Crime | Mark Rubinstein Blog

‘Little White Lies,’ A Conversation with Ace Atkins

May 4, 2017 by Mark Rubinstein Leave a Comment

Ace Atkins is the bestselling author of 21 novels, including The Fallen and now, Little White Lies. Ace has been nominated for every major award in crime fiction, including the Edgar Award. A former newspaper reporter and football player at Auburn, Ace also writes essays and investigative pieces for several national publications including the Wall Street Journal, Garden & Gun, and Men’s Journal.

Little White Lies picks up on Robert B. Parker’s Spenser novels for which Ace was selected as the writer by the Parker estate. The story beings with Connie Kelly who thought she found her perfect man on an online dating site. She fell so hard for M. Brooks Welles, she wrote him a check for nearly $300,000 to be invested on her behalf. Soon afterwards, both her money and Welles are gone. When Spenser discovers everything about Welles was phony, it’s just the beginning of a trail leading from Boston to the backroads of Georgia, where deadly surprises await Spenser and his friend Hawk.

Before we talk about Little White Lies, some questions about Ace Atkins. Was there an event or influence in your early years that made you want to become a writer?

The biggest thing for me was I really loved books as a kid. I wasn’t just a causal reader. I really was obsessed with books. In high school, I became a book collector of rare editions and I was very into Ian Fleming’s James Bond novels, so it just fed into my wanting to write my own stories.

You obviously have a natural talent for storytelling, but you were also influenced by these early exposures. In your view, is becoming a writer an inborn trait or something one learns? Is it nature or nurture?

I’ve thought about that with my own kids. I think there are kids who tend to have a richer fantasy life than others. They seem to have more imagination and possess a creative tendency.

I think the most valid view is a writer has to have a little bit of both. There must to be talent and innate curiosity, but a writer should hone these abilities to translate what’s inherently in his mind on to the page. So, it’s a bit of DNA coupled with learning the craft.

You were a varsity football player at Auburn and became a journalist. How did that come about?

It wasn’t easy [Laughter]. My biggest motivator was I didn’t want to become a football coach. I majored in mass communications, studying screen writing, and also took English and Southern literature courses.

I had a friend who said ‘It you want to become a writer, the best place to do it is to go into the newsroom.’ I thought about people like Hemingway and Graham Greene and other writers I respected who honed their craft as journalists. I was living in Florida and took a job with the St. Petersburg Times. I was scraping by earning pennies writing stories. I’m not kidding, I was paid thirty bucks per story. If I got fifty bucks, it was a windfall. Eventually, I became a fulltime reporter.

It took a few years before I got my sea legs because I didn’t have a journalism background. It was also a bad time with the recession. Reporters were being laid off, but eventually, I became a staff writer at the Tampa Tribune. That experience was valuable because the editors helped me hone what I was doing and I became a much better writer.

How did your career as a journalist prepare you for writing fiction?

One of the things I see with amateur writers, or those who haven’t been in the news business as print journalists, is a failure to get to the point of a story. As a journalist, you learn that words are cheap, and that everything you put on the page is not magic. Having worked with some very tough news editors, I learned how to get to the point of a story. For instance, in a news story, I might have two-thousand quotes, but I had to decide which were the best quotes to use in a story. I learned the meaning of dialogue and which words had the most impact. I learned how to write good sentences and to write with clarity and color.

Those were the lessons that prepared me to become a fiction writer, drawing on my training and experiences writing news feature stories.

I understand Little White Lies is loosely based on an ex-FOX News pundit’s false CIA claims and other con men you covered as a journalist over the years. Will you talk about that?

I’ve always been fascinated by con men. Let me tell you something, Tampa and the St. Petersburg area of Florida are con man havens. Certain kinds of people who’ve screwed up go there to reinvent their lives.

I was really fascinated by Wayne Simmons. His story is relevant to today’s news cycles where people are debating what is truth versus what is fake news. People who watch news programs on television may not realize that what they’re seeing is programmed more for entertainment than for imparting accurate information.

This guy, Wayne Simmons, was able to work his way onto television shows claiming to have been a CIA analyst and officer. He was eventually ‘outed” by people who had actually worked for the CIA. He conned a woman out of a few hundred thousand dollars in a real estate scam.

I also ran into a story about a man I covered as a reporter. He’d worked a similar kind of scam with women all over Tampa. The CIA scam is the best one these people use. It’s the greatest go-to for con men because the CIA cannot confirm or deny employment. It can’t be verified or disproven. While I was working at the Tampa Tribune, I wrote about this guy and did a three-part series on con men.

Since Spenser never had to go up against a good con man case, I figured Little White Lies would involve this kind of scam. Years ago, I actually met Frank Abagnale, a reformed con man who was about to have a movie made about his exploits. Catch Me If You Can is based on his story. Another con man scam is someone claiming to have been a former Navy SEAL. I know a former SEAL who ‘outs’ about thirty of these guys every single day.

I’ve noticed that in Little White Lies and other books in the Spenser series, Spenser has a cynical and edgy sense of humor. Will you talk about the role of humor in thrillers and mysteries?

There’s humor in Spenser’s world view as originally written by Robert B. Parker. And, it’s somewhat consistent with my own view of things. Spenser is the same as he was in the 1970s. Ironically, I feel I have more in common with Spenser than with my own creation, Quinn Colson.

As for humor in thrillers and mysteries, when I pick up a book that doesn’t have a thread of humor in it, I have very little patience for it. I sense my patience dwindling as I get older. The writers I really respect, and who write with a nice helping of humor—for instance, Carl Hiaasen—do so, even though they write serious stories. I’ve been writing fiction for almost twenty years, and as an older writer, I realize it’s something I enjoy incorporating into my writing. Raymond Chandler wrote about some very dark alleys in LA, but he wrote with humor, as did Bob Parker. Humor made Spenser very special for me.

Little White Lies has some chilling fight scenes. Will you talk about constructing such pulse-pounding scenes?

In his later years, Bob Parker got away from some of the raw violence. In his last few books, the violence was somewhat bloodless. The fight scenes in his early books were really nasty and didn’t feel choreographed. And Spenser did not always win, but he always persevered. I’ve tried to craft Spenser’s fight scenes with realism. Violence is ugly. It’s not a video game. I write it with detail, grit and authenticity.

In Bob Parker’s early books, gritty violence was a hallmark of the series, and fans commented they liked that very much.

You’ve written various series with different protagonists. Which character has been the most compelling for you to write?

The most compelling for me would have to be Quin Colson. I’m vitally invested in watching Quinn grow and evolve. I’ve been writing the Spenser novels for seven years. He’s a fully formed man who knows who he is. He’s well aware of his faults and strengths.

Quinn Colson is more of a work in progress. He’s a younger man who is changing. Like many heroes in legends and myths, he’s gone off to war, has come home and must fight things in his own backyard. It’s interesting for me to see who he will become. When I first created him he was twenty-nine years old. Now, I hope I’m writing him as an older man who’s going through an evolution.

Can you complete the following sentence? Writing novels has taught me____________.

I think it’s taught me to understand people more than I did before. I would like to say that it’s given me empathy, but I don’t think I’m there yet. Writing novels has helped me understand people more than I did before. It’s helped me understand the motivations of people—even the bad guys. It’s allowed me to explore human nature. So, sort of like Quinn Colson, I’m evolving, too.

What’s coming next from Ace Atkins?

The new Quinn Colson book, The Fallen, is next. My foreseeable future involves Spenser and Quinn. I’m very fortunate because I do love these two characters.

Congratulations on writing Little White Lies the latest in a series described by the Associated Press as “Classic Spenser—the Spenser of wry wit, tasty food and drinks, hard workouts and lethal confrontations…once again, Atkins has delivered a thriller that evokes the best of Parker’s Spenser series.” The AP assessment is right on the money!

Mark Rubinstein’s latest non-fiction book is Beyond Bedlam’s Door: True Tales from the Couch and Courtroom, a medical/psychiatric memoir.

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‘Golden Prey,’ A Talk with John Sandford

April 28, 2017 by Mark Rubinstein Leave a Comment

The writer John Sandford (USA) by Beowulf Sheehan, July 9, 2015, New York, New York. Photograph © Beowulf Sheehan

John Sandford is the pseudonym for the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist John Camp. After turning to fiction, he’s written many bestselling books, including twenty-seven Prey novels, his most recent being the just-released Golden Prey. He’s also penned four Kidd novels; nine Virgil Flowers novels; three standalone novels, and three YA novels coauthored with his wife, Michele Cook.

Golden Prey sends Lucas Davenport on a sustained manhunt for Garvin Poole who’s been lying low for years. It’s been rumored he’s dead; but Poole resurfaces in Biloxi, Mississippi where he has masterminded a heist of millions of dollars from a Honduran drug cartel. The operation has left five people dead, including a six-year-old girl. Poole unwittingly left behind some of his DNA, so the authorities know he’s alive and back in the game.

When Lucas, now a U.S. marshal, and his team begin tracking Poole, complications arise as the Honduran cartel has sent its own killers to track Poole, reclaim the money, and exact retribution.

Lucas Davenport is a larger-than-life character. Will you give us a brief description of him?

He’s tall and good-looking in a rugged way. He has a couple of scars on his face and one on his neck, and he’s got a mean smile, but kindly eyes. He likes excitement and intensity, and doesn’t shy away from a fight. When I put him together, I tried constructing a character both men and women would like. He’s a tough guy but really likes smart women. He has a great fashion sense, and wears clothes well.

There are two fascinating villains in Golden Prey: Garvin Poole and Sturgill Darling. Despite their criminality, they’re complex characters with deep commitments to women, and to each other. Will you talk about villains and what makes them interesting?

Many things can make a villain interesting. You know, a typical killer so often described in thrillers is despicable from start to finish: his nose drips, he’s pure evil. These two guys are country people who are out of time. They don’t live in the computer world, even though they have computers. In his spare time, Garvin Poole makes electric guitars. He’s not the kind of guy who’s going to make it in an office or working a nine-to-five job, he’s independent to his core.

Sturgill Darling is a serious farmer, who maintains a well-tended farm and he’s committed to his wife.

I like them both even though they’re bad guys. They’re likable because they were shaped to some extent by forces they couldn’t control—each had a deprived past. I think the most appealing villains are those who act badly but aren’t bad human beings. Interesting villains have more than one dimension and have different facets to their personalities.

Golden Prey features a great deal about technology in tracing and tracking criminals. How have you kept up with these modern techniques?

One thing I realized when I began the book is that it’s impossible to write an old-fashioned crime story like those featured in the sixties and seventies. It doesn’t work well anymore. Those people left clues that can no longer be contested in court. Take DNA for example, it’s impossible to refute if it’s found.

If you write contemporary police procedural novels, it’s tough for anyone to get away with anything.

Consider the iPhone: it tracks every place you’ve been. That means the cops can accurately place you at the crime scene; and it’s the same thing with the GPS navigation system in your car.

For me, technology is almost a character in the book, albeit a very complicated and omnipresent one. Yes, I do research but I’m also struck by how people are so consumed by it and connected to it. You can’t walk down the street without encountering many people on their cellphones texting or talking.

Who do you find more compelling to write about: Virgil Flowers or Lucas Davenport?

I don’t find either one more compelling than the other because they’re totally different from each other. Virgil is a guy who is sort of left in the past. The killings he gets involved with are more mundane than those in which Lucas is involved. The perpetrators are usually the losers in society. They’re not clever criminals. Virgil allows me to use my sense of humor much more than Lucas does.

Lucas Davenport is much more intense and far darker than Virgil Flowers. I like writing both of them. Virgil is very much of a release for me after writing about Davenport because I can have fun with him as opposed to the intensity of Davenport.

Is there anything about your writing process that might surprise our readers?

I don’t think there’s anything about the process itself that might surprise readers; however, perhaps they don’t realize it’s very hard work. I’m sitting at a computer many hours every day. Because the work is so consuming, I have to make an effort to get away from the novels. I have to force myself to take a break to exercise. I didn’t exercise yesterday; I sat at the computer for most of the day, and as a result, today I have a sore back. Writing is actually very hard work. I don’t just type a few words and then go out for a latte. [Laughter]. I know people appreciate when the book is good, but I think they don’t understand how hard it is physically and mentally to write.

When we last talked, you mentioned wanting to “cut back” to one novel a year so you could pursue other interests. But you’re still writing at a torrid pace. Tell us about that.

I’m going to have to cut back sooner or later because the pace really does hurt, and it keeps me from doing other things. I sit at the computer for hours every day, but, even when I’m not actually writing, I’m thinking and talking about it. For instance, last night my wife and I sat down and had a protracted conversation about the possibility of writing two other novels. We discussed all the complications of establishing the plots. When I’m doing two books a year, even when I’m away from the computer, I can’t get away from the writing.

For instance, when I walk around on the street, I look at signs, trucks, and bumper stickers, all of which contribute ideas for the books. Even when I’m in the car just out for a cruise, I’ll see something interesting and make a mental note of it. And it all comes down to the fact that I can’t get away from the writing and find it very hard to relax.

I’d like to be able to pursue other interests, like play a round of golf which I used to enjoy, but writing demands a great deal of my time and soaks up my physical and mental energy.

When you write a YA novel with your wife, how do you switch gears for a very different audience?

That was hard, too. But, I have youngsters in the Davenport books and also in the Virgil Flowers books. The kids in the YA novels and those in Virgil’s are sort of old-fashioned kids. They’re not the type of kids walking down the street with friends where all of them are on their cellphones. They’re from a somewhat earlier era. They’re not sexting on their cellphones. In a way, they’re not truly modern kids. I simply can’t conceive of some of the things kids do today.

I understand you once wrote a non-fiction book about plastic surgery. Will you tell us about that?

I wrote two non-fiction books: one about art, and the other about plastic surgery. When I was a reporter, I became interested in medical reporting. I wrote a few stories out of a hospital emergency room. I became very interested in medical and surgical issues. Then, I saw some patients who’d been severely burned and became aware of the emotional impact burns had on patients. I saw plastic surgery performed on a little girl who’d had all the hair on her head burned off in a mobile home fire. She had terrible scarring on her scalp. I watched a plastic surgeon do reconstructive surgery on this child and he restored all her hair. I interviewed the surgeon, who convinced me that appearance is a critical issue for people. I asked him if we could put together a book detailing a whole series of plastic surgical cases. I compiled a few dozen cases and incorporated them into the book. Some were reconstructive while others were for aesthetic reasons, but all were vitally important for the patients.

What’s coming next from John Sandford?

I’m almost two-thirds of the way through the next Virgil Flowers book.

Congratulations on writing Golden Prey, a blistering addition to the Prey series. The books are so compelling, Stephen King said, ‘If you haven’t read Sandford yet, you have been missing one of the great summer-read novelists of all time.’

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‘Say Nothing,’ A Conversation with Brad Parks

March 7, 2017 by Mark Rubinstein Leave a Comment

Brad Parks, a former newspaper reporter, is the only author to have won the Shamus, Nero, and Lefty Awards, three of crime fiction’s most prestigious prizes. Say Nothing is his 7^th novel.

Say Nothing features Scott Sampson, a federal judge who’s held in great esteem. He has a lovely wife and two great kids. One morning, Scott and his wife, Alison, discover that their six-year-old twins have been kidnapped. Scott receives a call warning him to decide exactly as he’s told in a drug case he’s about to rule on. If he doesn’t follow these instructions, his children, Sam and Emma will suffer the consequences. He is told not to call the police, or anyone else. He’s told the Say Nothing.

But the call is only the beginning of a terrible ordeal. The first case is only a test run. It becomes clear, the kidnappers want to influence the outcome of the most high-profile trial of Judge Scott Sampson’s career. The ensuing events are harrowing.

When we last talked, you told me the newsroom has given you enough material for twenty novels. How did the idea for Say Nothing come to you?

I owe my friend Steve Hamilton a debt of gratitude. He gave me some advice years ago. He said, ‘You have to write the book that scares you.’ Ever since then I’ve ruminated about that. One day while I was jogging, I asked myself, What scares me? I’m the father of two elementary school-age kids. Nothing scares me more than the thought of something happening to them—like a kidnapping. I asked myself, ‘Who would want to kidnap my kids?’ From a storytelling standpoint, a ransom demand would be boring. I began considering what kind of character might have something to offer a kidnapper that could not be gotten any other way. And then it came to me: a federal judge might be a good target because he could not be bribed. He’s a moral paragon and the only way to influence him would be to have control of his children. He would then be forced to do the kidnappers’ bidding.

In Say Nothing, Scott Sampson is faced with ethical dilemmas of momentous proportions. Talk to us about the role of conflicting ethical decisions in your thrillers.

Conflict is paramount in many novels, especially in thrillers. However, in Say Nothing, there’s really no decision for Scott Sampson to make. Nothing matters to him but his children. His future, his financial situation, his reputation and his job are all secondary to the wellbeing of his kids. He really has no choice and it’s interesting to see how the decision he must make impacts him in the larger sense. He makes the decision he must, and the question becomes, what will it cost him? As the novel continues, it costs him more and more. Yet, he’s still willing to put everything on the line. He began the book with an ideal life: he has a wonderful job, a lovely wife and healthy children. He has everything a person could want. And then, slowly but surely, every one of those things is taken away.

Say Nothing has been described as a ‘Domestic thriller.’ Define that for our readers.

Different people might have slightly different definitions of a domestic thriller. To me, it’s a thriller in which the protagonist is someone you could meet at the grocery store. It doesn’t involve a superhero with Special Forces training. Rather, it concerns an Everyman or Everywoman. That’s always appealed to me because that kind of character is easy to relate to.

I’ve read a few of your novels. Among other things, they all involve the importance of family. Will you talk about that in relation to the novel?

As a writer, I need an emotional entrée to a book. If I care deeply about the characters and what’s happening to them, I’ll be able to make the reader care, as well. The notion of family resonates with me and with many other people. I could not have written this book when I was single and not yet a parent. Being a husband and parent gave me the insight to be able to write this novel. I’m always writing from a place of personal knowledge. When you get rid of all the trappings of your life, what really matters above all else is family.

Many thrillers involve either a missing person or a kidnapping. These issues seem to hold a special attraction for so many readers. Will you talk about that?

It goes to the heart of the definition of a thriller. Of course, a mystery is about solving a crime, while a thriller is about preventing one. The threat of something awful happening—like someone going missing or being kidnapped—is something we writers use in our writing. The threat must be real to the reader.

For instance, I’m afraid of spiders. I was once sitting in my office and a huge spider appeared on the wall. It was nearly as large as my hand. I tried to kill it with a rolled-up newspaper. But this creature was so huge, it laughed off my feeble attempt and disappeared. So, I was left with this massive spider lurking somewhere in my office. And then, I suddenly felt something tickle my leg. I jumped and screamed. I think thrillers must have something like that spider at their core. So, I’m always looking for that spider.

You mentioned writing from some well of personal knowledge. You’re neither an attorney nor a physician. Yet, Say Nothing involves easily understandable and vivid descriptions of the federal court system and certain aspects of medicine. Tell us a bit about your research for this novel.

As a newspaper reporter, I was no stranger to courtrooms. The law has always fascinated me. For this book, I shadowed a federal judge for a while and learned a great deal about the federal system and the law. I could never have written about Scott Sampson without that access.

The dialogue in Say Nothing is very realistic and highly believable. Tell us about your process for writing dialogue.

It helps that I was a newspaper reporter. I spent years listening to people talk. I learned to listen carefully and to distill the essence of what people were saying. I always looked for quotable moments. When writing, I read my dialogue out loud. I ask myself, is this how someone would talk? It it doesn’t sound realistic to me, I re-do it.

What has surprised you about the writing life?

What’s surprised is that I’ve learned that some of my greatest enjoyment comes from being read by other people. I love getting reader emails such as, you wrote this character…do you know my Aunt Betty? That kind of feedback tells me the reader has internalized my story and fleshed out the character even beyond my own imagination. That shared experience is wonderful and I enjoy that kind of magic.

You’re having a dinner party and can invite any five people, living or dead, real or fictional, from any walk of life. Who would they be?

I’d invite Harper Lee, Thomas Jefferson, Mark Twain, and we might as well have Jesus at dinner. He might have some answers to questions we all have. [Laughter] Then, to balance it out, I’d invite Mohammed.

What would you all be talking about.

I think we’d find universal themes to talk about. We’d realize issues that drove people in Jesus’s time were the same things Mark Twain wrote about and Thomas Jefferson wrestled with when he wrote the Bill of Rights. And those same things still drive us today. So I think the conversation would be about timeless issues of the human condition.

What’s coming next from Brad Parks?

Another standalone for which I don’t yet have a title. It concerns family again. [Laughter] It’s about a woman whose child is taken from her by Social Services. Someone is framing her as a criminal in order to take away her child.

Congratulations on writing Say Nothing, a propulsive, harrowing, and deeply moving novel that kept me turning pages because I had to find out what would happen to this extraordinary family.

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‘Bone Box,’ A Conversation with Faye Kellerman

March 3, 2017 by Mark Rubinstein Leave a Comment

Faye Kellerman is the bestselling author of 30 previous novels, most of them featuring the husband and wife team of Peter Decker and Rina Lazarus. Faye and her husband, Jonathan Kellerman, are the only married couple ever to appear on the New York Times bestseller list simultaneously for two different novels. And both are authors very long-running series.

Bone Box, the 28^th installment of the Decker/Lazarus series, begins with Rina making a shocking discovery of bones found in the woods of her upstate New York community. It leads her husband, police detective Peter Decker, to investigate a series of gruesome unsolved murders which point to a diabolical serial killer who’s been hiding in plain sight. And whoever this psychopath is, he may be on the hunt for a fresh victim.

It’s clear from reading Bone Box that you know a good deal about forensic science. How did you learn so much?

As you know from our last talk, in my early years, I was trained as a dentist. We studied gross anatomy, which is where I got the title Bone Box. Dental students have a different experience from medical students: while medical students are given the entire body in gross anatomy, we are given parts of the body in a bone box. This is how we dentists begin learning the anatomy of the body, especially the head and neck.

As for forensic science, I ran with my basic knowledge of anatomy and medical science and talked to a few experts. I also went online—an easy and wonderful way to do research these days—and found all the forensic information I needed for the story.

Of course, over the years there have been advances in forensic science’s ability to make determinations about a very decomposed body, and all that research was available online. So, I used my basic knowledge and updated it by reading articles.

What do you feel makes Peter Decker and Rina Lazarus so appealing to the reading public?

I think they’re appealing because they’re full, fleshed-out characters.

I like that Peter is a great family man and is passionate about his work. To him, solving each crime becomes a personal mission. I like characters who care about what they’re doing and who are concerned about the victims. I think readers also like that.

I think Rena and Peter have a very good marriage, but it’s a realistic one. Sometimes they fight and I think lots of people can identify with that. She’s also a good homemaker and enjoys cooking her kugel and brisket, but contributes to Peter’s investigations whenever she feels it’s necessary to join in.

Part of why I moved them to a small town and away from Los Angeles was to allow Rena to play a larger role in the investigations. With the L.A.P.D., there was no way she could have access to the material Peter shares with her now. The L.A.P.D. is a huge, monolithic bureaucracy, but in a small town, there are fewer resources, so she can become involved.

In Bone Box, Peter Decker’s interrogation tactics are quite impressive. Have you studied interrogation techniques?

I haven’t studied interrogation techniques as a field of endeavor, but I haven seen interrogations moving away from the old concept of ‘Good Cop, Bad Cop.’

In my books, Peter and the interviewee simply talk. If you get a person talking, he or she will tell you all sorts of things. I think to be a good interrogator, you must be a very good listener. If you get guilty people talking, they will inevitably come out with a contradiction to a lie they’ve told. A good interrogator must engage in active listening, and that’s what Peter does.

Do you ever brainstorm with Jonathan for plot ideas or twists?

We don’t really brainstorm. I’ll come up with the root of an idea and I might mention it to him. Sometimes I show him a finished book. Many times, I give him the first fifty pages and ask him what he thinks.

I tend to do a lot of walking to stimulate my imagination. I love to walk and think about what might make an interesting story that will provide readers with a few hours of entertainment and relaxation.

Which question do you get asked more often than any other?

The question I’m asked most often is ‘How do you come up with ideas?’

The thing is, I never know what’s going to become an integral part of a novel, but it all derives from some part of my life experience or imagination.

I write well-fleshed out characters, and—you know this better than I do—inevitably, more ideas spring from my subconscious. They all have a little bit of me in them. It’s very hard to figure out in advance how a story will unfold, but after having written so many novels, I feel more comfortable letting the ideas come up from somewhere in my own subconscious. Writing is much easier now because that sense of panic I used to experience doesn’t set in as I begin a new book.

What moves you most in a novel?

I’m most moved by very interesting characters.

Occasionally, I’ll find a novel that’s so cleverly plotted, it grabs me; but mostly, I want to follow a person in whatever journey he or she is taking, if that character is likable and identifiable. And I try to impart that in my own novels. I always ask myself: how does the crime affect the people involved?

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

Wow. That’s a tough one. [Laughter]. Leaving my husband’s books aside, and my son Jesse’s, I’ll pick Jane Eyre. It’s a very personal story of a girl who becomes a woman. I’d also say The Count of Monte Cristo, that’s a novel of world adventure and a swashbuckling account of extreme revenge.

Both books moved me as a teenager and opened my eyes to a world far beyond my very confined one.

What’s coming next from Faye Kellerman?

I have my first, standalone novel coming out some time this summer. It’s called The Killing Season and involves a seventeen-year-old boy looking for the murderer of his older sister.

Congratulations on writing Bone Box, a superb police procedural with a great deal of warmth and heart. It takes the reader into the world of detective work, forensics, marriage, medicine, murder and mystery.

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‘Ripper,’ A Conversation with Patricia Cornwell

February 28, 2017 by Mark Rubinstein Leave a Comment

Patricia Cornwell is known to millions of readers as the award-winning and bestselling author of the Kay Scarpetta series. In 2001, she was pulled into a real-life investigation of her own—the long-unsolved “Jack the Ripper” murders that appalled and fascinated London in the late 1800s. Applying old-fashioned as well as modern forensic techniques to a century old crime, Patricia Cornwell’s research led to the publication of Portrait of a Killer, in which she identified the renowned British painter Walter Sickert as the Ripper.

The book created considerable controversy and thereafter, Patricia devoted countless hours and resources pursuing new evidence against Sickert. In Ripper, The Secret Life of Walter Sickert, she revisits, revises and expands upon her findings of the most notorious unsolved crime wave in history.

Give us a brief overview of Jack the Ripper’s crimes and the impact he had on London in the 1880s.

Jack the Ripper’s crimes began then, but there was nothing in the London newspapers about a “Jack the Ripper.” The first reports noted some fiendish killer was terrorizing the impoverished East End, an area of slums known as Whitechapel. A prostitute was killed at the end of August of 1888; she’d been stabbed more than twenty times. Nobody paid much attention to it. Then, another woman was murdered soon afterwards; her throat was cut in the streets of the East End, in the early hours of the morning.

The murders became infamous when “Jack the Ripper” began writing letters to the media and to the police. He named himself “Jack the Ripper” and signed the letters using that name or others such as “Saucy Jack” or “Jackie Boy.” The letters were hateful, violent and mocking. By the end of September of 1888, there were five, if not six, murders attributed to Jack the Ripper. In the London slums where the prostitutes and immigrants lived in a sea of misery, they talked about “The Knife” and warned each other to be aware there was someone out there who killed.

Then the worst murder occurred which was the killing of Mary Kelly in early November of 1888. She was not murdered in the streets, but in her hovel. All her organs were removed but her brain, and she was flayed to the bone. Her right leg was flayed down to the femur.

We don’t know how many murders Jack the Ripper actually committed. There’s a great deal of evidence that there were at least seven, and probably many more as I point out in the book. These kinds of killers change how they commit murder. The stakes escalate for such a killer. From a psychological standpoint, it takes more to satisfy the compulsion to kill. I believe that’s when Jack the Ripper began to dismember his victims.

What made you so interested in solving these crimes?

It’s what happens to me with anything that gets my attention.

In the Spring of 2001, a Scotland Yard investigator gave me a tour of the Metro Police headquarters, and took me to the East End where these murders had occurred. I was simply being given a tour. I then asked a fateful question: ‘Who were the suspects?’ He rattled off the names, many of which were familiar to Ripperologists. He said they were suspects with no basis in fact or evidence. It was just speculation. I asked about any evidence and he told me the only evidence left in the case were the actual letters the Ripper wrote to the media and police. They were in the national archives. I considered the fact that documents can provide a plethora of forensic evidence.

There can be DNA evidence or even statement analysis, which can be a valuable tool in an investigation—the perpetrator’s choice of words, his language, the spellings and misspellings—can be revealing.

I decided to look at the letters.

The investigator told me an artist had been named as a possible suspect in the Ripper case: one Walter Sickert, a prominent English artist during the Victorian era.

I began looking at art books and the hair on the back of my neck stood up: Sickert’s paintings were very disturbing. They conveyed an undercurrent of morbidity and violence, particularly against women. But that wasn’t enough to make me think Sickert had committed the crimes.

I looked at the archived letters and was shocked. Readers will see in both the e-book and print edition of Ripper these paintings and letters. You can see how the watermarks match, and how the paintbrush strokes where he painted a letter instead of writing it conform to each other. The art work itself presents a compelling and multi-layered and very clear case against Walter Sickert.

As the book notes, Walter Sickert was a well-known painter and student of James Abbott Whistler. Tell us a bit more.

The most amazing thing about the Ripper case is that nobody ever imagined that Jack the Ripper was part of the Victorian art world—the theatrical stage and the art studio. Sickert started out as an actor. Interestingly, his stage name was ‘Mr. Nemo’ which means Mr. Nobody. One of the telegrams Jack the Ripper sent was signed ‘Mr. Nobody,’ then it was crossed out and replaced with ‘Jack the Ripper.’

Jack the Ripper wrote letters he signed ‘Nemo.’ He wrote many letters to the editor of a newspaper. This perpetrator had graphomania; he was a compulsive writer. Sickert was also a compulsive writer. He would apologize to friends for writing so often. He had a psychological compulsion to murder. It was an addiction that took the place of sex and other normal things people seek for gratification.

Speaking of psychology, in Ripper you compare Walter Sickert’s compulsion to murder, likening him to Robert Louis Stevenson’s novella, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Will you talk about that?

This all sprang forth from the London stage.

Sickert went from being a failed actor to becoming an apprentice of James McNeill Whistler, the painter of ‘Whistler’s Mother.’ Whistler was flamboyant and famous for running around the streets of London with Oscar Wilde. He was like a modern-day rock star. Sickert felt diminished around this famous man, which added to his feelings of belittlement and rage. This tapped into his sexual inadequacies concerning a deformity of his genitalia, as detailed in the book. Sickert had three surgeries for a fistula on his southern hemisphere by the time he was five years old. He underwent these surgeries without anesthesia which left him physically and emotionally scarred for life.

In the summer of 1888, A famous American actor, Richard Mansfield, wanted to bring Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde to the London stage. Mansfield mounted the production in August of 1888. Sickert knew all about this because he was an actor in that same theater, and in fact, the stage manager was none other than Bram Stoker, the author of Dracula. They all knew each other.

The theme of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde concerns a duality of someone who, on the surface is respectable, but who transforms into a monster. It’s a metaphor for the psychiatric pathology of a compulsive killer. It’s a picture of the two faces of this type of person. I once asked an expert who had dealt with sexual psychopaths—people like Ted Bundy and Jeffrey Dahmer—when do we know when someone who is charming and attractive is truly evil, and a killer? He said, ‘You know it about one minute before they kill you.’

This book shows people what this kind of killer really is like. It speaks to the need to get away from mythologizing him.

Jack the Ripper was not a charming top-hatted man in the London fog. He was a monster in the fog, with whom you might have coffee in the morning and think he’s witty, nice-looking, but a bit cold, not empathic, and who never feels guilt or regret about anything.

Tell us about the modern forensic techniques you brought to this investigation.

My investigation was an alchemy of the lowest and highest forms of technology imaginable. I used both in this case. I put letters on an old-fashioned light box or under a microscope. I even used a magnifying lens to examine the paper on which the Ripper wrote. I brought in experts to examine the paper which involved taking precise measurements of the hand-made paper and studying its watermarks. It became like fingerprints in the case.

As for the latest technology, we used spectroscopy and DNA analysis—non-destructive techniques to learn more about these hundreds of letters. Because they’re considered national treasures, we couldn’t take these letters to a laboratory and run forensic tests because they cannot leave the archives or risk being damaged. I brought over a Harvard scientist to look at colored pencils, lithography instruments, etching materials, and paint brushes. In one of the letters, Ripper penciled the letters first and when looking at it under a lens, you can see he dipped a paint brush in red ink and painted the letter. That wasn’t done by some deranged miscreant living in the London slums.

Congratulations on writing Ripper: The Secret Life of Walter Sickert. It’s a highly readable expose of perhaps the world’s most famously chilling case of serial murder; the vain efforts of the police to solve the crimes; and the compelling revelations your exhaustive research has unearthed.

Mark Rubinstein’s latest book is Bedlam’s Door: True Tales of Madness and Hope, a medical/psychiatric memoir.

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‘Heartbreak Hotel,” A Conversation with Jonathan Kellerman

February 27, 2017 by Mark Rubinstein Leave a Comment

Jonathan Kellerman, the bestselling author of forty-one crime novels, is known to mystery-lovers everywhere. With a doctorate in psychology, Jonathan has applied his knowledge not only to his novels, but to those he has co-written with his wife Faye, and son, Jesse. All three of them are bestselling authors. Additionally, he has written two children’s books and many nonfiction works, including Savage Spawn: Reflections on Violent Children, and With Strings Attached: The Art and Beauty of Vintage Guitars. He’s won the Goldwyn, Edgar, and Anthony Awards, and has been nominated for a Shamus Award.

Heartbreak Hotel, is the latest novel in Jonathan’s acclaimed Alex Delaware series. Along with Sue Grafton’s “Alphabet series” The Alex Delaware series is one of the longest running on the literary landscape.

Heartbreak Hotel begins with nearly one-hundred-year-old Thalia Mars asking Alex to come to her suite at the Aventura, a luxury hotel with a checkered history. Thalia asks him questions about guilt, criminal behavior and victim selection. When Alex inquires about her fascination with these issues, Thalia promises to reveal more in their next meeting. But when Alex shows up the next morning, Thalia is dead in her suite.

Alex and homicide detective Milo Sturgis find themselves peeling back many layers of Thalia’s long life, and nearly a century of secrets slowly emerge—secrets that unleash an explosion of violence.

Alex Delaware has evolved over the years. Tell us a bit about that evolution.

It’s funny because it wasn’t a conscious decision to have Alex evolve over time. People reading the earlier books are in a better position than I am to see the changes in him. I rarely read my earlier books unless I’m doing research for accuracy. My son, Jesse, said the earlier books are a bit more literary, there’s more verbiage and description in them than in the later novels.

While I don’t age Alex in real time, he’s mellowed out over the years. Maybe you’re the better judge than I am. Maybe he’s mellowing as I’ve mellowed over time. [Laughter]. I must say, I don’t want him to lose his edge. I still want him to be compulsively driven because that’s what drives a crime novel forward. I don’t think there’s anything more boring that a crime novel in which the protagonist is really laid back.

The dialogue in Heartbreak Hotel is edgy and realistic. Talk to us about the importance of dialogue in your novels.

Dialogue is interesting. When I first started writing novels, I felt creating dialogue was a weakness of mine. I thought my strengths were playing with language and description. I’m a visual person. I’ve been a serious artist for most of my life. I was able to paint and draw like an adult when I was ten. I tend to perceive the world in a visual manner.

My wife Faye is an auditory writer. She has an amazing ear and can imitate people after hearing them speak once. I learned to write dialogue from Faye, and from reading Elmore Leonard. I realized when you write dialogue, it must sound like people talking. But of course, it’s not like people talking because when they talk, the conversation is replete with ‘ums’ and ‘ahs’ and pauses. Dialogue in a novel is an artifice in which you construct a false reality. I learned to keep it snappy and to open my ears to what people say and how they say it. The rhythm of dialogue came easily to me because I’m a musician and understand cadence and timing. Over the years, I’ve tried to make the dialogue better, because I don’t want it to seem stale. I think I’ve improved writing dialogue by listening to people talk and by keeping the dialogue brief, avoiding too much running on and on.

In Heartbreak Hotel, Alex’s internal thoughts and descriptions often reflect on issues larger than the novel itself. An example: “Some cops toss a room with the abandon of deranged adolescents. My friend’s grooming may come across as hastily assembled but he puts things back exactly where he found them.” Your novels not only tell a story, but serve as a vehicle for commentary about life. Tell us about that.

I think that’s just naturally the way I see the world. You as a psychiatrist and I as a psychologist must acknowledge we got into this field because we see things in multiple dimensions.

I never set out to write a ‘message book,’ but things concern me, and by dealing with larger issues, I hope to elevate the story beyond it being just a good crime novel. And, I call what I write a ‘crime novel’ rather than a mystery, because the story is always propelled by the crime.

Of course, my experience as a psychologist informs my writing. For example, as someone who worked with children in oncology, an event like a terrible cancer diagnosis can become a catalyst for unlocking all kinds of other issues. That awareness colors my writing in the sense that a specific crime can open up a Pandora’s box of reactions. Every crime impacts people, and trauma can bring out the best or worst in them, whether in a novel or in real life.

Alex Delaware had a difficult childhood. As psychologists, both he and you know the indelible effects of the past on current functioning. How does Alex’s past affect his present life?

I developed and evolved Alex’s past as I got to know him better by writing books about him. When I wrote the first one, When the Bough Breaks, which was published in 1985, I had a certain notion back then about Alex. I never thought I’d get published or that it would become a successful series. I learned about Alex along with my readers, and things began falling into place. I parcel his childhood and all of Alex’s personal history into the books very judiciously. In some novels, he’s a protagonist; in others he’s a consulting psychologist. Of course, his past has impacted his interest in psychology and in wanting to set certain things right.

You once said, “Psychology and fiction are actually quite synchronous.” Tell us more about that.

I think both involve attempts to better understand people.

As a psychologist, I love my work because I learn about people and what drives them.

As a writer, I get to play God by creating characters, and then get to see how they react to difficult situations.

What unifies psychology and fiction is they are both avenues to explore more about the human condition.

If you could read any one novel again as though reading it for the first time, which one would it be?

“I’ve never been asked that question. [Laughter] That’s a tough one. The Count of Monte Cristo was the seminal novel in my life. I read it as a youngster. It struck me as an amazing book. There was so much going on: adventure, comradery, relationships and revenge.

What’s coming next from Jonathan Kellerman?

I’m working on the next Delaware novel. Jesse and I have a book coming out called Crime Scene. It’s the beginning of a new series. I always wanted to write a novel about a crime scene investigator, which is what this novel concerns. Jesse and I wrote it together and we’re now outlining the second one.

Congratulations on penning Heartbreak Hotel, another Alex Delaware mystery that goes far beyond its genre. It’s a compelling psychological crime novel with deeply imagined characters told in a literary style that kept me turning pages to the very end.

Mark Rubinstein’s latest book is Bedlam’s Door: True Tales of Madness and Hope, a medical/psychiatric memoir.

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‘Desert Vengeance,’ A Conversation with Betty Webb

February 17, 2017 by Mark Rubinstein Leave a Comment

As a journalist, Betty Webb has interviewed U.S. presidents, astronauts, and Nobel Prize winners, as well as homeless people, the dying, and polygamy runaways. The Lena Jones mysteries are based on stories she covered as a reporter. She is a member of the National Federation of Press Women, Mystery Writers of America, and the National Organization of Zoo Keepers.

Desert Vengeance, the 9^th Lena Jones mystery, begins with Lena waiting in the parking lot of a prison on the day when “Papa” Brian Wycoff is to be released. Lena has every intention of killing this man who raped her when she was 9 years old while living in the Wycoff home as a foster child.

The next day, Norma Wycoff, the perpetrator’s wife and enabler, is found dead, shot through the eyes. A few days later, Brian Wycoff’s body is found after he was tortured to death. Suspicion first falls on Lena, and then on Wycoff’s other victims, the now-grown men and women he abused when they were children in his care.

Events escalate and lead to a series of twists and turns in the story.

Lena Jones is an intriguing character. Tell us a bit about her.

Lena had a very traumatic childhood. She was found on a Phoenix, Arizona street with a bullet in her head when she was only four years old. From there, she began a journey through foster homes. In one of the homes, she was raped by a man she called Papa Bryan, her foster father. That added more trauma onto her pre-existing ones.

After having been a police officer, she’s now working as a thirty-nine-year-old private detective. Desert Vengeance begins with her showing up at the prison on the day her rapist is scheduled to be released. Lena’s carrying a hunting knife. She’s a haunted woman trying to deal with the hand life has dealt her. Vengeance is on her mind.

Desert Vengeance is the 9^th mystery featuring Lena Jones. How has she evolved over the course of time?

At the beginning of the series, in Desert Noir, she would have uncontrollable fits of rage. She began anger management therapy; it was somewhat successful. She also had a terrible fear of closets, which in the third book we learn derives from her foster father having hid in her bedroom closet, before jumping out to attack her.

After a great deal of therapy, she’s improved, but her anguish continues to haunt her.

Desert Vengeance is a classic mystery novel. What are the major elements of a mystery?

First, a crime is committed and we don’t know who did it. Conversely, in a thriller or suspense novel, you may actually see the killer do the crime and might even know his identity.

In a mystery, there’s usually a detective, and that detective is often more important than the crime. I like to see an exploration of the detective’s psyche as well as of everyone’s psyche the killer has harmed. In this novel, the victim is a perpetrator—he’s a serial child molester. I didn’t want to explore his psyche because I don’t really care why a man rapes children. But, I wanted to delve into the psyches of Papa Bryan’s many other victims, not only Lena’s.

I get many emails from former foster care children who assume I am a former foster care child. Fortunately, I’m not. It’s important to me to delve into the psychological impact a crime has had on its victims.

Mystery writers like to drop little clues throughout the novel. If the readers are clever, they often can solve the crime themselves along with the detective. To an extent, mysteries are formulaic. When I was younger, I read Agatha Christie’s mysteries. After reading several of them, I noticed she had a habit of dropping a clue approximately every eleven pages. More than half of those clues were red herrings.

In Desert Vengeance, I was able to drop many clues because a number of Papa Bryan’s victims were still around. As Lena Jones was interviewing them, they would drop what could have been real or false clues.

Do you have a specific method for creating a mystery novel?

Yes. I make a very detailed outline before I write the first word. I denote the length of each chapter; where the chapter takes place; who is involved in each chapter and what will take place. I do that until I have outlined the entire book. But, something happens every time I write another book: by the second or third chapter, I dismiss the outline and go rogue. Desert Vengeance is the only book in the entire series where the killer turned out to be the person I actually planned to be the killer. In my other books, someone else did the deed.

What do you love about writing fiction?

I was a journalist for twenty years. When I wrote a story, I would sometimes think the story was so weird, it couldn’t be made up. One of the things I love about fiction is that it must be believable.

Which writers have influenced you as a novelist?

I like reading J.A. Jance’s novels because she writes about Arizona, too. I love reading books by Peter Robinson. I worship the ground Kate Atkinson walks on. She blends genres; she’s almost a fantasist. She hides everything in a mystery, but when you get into one of her novels, you’re off to magic land. I enjoy reading writers who stretch the genre a bit.

What’s coming next from Betty Webb?

I have another series called the Gunn Zoo series. After retiring from the newspaper business, I returned to one of my early loves—animals. I began volunteering at the Phoenix Zoo. I decided to write mysteries set in a zoo. So, I set an entire series in a zoo. My sleuth is Theodora Bentley, a zookeeper, who lives on a houseboat in Monterey Bay. An animal is featured in each book. The next one is called The Otter of Death.

Congratulations on writing Desert Vengeance, a beautifully-crafted mystery featuring an intriguing protagonist and a book with some of the most unexpected twists in the genre.

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Madness and Death

December 6, 2016 by Mark Rubinstein Leave a Comment

On October 18, 2016, Deborah Danner, a 66-year old woman, was shot to death by a police sergeant. Along with his fellow officers, he had responded to 911 calls from neighbors because she had been acting strangely. Records show the police had been called in the past to deal with Ms. Danner who had been tormented by schizophrenia since her twenties.

When the officers arrived on the scene, they encountered an agitated Ms. Danner brandishing a pair of scissors. When told to drop the scissors, she grabbed a baseball bat and charged toward the sergeant, who shot her twice. Although the officers had Tasers, lethal force was used against this sick woman.

Despite a recent but underfunded citywide effort to expand mental health care services, no mental health professional accompanied the officers to defuse the confrontation. The system failed Ms. Danner. It also failed the officers responding to the call.

This tragic case brings into focus a systemic problem in dealing with mentally ill people. Before the advent of antipsychotic medications, someone like Ms. Danner would have been institutionalized for years. But with the advances in prescription medicines, severe signs and symptoms of schizophrenia can be suffocated, obviating the need for long-term hospitalization.

Stabilized patients, armed with a prescription for antipsychotic medication, are now discharged from mental hospitals and sent out into the world where they can presumably lead reasonably normal lives.

But there is a catch—a very big one:

The medications must be taken every day—without fail—in order to be effective.

When patients stop taking their pills, or when life stresses escalate, the symptoms come rip-roaring back and the patient descends back into psychosis.

Floridly disturbed patients, like Deborah Danner, now cycle through psychiatric hospitals for short-term stays until their symptoms subside. Once stabilized, they’re back into the world with instructions to take their medication and follow-up at community mental health centers.

Underfunded out-patient facilities are overwhelmed by the influx of patients, resulting in people being seen only once every few months for only a few minutes per visit. The long interval between appointments and the brevity of each check-up doesn’t allow for proper monitoring, which lead to a “revolving door” cycle of short-term psychiatric hospitalizations, stabilization and release, followed by missed clinic appointments along with non-compliance taking medication, inevitably leading to a resurgence of madness.

When the police are called, as happened with Ms. Danner, they typically face an agitated, irrational, psychotic person who is often threatening and can inflict potentially lethal injury. Even an elderly, diminutive woman in a state of psychosis can pose an enormous risk to first responders.

Every day, in cities and towns throughout our country, police are called to quell disturbances caused by the mentally ill. Most encounters end uneventfully. But every now and then, a tragedy occurs like the one that befell Deborah Danner.

We ask our police to be mental health professionals without giving them sufficient training to safely diffuse these encounters. We refuse to sufficiently fund out-patient mental health centers, resulting in tragedies, in addition to contributing to the problem of mentally-ill homeless people.

Deborah Danner didn’t deserve to die. The sergeant who killed her shouldn’t have to face the rest of his life dealing with the action he took inside her apartment.

As a society, we must get serious about adequately funding mental health clinics and training our police officers so this kind of tragedy does not happen again.

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‘Escape Clause,’ A Talk with John Sandford

October 18, 2016 by Mark Rubinstein Leave a Comment

John Sandford is the pseudonym for the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist John Camp. After turning to fiction, he’s written ma

The writer John Sandford (USA) by Beowulf Sheehan, July 9, 2015, New York, New York. Photograph © Beowulf Sheehan

ny bestselling books, including twenty-six Prey novels, the most recent being Extreme Prey. He’s also written four Kidd novels; nine Virgil Flowers novels; three standalone novels, and three YA novels coauthored with his wife, Michele Cook.

Escape Clause, finds Virgil Flowers involved in a case that begins at the Minnesota Zoo. Two rare Amur tigers have vanished from their cage, and authorities think they’ve been stolen for their body parts which are prized in traditional Chinese medicine. People will take extreme measures to get them, and Virgil Flowers must race the clock in an effort to locate and save the tigers. But he must also deal with a string of murders that appears to be connected to the missing tigers.

How did the idea of missing tigers and their body parts come to you?

We have a lot of National Geographic magazines at home and I suppose the germ of an idea came from them. My wife has some books on alternative medicine, and think it ended up as a diffuse melding from those two sources.

Virgil Flowers is a fascinating character. Will you give us a brief description?

He’s a smart man who’s not all that comfortable with his role in law enforcement. He’s a tall guy with long blond hair. He was a baseball player in college and graduated with a degree in ecological science. He also writes occasional magazine articles on outdoor topics.

How has he evolved to the point where he is in Escape Clause?

He used to chase a lot of women, but for the last couple of books, he has had a permanent girlfriend…which may be a mistake [Laughter]. He hasn’t been terribly successful with women. He’s been married and divorced three times and none of those marriages lasted more than a year or so. He still maintains good relationships with his ex-wives, but he’s had chronic problems with women. I don’t know what’s going to happen with this relationship with his current girlfriend.

Why did you say his having a permanent girlfriend may be a mistake?

Because I have a lot of female readers and many of them have come up to me at readings and have expressed their dissatisfaction with that fact. [Laughter]. The problem with Virgil is he likes women—not in a predatory way—he enjoys their company, but he’s also sexually attracted to them, and then…Virgil falls in love.

I think women readers like that he doesn’t take women for granted. It all seems kind of odd, even to me [More laughter].

I couldn’t help but notice that Escape Clause has significant elements of humor. Tell us about that.

When I was a newspaper reporter, I heard the funniest stories from cops. Many cops have good senses of humor. You almost have to have that to do the job. Some very weird and funny things happen on the street. Virgil has a sense of humor and I try working that into the books. Many of the things that happen in the books are more stupid than just plain funny. If you work with cops for a long time, you realize that a lot of the people they come in contact with are really dumb. And they do really dumb stuff, repeatedly. Many times it leads to tragedy, but some of these stories are really a complex mixture of comedy and tragedy.

Do you plot the elements of a story in advance or let the plot evolve as you write?

The plot pretty much evolves on its own. When I’ve tried to outline ahead of time, it hasn’t worked for me. It makes the pace of the book way too fast. I prefer a kind of cinema verite quality to the novel, which comes from struggling with the novel’s direction—you know, hitting a bunch of dead-ends because detectives are trying to figure out a complicated situation.

When I outline a plot, things get solved really quickly. The books are around a hundred-thousand words long, and around the seventy-five-thousand-word point, I tend to outline so I can rush up to the climax.

What’s the most important lesson you’ve learned about writing?

I’m learning about writing all the time. Every time I write a book it feels like I’m doing it for the first time. I think the most important lesson for first-time writers is the value of persistence. I have little tricks to keep me going—I write down how many words I write every day. I do that because it tells me I’m making progress and I’ll get to the end of this project if I just persist. You can get lost in the middle of a long book, but if you know it’s progressing, it makes the writing a little bit easier. I think some novice writers sit and stare at a screen. What I find helpful is to lie down on a couch, eat an ice cream cone and just think about what I’m trying to do. [Laughter]

Don’t spend all your time trying to write…take a breather and just think about your story for a while.

From what you’ve said it sounds like you feel each book is its own arduous journey.

It is. Each book is a struggle. There have been times when I’ve been writing and I’m halfway through a book and I stop short because I say to myself, ‘This just doesn’t feel right.’ And I think a lot of other authors have had the same experience. Writing a novel isn’t something that happens on a straight line. You go back and look at what you did; and then you change things. Then you go forward a bit more, then back, then forward again.

What’s coming next from John Sandford?

I’m seventy-two now. I’m thinking ahead about three years. I’m working on a new Lucas Davenport book. The thing is, for the last three years, I’ve written three books a year which has been really intense. Now that I’m back to the two-book a year schedule, things have kind of loosened up a bit. I’ve gotten back into the habit where for a few hours a day, I’m able to read for enjoyment.

You mentioned your age. Are you thinking about retiring?

I don’t know if I’ll ever retire. They’ll probably carry me off the job. But I’ve got some other interests I’d like to indulge. I’d like to drop back to a book a year, so I could have time to do other things.

Congratulations on writing Escape Clause, another book in a series about which Shelf Awareness said, “The biggest joys of this series are Flowers himself, the eccentric supporting characters, and the humorous dialogue.”

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‘The Wolf Road,’ A Conversation with Beth Lewis

August 14, 2016 by Mark Rubinstein Leave a Comment

Beth Lewis has travelled extensively and while pursuing her many interests has had close encounters with black bears, killer whales, and great white sharks. She works as a managing editor at a leading London publisher.

The Wolf Road, her debut novel, introduces the reader to Elka, a 17-year-old girl who ten years earlier, was found wandering, lost and hungry by a solitary hunter who took her in. Over the intervening decade, he taught her how to survive in a desolate post-apocalyptic land. Now, Elka is on a quest to locate her parents, but the man she thought she knew has been harboring a secret: he’s a killer and is tracking her. And she may be his next victim.

Elka is a fascinating character. How did you conceive of her?

I came up with the idea for the book from a television show, Hannibal. There was a particular scene where a girl is with her father who is a hunter. It turns out, not all is quite as it seems. There’s a question of whether or not she’s complicit in his crime or if she’s a victim. I thought that scene was very powerful, and felt it was an interesting kind of psychology to explore. Elka derived from that show fully formed, including her voice.

Speaking of voice, Elka’s narrative voice is authentic and unique. I was impressed by the fact that someone from the UK captured a Southern/wilderness speech pattern. Tell us a bit about that.

I’ve always loved the Southern storytelling tradition. I also watched so many television shows about Alaska, Canada, and the Yukon. That Southern rhythm and twang coupled with the wilderness inflections melded together into the voice of Elka. I suppose her voice is not truly authentic to any of those places, but it works quite well in a post-apocalyptic tale.

The Wolf Road is filled with beautiful details of a vast and unforgiving wilderness. How do you know so much about the wild?

I travelled through Canada when I was twenty years old and spent a good amount of time in British Colombia and on Vancouver Island. I also watched a great deal of television about those areas as well as nature shows and documentaries. I’ve read many books—especially Jack London’s novels. It’s an area of the world I absolutely love. I wish I lived there, so in a way, the novel is sort of a wish-fulfillment fantasy.

The Wolf Road deals with many things, among them is Elka’s struggle to distinguish between fact and fiction in her own recollections of her past. Will you talk about that?

I wanted to write a book about a character who had done awful things, but by the end of the novel, the reader would still want Elka to win out. Maybe there’s a sense of discomfort in the reader, but I wanted very much for the reader to remain sympathetic to her. I think Elka coming to the realization of her own past at the same time the reader does, helps maintain sympathy for her. In a sense, almost anyone is capable of forgetting the evil he or she has done, or at least, blocking it from consciousness. It was great fun revealing the extremes of Elka’s experiences to the reader.

Talk about her relationship to her parents.

All she has from her parents is a letter they wrote saying they left her with her grandmother. Though she can’t read, she memorized the letter from her grandmother having read it to her. All she remembers of her parents is a feeling she was loved. That’s what sustains her. She maintains the naïve belief they left her to find a fortune. When she actually locates them, she receives quite a shock. Realizing one’s parents are not always what they seem is quite an important part of this coming of age story.

Who are your literary influences?

My biggest influence is Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights. That novel really cemented for me the importance of setting and emotion, and the raw brutality of the wild. Apart from Bronte, David Mitchell has had the biggest influence on my writing. He kick-started my wanting to become a writer. When I read Cloud Atlas, a light bulb went off in my head.

Tell us about your road to publication as a novelist.

It feels like it all happened very quickly, but it didn’t. I wrote four novels before The Wolf Road, none of which has been published. I wrote the first draft of The Wolf Road in about three months, and got an agent who was successful in finding a publisher. It’s taken two years from when I started the first draft to publication.

What’s coming next from Beth Lewis?

I’m rewriting my next book which is about four friends who discover a body. The live in a small mid-Western town which is filled with secrets, and they begin unearthing certain things with nasty consequences.

Congratulations on penning The Wolf Road, a brutal and poignant literary journey into the truth of a young woman’s origins and her path to redemption.

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