Mark Rubinstein Blog

Adrian McKinty’s life story is extraordinary. He grew up in Belfast, Northern Ireland during the “Troubles.” After studying law, he attended Oxford University on a full scholarship to study philosophy and politics. While writing on the side, he worked at many occupations in the UK and U.S.: security guard, bartender, truck driver, bookstore clerk, rugby coach, door-to-door salesman, high school English teacher, and librarian.

As a full-time novelist, he’s either won or been nominated for nearly every thriller or crime novel award in existence.

His latest novel, The Chain, is a mesmerizing excursion into a chilling crime that challenges the protagonist and reader in unimaginable ways.

Mark Rubinstein: Stephen King called The Chain “Nightmarish and propulsive,” while Don Winslow said “This book is Jaws for parents.” Describe to us the opening premise of The Chain.

Adrian McKinty: The Chain is the story of Rachel O’Neill, who gets a call from a stranger telling her that her 11-year-old daughter has been kidnapped. She also receives a photograph of her daughter. Rachel asks, “Why are you doing this?” The caller says, “Because my child has been kidnapped by a stranger. I must pay the ransom and replace my child on the chain with another child whom I’ve kidnapped. And you must do the same thing. You must pay the ransom and replace your child on the chain with someone else. If you break any of the rules or go to the police, I will kill your child and pick someone else.”

In this universe, Rachel is first a victim; becomes a co-conspirator; and then must become a kidnapper. So her entire moral universe collapses in a matter of days.

Mark Rubinstein: How did the idea of a chain kidnapping come to you?

Adrian McKinty: It brewed in my brain for years. When I was in Mexico City, I came across an article about kidnappings in Mexico. It’s an organized business where loved ones are kidnapped and held for ransom. What struck me was an arrangement whereby someone receiving a ransom demand could swap places with the kidnapped family member, while the rest of the family raised money. This business angle and the notion of swapping kidnapped victims made a deep impression on me.

Another element is when I was a kid growing up in Ireland, chain letters went around saying unless you joined a chain, a dreadful curse would befall you. We youngsters were very superstitious and scared of these things. I really believed this stuff. One day, a teacher of ours demanded that we bring the chain letters to her; she made a big bonfire and destroyed them. She broke the chain. I know she lived a long and happy life. I’ve always remembered her over the decades.

The third element was the Greek myth of Demeter and Persephone. Demeter saved her daughter from the abyss and brought her back from Hades; but not all the way, which is why the Greeks believed winter was followed by spring and regrowth.

These three elements coalesced into the story of The Chain.

Mark Rubinstein: In The Chain, Rachel O’Neill is challenged by circumstances far beyond the realm of any ordinary life. Why do you think such horrific events play so powerful a role in crime novels, and talk about their effects on even the most law-abiding people?

Adrian McKinty: I’ve thought about this a great deal. When I studied philosophy, I read Aristotle’s thoughts about ethics and morality. He believed actions define who you are. Virtue is decided by what you do. I loved this concept as defined by Aristotle. I wondered about taking a good person who’s been challenged by life (Rachel is a cancer survivor) and testing her beyond endurance. What if I made her do terrible things? If she becomes a bad moral agent, does she become a bad person? I wanted to take the reader on that philosophical journey. There’s really no unequivocal right answer to that question. I think that instinctually, the reader realizes that Rachel does what we ourselves would probably do.

Mark Rubinstein: What are your thoughts about the profound hold kidnappings have had on the readers of crime and suspense/thriller novels?

Adrian McKinty: It’s interesting because there are very few ransom kidnappings in America. The FBI reports fewer than one-hundred ransom kidnappings per year occur in the United States.  About ninety-five percent of kidnappings are carried out by estranged parents in custody disputes. Stranger kidnappings for ransom—those that dominate crime novels and movies—are very rare. But they involve a singular terror: your loved one has been kidnapped by a stranger whose motive is money. If the money isn’t paid, this stranger will harm or kill your loved one. That situation generates profound terror.

Mark Rubinstein: Your own odyssey through the literary landscape has been quite unusual. Will you tell us about it?

Adrian McKinty: I studied philosophy but realized there was no practical way to earn a living with that background. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life. I met a girl from New York. We got married and I moved to New York, got a job in a bar and did some other things.

When we moved to Denver, Colorado, I became an English teacher. I had the kids write short stories. This went on for a few years and finally, the kids demanded that I write a story. So, I began an autobiographical story. It got longer and longer until it was novel length. I read a bit of it to the kids who liked it. I sent it off to a publisher where it was rejected; but a second publisher accepted it. I became a published author in the early 2000s. That was the beginning of my odyssey into crime fiction.

Mark Rubinstein: I understand that while you had a number of books published and won awards, you weren’t financially successful until recent developments.

I had been teaching and writing was a hobby. Then, my wife was offered a job in Australia. After our move, I decided to write full-time and that’s where things began going wrong. My American and British publishers decided to drop me. I found a new publisher in England and wrote a series of crime novels about a detective named Sean Duffy. They received fine reviews and won awards, but sales were dismal. Simply put, for four or five years, I wasn’t earning a living. I was broke and eventually, we were evicted from our house.

Despite acclaim for my writing, I was doing nothing for my family. So, I decided to stop writing. and get a proper job. I posted my decision to stop writing on my blog. I got a job at a bar and became an Uber driver.

Then, of all things, I received a telephone call from Don Winslow, one of my idols. He’d read my blog and asked why I was quitting writing. I couldn’t believe it! He asked if I would mind him giving a few of my books to a friend of his, Shane Salerno. I said that would be fine.

A few weeks later, I got a phone call after midnight. It was Shane Salerno, an agent and screenwriter. He said books about a Belfast detective were a hard sell in America. He encouraged me to write an American story. I said I’d made my decision and was going to hang up the phone, which I did. It rang again and I hung up on him a second time. The phone rang a third time; and you know what the Talmud says about three times…

During this third call, Shane said I was being woefully represented by my agent and the publisher. He asked me to pitch an American story to him.

Those three elements we talked about earlier came to mind.

I told him about an idea I’d had for a short story, but hadn’t written. It was called The Chain. I pitched it to him. He said, “I want you to write this book, right now.”

At 2:35 in the morning, I found myself in front of a blank computer screen, writing the first 30 pages of the story. It just flowed. I sent it off to him. A while later, the phone rang. It was Shane. He said, “We need three-hundred more pages like this.” And that’s how I ended up writing The Chain.

Mark Rubinstein: And Paramount will be making a major motion picture of The Chain. So, the moral of the story is?

Adrian McKinty: I got lucky. I’d given up. Many successful writers, like Don Winslow, are generous and supportive people. For quite some time, Don had a great deal of critical acclaim but poor sales. If not for Don, and then Shane, I might still be driving an Uber or tending bar. I think the moral is to stay connected to the writing world, and above all, never give up.

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David Morrell is an acknowledged master of the suspense/thriller genre of storytelling. His iconic protagonist of First Blood, John Rambo, is one of the most enduring figures in contemporary fiction. As a professor of American literature at the University of Iowa, Morrell both taught and wrote novels until he eventually resigned his professorship to write on a full-time basis.

He has either won or been nominated for virtually every award in the suspense/thriller universe and has authored twenty-eight novels, along with having written short fiction, a graphic novel, and non-fiction books.

Before I Wake is his third short-story collection comprised of fourteen stories showing his talent for transcending any one genre.

Mark Rubinstein: David, the first story in this collection, “Time Was,” was especially eerie. You called it “an example of my Twilight Zone-type stories” and you mentioned Rod Serling as an early influence. How did the idea of this story come to you and tell us how Rod Serling influenced you?

David Morrell: When I was young, my mother insisted I have a job every summer. One summer, I worked as a construction worker. I was terrible at it and was fired within a week. I went home and turned on the TV to a movie called Patterns, which was written by Rod Serling. I learned soon afterwards that Serling was not only a Playhouse 90 writer, but also created The Twilight Zone. I got immersed in that world and devoured Ray Bradbury stories, too. For years, my short stories tended to be in the Serling-Bradbury mold. I received three Stoker Awards from the Horror Writers Association and two finalist nominations. I often come back to writing horror stories conveying eeriness where the nature of reality is questioned. I think the gene is in my DNA.

Mark Rubinstein: The second story in this collection, The Architecture of Snow, pays homage to J. D. Salinger who intrigued you. What about Salinger drew you to his life and story?

David Morrell: I was fascinated by the fact that at the height of his fame, Salinger became a recluse. In 2004, I became shockingly aware of what was happening in publishing: publishers’ marketing departments had dominance over editorial departments. Editors would consider buying something, but the marketing departments would tell them whether or not the book would sell. They made decisions on that basis. I realized the publishing business had changed.

From this situation, I got the idea of a reclusive writer, someone like Salinger, who, late in his life, sent a manuscript to his editor (who was also a friend). But, he used a pseudonym. He wanted to prove that a good book would sell without his name being on it. However, the original editor died. So, what would the publisher do with his manuscript?

I wrote the story in the first person and made the reader a character in the story. It’s an eerie tale, and in essence, is a’ Please buy my book’ story.

Mark Rubinstein: Within the pages of Before I Wake, you mention your fascination with orphans, foster fathers, and trying fill a void for a lost loved-one. Those themes are also explored in your novels Desperate Measures and Long Lost. Your memoir, Fireflies: A Father’s Tale of Love and Loss, plumbs those depths. Will you share the journey that led you to these themes?

David Morrell: It starts with the fact that my father was killed in combat in World War II. I never knew him. My mother tried to support me and work as a seamstress, but she couldn’t do both. When I was three years old, she reluctantly arranged for me to be placed in an orphanage. I tried to escape a couple of times. The experience has remained a vivid memory throughout my life.

My mother remarried, but my stepfather didn’t like children. They fought a great deal and there were times when I sought refuge beneath my bed, and told myself stories about rescuing people. In a way, I became a self-predicted thriller writer.

So, at a young age, I was conditioned to believe that life can change quickly, and for the worse. I’ve always felt if you can get through a day without a disaster happening, it’s a lucky day. The reigning theme in my work is ‘don’t be surprised when bad stuff happens. You must be prepared for crises.’

Compounding this was the fact that my 15 year old son, Matthew, died from a rare bone cancer. And, some years later, my granddaughter died from the same disease at 14 years of age.

I’ve had a successful career and a wonderful marriage, yet these tragedies happened to me. So, the theme of my work is one of preparedness so as not to be taken by surprise by disaster. That’s why I write about spies, police officers, and protective agents because anything can happen to them at any moment. I’m interested in the psychology of these people who can move forward without being psychologically destroyed.

Mark Rubinstein: The various stories in Before I Wake defy being assigned to any one genre. You write thriller stories, tales of espionage, some with an eerie sci-fi flavor, and a Victorian tale about Thomas De Quincey, “The Opium Eater.” How would you define yourself as a writer, and what do you think of today’s tendency to assign genres to authors?

David Morrell: I stared writing fiction at a time when genre writing didn’t dominate the bestseller list. How I spend my time writing is of the utmost importance to me. I will not write a book that doesn’t have value in terms of the prose, the theme or its research. The book must sustain my interest to account for the time I devote to writing it.

Over the years, I’ve migrated from action stories in the 70s, to espionage in the 80s, then to more artistic thrillers in the 90s. This decade has involved my writing historical thrillers. It’s all based upon what interests me. Fortunately, I’ve had a core of faithful readers who’ve stayed with me no matter which genre I’ve written. I think my career has lasted so long because I’ve been willing to explore different areas that have interested me. Today, genre branding is the norm, which I don’t think is healthy.

Where did the title Before I Wake come from and what does it mean?

David Morrell: I have two prior collections of short stories: the first is Black Evening and the second, Nightscape. I thought I’d unify the titles. So, Before I Wake seemed quite appropriate as a nightmarish metaphor.

Mark Rubinstein: Last question, David. What would you say if today you were to meet the young David Morrell, a professor of American literature, who was interested in becoming a novelist?

David Morrell: My standard advice when talking to young writers is twofold: ‘Be a first rate version of yourself and not a second rate version of another writer’ and ‘Don’t chase the market because you’ll always be chasing its backside.’

In today’s publishing world, trends are more than ever ruling the marketplace.

But if you start putting ‘Girl’ in the title, or write the same kind of book again and again, you’re typed as not being original.

Philip Klass, my writing instructor from years ago, insisted that writers who went the distance and enjoyed long careers, were those who had a definable viewpoint and a unique personality in their prose. That’s been my lifelong goal as a writer.

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Don Winslow, the acclaimed author of The Winter of Frankie Machine, Savages, The Force and other literary crime novels has completed his internationally bestselling trilogy which includes The Power of the Dog, The Cartel, and his just published novel, The Border.

For forty years, Winslow’s protagonist, Art Keller, has been on the front lines of America’s longest and most deadly conflict: The War on Drugs.

The heroin epidemic is still the scourge of America, and now, Keller is not only at war with the cartels, but with his own government. The story hurtles from Mexico to Wall Street, from the Guatemala slums to the corridors of Washington, D.C. and the highest levels of government. This final installment of the trilogy is brutal, humane, soul-searching, and resonates with the story of America today. This sprawling conclusion of the trilogy has been praised by Stephen King, Michael Connelly, Lee Child, Dennis Lehane and others.

Mark Rubinstein: “This trilogy is “the work of my life,” is the way you describe the twenty-year odyssey which concludes with the publication of The Border. How did this begin and how does it feel now that you’ve completed this journey?

Don Winslow: It began in 1997 when there was a massacre of nineteen men, women, and children in a little town in Mexico, not far from where we used to go on weekends. At that time, I knew nothing about drugs, and couldn’t understand how the drug trade had gotten to the point where someone was willing to murder nineteen innocent people. Mind you, by today’s standards, that’s a low body-count.

I never started out to write The Power of the Dog. I was reading philosophy books, trying to get an answer to this question about human brutality. I then began reading the history of Mexico and drug trafficking; and the more I read, the angrier I got. I eventually typed out Dog.

How do I feel now? It’s a very strange feeling not to be getting up and going to the drug news or news about Mexico. Some of my characters exist through all three books. I’ve been with them a long time. There are times when I read the news and ask myself, What would Keller think? [Laughter]. I have to remind myself he’s not real. It’s been a bittersweet thing to let go of that world.

Mark Rubinstein: To say The Border is a sprawling multi-faceted tale is an understatement. It involves crime, corruption, politics, greed, and human nature. Rolling Stone called your trilogy, “A Game of Thrones of the Mexican drug wars” Did you intend to write an epic series of novels?

Don Winslow: After The Power of the Dog, I swore it was over for me. It was a grueling topic to research. A few years later, I found myself writing The Cartel, which was far tougher to write because of the ever-increasing level of violence, sadism, and insanity of the drug world. It was a virtual reality tour of hell to write it each day. I thought—stupidly—there was no more story to tell. Unfortunately, there was a lot more story. But I never set out to write a multi-volume saga.

I now understand completely the nature of addiction. [Laughter]. It was a compulsion. I couldn’t step away from the topic.

Mark Rubinstein: At the outset of The Border, there’s talk of the heroin trifecta. Will you tell us about that?

Don Winslow: After spending time talking with addicts, I learned so much about the heroin epidemic. Of course, I’m aware that opiates are an answer to pain. In fact, the word ‘heroin’ derives from the German word for ‘hero’ because it was designed to treat wounded soldiers. It’s been around for a very long time. The Odyssey makes reference to it in the Land of the Lotus Eaters. It’s always been used in response to pain, often beginning with an attempt to treat physical pain. But, opiates are used more often for problems other than physical pain. Regardless of why they’re used, people develop a tolerance and dependence on them.

What kind of pain makes the U.S., with only 5 percent of the world’s population use, 80 percent of the world’s opioids? It’s partly physical, but it’s mainly psychological, and there’s a huge economic component to this. Poverty and drug-use go hand in hand. There’s an opiate scourge in the U.S. because so many people feel left behind. Opiates kill the psychic  pain for a while, but of course, they create different and worse pains. So, the heroin trifecta is physical, emotional, and economic pain.

Mark Rubinstein: A character in The Border says, “The difference between a hedge fund manager and a cartel boss is the Wharton Business School.” Tell us more.

Don Winslow: [Laughter] That’s how it feels. Big Pharma originated the opioid epidemic largely out of greed. The same people who invented Bayer aspirin invented and sell opiates. When we compare the capitalists and the cartel leaders, the financial guys wear suits and are better educated, but they’re both in the drug business and the money business.

The drug money has to go somewhere. The cartels don’t file tax returns, but each year we send between 60 and 100 billion dollars to Mexico in exchange for illegal drugs. That money comes back to the U.S. as investments in legitimate businesses. If we think we’re so clean, that’s an illusion. That liquid money comes back into real estate and the banks.

Mark Rubinstein: The novel describes the harrowing descent into criminality of a Guatemalan boy, Nico. How did you learn so much about this phenomenon?

Don Winslow: By reading books, meeting journalists and talking with people. I wrote this book before the alleged crisis of migrant caravans at our southern border was an issue. I wanted to let the reader see these headlines on an individual level. It’s a realistic depiction. Nico grows up amid the horror of Guatemala and makes it to Queens, New York, where he finds the same gang he was running from in Guatemala rules the streets where he now lives.

Mark Rubinstein: The Border describes, among many other issues, the fact that a border wall won’t do a thing to stop drugs from coming into the U.S. This resonates profoundly with our political turmoil right now. Will you explain what you mean?

Don Winslow: Ninety-five percent of the illegal drugs coming across the Mexican border come through the legal points of entry. Mostly through three points: San Diego, El Paso, and Laredo. They come in tractor trailer trucks, and to a lesser extent, in automobiles. Roughly 4,500 trucks come through those points  each day. In El Paso, one comes through about every fifteen seconds. There’s no way to search every tractor trailer truck for a kilo of heroin. These aren’t my numbers; these are the DEA’s statistics.

The traffickers themselves have just told us this in the Chapo Guzman trial. In the trial, major traffickers, one after another, testified to this point. A wall 100 feet tall, 100 feet wide, and 100 feet deep won’t make a difference because 95 percent of the drugs the drugs are coming through these legal points of entry. Why? Because these legal, guarded border crossings lead directly to the U.S. highway system.

If Donald Trump wants Mexicans to pay for the wall, he’s talking to the wrong Mexicans.

The cartels would happily give him the money—and believe me, they have it. If that wall is built, the little bit of drug trafficking done by minor players, who are unaffiliated with the cartels, might be interdicted. They’d be forced to bow down to the cartels and pay them to use the gates in those trucks.

The small players would have to go to the big players, who would make more money, and quickly make back the money they would have spent to build Trump’s wall.

It’s too bad The Border, the most timely novel I’ve ever read, isn’t in the hands of every member of Congress. The book is not only a powerhouse crime thriller, but is a primer on the realities of the drug trade, on corruption, immigration, our politics, big business and their intersection in our tumultuous times.

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Lee Child has sold millions of books world-wide, and his Jack Reacher character has virtually become a household name. This series follows the adventures of former American military policeman, Jack Reacher, a loner who wanders from place to place. Lee’s first novel, The Killing Floor, won both the Anthony Award, and the Barry Award for Best First Novel.

After graduating from college, he worked in commercial television and was involved in producing shows like Brideshead Revisited and The Jewel in The Crown.

But suddenly, at the age of 40, he was fired due to a corporate takeover and union-busting on the part of his new employer. That’s when Lee’s career as a novelist began. The rest is history.

Is it true that you created Jack Reacher from the smoldering embers of your own rage after you were let go by Granada Television?

It’s probably more accurate to say the type of adventures Reacher gets into is the product of that experience. I can’t say that Reacher, himself, was specifically related to that. I’d been in the entertainment business for a very long time by the point I left Granada Television. I learned very quickly that you cannot be successful by compiling a laundry list of virtues. You can’t say, ‘This is what the world is like; this is what I feel about it; therefore, I’ve got to have a protagonist with certain popular characteristics’. If you start with a shopping list of traits, you end up with a wooden character with very little spark and with barely an identity of his own.

Clearly, Reacher is an archetypal character. He’s a loner, a mysterious stranger with no history and no future, someone who just shows up on the day something has happened. He solves the problem and then rides off into the sunset. That architype has been around forever: in American westerns, in the knightly sagas in Europe of the Middle Ages, in Scandinavian and Anglo-Saxon legends, even going back to religious myths. This kind of character was in the back of my mind, but I didn’t have a pre-formed design. I wanted Reacher to be authentic and organic.

One basic rule that applies is: it’s not the writer who decides whether a character is cool; the reader makes that decision. If a writer tries to force things—or lead the witness, as it were—the result is an embarrassing failure. So, really, I just metaphorically closed my eyes and wrote that first book, The Killing Floor, and Jack Reacher emerged.

What has made you characterize the Jack Reacher books as ‘revenge novels’?

Revenge is basically the common theme for most of the books. It’s not necessarily Reacher taking revenge for himself. Often, it’s on behalf of someone else or on behalf of a situation in which an arrogant and contemptuous person prevails in an evil way. Fundamentally, he takes revenge for the perpetrator’s past felonies.

Do you personally share many of Reacher’s qualities of silent masculinity, brute force, and the wish for good to triumph over evil?

Well, I’m silent, certainly. I obviously wish for good to triumph over evil. Am I forceful and masculine? I’m an old guy now, but I do my best. [Laughter]

You’ve talked about Reacher being the embodiment of a masculine fantasy, and a feminine one, too. Tell us more.

When I wrote the first book, I felt it would appeal to men. I didn’t consciously plan it, but I’d created a situation of a man with no commitments, no responsibilities; and I felt that was a masculine fantasy. My thought was certainly borne-out since many men responded to that idea—no mortgage, no bills, no commitments. They could just walk away tomorrow. It appealed to a very powerful male fantasy.

But I also learned that some women were not only attracted to that sort of man, but they actually wanted to be that guy. It was also a woman’s fantasy—to be able to walk away and be somewhere else tomorrow. It’s a universal fantasy.

Reacher has an active sex life. Tell us about that and about writing erotic scenes.

Writing sex scenes is by far, the hardest and most ridiculous thing a writer can ever do. It’s virtually impossible to get it done with any plausibility. You know, Reacher loves women, like I do. One of the things I love about publishing is, generally speaking, almost everyone I deal with is a woman. I like them. Reacher likes them. And of course, something about Reacher makes women respond.

I think part of Reacher’s appeal for women is he’s the ultimate safe affair. A woman can be guaranteed of a good time for twenty-four or forty-eight hours, and she can be guaranteed this guy will never call; he will never return. It’s safe. In real life, many affairs are not safe: you get found out; you get a divorce; you lose your house and half your money. It’s a nightmare.

In the fictional world, Reacher gets away with it. For everyone, for men and women, it’s appealing for someone to have a two or three-day fling, such as occurs in The Bridges of Madison County. I think many readers luxuriate in that same feeling. And Reacher, of course, will never get a woman in trouble by reappearing. It’s a no-consequences affair.

I suspect it’s no coincidence that Jack Reacher is exactly your height, six-feet, five inches? How much of Lee Child is in Jack Reacher?

Inevitably, we writers put a lot of ourselves in our protagonists. Anyone who writes will use a good deal of autobiography in a protagonist. It’s part of the writing process and it’s also fun to do. You can insert your own enthusiasm, jokes and opinions.

But, Reacher is not exactly my height. He’s one inch taller than I am. And that is very typical: most men writers will make a hero an inch taller and considerably more muscular than they are. [Laughter]. Women writers usually give their heroines better hair and thinner thighs. [More laughter]. They’re kind of idealized versions of ourselves. It gives us an alternative life where we can work things out a bit differently than they actually turned out.

I understand your knowledge of fighting isn’t just from research. You got into quite a few brawls as a youngster in Birmingham, UK. Tell us about that.

I always point out that my childhood was no different from anybody else’s. I wasn’t unique in having a bad situation as a kid; everybody’s situation is bad. I grew up in a gray, industrial landscape where there was economic austerity and very little for a kid to do. In that city, violence was a response to virtually everything. In my case, it was a bit more complicated because my parents were very aspirational for us to get an education and do well. That put a target on my back in a neighborhood like mine.

If you’re viewed as being above your station, you become a target. I got a fellowship to a prestigious secondary school located on the better side of the city. So, from the age of eleven onward, I had to fight my way out of the neighborhood in the morning and back in during the afternoon. [More laughter]. I was very good at it. It was a part of my day I quite looked forward to. Reacher’s fighting ability really approximates mine at about age nine when I was bigger than everybody else.

While your books depict well-choreographed fight scenes, I’m more impressed by Reacher’s searing logic when thinking about criminals and their next moves. Will you talk about that?

I love that aspect, too. I think that’s a very strong strand in well-written crime or detective fiction: the sheer delight in watching a smart person figure something out. Of course, that dates back to Sherlock Holmes. The most compelling aspects of the books are the mental machinations of Holmes. That phenomenon has dominated the genre ever since because people love that. Reacher is very much in that tradition. He must think ahead and figure things out.

You were born Jim Grant but changed your name to Lee Child. Do you use your pen name in everyday life?

It’s now twenty-plus years of doing this as Lee Child, so almost everybody I’m in contact with apart from a very small handful of people, knows me as Lee Child. So, I just go with the flow. I think names are a weird thing anyway.

How so?

The people who gave me my allegedly real name were people I didn’t know at the time I was born. [Laughter]. And, I didn’t particularly like them later when I got to know them. [More laughter]. So, why would I feel obliged to keep that name? I think when we turn eighteen, we should all rename ourselves.

With your success, it’s clearly no longer about the money. What keeps you writing the Jack Reacher books?

It used to be a financial need. I had a financial contract. Now, it’s an emotional contract. It’s a contract with the reader. It’s such a special relationship with the reader. The reader pays you the most important compliment—it’s not the money spent for the book; it’s the time the reader devotes to the book. If a reader doesn’t like the book, it’s not the wasted money I care about, it’s the time the reader has wasted. These people have given me a day of their lives, or two or three days, and I’ve got to respect that. I feel I’ve got to give them the very best product I can. Right now, millions of people are looking forward to a new Reacher book, and not to provide it would be insane. I think entertainment is fundamentally a two-way street. It’s a transaction. The audience wants something, and the author supplies it. That’s how it works. So yes, it’s become an emotional contract. I used to be scared of going bankrupt. Now, I’m scared of letting people down.

Other than the obvious, how has Jack Reacher changed your life?

He really hasn’t changed my life. Some writers get too close to their heroes, or even fall in love with them. When that happens, the hero’s appeal just falls off a cliff because the author is protective of him.

To avoid that, I aim to keep myself from liking Reacher a little bit less than the reader will like him. That keeps him honest. And, I refuse to think about him when I’m not writing. He’s not a feature of my everyday life. It’s necessary for me to maintain some distance from him so I can get on with what I need to do on a daily basis.

Do you ever wonder to yourself in certain situation, ‘What would Reacher do?’

[Laughter] I don’t need to wonder. I know exactly how he would react in any situation, since I’m the one who will make him respond. Occasionally, my wife and I will encounter some aggravating real-world situation and we’ll look at each other and think, ‘What would Reacher do?’ [More laughter].

You’re invited to a dinner party and you can invite any five people, dead or alive, from any walk of life to join you. Who would they be?

The thing is when you achieve prominence as an author, you get invited to those dinners. I’ve met many famous people including Paul McCartney and Barak Obama. They’re very cautious in public. They can’t really say what they’re thinking. Honestly, if I were invited to such a dinner, I would politely decline and choose to stay home and watch television.

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Meg Gardiner is an Edgar Award-winning author who has written 13 previous novels. Her best-known books are the Evan Delaney series. Her previous novel, UNSUB, is a taut and terrifying thriller concerning the hunt for a serial killer. Meg has continued the Unsub series (Unsub meaning Unknown Subject) with Into the Black Nowhere.

Into the Black Nowhere features Caitlin Hendrix hunting another Ted Bundy-like serial killer who kidnaps women in southern Texas. He snatches them in plain sight without leaving a trace of evidence. Caitlin must get inside the killer’s mind and determine how he selects his victims, what impels him, and when he will strike again. A desperate game of cat and mouse ensues, and the stakes could not be higher.

What makes serial killers so fascinating?

We find serial killers fascinating because they hide among us beneath the mask of sanity. They’re unrestrained by every societal or moral notion of holding back their most violent impulses and desires, and we’re intrigued by the question of what turns people into such killers. One reason for this fascination is we want to know how to protect ourselves from them. If we could figure these people out, we could make sure we’re safe. We also want to ensure that we’re not like then; we want to separate ourselves from them, both physically and psychologically. We find them both frightening and intriguing, especially someone like the killer in Into the Black Nowhere who’s charismatic and successful and who, on the surface, is the type of guy many mothers would tell their daughters is a ‘catch.’ And we wonder how someone can wear this camouflage for decades.

Tell us about some of what drives Caitlin Hendrix in her quest to capture the serial killer known as the Ghost.

Without her knowing he was present, the Ghost wormed his way into her life in the first book He’s still out there and she’s desperate to catch him. He came out of nowhere and she has no idea what he’s up to—only that he said he’s coming back.

What about her personal issues make Caitlin’s quest for the Ghost so compelling?

The Ghost damaged her family, the people she loves, in the most terrible ways; so, it’s personal. She sees herself as a hunter who must not only protect her family, but the public as well.

‘Into the Black Nowhere’ details different types of serial killers. Will you tell us a bit about that?

Some serial killers regard killing as a mission. Others look at it as ‘playtime,’ while some feel possessed by some dark entity who has murder as a voracious hobby. The FBI has made distinctions between organized and disorganized serial killers.

John Douglas and Ann Burgess wrote books on the subject. They tried to understand the psychology of serial killers. They distinguished between organized killers who plan things out, trying to hide their identities, from disorganized killers who have obvious psychiatric problems and strike out with a blitz attack, not bothering to hide the bodies, while leaving a great deal of evidence because they were overcome by a compellingly powerful urge or delusion to kill. Recently, it’s been understood that these killers fall into a continuum of behaviors; and there’s not a clear-cut distinction between organized and disorganized killers.

Tell us about your research involving the FBI, before writing ‘Into the Black Nowhere.”

I attended several all-day seminars the FBI gives for writers at their New York headquarters. They gave me an amazing level of insight into the work they do. I read the FBI Crime Classification Manual as well as numerous books written by former agents.  It’s amazing to learn about the lives these people have led, especially the women agents.

‘Into the Black Nowhere’ is the second book in the Unsub series. What made you decide to write about serial killers and the FBI?

As we discussed, we’re all fascinated by serial killers. They’re modern-day monsters who seep through the cracks. I think we also want to read about the people who are willing to try to track them down. As for Caitlin, her life has been warped by the fact that her dad hunted a serial killer; that opened her eyes to that world.

How much of Meg Gardiner is part of Caitlin Hendrix?

Her snarky sense of humor; [Laughter] and we both spent time running hundreds of miles in the Bay Area of northern California. Of course, there’s a connection between Caitlin and me, but I’ve worked to make Caitlin her own woman.

I don’t give her the same likes or dislikes I have. If I’m afraid of something, I make her excited by it. Whatever I love, I make her hate. I disguise her as best I can. [More laughter].

My first series character was Evan Delaney, a lawyer, as am I. Caitlin is the first cop I’ve written as the heroine of a story. I sort of felt like Caitlin’s big sister as I was writing about her. I’m a little bit protective of her but want the reader to understand what makes her tick.

The Unsub series will be a CBS-TV series. Will you be participating in writing for the series?

I hope so. Now, I’m working behind the scenes consulting with the screenwriter, Liz Friedman, who is extremely accomplished.

What’s coming next from Meg Gardiner?

The third book in the Unsub series. It’s tentatively called The Dark Corner of the Night.

Congratulations on writing ‘Into the Black Nowhere,’ a taut, terrifying novel that’s part of a series which has been praised by Don Winslow, Lisa Scottoline, Greg Hurwitz, and Steve Hamilton. Stephen King has called one of your other series, ‘the finest crime-suspense series I’ve come across in the last twenty years.’

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Alafair Burke is the bestselling author of eleven previous novels. She co-authors the bestselling Under Suspicion series with Mary Higgins Clark. A former prosecutor, she now teaches criminal law and lives in New York City.

In The Wife, Angela Powell is married to Jason, a brilliant economics professor at NYU and a minor celebrity in New York City. Angela has a tragic past, but after marrying Jason, she and her son move out of her mother’s home and look forward for the chance to reboot her life.

When a college intern accuses Jason of sexual misconduct and another woman, Kerry Lynch, comes forward claiming Jason raped her, Angela’s near-perfect life with Jason begins unravelling. Jason insists he’s innocent of both charges, but when Kerry disappears, Angela is forced to take a closer look at her life. And when she is asked to defend Jason in court, she realizes her loyalty to her husband could unearth old secrets.

‘The Wife,’ has twists in the plotline. Will you talk about the role of twists in thrillers and suspense novels?

Plots twists may be one of the major reasons why people read crime fiction. I think surprises that come completely out of the blue are sort of like cheating. One of the tricks to writing successful plot twists is to present the unexpected, yet once it happens, it should seem to have been almost inevitable to the reader. For me, the best twists I’ve come up with derived not from the story’s plot, but from within the character. It’s important for the twist to come from the character’s past or from whatever makes that person tick—perhaps in a way that isn’t typical of other people.

‘The Wife,’ has an unreliable narrator, and I wasn’t sure whom to trust as I read on. Will you talk about such a narrator?

I have to go back to the book and see if she’s really unreliable. [Laughter]. I’m not convinced Angela Powell ever says something false to the reader. She’s a woman living a carefully constructed life, one that makes her feel, as she says, ‘good and boring.’ She wants to be happily married, to be a proud and supportive wife, a doting mother to her son, and she doesn’t like drama.  Angela’s comfortable with routine and has no desire for a public life. But when her husband’s choices begin eroding the bubble she’s built around herself, she must force herself to confront some uncomfortable truths. She’s not so much unreliable as as she is in denial about the choices she and her husband have made; choices that have brought them to where they are in the book. Maybe she’s not transparent because she’s not terribly self-aware.

Would you categorize ‘The Wife’ as a domestic thriller, a legal thriller, a mystery, or all three?

[Laughter] I guess I’d say it’s all three.

I agree. You hit all the bases with this one.

It’s a domestic thriller because it deals with life within a marriage in crisis.

It’’s also a legal thriller in which Angela finds herself needing to work outside the criminal justice system because her husband is the defendant. Jason and his attorneys have a confidential relationship, and therefore she has to gather information elsewhere.  She has no idea if her husband and his legal team are being honest with her.

And, it’s a bit of a mystery as Angela slowly gathers information from Twitter alerts and other sources, in a slow drip as the story unfolds.

Speaking of Twitter and a slow dripping of information, among other things, ‘The Wife’ deals with sexual misconduct in the workplace. It seems to have presaged certain current events. Will you talk about this?

Sure, when the Harvey Weinstein revelations began surfacing and then kept coming, the #Me Too movement suddenly began. I thought no one would read the book because it would feel to real. I never thought the novel would have such a real truth and current backdrop.

When the Weinstein news broke, the book was already printed and I couldn’t make changes. I had to think about the conundrum concerning whom to believe, the woman or the man.

You mentioned ‘truth’ and I’ve always felt the real truth lies in fiction, more so than in memoir or biography.

I agree. The other day, I was talking with another attorney. We were discussing a false confession and how it seemed to resemble fiction. We agreed that good crime fiction taps into what is happening in the real world. It can be presented more succinctly and with more clarity in fiction than in a journalistic piece. And, you don’t have to resort to footnotes or annotate sources. You just present it as truth.

The novel also describes perjury in the courtroom. Tell us a bit about lying under oath.

One of the things Angela must ask herself is whether or not she’ll lie for her husband, if she’s put under oath. Is it a red line she won’t cross?

As a former prosecutor, I recall looking at lists of witnesses and thinking I knew when they would lie. There were times when defense witness took the stand and it was assumed they would by lying, but when actually facing a prosecutor and jury, they often told the truth. The fear of the law can force people into telling the truth.

You co-write books with Mary Higgins Clark. Will you talk about that?

I’ve fallen in love with her, and with the process of co-authoring books. It frees me in a way that writing by myself can’t do. If I hit a wall when writing on my own, I have nowhere else to go but back inside my head until I figure it out. But when I’m working with Mary, we toss ideas back and forth and work out plot kinks very quickly. I couldn’t ask for a better co-author.

If you could re-experience one book again as though reading it for the first time, which one would it be?

It would be Presumed Innocent by Scott Turow. It’s a legal and domestic thriller. I love the legal world he created—the pressures of a politicized DA’s office, and the vivid characters he portrayed.

If you could meet one fictional character in real life, who would it be? And why?

It would be Kinsey Millhone of Sue Grafton’s alphabet series. If she were a real person, I know we’d be good friends.

What’s coming next from Alafair Burke?

I’m working on a new Ellie Hatcher novel. And the next book in the Under Suspicion series with Marry Higgins Clark will be coming soon.

Congratulations on writing ‘The Wife,’ a subtle, smart, unputdownable and suspenseful thriller that keeps the reader guessing, while tearing through the pages at breakneck speed. I was so caught up, I read it in two sittings.

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Chloe Benjamin’s first novel, The Anatomy of Dreams, received the Edna Ferber Fiction Book Award. She received her MFA in fiction form the University of Wisconsin. Her fiction, poetry and essays have been widely published.

The Immortalists is a tale of family love, prophesy, destiny and magic. Among other questions, it asks, If you knew the date of your death, how would you live your life? In 1969, a travelling psychic arrives in the Gold family’s neighborhood; she claims to be able to tell anyone the day on which he or she will die; she tells each of four Gold children when they will die. Though the siblings keep the dates secret from one another, their prophesies affect each of them profoundly. Following each sibling, the novel is a tale about life, mortality and the choices we make.

Knowing when we’re going to die is a unique premise for a novel. What made you decide to use it in ‘The Immortalists’?

I’ve always wanted to have a great fortune-teller experience in my own life.

It’s fair to say the premise of the book derives from my own neuroses and anxieties.

The uncertainty of life itself and our lack of control over much that awaits us, have gnawed at me for years.  These preoccupations came together in this novel in the form of three children who encountered a fortune-teller, and each one’s story slowly unfolds.

One sibling in ‘The Immortalists,’ Klara, becomes a magician, while another, Varya, becomes a biologist focused on the quest to prolong life. Will you talk about these different approaches to cope with the uncertainties we face in life?

That’s a great question. I think much of my own quest in life is to figure out how best to cope with my own uncertainties. In the book, I wanted to look at different frameworks or philosophies to deal with the unknown—either through science or religion. Klara has faith, not so much in religion, but in magic or mystery inherent to life in the world. On the other hand, Varya’s interest in science is her attempt to find an evidenced-based, practical and realistic truth. She thinks and believes that life can be extended, and death can be outsmarted. I wanted to explore those approaches and how they each offered a different perspective and challenge to the uncertainties in life.

Both Klara and Varya must deal with mental turmoil. Will you talk about your own life in relation to these fictional characters?

The characters weren’t explicitly pulled from my life, but there are pieces of me in each of them. Although I wish I was Klara—with faith in magic—I think I’m actually closer to Varya. I don’t have her degree of anxiety or fixation on control, but there’s a good deal of me in her. So, the writing I did in her section is the most personal and raw. I don’t think I expected that to happen when I began writing the book. I myself struggle with anxiety, so through these characters, I was able to explore where that comes from and tried to see a way out of it.

So then, to some degree, for you, writing involves putting some of your own demons on the page?

Yes, it does. I wish I could say writing this book did away with some of my doubts about the unknown, but it didn’t. [Laughter]. If anything, it crystallized my uncertainties. I now understand them with more clarity, and know more about their origins. I hope the novel offers solace to people struggling with the same issues.

One might say ‘The Immortalists’ is not so much a book about dying as it is about living life. Will you talk about that?

I thought about that as I was writing the book.

You can’t have bad things happening to characters simply for shock value; you need to  provide context. Wth each of the characters, I portrayed how they lived; what they thought about their lives; and how each ultimately dealt with death.

Who are your literary influences?

My favorite writer is Alice Munro. It’s simply amazing how well she captures entire lifetimes in a single short story. I’m often shocked and delighted as I read the next sentence in one of her stories. Lorrie Moore, Flannery O’Connor, Raymond Carver, and Mary Gaitskill also influenced me profoundly. Phillip Pullman’s books are gorgeously written and explore questions of consciousness, so he’s influenced me, as has Donna Tarte.

If you could meet two fictional characters in real life, who would they be?

The characters who leap to mind are Dumbledore and Snape from the Harry Potter books. Following them and their complexities over so many books has always stayed with me.

What’s coming next from Chloe Benjamin?

I’m going on an eighteen day, sixteen city book tour for The Immortalists. I’m excited about the chance to meet readers. I’m also working on the next book, but I’m too caught up with it to say anything about it right now.

Congratulations on penning ‘The Immortalists,’ a family saga about love, destiny, living life and making choices that will cause readers to consider what to do with the time given them on this earth.

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