts from Ur, held at the British Museum. There is a stunning collection of daggers, death masks, exquisite jewelry and details of what the archaeologist Leonard Woolley—a real-life figure who is one of the characters in my novel—named “The Great Death Pit.” He unearthed evidence of ritual human sacrifice—the servants of the King and Queen of Ur seemed happy to give up their lives when the royals passed away. I thought this would make the perfect backdrop for a murder mystery, which Agatha Christie herself has to solve.

Scott: What made you decide to start a series of novels in which author Agatha Christie is a character? Why her instead of one of her characters? How far back did you have this idea?

Andrew: I first came up with the central idea for the series — Agatha Christie as detective—on a train, which is a very Christie location. It just came to me out of blue. The first novel in the series, A Talent for Murder, was published in 2017 and I had the idea back in 2013.

I couldn’t include any of her characters in the books — Poirot and Miss Hercule are copyrighted characters and are the intellectual property of Agatha Christie Ltd. I didn’t want to do that anyway, as I wanted to explore the personality of Agatha Christie herself, who was such a fascinating person.

Scott: How did you research the books in this series? Should they be read in order?

Andrew: For A Talent for Murder I looked at police statements, newspaper reports and various books to piece together the real-life sequence of events surrounding Agatha’s disappearance in 1926. I also travelled to Newlands Corner, in Surrey, where Agatha abandoned her car and also to Harrogate, the place where she was discovered after ‘disappearing’ for 10 days. For A Different Kind of Evil I traveled out to Tenerife, where Agatha visited back in 1927.

And although I wanted to travel to Iraq for research for Death in a Desert Land, it was too dangerous. I have been to Yemen so I drew upon my memories of travelling through the desert for that book.

They are stand alone novels, but of course they follow a chronological course, starting with A Talent for Murder, set during the real-life disappearance of Agatha Christie in 1926. This was followed by A Different Kind of Evil, set in early 1927 when Agatha traveled to Tenerife and the third one is Death in a Desert Land, set in 1930 in Baghdad and southern Iraq.

Scott: Believe it or not there are some readers who might come to your books having never read any Agatha Christie. Would you encourage them to read some of her books before they start yours? If so which is a good one to start with?

Andrew: Yes—of course! You don’t have to read Christie to enjoy my novels, but you probably will get more out of them if you do. There are lots of playful references and sidelong glances to Christie’s work. I’d start with one of her masterpieces, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, which was published in 1926. I’d also add Death on the Nile, And Then There Were None, and Five Little Pigs.

Scott: How did having previously written biographies of Patricia Highsmith and Sylvia Plath help you as you wrote this series? Also how does your journalism background affect your work as a novelist?

Andrew: I love the process of the biographical research, looking through archives, letters and old photographs to bring someone alive from the past. I set these novels in locations we know Agatha visited at a specific time—for instance, we know that Agatha traveled to southern Iraq, and visited the archaeological dig of Ur, in the autumn of 1930. I try to capture the essence of certain places.

Scott: I see from your biography that you wrote a book about the survivors of the Titanic.  How did you come up with that idea, and how did it go?

Andrew: I’ve always been fascinated by the story of the Titanic, but I realized that all narratives ended when the rescue ship, the Carpathia, docked in New York. I wanted to know what happened to the 705 survivors after that point. How did the disaster effect them? How did it shape the rest of their lives? And I discovered a mostly unpublished archive belonging to Walter Lord—author of A Night to Remember—at the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich, London, which was a treasure trove of information.

Scott: What are you working on next?

Andrew: I’m finishing the edits on the next novel in the series, which is called I Saw Him Die, and set in August 1930 on the island of Skye in Scotland. Agatha Christie was there on Skye for a month before her second marriage to the archaeologist Max Mallowan. It’s a homage to Christie’s nursery rhyme novels.

Scott:  Your bonus question: What is a question you wish you would get asked in interviews. Here’s your chance to ask and answer it.

Andrew: Who are your literary parents?

I’m the son of Agatha Christie and Patricia Highsmith!

SCOTT BUTKI’S INTERVIEW WITH JOHN GALLIGAN

With Bad Axe County, John Galligan completely blew me away with a character and plot that kept me on the edge of my seat.

I was particularly taken with a protagonist who as a teenager in the midwest was named Dairy Queen, but in the present is a bad-ass interim sheriff of rural Bad Axe County, put in that role after the death of her corrupt predecessor.

In addition to fighting crime, dealing with misogyny and corruption she is also trying to solve the mystery of her parents dying more than ten years prior and being skeptical of the police writing it off as a murder-suicide. In the middle of a storm she is also trying to track down and stop human trafficking.

Galligan let me interview him via email.

Scott Butki: How did you come up with this story? Which came first, the characters or the plot?

John Galligan: First came Sheriff Heidi Kick. I was taken by the idea of a girl who grows up in a rural Wisconsin community and is a star in one venue—she is the Crawford County Dairy Queen, and later the Dairy Queen for the whole state of Wisconsin—and later plays a completely different role in that same place. When you talk about a smart, beautiful, fully rounded Wisconsin farm girl, you are talking about a very formidable person, someone who can milk a cow, do calculus, ride rodeo and play softball, drive any kind of machine, shoot a gun, play at least one musical instrument, and look naturally pretty, all without being much aware of how special she is. So I wanted to put a young woman like that in a position of power and see what happened. Then I did research into crime in the rural Midwest and the plot came from that (see question 3).

Scott: You had me pulled in from the start, with the protagonist of Heidi White, daughter of murdered parents who has to deal with sexism and her Dairy Queen past. How did you develop this great character?

John: It was easy to fall in love with a character like Heidi Kick, and because I spend so much time in rural Wisconsin I see young women who could be Heidi all the time. In my novel The Nail Knot, everybody’s favorite minor character, and mine too, is a young farm woman named Junior who is taking care of her dad, who has dementia, while she tries to keep the farm afloat. So Junior is the prototype for Heidi Kick—me taking a favorite minor character from another book and building her into a heroine. I did research into the whole queen phenomenon in the rural Midwest (maybe elsewhere too), where, swear to God, there is a queen (and princesses) for everything. Something perhaps about the need to acknowledge (and perhaps confine) femininity in rural cultures. I also did research into the way women with power are often treated in the workplace. Some of this shocked me. I expected sexism . . . but not the truly ugly open hatred that many women have to face. All of the violent and hateful tweets directed at Sheriff Kick come directly from that research. They are real things that men have directed at women above them in their workplace. My experience as a baseball player also informs this. I have spent a lot of time in the “trenches” of misogyny . . . and you don’t want to know . . . except you will know if you read Bad Axe County. Finally, I think I am able to feel very close to Heidi’s heart as a parent, and I was able to tap into my feelings and experiences as a dad to understand how she might feel and behave as a sheriff who is also, and foremost, a mother. 

Scott: Human trafficking is one of those dark, awful topics that people often don’t talk about, let alone write about it. Why did you decide to tackle it?

John: As I said in my answer to Question 1, first I had a female sheriff—in fact, the first and only female sheriff in Wisconsin. Then I researched crime in the rural Midwest. I came across a study where the researchers were interested in sex trafficking. They interviewed rural law enforcement leaders across the Midwest—almost all men—about their perceptions of this problem in their communities. Overwhelmingly, they reported that there was little or no problem, that sex trafficking for the most part did not exist. The researchers then interviewed people who worked in women’s shelters and crisis centers, and women’s health services—almost all of them women—and heard from them that sex trafficking not only occurred but in their view was epidemic. 

So what happens if suddenly law enforcement is being led by a woman? What if suddenly we have Sheriff Heidi Kick in an environment where sex trafficking has previously been tolerated or ignored? What becomes visible? What happens when a woman sheriff tries to enforce change?

The research I did on sex trafficking and the closely related business of pornography was harrowing and often hard to continue. Same for some of the writing. But I couldn’t turn back once I understood how real this was, and what a perfect challenge it was for the first woman sheriff in the Bad Axe.

Scott: Do you know of a place like Bad Axe County or was it a total invention?

John: Bad Axe County is a fictional county in a real place, the coulees of southwestern Wisconsin, a rugged, generally impoverished, sparsely populated, and gorgeous region along the Mississippi River. It’s my favorite place to be. Bad Axe is a place name in the region. I have inserted Bad Axe County between two real counties, Vernon and Crawford. 

Scott: Is this novel a stand alone or part of a series?

John: It is part of series. I am currently at work on the next one, starring Heidi Kick and tentatively titled Dead Man Polka. 

Scott: How has your background, ranging from journalist to cab driver to film screenwriter to living in Japan, among other things, affected your work as a novelist?

John: It all works together somehow. As a journalist I learned to sit my butt down and write to meet deadlines. Nothing like it for vanquishing the whole notion of writer’s block. Screenwriting was how I learned to write visually and tell a story. I’ve always been adventurous, and experiences like working in the salmon industry in Alaska, hitchhiking across the country, driving a cab, teaching poetry in a prison, immersing myself in rural Japan, etc., obviously broaden my view of humanity and give me ideas and characters to write about. The experience in Japan, particularly, stripped me down to zero, made me aware of what it meant to be a white American male, and I was privileged by that opportunity and rebuilt myself as a different, more aware person. I am very proud of the novel I wrote based on that experience, my first, Red Sky, Red Dragonfly, which the reviewer for the major English newspaper in Japan called “one of the most authentic evocations of this country and its people I have read.” It took me seven years to complete, and in that time I became a novelist.  

Scott: How has teaching affected your writing?

John: A massive and continuous encounter with human souls . . . all the more because as a writing teacher my job is to help students find their voices and express their truths clearly to the world. Writing, both the process and the product, is one of the most deeply and fully integrating human experiences, in my view. 

Scott: Let’s end with what I call the bonus question: Here’s a chance to ask a question you wish interviewers would ask and then answer it.

John: What about your other books? See question 6 for my first novel. After that I wrote a serious of murder mysteries, The Nail Knot, The Blood Knot, The Clinch Knot, and The Wind Knot, which feature a nomadic fly fisherman crisscrossing the country trying to fish himself to death but instead finding life in the people he meets and reason to keep living in the murder cases he solves. And no, while fly fishing is the milieu and the metaphor, they are not about fishing or for fishermen. Many non-fisher-persons enjoy them and the most common thing I hear is, “Wow. What a story! And your books really make me want to learn to fly fish.”  I hope readers will give my other novels a try too.

THEY’RE RALLYING IN THE TOWN SQUARE: SCOTT BUTKI INTERVIEWS ACE ATKINS

Ace Atkins is one of my three favorite current crime writers, for his captivating series about former U.S. Army Ranger Quinn Colson, and he continues to impress on his 8th book in the series, The Shameless.

(In case you’re curious the rest of the three are Laura Lippman and Craig Johnson.)

The Quinn Colson books always have fascinating characters and interesting plots and plot twists. This new one is better than usual because there’s a political candidate criticizing the media as “fake news” as well as an alt-right group, so he’s capturing some of the current climate in America.  This new one also has buried secrets, dirty lies, and lots of greed and ambition.

One of the main plot lines in the new book involves how 20 years ago a teen boy named Brandon Taylor was thought to be just another teenager who ended his life too soon. Now, two New York-based reporters working on a podcast show up in town, asking Sheriff Quinn Colson and others important questions: What happened to the evidence? Where are the missing files? Who really killed Brandon?

While Quinn wants to help and his wife was a close friend of Brandon, Quinn was just a kid himself when this all happened in 1997. Quinn’s also busy now dealing with a criminal syndicate trafficking drugs and women through the MidSouth.

Quinn’s been fighting evil and corruption since he was a kid, at home or as a U.S. Army Ranger in Afghanistan and Iraq. This time, evil may win out.

In between writing Quinn Colson books Atkins, a former newspaper reporter, writes novels about protagonist Spenser, Robert B. Parker’s iconic character. After Parker’s death in 2010 his estate asked Atkins to continue the series.

Atkins was nice enough to let me interview him again about his new books. You can read one of our prior interviews here.

Scott Butki: I always love your Quinn Colson series but this one seemed even better than usual, and I think part of that was because you decided to reflect the current political scene in there. Why did you decide to include references to alt-right groups and a Trump-like governor candidate talking about “fake news”?

Ace Atkins: My friend Jack Pendarvis recently commented that when I first started writing Quinn—in The Ranger—these people were hiding out in the woods, and now they’re rallying on the town square. I think that’s a pretty accurate statement on the times we’re living in. If I’m going to keep writing about the Deep South, I had to write about the decay of decency, truth, and ethics embodied by our current political climate. Quinn has always been a classic moral hero and recognizes good from evil. Pretty standard stuff, right? These days, many people don’t seem to know one from the other. That’s pretty much the whole backbone of The Shameless.

Scott: As a former journalist yourself how do you feel about what’s happening with people not believing the news media as much, often with that cry/assertion of fake news?

Ace: I never thought I’d hear that kind of junk in America. That kind of talk sounds like something from the old Soviet Union or some Banana Republic dictator. This country was founded on the right to stand up and call our leaders on their bullshit. And the press has always been a watchdog against corruption.

When I was at The Tampa Tribune, we had reporters routinely check budgets and spending of local leaders. Now—with the rise of so-called fake news—you actually have citizens taking elected officials at their word instead of the people who found proof the politicians are lying to them. Absolute insanity. The alt-news, alt-facts people remind me of folks you’d find in a cult. They latch on to a leader and won’t listen to logic or facts that contradict that leader. This isn’t just stupid. It’s dangerous as hell. This is how you lose democracy.

Scott: I also like that you make a bow to the current popularity of podcasts. What made you decide to include podcasts in the book, and how did you go about interweaving that into the plot?

Ace: The original concept of the novel was for the story to be written in a series of flashbacks to when Brandon Taylor first disappeared in the early 1990s and the initial search to find him. But I’ve done that type of story a few times and didn’t want to repeat it. I also felt like the podcasters offered something to new readers of the series: a chance to see Tibbehah County with fresh eyes and a brand-new perspective. I really like how those sections played out.

Scott: Do you have favorite podcasts. What are they?

Ace: Definitely “In the Dark: Season Two.” Speaking of journalism, the amount of work and dedication by Madeleine Baran and her team was astounding. They recently spoke here at the University of Mississippi, and I made a point to meet them and tell them how much I respected what they’d accomplished. Their investigation into the death row conviction of Curtis Flowers just led to a reversal by the U.S. Supreme Court.

Anyone who doubts the value of journalism and holding elected officials accountable should listen to this podcast. The amount of corruption, lies, and evil they uncover is astounding. Even for Mississippi.

Scott: Maybe it’s because I do a lot of anti-racism work but I was intrigued that you also had Caddy’s mom, on page 33, making a common racist remark, about race and athleticism. Why did you decide to do that?

Ace: I know what part you’re talking about. Jean Colson’s grandson is a mixed-race child who’s good at football and she jokes about him not getting his talent from the white side. It was obviously a racist comment made by a woman who would never consider herself a racist. She also loves her grandson deeply and would never want to say anything to hurt him. I guess what that’s all about is racism takes all forms, from small jokes to insane people marching with torches. None of it is good. But it definitely permeates our culture whether we admit it or not.

Scott: I guess the term may have been around before but seeing your book referred to as “country noir” was a new term for me. How do you feel about the term and it being attached to your book/series?

Ace: I’ve read many reviewers or critics often try to define books about the South that focus on the rougher side of life. I’ve heard “grit lit,” too. Country Noir seems to be the latest. I think while my Quinn Colson books definitely have a strong noir influence, they aren’t pure noir because there is a moral center in Quinn. My buddy, David Joy, probably defined my books best by calling them a hybrid of noir and hero books. If I just stuck to my bad guys and their story, it would fit the noir definition a little better. But overall, I’m in for anything that will highlight a genre I really love.

Scott: What’s the status of the film version of your book, The Ranger?

Ace: Something big is in the works, Scott! But I’ve been sworn to secrecy. Buy me a few Shiner Bocks in Austin at the Texas Chili Parlor and we’ll talk . . .

Scott: It’s been a few years since you started alternating between writing books in the Quinn Colson series and the Spenser books. Has it become easier or quicker switching from one series to the others? 

Ace: Nope. In fact, it seems to get tougher. It’s mainly the added level of writing a novel in a voice that isn’t necessarily your own. I don’t just write a book about Spenser, I write a book about Spenser as it might’ve been told by the late Robert B. Parker. With Quinn, I just write in my own natural voice. Switching back to Quinn is easier than going back to Parker. To get back into Parker’s voice, there is a tremendous amount of prep each time.

Scott: Do you have a favorite of your Quinn Colson series and a favorite of your Spenser books?

Hmm. I think I have a particular good feeling about The Forsaken for Quinn as it was the fourth book and the one that really kicked the series into high gear. I always knew this was a series with legs, but I think The Forsaken hopefully showed the fans how many ways we could go with a rural county in north Mississippi.

On Spenser? I had a lot of fun with the last one, Old Black Magic, because its ties with the incredible Gardner art heist in Boston. I became absolutely obsessed with the real case.

Scott: What are you working on next?

As I’m about to leave for Quinn Summer Tour on July 9 for The Shameless, I’m wrapping up my eighth Spenser novel—Angel Eyes. It will be out sometime in November. It’s a fun book as it’s my first chance to have Spenser reconnect to old friends, fan favorites, in Los Angeles.

HEROINES OF THEIR OWN STORY: SCOTT BUTKI INTERVIEW CRISTINA ALGER

I’ve heard much praise for Cristina Alger, mainly due to the success of her novel, The Banker’s Wife, so I had high expectations for her new book, Girls Like Us.

Alger met the hype and them some. With fascinating, deep characters and excellent plots with good twists, I was enthralled with this book.

The novel centers on the investigations of three grisly murders on Long Island, inspired by the real-life Gilgo Beach murders.

As the book begins, FBI Agent Nell Flynn has returned home to Suffolk County for the first time in ten years following the death of her father, a local homicide detective, with whom she’s always had a complicated relationship. Her mother was brutally murdered when Nell was just 7.

Intending to spread his ashes and take care of his affairs and leave, Nell instead gets pulled into investigating local murders.  She becomes increasingly convinced that her father, who died in a motorcycle accident, should be the prime suspect and his follow cops were covering his tracks.

Alger worked as a financial analyst and a corporate attorney before becoming a writer. Her other books include The Darlings, and This Was Not the Plan.

She was nice enough to agree to do an email interview with me.

Scott Butki: How did this story come together?

Cristina Alger: I’ve always been a true crime addict, and when the bodies of four young, female sex workers were found on Gilgo Beach in Long Island (a town which happens to be not too far from where I live) I followed the case with obsessive interest. The more research I did, the more questions I had, not just about the killer but about the police officers conducting the investigation. Eventually, all my late-night research blossomed into a novel.

Scott: Which comes first for you, characters or plot?

Cristina: I was a lawyer in my past life, and most of my novels come from true crime stories which pique my interest. If I find myself researching a news story or cold case for long enough, I can’t help but wonder how I can turn it into background for a novel. So I’d say plot comes first, though character goes a long way in refining the details.

Scott: How did you come up with the intriguing premise of a FBI agent realizing the primary suspect in a series of grisly murders might be her recently deceased father, himself a homicide detective? 

Cristina: When I decided to write a book loosely based on the Gilgo Beach murders, I realized the thing that interested me most about the case was a theory that kept cropping up on true-crime web forums (and which I kept considering myself): the killer was actually a member of the Suffolk County Police Department and was actively working to keep the case cold. I used that theory as the springboard for the novel. I’ve always been interested in the relationship between adults and their parents — that theme comes up again and again in my writing — so it added an extra element to have Nell, the protagonist, investigating her own father.

Scott: How did you do research for this book?

Cristina: I had the best stroke of luck when researching this book: a bookseller friend of mine introduced me to her husband, a retired Suffolk County Police Detective. He was an amazing resource for me, and offered up so much background on his career and cop culture generally. After I met him, the book really started to click into place.

Scott: What do you want readers to take away from this book?

Cristina: As a thriller reader myself, I’m tired of reading about women who are crazy or manipulative or in need of saving. The suspense market feels flooded with these stories. I hope readers walk away from my books feeling like an alternative exists: there are thrillers which highlight strong, independent women, women who are the heroines of their own stories.

Scott: What has it been like getting praise from such authors as Lee Child and Nelson DeMille for your books?

Cristina: I mean, dreamy! I can hardly believe it. They are the writers that made me love thrillers in the first place. I’m deeply grateful for their generosity.

Scott: Have you been able to draw on your past work as a financial analyst and corporate attorney when writing these books? If so, how?

Cristina: Law school taught me two things: how to research and how to write in logical, pared-down prose. I lean on those skills every day as a writer. My previous work life taught me discipline. I’m used to long hours and hard work, and that discipline propels me through those rough patches when I’m not feeling inspired.

Scott: I have heard your last book, The Banker’s Wife, is currently in development as a limited TV series by the team behind Homeland. What’s it like having one of your books turned into TV? How much involvement will you have with the project?

Cristina: I’m over the moon about the team developing The Banker’s Wife. The director, writer, producers and lead actors are amazing (and all women!). I’m not intimately involved in the project, though I’ve hung around as a resource — particularly when questions about finance crop up. But for the most part, I try and stay out of the way — this book’s in great hands.

Scott: I understand you love thrillers. Who are some of your favorite current authors of thrillers?

How long do you have? I have so many. I will read anything by Laura Lippman, Meghan Abbott, Karin Slaughter, Gillian Flynn, Alafair Burke, Jane Harper, Flynn Berry, Lee Child, Nelson de Mille, and John Grisham. I also love Nordic Noir: I’m Traveling Alone by Samuel Bjork and Snare by Lilja Sigurdardottir are recent favorites.

Scott: What are you working on next?

Cristina:  Another thriller! And I’m having my third child in a few months, so lots of projects in the works.

SCOTT BUTKI INTERVIEWS MEGAN MIRANDA

I jumped at the chance to interview Megan Miranda, as I’ve heard lots of positive buzz about her best-selling novel All The Missing Girls, which The New York Times Book Review described as “Hitchockian,” and The Perfect Stranger.

I predict her new book, The Last House Guest, will also land on the best-seller list and have positive buzz.

Her new book is set in Littleport, Maine, which is a town where some, including strong protagonist Avery Greer, live all year round while other wealthy folks, including Sadie Loman and her family, visit only on the summer. Sadie and Avery have a fierce, long friendship.

As the book begins Sadie has been found dead and the police are ruling it a suicide, but Avery can’t shake the feeling people in the community, including Sadie’s family, blame her for the death.

Scott Butki: How did this story come together?

Megan Miranda: I had the characters and the premise from pretty early on, but their story, and how it could best be told, developed over the course of several drafts. When I started The Last House Guest, I knew I wanted to set it in a town where there would be this contrast of insiders (the characters who live in the town year-round) and outsiders (those who visit each summer). Avery and Sadie grew from this idea. But as I worked through earlier drafts, I realized that Avery embodied both sides of that equation—she is someone who grew up as an insider, but now feels like an outsider to her own town.

The friendship between Avery and Sadie—and all that happened because of it—became the heart of the story. Which then gave rise to the structure: At the start of the story, Avery can’t seem to accept or move past Sadie’s death a year earlier. And she keeps circling back to that pivotal night with each new discovery, looking for the things she might’ve missed the first time around.

Scott:  Which comes first for you, the characters or the plot?

Megan: The characters always come first, though they tend to develop alongside the plot. They work in tandem, with plot roadblocks forming character, and character choices informing the story direction. But the characters are always the element I’m most interested in following—both as a reader and a writer. I think this is why I’m not much of an outliner before I start—I need to get to know the characters first, and write my way in to their story.

Scott Butki: Should readers new to you start with this book or one of your earlier ones?

Megan: They can definitely start with this one! Each of the books stands alone, with a new set of characters, and a new setting. They can be read in any order.

Scott: How are you reacting to the popularity of your books?

Writing a book can feel very solitary—but these characters live inside your head for so long, and finishing their story, getting it to where you hope it will be, always means so much. To see it then resonate with others has been such a wonderful experience. I’ve been so grateful that people who have enjoyed these stories have helped spread the word about them.

Scott: Can you talk about the relationship between Sadie Loman, from a wealthy family that visits a vacation town every summer, and Avery Greer, a townie dealing with the grief after her parents die.

Megan: When Avery and Sadie meet as teens, they each find something in the other that fills a void in their lives. Avery had spent the time before meeting Sadie feeling adrift and alone, unable to escape the way others in town see her. And Sadie has a complicated relationship with her own family, never quite living up to expectations. Both of them are able to become someone else through the other’s perspective. But just as with the town itself, their friendship looks different when viewed from the outside versus the inside.

Scott: Why did you decide to begin the book with Sadie’s death?

Megan: There were two reasons I wanted to start the book here. The first went to story: Starting with the end-of-season party from the year earlier introduced each character with their alibi—when and how they were accounted for on the night of Sadie’s death—which is key to unraveling the mystery that follows.

The second reason went to character: For Avery, this is the pivotal event that shatters her world. And this is the night she keeps coming back to in more detail throughout the book as she gains understanding.

Scott: What do you hope readers will take away from this book?

Megan: One theme I keep coming back to—in All the Missing Girls, The Perfect Stranger, and The Last House Guest—is this focus on identity, tied tightly to experiences in the past. How people are viewed, and how they view themselves. The one common thing I find at the heart of each main character, despite everything that happens throughout their story, is a sense of resiliency.

Scott: What have you figured out for this, your tenth book, you wish you knew when writing your first?

I wish there was something universal I’ve taken away from the writing process, but the thing I’ve learned the most is that every single book is different. Sometimes the structure and story come together right away. Sometimes they don’t. I guess the one change in my process is that I panic less when a draft doesn’t work at first. I’ve come to accept and appreciate that trial and error is part of my process, and to trust that I’ll get there in the end.

Scott: How did you go about researching this book?

Miranda: When I was writing the first draft, I asked my family if anyone wanted to take a trip up to Maine with me. Which is how I ended up spending a summer vacation in a minivan with my parents, my husband, and my 2 kids. We drove up and down the coast, stopping at so many beautiful towns along the way. We also spent several days in Bar Harbor, which is where we used to spend a week each summer when I was growing up. It made me think a lot about perspective, and how that can shift over time. I had last been there as a teenager, and was now visiting with my own children, hiking the same trails, visiting the same places. I wanted Littleport to feel like a character in and of itself, and a place that can have two different perspectives, both as an insider and an outsider.                     

Scott: The last question is my bonus question: What is a question you wish you would get asked in interviews but never are. Here’s your chance to ask and answer it.

Miranda:  Why are you drawn to small town settings?

I love the dynamic that a small town provides, where characters know everything about one another—or think they do. For me, a small town feels like a living, breathing character. Something that might shift and twist, just as the story does.

EVERY MURDER VICTIM CAN HAVE A STORY: SCOTT BUTKI’S INTERVIEW WITH R.G. BELSKY

As a former journalist and a fan of mysteries I’m a bit biased in favor of books about the news media written by current and former journalists. I thought I should mention that as I introduce an interview about the latest book by R.G. Belsky, Below The Fold.

That said, R.G.’s books would be great reads even if they were not based in the world he knows best, the news media.

This is the third time I have been lucky enough to interview R.G. by email, here for his novels The Kennedy Connection and Shooting for the Stars and here for Blonde Ice.

While those books had a protagonist named Gil Malloy, this new book has an intriguing protagonist named Clare Carlson, a TV news director who still has a reporter’s instincts.

As the book begins one of the news reporters wants to go against the grain and do a news piece on the murder of a woman who is homeless. While that story would often not get much media attention Clare approves a story about this woman who called herself Cinderella.

Soon there are more murders, more victims, more questions.

And with that, let’s get to the interview.

Scott Butki: How did this story come together?

R.G. Belsky: I’ve worked for many years in the media (at the NY Post, NY Daily News, Star magazine and NBC News). We in the media are frequently criticized for only focusing on sensational, high profile crimes in our coverage. Like O.J., Jon Benet, Casey Anthony etc. So I decided I wanted to write a book where a media person—Clare Carlson, news director of a New York TV station—decides to cover a murder that normally would be ignored: the death of a homeless woman on the streets of Manhattan. In this case, a seemingly insignificant death leads to links to powerful and influential figures which turned it into a sensational headline murder. But I wanted to show how every murder victim can have a story, once a journalist goes looking for it.

Scott: Which comes first for you, the characters or the plot?

R.G.: I’m very big on the importance of character. If I like the character, I’ll read a mystery novel even if the story isn’t great. But a great story won’t keep me turning the pages of a book where I don’t relate to the character or characters. So obviously I follow the same approach in writing my own mysteries. Clare Carlson, my character, comes first. I figure if I can get her right readers will follow her wherever the story leads…

Scott: In what ways is the protagonist, Clare, the news director for a New York City TV station, similar and different from you?

R.G.: Well, she’s a woman, and I’m not. I suppose there are some similarities between Clare and me. But I didn’t really create her based on me. I drew my inspiration from a lot of terrific journalists—men and women—that I’ve worked with in newsrooms over the years. People who became obsessed with their jobs and with breaking the big story—even if the rest of their life suffered as a consequence. As I frequently have said, “I’ve known a lot of Clare Carlsons in my life.”

Scott:  When I last interviewed you here, you were doing a series starring Gil Malloy. Why did you switch to a series featuring Clare? Did you base Clare on people you have worked with?

R.G.: Clare was not originally meant to be a series. In 2016, the same year as the last Gil Malloy book came out, I won the Claymore Award at Killer Nashville for a manuscript about a woman journalist who is hiding long-buried secrets about a sensational missing child case that she’s been covering. It was meant to be a stand-alone book based on this one story.

But the character, Clare Carlson, worked so well I was asked by my publisher to turn it into a series. I’m sure glad, because I love writing about Clare.

Scott:  Did you decide to write about the news media in your novels as a way to draw on your knowledge and experience?

R.G.:  Absolutely. I’m a great believe in the “write what you know” approach to being a fiction author. I know a lot about newsrooms and the media, so that’s where I set all my books. Besides, if I wrote about lawyers or spies or anything else, I’d have to do a lot of research. And, believe me, I hate doing research! But seriously, I believe my media background adds an air of authenticity to my books which hopefully makes Clare more interesting to the reader.

Scott:  What do you hope readers will take away from your books?

R.G.:  That it was a good read! Fun, entertaining, thought provoking—and all that kind of stuff. I write books with the idea that I want them to be like the kind of books that I like to read myself. I figure that if I like my books, other people will too. As a mystery reader, I love reading characters like Harry Bosch, Spenser and Kinsey Millhone. As a TV mystery fan, I loved The Rockford Files and Columbo. So I tried to draw on elements from all that when I created Clare Carlson. I want people to enjoy spending time with Clare.

Scott: What DO you think on the true state of journalism today?

R.G.: Oh, my! We could talk for hours about this. Yes, journalism has changed dramatically since I started my career. Back in the 1980s, we used to sell a million copies a day of the New York Post—and everyone got their news from newspapers or TV. Now print newspapers are shrinking or dying rapidly, and many people get their news from smart phones, tablets, and websites. But I’m not some old “get off my lawn” journalist who wants to tell you how terrible journalism is today. I spent several years recently working as a managing editor with NBC News digital coverage—and discovered all the possibilities that social media opens up for journalists. I mean we still have three newspapers in New York City, but we have many, many more news websites springing up every day. Good journalism is good journalism, no matter how it is delivered to the reader.

Scott: What is it like to get blurbs and praise from such authors as Douglas Preston and Michael Koryta, and Meg Gardiner?

R.G.: Yes, I’m always blown away when someone whose work I admire likes my book! In addition to the ones you’ve mentioned, I’ve also gotten praise for the Clare Carlson series from Lee Goldberg, Hank Phillippi Ryan and Reed Farrel Coleman. I only seek author blurbs from writers whose work I really enjoy reading (I figure that way there’s a decent chance they’ll like my stuff too). A long time ago I even got an author blurb from Michael Connelly. Now if I could just figure out a way to get a copy of my next book to Stephen King….

Scott: Is it true that you helped create the famous “Headless Body in Topless Bar” headline? Tell me about how you come up with it?

R.G.: Yes, I was in the New York Post city room when the most famous—or infamous—tabloid headline ever was written. It involved a holdup man who murdered someone at a topless bar, then cut off the victim’s head. I didn’t write the headline, but my role in that historic journalistic moment is chronicled here.

The funny thing is I’ve worked in journalism for decades, and accomplished some pretty significant things along the way, But, if you google me, you’ll find the most prominent thing is being a part of the “Headless Body in Topless Bar” headline. Go figure!

Scott: What are you working on next?

R.G.: The third book in the Clare Carlson series, The Last Scoop, will be out in 2020. I’m just finishing up the editing on that now. In this one, Clare is on the trail of a serial killer even scarier than Son of Sam or Ted Bundy or the Zodiac. Which was interesting to do because I’ve covered Son of Sam and other serial killers so extensively over the years as a journalist. Of course, there is also ongoing drama surrounding Clare’s personal life, which I love to write about too. If you like Clare in the first two books, I think you’ll want to read this one too!

SCOTT BUTKI’S INTERVIEW WITH GREG ILES

Greg Iles, the bestselling author of the Natchez Burning trilogy, returns with a new novel, Cemetery Road, about friendship, betrayal, and shattering secrets that threaten to destroy a small Mississippi town.

I was captivated by the Natchez Burning trilogy with deep characters, a fascinating protagonist in Penn Cage, lots of plot twists and an interesting exploration and investigation of white supremacists in the south in the past and present.

For this new book the main character is Marshall McEwan. He vowed never to return to his hometown after leaving at 18. The trauma that led to his departure won him journalism praise. As a former reporter I approve of Iles’s descriptions of journalism in this and other books.

But now events in McEwan’s hometown have conspired to make him return: His father is dying, his mother is struggling to keep the family newspaper from going under, crime rates are high, to name a few.

Mr. Iles, the author of 16 books and a novella, was kind enough to let us interview him by email for his new book, which comes out today.  He worked for several years as a guitarist, singer and songwriter in the band Frankly Scarlet. He quit the band after he got married and started writing his first novella. He, along with Stephen King, Dave Barry, Amy Tan and others, is a member of the literary musical group The Rock Bottom Remainders.

Scott: Where or how did this story come to you?

Greg: Cemetery Road actually grew out of the shocking secret revealed at the novel’s conclusion.  I don’t want to say more than that, but the core of my novels is always psychological and emotional, rather than depending on the externalized structure or details.

Scott: How would you describe your protagonist, Marshall, and his struggle in this book?

Greg: He’s a Pulitzer Prize-winning Washington, D.C. journalist, who is forced to leave his career at its height to return to the small Mississippi town where he was raised.  Because of a bad relationship with his father, he swore he would never go back. But when his father is dying, he must return to run the family newspaper until it can be sold.  This is what throws him into contact with the corrupt group of men who run the town, much as their ancestors had since the Civil War. To his surprise, the crimes he uncovered there stretch all the way back to Washington, D.C.

Scott: What do you hope readers will take away from this book?

Greg: That much of what we see around us in life is dictated by knowledge that remains hidden.  At bottom, this is a book about secrets between parents and children, husbands and wives, and siblings.

Scott: Did it feel weird to be doing a book other than Penn Cage after your amazing trilogy?

Greg: It was actually a relief after the ten-year struggle that it took to produce the trilogy, which ended up exceeding two thousand pages.

Scott: I really enjoyed your three volume trilogy set in Natchez, Miss., which I only recently learned you wrote while recovering from a terrible car accident. What did the folks of Natchez, the city where you grew up and now live, feel about your portrayal of it?

Greg: A critic once wrote that I do my hometown the backhanded compliment of setting my novels there.  In general, the people of Natchez have been great about what I have written. That may be partly because the novels have ended up generating a fair amount of tourism for the city.

Scott: When does your next Penn Cage book come out and what’s it about? I read you said there was still more you wanted to write about Penn Cage. Will we found out what that means in that book?

Greg: A lot of readers were a bit disturbed by the fate of Tom Cage at the end of the trilogy.  I always intended to return and deal with the rest of Tom’s thread. The Fates aren’t quite finished with Penn and Tom, and I think readers will be glad to learn that.

Scott: I have read that you long avoided writing series. What changed your mind on that?

Greg: Nothing changed my mind.  The first Penn Cage was intended to be a standalone.  Seven years later I wrote Turning Angel, thinking it would be the last.  Seven years after that, Penn tapped me on the shoulder, and the Devil’s Punchbowl was the result.  And when I decided to deal with the Ku Klux Klan in Louisiana and Mississippi, Penn and Tom Cage turned out to be the ideal characters to do that.

Scott: As a Southern writer do you feel an obligation to tackle the mythology and stereotypes about the south?

Greg: Yes.

Scott: How does your work as a musician affect or help you as a writer?

Greg: As a musician and a songwriter, you learn a great deal about the rhythm of language and develop the ability to say a lot with very few words.  I write very long books, but I can hit readers in the solar plexus when I need to.

Scott: What is the status of the films being adapted from your books?

Greg: There has been a lot of interest all along, and some abortive deals made, but nothing is headed into production at this moment.

Scott: What are you working on next?

Greg: I’m working on at least three other things.  I don’t want to give away what they are, but they are all very different from each other.  There is one more Penn Cage novel to come. A lot of readers were unhappy with where Penn’s father ended up at the end of the last novel.  So that will come, but it’s unlikely to be the next novel.

SCOTT BUTKI’S INTERVIEW WITH JOANNA SCHAFFHAUSER

I was hooked on No Mercy as soon as I read the opening line: “You kill one guy, one time, and suddenly everyone thinks you need therapy…” The protagonist, Ellery Hathaway, a police officer, is famous because she killed a particularly brutal murderer. He’s in prison, she’s involuntarily suspended.  

The author, Joanna Schaffhausen, keeps the action and adrenaline and droll wit that first sentence implies. This is the second book in a series involving Hathaway, the first is called The Vanishing Season, for which she won the Mystery Writers of America First Crime Novel Award in 2016.

While dealing with harassment, unwanted attention and personal threats for her actions, Hathaway is pushed to join a group therapy consisting of other survivors of terrible crimes. As she and an FBI profiler, Reed Markham, began to investigate the cases of two of the survivors in the group they find things are not as simple or clear as one would expect.  There are many twists and turns as well great character development.

The author has a doctorate in psychology. Previously, she worked as a scientific editor in the field of drug development. Prior to that, she was an editorial producer for ABC News, writing for programs such as World News Tonight, Good Morning America, and 20/20.  

She agreed to do an interview via email.

Scott Butki: I want to start by asking where in the writing process you came up with the awesome first line: “You kill one guy, one time, and suddenly everyone thinks you need therapy…”

Joanna Schaffhausen: Ha! Well, they say you need to hook readers early with a killer first line. I just took that literally.

More seriously, the audience has to get to know Ellery Hathaway quickly, and this line captures her thinking at the start of the book. Part of the mystery is whether she will still feel the same by the end.

Scott: How did you come up with this story?

Joanna: I asked myself what would be next for Ellery after the events of The Vanishing Season. Most police departments now mandate counseling for officers involved in shootings, especially if they result in the death of a human being, so it made sense that she would be required to do some introspection. Ellery, though, has survived to where she is largely by blocking out unpleasant events, so she’s not excited to talk about her feelings. So then I asked what she’d be doing instead, and the answer was obvious: she’d start investigating her fellow support group members.

Scott: I, and I assume many other readers of your books, find police officer Ellery Hathaway a fascinating character, someone who shot a murderer in cold blood but refuses to apologize. How did you come up with her character?

Joanna: Ellery survived a notorious serial killer as a teenager and has to live out her days in his shadow. This premise is loosely based on Carol DaRonch, who survived her encounter with Ted Bundy back in the 1970s. Bundy was executed for his crimes in 1989, but for Carol, he never dies. The public appetite for Bundy stories means that Carol gets to see his face on magazine covers, has to turn on the TV and see who is playing her in the latest movie adaptation, and field endless messages from kooks and creeps.

In the fictional world, Ellery’s had enough of other people dictating her life. She wants to be a force for good in the world, but she doesn’t like letting people get close to her, emotionally or physically. She has her own moral code and isn’t easily dissuaded from it.

Scott: How would you describe Ellery and FBI Profiler Reed Markham?

Joanna: Ellery has a passion for justice and is especially moved by women and children in harm’s way. The fact that she survived a brutal experience at the hands of a serial killer has given her the sense that she lives on borrowed time. She will risk her life without a second thought to save others.

Reed Markham is biracial and was adopted by a wealthy white Southern family after his Latina mother was murdered when he was a baby. He is empathic, intelligent and, as Ellery notes, lives his whole life on the premise that he makes a difference. He rescued Ellery as a young, green FBI agent and rocketed to fame on the back of the case. The world told him that he was a big hero, and for years, he believed it. Reuniting with Ellery has shown him all the ways he didn’t save her, and thus, it’s like a wound for both of them that never completely heals. However, they are also the only two with this precise shared history, the only two that see each other clearly in the storm cloud of a famous story, so they remain drawn to each other because of this.

Scott: How has your background – which included studying neuroscience, a doctorate in psychology, working for news programs – helped you with this book and this series?

 Joanna: The brain is so endlessly fascinating! Both neuroscience and psychology have devoted much research to criminal deviance, and these articles make for fascinating, if frustrating, reading. Behavior as complex as violent crime will have multi-factorial roots, including genetic, developmental, and environmental origins. Studies provide insights into why some people turn violent, how they justify this behavior to themselves, and how investigators might use this knowledge to stop them. However, none of it provides definitive answers. There is so much that is unknown, and this gray area provides fertile ground for writing.

Working for the news taught me so much. There are whip-smart, curious, and talented people at all levels, but we’re all feeding the same hungry beast in the audience. The beast wants sensational headlines and crazy, entertaining stories. It wants the stories now, in bite-size form. It can be a challenge to balance the truth, which is often messy, boring, and long-winded, with a format that demands a fast, digestible narrative.

Scott: I understand you get some of your idea from true crime stories. What is it that you take away from those stories?

Joanna: Partly, I am interested in the puzzle aspect. How did the investigators piece together the clues to find the suspect? This can provide a road map for similar fictional cases. I’m also interested in the psychological and emotional impacts of crime, so I want to know what it felt like to be involved in the cases. Yes, from the victim’s and investigator’s sides, but also people who were falsely accused, people who were related to the perpetrator, people who were witnesses, etc. I am interested in how all the pieces fit together into one story.

Scott: What did you learn from writing fan fiction for the X-Files?

Joanna: I could write an essay on this topic alone. I wrote approximately 1.2 million words of XF fanfic spanning fifteen novels and a bunch of shorter works, and that’s invaluable practice in terms of craft. However, I think the most important lessons for me are those that are difficult to find before you’re published, namely what it’s like to write for an audience. Not just your critique group or your best friend, but a diverse set of readers numbering in the thousands. My main takeaways are these:

1. You can’t control your story once it’s out there. People will have reactions to it that you never anticipated, and that’s okay. Some will love it. Some will hate it. The author doesn’t get a say in how people feel about their story, and the reaction isn’t personal (even if it might feel that way sometimes.)
2. Some stories are more popular than others, and the reasons are mysterious. I have works that people read once and yawned, and I have others I receive daily letters about, even after twenty years. I couldn’t tell you when I was writing them which would be the popular works and which would be the duds, nor could I do anything to force the issue. The only thing I could do is to write the next story. This is a freeing concept if you embrace it.

Scott: What do you want readers to take away from your book?

Joanna: First and foremost, I hope they are entertained. I am a storyteller at heart. Beyond that, Ellery and Reed’s stories are largely about identity. What are the defining factors that make us who we are? What are the stories we tell ourselves about who we are, and how do they change over time? One of the threads through all the books is that we have more power over our own stories than it often feels like, and I hope readers embrace that too.

Scott: What can you tell us about the next book in the series, The Neon Boneyard?

Joanna: Reed receives shocking information about his family at the end of No Mercy, which sets up his quest to learn what happened to his murdered mother. She was stabbed to death in Las Vegas when Reed was only a baby, and the killer was never caught. Reed and Ellery set out for the neon lights to see if they can unearth the truth after all these years.

Scott: What are you working on next?

Joanna: I’m working on another serial killer tale. An amateur sleuth trying to find a serial killer who disappeared twenty years ago ends up dead in the same fashion as his victims. Did she get too close and force him out of hiding, or did someone else in her life use her unusual hobby to murder her?

Scott: What’s a question you wish you were asked more often but haven’t been? Here’s your chance to ask and answer it.

Joanna: How many unpublished or abandoned manuscripts do you have?

At least a half dozen completed original novels and a handful of partial manuscripts. Some of these were written after I published my debut book, which shows you that publishing is not some magical wand to forever success. This doesn’t mean that all these other manuscripts were failures, either. I learned from them and cannibalized some for other works, and hey, maybe one or two will even resurface later in another form. Writing is about trying new things and if one of those attempts doesn’t yield immediate success, it doesn’t mean you failed as a writer. You take what you can learn from that project and move onto the next one.

SCOTT BUTKI’S INTERVIEW WITH NICK PETRIE

I have a theory that if you give an awesome book full of adrenaline, excitement and plot twists to someone who usually needs a cup of coffee to get moving in the morning, the book will do the job. Nick Petrie’s new novel, Tear It Down, is one such book.

As the book, the fourth in Petrie’s Peter Ash series, begins, Ash’s girlfriend sends the restless war veteran to Memphis to help a friend, Wanda, with a situation: she’s receiving strange threats. By the time he arrives her home is under attack, bulldozed by a garbage truck.

Meanwhile, a young homeless musician in Memphis, on the run after a jewelry store heist goes sideways, steals, at gunpoint, Ash’s car and Ash finds himself immersed in a second case with Ash trying to help not just Wanda but also this musician, Eli.

Petrie masterfully advances both stories while fleshing out all the characters.

Petrie’s first novel, The Drifter, won the ITW Thriller and Barry Awards, and was nominated for Edgar, Anthony, and Hammett Awards. He won the 2016 Literary Award from the Wisconsin Library Association and was named one of Apple’s 10 Writers to Read in 2017.  Light It Up was named the Best Thriller of 2018 by Apple Books.

His books in the Peter Ash series are The Drifter, Burning Bright, Light It Up, and Tear It Down. A husband and father, he has worked as a carpenter, remodeling contractor, and building inspector.

Petrie agreed to let me interview him via email. This is the result.

Scott Butki: How did you come up with this adrenaline rush of a story?

Nick Petrie: For me, stories evolve in strange ways.  Memphis is near the New Madrid Seismic Zone, and I set out to write a natural disaster tale.  I began to research Memphis and its historical conflicts and challenges, and I had a lot of stories to choose from.  I began with Wanda Wyatt because I’d met a photojournalist with post-traumatic stress, and I thought Wanda would provide a new way of looking at the consequences of war.  Then I remembered an article in a building magazine with a photograph of a dump truck that had crashed into a building, which gave me a way to dramatize a certain kind of conflict.  When Eli Bell showed up, he was so sympathetic and compelling that I knew something else entirely was happening, and the earthquake would have to wait for another book.

Scott: Am I right in guessing this is a story where you did some major outlining? It seems you would need it to explain both the plotline about Eli and the others robbing a jewelry store AND the plotline about Peter Ash helping Wanda?

Nick: That was the challenge I set for myself with this book – to write two separate plotlines that would twine around each other, and relate to each other, simultaneously.  Unfortunately, I’m not a big outliner, I tend to write more organically, and at times I really despaired for the structure of this book. (I often think my writing life would be easier if I could outline.  But I seem incapable of it.) I have a big corkboard on the wall of my office, and after I had most of a draft, I marked up a bunch of notecards, one card for each scene, and used the corkboard to arrange and rearrange until it felt right.  Not very scientific, I’m afraid.

Scott: What was it like to get this praise from Lee Child: “Lots of characters get compared to my own Jack Reacher, but Petrie’s Peter Ash is the real deal…The writing is terse and tense, full of wisdom and insight, and the plot is irresistible.”  How would you compare Ash with Reacher?

Nick: I am a HUGE fan of Lee’s work, so his praise meant the world to me.  Peter Ash definitely shares some DNA with Jack Reacher – both are rootless ex-military heroes who don’t really fit into the modern world, and who are more interested in solving somebody’s problem than in the niceties of the legal system.  But I think the characters’ differences are far more complex. Where Reacher is a wandering loner by choice, Peter longs for a home, but he literally cannot stay indoors for very long. And where Reacher is a kind of superman, who you feel is almost beyond harm – and this is, I think, one of the core appeals of Jack Reacher – Peter Ash, although physically very capable, is still quite vulnerable, which is, I think, why the series has found so many readers, so quickly.  

Scott: How would you describe Iraq war veteran Peter Ash, as well as the character of Eli?

Nick:  Peter Ash is a Marine Corps veteran with post-traumatic stress that takes the form of claustrophobia, which means he can’t be inside for more than a few minutes.  Although he’s working hard to get better, Peter’s combat skills and wartime experiences have made him ill-suited to the modern world. But like many veterans I’ve met, Peter is driven to be useful.  So he dives back into the world, again and again, even if it means risking everything, to help others.

Eli Bell, on the other hand, is a talented young street musician in serious trouble.  He’s allowed himself to be caught up in a robbery scheme with his friends, but when the robbery goes wrong, Eli finds himself on the wrong side of a local warlord and his paid killers.  Eli is smart and proud and resourceful, and he doesn’t want Peter’s help. But he won’t live long without it.

Scott: How did you develop those two characters?

Nick: This might make me sound more unbalanced than I really am, but characters usually appear first as a kind of voice in my head.  I started writing The Drifter, my first book, because I kept hearing the voice of a cheerful, damaged veteran who needed to remove a big, mean dog from under a porch so he could do some repairs.  The whole story evolved from that basic sense of his character. The way Peter got the dog out from under the porch. His reaction when he found a certain Samsonite suitcase. What he did with the dog afterwards.  How he ended up under that porch in the first place. Everything Peter’s done since that scene has been an extension of that first voice in my head.

I have no idea where Eli Bell came from.  One day I started writing about these four black kids living in an abandoned house.  But I became very involved in their complicated friendship, their hopes and sorrows and dreams and ambitions.  And Eli’s voice was so strong that I just kept writing, not knowing where he would fit in the book, knowing only that he would take me somewhere interesting.  He’s fierce and strong and determined and flawed, with everything stacked against him – a writer could hardly hope for a better character.

Scott: Which comes first for you, plot or characters?

Nick: Character, absolutely.  I start with a character’s voice, then drop him or her into a difficult situation with no real idea of what he or she will do next.  Usually the voice tells me what happens next. In Light It Up, for example, I knew I wanted to write about Colorado’s newly-legal cannabis industry.  It made sense that Peter would want to help other veterans to protect the pot growers – protecting and helping others is like breathing for Peter. So I sent him to work one day, to see what would happen.  Unfortunately, some hijackers decided they wanted what Peter’s crew was carrying. Things went downhill from there.

Scott: You do a great job explaining what life is like on streets for Eli. Are you hoping readers will come away with some learning about that? What else are you hoping readers will take away from this excellent novel?

Nick: My primary job is always to entertain my readers, to jack up their adrenaline levels and keep them turning those pages.  That means I have to create characters that readers will care about, then give those characters increasingly difficult challenges.  And because my own life is pretty boring, I’m most interested in writing about people who are not like me, whether that’s a black street kid or a combat veteran or a working-class guy who feels abandoned and adrift.  

If my work can drop readers into the lives and minds and hearts of someone who is not like them? That, for me, is success. Because reading a good book is a radical act of empathy. The world could use a little more of that.

Scott: How do you go about researching a story like this?

Nick:  I begin by reading enough to hear that quiet voice in my head and get me itching to begin.  Then I write forward in the story until it’s clear to me that I need to know more. Sometimes research is more reading, sometimes it’s talking with experts, sometimes it’s talking with people who have lived an experience I’m only writing about.  This happens multiple times during the writing of a single book – sometimes multiple times in a single week. Also, I always make at least one visit to the place I’m writing about. Visiting Memphis had a profound effect on this book – creating a vivid setting is really important to me because setting is a kind of bonus character.  I really want readers to have an immersive experience. My favorite books are those that make me forget myself for a while.

Scott: This is the fourth book in your Peter Ash series. Do you want readers to start with the first one or with this one?

Nick: I’ve written them to be read in any order you find them.  But if you’re the kind of reader that likes to start at the beginning – and I’m actually that kind of reader – you might enjoy seeing the evolution of the characters and the kinds of trouble Peter gets into, starting with The Drifter.  

Scott: How far out do you have this series planned?

Nick: The thing I like the best about writing Peter Ash stories is that they can go anywhere and can take on any subject – as long as they involve vivid characters and a fast, exciting story.  I have some ideas about the larger arc of the series, but I try not to have too many preconceived notions. Following the characters seems to work best. The next Peter Ash book is set in Iceland, where Peter goes to find a missing child amid the dramatic landscape and strange characters of this wild and wonderful place.  Unfortunately for Peter, it doesn’t go well.

SCOTT BUTKI’S INTERVIEW WITH CHRIS HAMMER

In Scrublands, Australian author Chris Hammer writes about a journalist, Martin, sent to a drought-ravaged town in Australia where the one year anniversary of an event is coming up: A year earlier a priest, minutes before a weekend service, stood on the church steps with a gun and shot several people before being killed himself.

Martin finds things are not as it seems as far as the story told about the incident and, while investigating, there are fires, a fatal car accident and he falls in love with a local resident.

The old journalism rule about not becoming part of the story is broken repeatedly. This book has twist after twist including Martin publishing stories that seem accurate at the time, but soon turn out to be otherwise. This is great writing that will keep surprising you.

Hammer was a journalist for more than 30 years before becoming a full-time novelist with the success of Scrublands.  He served as an international correspondent, the chief political correspondent for The Bulletin and a senior political journalist for The Age. His first nonfiction book, The River, was awarded the ACT Book of the Year Award and was shortlisted for the Walkley Book Award.

As a lover of good mysteries and a former journalist myself, I recommend this book

Hammer agreed to let me interview him via email.

Scott Butki: How did you come up with this story?

Chris Hammer: I have no idea where large parts of the story came from. For example, mass shootings are rare in Australia – those that do occur are typically domestic murder-suicides. I know of no real-life basis for the homicidal priest Byron Swift, here or in the US.

I was a journalist for 30 years, including extensive stints as a roving foreign correspondent, so those helped inform protagonist Martin Scarsden – for example, I did report from Gaza.  But character-wise he is unlike me.

I travelled through large parts of inland Australia about ten years ago at the height of the ‘Millennial Drought’ – the deepest and most prolonged since European settlement – researching my non-fiction book The River. I visited towns where the river had literally run dry. So the setting for Riversend is based on that.

There was a case some years ago involving Australia’s most infamous serial killer, a man named Ivan Milat. He would pick up hitchhikers, torture and kill them. It’s likely one story line grew from that seed.

There are other bits and pieces that may have origins in real life but much of it has bubbled up from the imagination. Which is good – it encourages me to think I can write more books like this!

Scott: Which came first, the priest and other characters, or the plot?

Chris: The idea of the priest, Martin and Mandy came first. The plot changed and changed again, evolving over time. Entire plot lines and several characters were thrown away and new ones developed. I reckon I discarded more than 200,000 words before settling on the final manuscript.

Scott: The press release for your book states, in part: “The ever-growing popularity of Australian authors like Liane Moriarty, Hannah Kent, and Kate Grenville proves that American readers are hungry for stories about the land down under, a country that feels remarkably familiar while remaining a world away. Interestingly, it turns out that Australia has a wild west, too, and it’s strikingly similar to ours.” Do you think this is the case? Also, are Australians interested in America’s “wild west?

Chris: Australia is a large country, but our population is relatively small. In the past, we have been wholesale importers of culture: movies, tv, books, music, particularly from America and Britain. We still are. So Australians are far more familiar with American culture than vice versa. For example, my dad was a big John Wayne fan and his favourite movie was Shane. So yes, Australians are/were interested in the wild west, as they are with other aspects of American culture.

I’m not sure there is anything particularly wild about the west in either the US or Australia nowadays. Certainly not in the sense they are lawless.

I think Australia does capture the imagination of Americans, who might see it as simultaneously familiar and exotic. I have met Americans who hold an almost nostalgic view of Australia: they see it as a more innocent version of the US, like America used to be. They often warn me: “Don’t do this or that, or you will end up like us.”

Scott: As a former journalist myself, I found myself cheering along journalist Martin Scarsden. Is Martin based on journalists you have known and/or aspects of yourself?

Chris: Scrublands is certainly informed by my past as a journalist, although Martin isn’t based on any particular person(s), and certainly not myself. Certainly, much of the journalistic process in the book is familiar to me, as is the way journalists act and the way they view the world and their craft. However, Martin is no exemplar: he is constantly getting stories wrong! This was one of the ideas I had from the start; a protagonist who gets things wrong.

Scott: How has your career of journalism helped you when writing this novel?

Chris: The discipline of writing is there. While some aspiring writers may wait for inspiration and struggle with writer’s block, no journalist can tell their editor that they aren’t feeling inspired and may not file!

I don’t get too attached or sentimental about what I’ve written and I don’t get precious during the editing process. Particularly in television, editing material and parring it back is all part of the process.

For many years I made long-form television reports of around 30 minutes in length. I think this has helped me with pacing and structure and developing through-lines i.e. leading a reader through a story.

Scott:  Do you have any thoughts or questions you hope readers will take away from this book?

Chris: Not really. I hope they enjoy it and that it might fire their imaginations. There is a theme there of inter-generational trauma, but the book is not meant to be didactic.

Scott: Was it hard switching from non-fiction to fiction?

Chris: No, I found it liberating. Now I get paid for making stuff up. How good is that?

Scott: How do you feel about your writing being compared to Jane Harper and James Lee Burke?

Chris: It’s a compliment, of course. I guess it’s natural for debut novelists to be likened to established writers. That said, I certainly haven’t modeled my writing on any other author, at least not consciously. I hadn’t heard of Jane until I’d finished the first draft of Scrublands, but I’m honoured to be compared with her. And grateful. I think the success of The Dry has almost certainly helped other Australian crime writers, myself included, to find publishers and readers in the US and elsewhere.

Scott: Are you hoping this will be the start of a series?

Chris: Yes. I am well into the follow up to Scrublands (which was published July 2018 in Australia). We have a tentative Australian publication date of late 2019 for the next one. It again features Martin and Mandy. And there’s likely to be a third book as well.