Crime | Mark Rubinstein Blog

Jonathan Kellerman and the Dark Psychology of Crime Fiction

March 21, 2018 by Mark Rubinstein Leave a Comment

Jonathan Kellerman, the bestselling author of more than forty 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 are bestselling authors. He has also written children’s and nonfiction books.

He’s won the Goldwyn, Edgar, and Anthony Awards, and has been nominated for a Shamus Award. Along with the late Sue Grafton’s “Alphabet series,” Jonathan’s acclaimed Alex Delaware series is one of the longest running on the literary landscape.

Jonathan’s latest novel, Night Moves, opens with a baffling situation. How and why does the faceless, handless body of a murdered man wind up in the home of a suburban family? The man clearly was killed elsewhere; there’s no sign of blood or violence found in the house. Alex Delaware and his detective partner, Milo Sturgis, must deal with a horrified family.

Soon, another murder occurs, and it’s clear this suburban enclave has plenty of suspicious characters, secrets, and deceit. The novel becomes a taut police procedural as Alex and Milo sift through a tangled web of greed, betrayal, and treachery.

The dialogue in Night Moves is crisp and realistic. Talk to us about dialogue.

I learned to write dialogue from my wife. Faye’s like Rich Little: she’s a great mimic. Even her first novel had superb dialogue. The thing with dialogue is it has to sound like people talking, but of course, it cannot because the way people really talk is boring, repetitive, circular and filled with uhms and ahs.

In addition to writing, I paint. Actually, it’s what I’m naturally better at doing. I realize that both painting and writing are forms of trickery. In painting, I’m simulating three dimensions using two. It’s the same with writing. It’s a form tromp of d’oeil.

Having a doctorate in psychology and practicing clinical psychology, what made you turn to writing fiction?

I’ve been writing fiction since the age of nine. However, I never saw writing as a career. I was also attracted to science—and to music and art, which I continue to pursue. In college, I got a gig as an editorial cartoonist for the campus newspaper. That led to opportunities to write for the paper–columns, reviews, and straight reporting. I ended up as an editor, and essentially, had a dual identity: journalist and student of psychology. In my senior year, I won a literary prize and got an agent.

But that didn’t end my desire to become a child psychologist. While in grad school, I continued to write, publishing scientific articles, nonfiction, a short story, and my doctoral dissertation. At the same time, I was writing novels at night in my garage. Eventually, my first novel was published in 1985.

I loved being a child clinical psychologist and was reluctant to give up my practice. So, I continued to write and treat patients. I published five bestselling novels while in full-time practice, but eventually, working two jobs became untenable. In 1990, I became a full-time novelist.

But for five years, you had a dual identity: practicing psychology and writing fiction? What was that like?

It was rather manic. At that point, we had three kids and Faye and I were both writing. Thankfully, she’s Superwoman and handled so many things. I had three associates and we had a large practice in child psychology. I’d work all day seeing patients, then come home and spend time with my own kids, and at eleven in the evening, I’d go out to my office-garage and write for two hours. It’s the same routine I followed as a failed writer [Laughter]. Occasionally, if I had a cancellation, I’d sit down and work on my book. I was in my thirties and had lots of energy. I probably couldn’t do it today.

Do you ever miss your daily work as a psychologist?

At this point, I really don’t. I’m the kind of guy who loves something while I’m doing it, and then I’m able to move on. I loved helping kids and gave it up reluctantly. After leaving the practice, I did consulting and teaching, so I eased myself out of it.

As a psychologist, my time was strictly scheduled months in advance. As a writer, my time is very flexible and unstructured. I really enjoy the freedom I now have.

in Night Moves, a specific crime propels the novel, but the story also serves as a vehicle for commentary about life. Tell us about that.

I think that’s just naturally the way I see the world. Being 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 and situations. Every crime impacts people, and trauma can bring out the best or worst in them, whether in a novel or in real life.

Night Moves has an extraordinary number of plot twists and developments. How do you construct a novel that’s both complex yet linear, so the reader easily follows the storyline?

That’s the major challenge in writing a novel. I think my academic training helps in that regard. I learned how to organize. I outline my novels by jotting down impressions, ideas and notes. Then, I progress to creating a general outline, and then a chapter-by-chapter outline.

I hold off on the actual writing until I have a sense of control over my material. Ironically, I rarely consult the outline and often find the finished book is quite different from what I had plotted.

However, the outline helps me structure things. It’s like an architect’s plans for designing a house. The writing itself becomes the interior decoration, and it’s the fun part. Then of course, there’s the rewrite, which refines and sculpts the manuscript to a finely-honed edge.

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?

Alex evolved 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 never thought I’d get it published, let alone that it would become the first book in a successful series. I learned about Alex, along with my readers, and things began falling into place.

I parcel out his childhood and his personal history 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 his wanting to set certain things right.

I know you’ve been asked this question before, but how much of Jonathan Kellerman exists in Alex Delaware?

I think the author is in every character.

It took five years for an Alex Delaware novel to be published, and I realized I’d be best off writing about what I knew, which was clinical child psychiatry. So, there are career parallels. But, Alex is younger than I am; he’s thinner; more athletic; and much braver than I am. I’m a coward, which describes many crime writers. We write about things which frighten us.

I’m married with four kids; he’s single with no kids. He’s free to engage in high-risk behavior while I’m not. There’s a lot of me in him and in Milo, and in the bad guys, too. In a sense, all fiction is autobiography.

I know you’re a huge fan of Ross Macdonald. Will you talk about that?

It was serendipitous that I discovered him. One day as I was driving to Children’s Hospital, I passed a bookstore with a sign that read, ‘Books on Sale, Cheap.’ I went in, browsed around and found a book called The Underground Man by Ross Macdonald. I’d never read any of the hardboiled writers, but the flap copy was really interesting.

Reading the book blew me away. He was a brilliant writer who wrote about psychopathology in Southern California, and his books were beautifully written. I thought, ‘maybe I could do that.’

In fact, Ross Macdonald’s style informed my writing, When the Bough Breaks so much so, that my editor said, ‘This is really great but there’s a little too much Ross Macdonald here. Try to establish your own voice a little more.’ That’s what I’ve done.

If you could meet any two fictional characters from all of literature, who would they be?

I’d love to meet Edmond Dantes of The Count of Monte Cristo because he was so interesting. He evolved from the depths of despair to triumph. I’d also love to meet Watson from the Sherlock Holmes stories. I don’t think Sherlock would be very good company, but Watson was a doctor and highly intelligent. I think I could relate to him better than I could to Sherlock Holmes.

Will you complete this sentence: writing fiction has taught me__________________.

Writing fiction has taught me humility in the sense that I may think I know something about people, but they’re always unpredictable. And, I’m humbled by the realization that often occurs when I’m writing a novel and think I’ve done a good job, only to see the manuscript needs a ton more work to be done.

Congratulations on penning Night Moves, a tense, tightly woven novel that not only deals with crime, but as do all the Alex Delaware novels, addresses many compelling issues of contemporary life.

Mark Rubinstein is a novelist, physician and psychiatrist. His latest novel is Mad Dog Vengeance, a psychological suspense-thriller.

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‘Fast Falls the Night’ A Talk with Julia Keller

August 22, 2017 by Mark Rubinstein Leave a Comment

Julia Keller earned a doctorate in English Literature at Ohio State University and is a former culture critic for the Chicago Tribune where she won a Pulitzer Prize for a three-part narrative series about a deadly tornado that struck a small town in Illinois. She is a recipient of a Nieman Fellowship at Harvard University, and contributes on-air essays to NPR.

Fast Falls the Night covers 24 hours in Acker’s Gap, West Virginia, a town facing a wave of fatal heroin overdoses. Bell Elkins, a county prosecutor, realizes her Appalachian hometown is facing a terrible challenge because the fatal overdoses are caused by heroin laced with a lethal tranquilizer. The novel occurs against the backdrop of a shattering personal revelation that will change Bell’s life forever.

I understand the premise of “Fast Falls the Night” is based on a true event. Tell us about that.

I was in my hometown of Huntington, West Virginia on August fifteenth, 2016, The town has fallen on very hard times, which have been exacerbated by the ongoing opioid epidemic and escalating heroin use. The town was virtually unrecognizable to me. It was a singular day in the history of Huntington: it was the day when there were twenty-eight drug overdoses within twenty-four-hours. Two of them resulted in fatalities. A bad batch of heroin, laced with a lethal tranquilizer, had begun to circulate through the town.

You portray the Appalachian town of Acker’s Gap as a place of quiet desperation. You focus on a twenty-four-hour period of time. Tell us more.

Acker’s Gap is a fictional town, much smaller than Huntington, but I constructed it with my hometown in mind. I was so struck by what actually happened during the course of twenty-four hours in Huntington, I decided to scrap the format of the novel I’d already started, and began writing again, placing everything within a twenty-four hour period of time.

“Fast Falls the Night” is told through the eyes of different characters—a sheriff, a prosecutor, an EMT technician, a preacher, among others. What are the advantages of this method of storytelling?

In telling the story of Fast Falls the Night, I realized the novel had to be told from multiple points of view. I wanted to portray a shifting kaleidoscope of woe, so the reader sees everything that’s happening in the town—the troubles and tragedies—from multiple perspectives. It seemed a perfect template to explore one of the great moral issues of our time: with limited financial resources, what should we do? Do we rescue addicts for the eighth or ninth time, using our scarce resources, or do we say, ‘They brought this on themselves?’

This has been argued in state legislatures, and we each argue it in our heart and soul. What do we owe other people? To me, the answer is clear: we all deserve as many chances as we’re willing to ask for. There’s a great moral crisis in our country now—and the novel tells the story of what people owe each other, but on a smaller scale.

To go back to your first question, this novel was born out of reality but blossomed into fiction, which is where I believe social issues can be explored and debated in as worthy a manner as they can be in real life.

Tell us about your journey to becoming a published novelist.

I always intended to be a novelist. All the great twentieth-century writers I admired started out as journalists—Hemingway, Willa Cather, and Katherine Anne Porter—all had newspaper backgrounds. I thought that’s what you do: you work for a newspaper and learn about the world by putting yourself in experiences you would never otherwise have. That’s what I did and really enjoyed it. I worked for the Columbus Dispatch and then for the Chicago Tribune. After I won the Pulitzer Prize, I heard from agents who asked if I would be interested in writing a book. I said I would, but told them I wanted to write fiction. A few of them ran screaming from that notion, but some stuck around. I’ve always felt fiction is superior to non-fiction. Non-fiction lives for a day, but good fiction can live forever. After all, we’re still reading Homer. That was my journey to where I am now. I left the Tribune in 2012, and have been able to support myself by writing.

What’s a typical writing day like for you?

I’m an early riser. After copious cups of coffee, I sit down and write. I’m very much a morning writer. I’ve had to become an evening writer as well due to deadlines. [Laughter].

Your prose is quite lyrical. Who are your literary influences?

In the twentieth century, I would have to say the biggest influences for me have been Willa Cather and Edith Wharton. Reading Cather’s Song of the Lark was a revelatory experience for me. It has so much to say about young people and their dreams.

Which contemporary authors do you enjoy reading?

I enjoy reading books by John le Carre and I think Dennis Lehane is a great novelist. There’s also a British novelist, Sarah Hall, whose book I read recently and I’m now reading virtually everything she ever wrote. I also enjoy novels by Helen Dunmore, who recently died. I also love novels by an Australian novelist, Peter Temple. His sentences are beautifully sculpted.

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

That’s an easy one for me to answer: An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser, which I read in high school. The emotional impact of that novel and the social issues it explored have stayed with me all these years.

What’s coming next from Julia Keller?

I’m writing a young adult trilogy. The first novel, The Dark Intercept, is set in a future world where the government can harvest and archive our emotions and when it seeks to control us, sends intense emotions back into us.

Congratulations on penning “Fast Falls the Night”, a beautifully crafted novel filled with insights about the human condition and populated by fully realized and tragic characters.

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‘The Marsh King’s Daughter,” A Conversation with Karen Dionne

June 19, 2017 by Mark Rubinstein Leave a Comment

Karen Dionne is a member of the International Thriller Writers, where she has served on the board of directors. She has been honored by the Michigan Humanities Council as a Humanities Scholar.

The Marsh King’s Daughter features Helena Pelletier who has a loving husband and two young daughters. The family lives on Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.

Helena has a dark secret: she’s the product of an abduction. Her mother was abducted as a teenager, and Helen is a result of that event. She and her mother lived for the first twelve years of Helena’s life in the company of the kidnapper—Helena’s father—until he was captured and sent to prison.

When a prison inmate kills two guards and escapes from prison, Helena’s past threatens to return, and only she possesses the skills to hunt her father down—ones her father taught her.

The very first lines of the novel are compelling. “If I told you my mother’s name, you’d recognize it right away. My mother was famous, though she never wanted to be. Hers wasn’t the kind of fame anyone would wish for. Jaycee Dugard, Amanda Berry, Elizabeth Smart—that kind of thing, though my mother was none of them.” How did the idea for this novel come to you?

I woke up in the middle of the night with those sentences fully formed in my head. I wasn’t dreaming about the character, although I was looking for a back story about a character in another novel. I was in that dream state where you can’t get out of bed and write it down, so I repeated it enough times so I’d remember it I in the morning.

I wrote a few paragraphs which became the first section of the novel.

Once those first few pages were written, by what process did the novel come into being?

As I wrote those paragraphs that morning, I almost gave the book an urban setting. I was thinking about the women in Cleveland who were hidden in plain sight. But at the last minute, I changed the setting to a cabin on a ridge, surrounded by swamp in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. The reason I chose that setting was I wanted to make the book different; and, my husband and I homesteaded in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula in the 1970s with our infant daughter. I know that area very well.

In the following days, the character kept talking to me, and I kept writing little snippets in her voice—such as her imagining what it was like for her mother to give birth in the cabin. I finally decided to find a story for her. I went to my childhood book of fairy tales because I always loved fairy tales—the darker, the better.

You’ve anticipated my next question which is: the novel takes its title from a Hans Christian Anderson fable. Tell us about that.

I also like modern stories that have fairy tales as the bones of the story. I paged through my book of fairy tales, and when I found Hans Christian Anderson’s The Marsh King’s Daughter, it gave me chills. Everything in that fairy tale dovetailed beautifully with the story I was starting to tell. The daughter in the fairy tale is the child of an innocent and a monster—she has a dual nature, which I envisioned for my character.

Using one of the main story threads in the fairy tale that resulted in the redemption of that character, I structured my story to determine what would happen with Helena. I named her Helena because in the fairy tale, the character’s name is Helga.

Not only did the character of the fairy tale mesh with my story, but the fairy tale was set in a northern Viking marsh.

It was astonishing. I knew I was on to something, and it just developed from there.

You paint a compelling picture of Helena’s life (and her mother’s) while being held for years by her father. She has a complicated relationship with him. Some would call this a Stockholm Syndrome. Will you talk about that?

I don’t consider Helena’s relationship with her father to be a Stockholm Syndrome. I think her relationship with her father is a lot more complicated than that. In many ways, it’s the same as any child’s relationship with a parent. When we’re small, we don’t judge our parents as good, bad, moral, or evil. We love them because they’re our parents. I’ve always been fascinated by people who survived a far less than perfect childhood and made something good out of themselves. I see Helena as an extreme example of this. Her situation was very stark—there was no one other than her mother and father. At the beginning, she loves him unconditionally, but he’s manipulating her. But her attitude toward him changes over time. I won’t say anymore because I don’t want to spoil the book for readers.

In some ways, The Marsh King’s Daughter and its descriptions of the wilderness remind me of Jack London’s writing. Tell us about that.

I lived in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula for thirty years. Like Helena, I love wild places. I feel very much at ease with nature. I wanted to convey my love of the wilderness to readers. I really feel the book is partly my love letter to the Upper Peninsula.

The novel is replete with psychological suspense. Did you intend it to be a suspense story?

When I started writing the novel, I didn’t know what I would write. As I said, the character came to me and I started writing down her story. I wasn’t sure if it would be a thriller or literary fiction. I think it helped to enhance the book because I didn’t slot it into any particular mold. I was just writing Helena’s story in the most compelling way I could. And it turns out that there’s a strong psychological component to the book.

Your prose is quite lyrical and yet, crisp. Who are your literary influences?

I enjoy reading books that have won Pulitzer Prizes, National Book Awards, and Booker Prizes. I want my prose to be of good quality. I try to reach up. But I also admire the writing of Lee Child in his Jack Reacher series. It’s very spare. He told me he deliberately writes at a fourth-grade level because he wants to reach as wide an audience as possible. I admire the way he can write a simple sentence and include just one descriptor or one adjective or adverb and it’s perfect for hitting that note. So, I like making my prose a combination of the two—elevated but very accessible.

What’s your writing day like?

I write all day long. I start at about five a.m. My best work is done in the early morning. I hit a lull in the mid-afternoon and write again in the evenings.

If you could have dinner with any five people, real or fictional, living or dead, who would they be?

They would be the kind of people who’ve accomplished something elevated or who have taken a stand in life. Martin Luther King comes to mind. So do Gandhi and Jesus. I’d add Bill Gates because of his philanthropy and also, Jimmy Carter.

What’s coming next from Karen Dionne?

I’m writing another standalone novel that’s also set in the Upper Peninsula. It’s psychological suspense and will also have a fairy tale element.

Congratulations on penning The Marsh King’s Daughter, a superbly written and mesmerizing novel that’s been praised by the likes of David Morrell, Lee Child, Megan Abbot, Karin Slaughter, and many others.

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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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‘What You Break,’ A Conversation with Reed Farrel Coleman

February 7, 2017 by Mark Rubinstein Leave a Comment

Reed Farrel Coleman is well-known by thriller lovers everywhere. He’s the author of many novels and the winner of the Shamus, Barry, and Anthony Awards as well as being a three-time Edgar Award nominee. His books include the Moe Prager series and the Gus Murphy series, among others.

What You Break features retired Suffolk County cop Gus Murphy who’s caught up in a heinous crime committed decades earlier. Gus’ friend, ex-priest Bill Kilkenny, introduces him to a wealthy businessman who wants Gus to look into the motive of the brutal murder of his granddaughter. That’s when Gus finds both his own life and that of his girlfriend Magdalena, in imminent danger.

Tell us about the title, What You Break, and how it relates to the story.

We’re all familiar with the sign in many stores saying, If you break it you own it. To me, What You Break is the story of people who have things in their lives that have been broken. Some things they themselves broke; some things, broken by others. It’s a story about who accepts ownership of what they’ve broken and who refuses to do so. And it’s about the price one pays for the damage done.

We’ve all broken things in our lives, but how many of us have paid the price for having done so?

Gus Murphy is a somewhat cynical guy whose life has taken some terrible turns. He’s a complex character with different facets to his personality. Will you tell us a little about him?

If you look at my other popular protagonist, Moe Prager, and compare him to Gus Murphy, they have similar back stories: both were cops; both have families; both become private investigators, but Moe has always been cynical, whereas Gus, had been an optimistic guy, who believed in people even after twenty years as a Suffolk County police officer. However, after Gus’s son dies unexpectedly, while playing pick-up basketball, Gus is in the process of becoming someone different—someone the old Gus wouldn’t recognize. Gus is becoming cynical, and he’s far less optimistic about the future. He has a darker view of people. Gus is evolving, and my goal in the series is to see who Gus becomes. I think that’s what makes the series interesting.

Two of the issues in What You Break are guilt and redemption. Will you talk about that?

In classic hard boiled fiction, a crime is committed. The PI or cop comes on the scene, and his duty, against great odds, is the restoration of balance and of some small measure of redemption. In What You Break, guilt and redemption are explored in what I think are interesting ways.

There are two characters about whom Gus has very different feelings. Both have committed terrible crimes. Can Gus restore any humanity to either one of those characters? And, do they want it restored? Gus dirties himself by trying to redeem both of them, but we won’t talk specifics because we don’t want to put out spoilers.

One of the things I loved about the first Gus Murphy novel, Where It Hurts, and now in the second one, is that Gus comments to himself about the human condition. How does this relate to crime novels?

Let’s think about the arena in which Gus operates. It’s the worst and most emotionally trying arena. It’s one reason why people are drawn to war movies: the characters are operating in the most emotionally heightened conditions possible. Murder does the same thing. You deal with people who are in the most extreme situations, which exposes them for who they really are. In day-to-day life, we all do a great deal of covering up about who and what we are, but when we’re stressed and pushed, that’s when our true selves are revealed.

Seeing people in this heightened state of reality gives Gus insight about them and on himself. It’s a great arena for him to be an observer of the human condition.

In What You Break, Gus appears to be evolving in relation to his son’s death. Will you talk about that?

Immediately after his son’s death, he was grief-stricken, but I think his major reaction was anger at how dare the universe operate in a way he could never have imagined. He always had everything he wanted; a job he loved, a wife and family, a house and a pension. When his son died, the rug was pulled out from under his feet. He was angry at everyone and everything. Also, he was angry at himself.

What You Break takes place three years after his son’s death. He’s become more philosophical. He used to think there were answers for everything. He now realizes that sometimes there are no answers, and sometimes even when there are answers, it barely matters. It’s an interesting dilemma for Gus, because as a PI, he’s in the business of providing answers.

How much of Reed Farrel Coleman is embodied in Gus Murphy?

Actually, unlike Moe Prager, who is very much like me—he’s a better-looking, less intelligent and braver person than I am—Gus isn’t me at all. People think only someone who has suffered tragedy could write such a book, with Gus having lost his son. That kind of tragedy hasn’t befallen me. I’m grateful not to be Gus. I’m enjoying imagining someone in that situation and seeing how he goes on with his life.

What has surprised you about the writing life?

What’s surprised me is how hard it is. As much as I love writing, the fact is it’s hard work. Even if I don’t feel well, I sit down and write. If I had another job, I might call in sick, but the job of writing is always there, right in front of me. I always tell people who say they would like to write, if it’s not a calling and you earn a living doing something else, keep doing that something else. It has to be a labor of love to write.

What’s coming next from Reed Farrel Coleman?

I’m writing the 2018 Jesse Stone book, it’s Robert B. Parker’s, The Hangman’s Sonnet.

Congratulations on writing What You Break. It’s a gripping and beautifully crafted novel about a fascinating character whose complexities and observations about life elevate the novel beyond its genre, and which the Washington Post described as an “evocative mystery readers will remember as much for its charged sense of place as for any of its other considerable virtues.”

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‘The Marriage Lie,’ A Conversation with Kimberly Belle

December 31, 2016 by Mark Rubinstein Leave a Comment

Kimberly Belle’s previous novels are The Last Breath and The Ones We Trust. She holds a bachelor of arts degree from Agnes Scott College.

Her third novel, The Marriage Lie, begins with the depiction of Iris and Will’s marriage as a blissful union. They both have rewarding careers and have decided to try for their first baby. On the morning Will leaves on a business trip to Orlando, Iris learns a plane headed for Seattle has crashed, killing all on board. According to the airline, Will was on that plane. Stunned, Iris seeks answers about why Will was going to Seattle, not Orlando. A series of secrets and lies emerges, and Iris’ life is changed forever.

The Marriage Lie depicts a marriage beset by secrets. How did this idea come to you?

I love writing about secrets because, when they are revealed, as they always are, they can disrupt a relationship. One of my children lives in Holland, so my husband and I are back-and-forth all the time. When I began thinking about my next story, flying and plane crashes were at the forefront of my mind. I began thinking what a plane crash is like for the people left behind, especially if some sort of deception was involved as happens in The Marriage Lie.

What about secrets intrigues you?

I love writing about suspenseful issues and using that tension in a plotline. But the meat of my story is the relationship between Iris and Will, and how the discovery of certain secrets impacts their relationship. The intrigue for me is what happens to a relationship when people find out about the other person’s secrets.

Speaking of relationships, tell our readers about Iris’ and Will’s relationship and the issue of accountability for one’s past.

Iris and Will are very much in love and seem to have it all. As a student counselor, Iris always talks to her students about being accountable for what they do. When Will goes missing and certain questions arise, Iris wants to know the truth about him. When she learns the truth, she must re-evaluate everything in the relationship—not just things moving forward, but everything that has gone on before Will disappeared. She thought she knew her husband, but didn’t know him at all.

The Marriage Lie depicts Will as having changed completely by the time he and Iris marry. Do you believe people ever truly change?

I think people can want to change, but I haven’t met anyone who has completely changed. I think Will wanted to change and become a better man for Iris, but in the end, I don’t think he achieved that sort of encompassing goal.

The Marriage Lie is written in the first person, present tense. What made you choose that format?

I’ve tried other formats, but that’s just the way my voice works best. When it comes time for me to sit down and write, that’s the best way for me to get inside my characters’ heads. I love the immediacy of the first-person narrative, and of the present tense. The action is happening right then and there in front of the reader.

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

There are two. The first is that every book you write is different. When I think I’ve finally figured out writing—how to structure a novel or create characters—I come up with another story that needs to be told differently, and in a way, that makes me feel I haven’t learned anything. [Laughter] It’s humbling and frustrating. Maybe that’s what keeps writers on their toes.

The other lesson is I must show up every single day at my computer. If there are no words, there’s no story.

What has surprised you about the writing life?

First, I’ve been so positively surprised by how supportive other writers are. It’s competitive, for sure, but I’ve been so pleasantly surprised by how willing other authors are to tweet and help me promote my books.

Another surprise has been how long it took me to figure out that writing is what I’ve wanted to do. I love doing it so much, I wish I’d discovered it earlier.

If you weren’t a writer, what would you be doing today?

This is my second career. Previously, I worked in fundraising for non-profit organizations. I’m still passionate and active about certain causes, so I’d probably still be working in that field if I weren’t writing.

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

There are so many I’ve loved. One that surprised me in unexpected ways was The Book Thief. It’s completely out of my genre, but every page had a sentence or phrase that floored me.

What’s coming next from Kimberly Belle?

I’m working on a story about a botched kidnapping. The kidnapper snatches the wrong child and the blunder pits both mothers in a race against time to save the boy. To do that, they’ll have to take a closer look at the people around them. The working title is Mistaken.

Congratulations on writing The Marriage Lie, a suspenseful, multilayered and gripping novel that had me turning the pages until late into the night.

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‘Chaos,’ A Conversation with Patricia Cornwell

November 22, 2016 by Mark Rubinstein Leave a Comment

Patricia Cornwell, known to millions of readers worldwide as a bestselling author, has won many prestigious awards. She researches cutting-edge forensic technologies that inform her Kay Scarpetta novels.

Chaos is Patricia Cornwell’s twenty-fourth Scarpetta novel. Kay and her investigative partner Pete Marino receive a call about a dead bicyclist whose body reveals very strange clues. An anonymous cyberbully named “Tailend Charlie” has been sending cryptic communications to Scarpetta, and when a second death occurs hundreds of miles away, it becomes clear that something more dangerous than Scarpetta has ever imagined is at work.

At the outset of Chaos, you quote Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein, ‘There is love in me the likes of which you’re never seen. There is rage in me the likes of which should never escape.’ Tell us how this relates to the novel.

What I’m hinting at is that Scarpetta is reaching a stage in her life where the inner quality of her character is emerging. Referring to the quote from Frankenstein, I’m saying Kay Scarpetta is the most loving and healing human being you will ever meet, but you don’t want to mess with her. And you certainly see that at the end of this book where Kay takes matters into her own hands in more ways than one, especially when the FBI takes over her medical examiner’s office. Kay’s gloves are off and we won’t know from one book to the next how far Kay Scarpetta will go if she’s pushed to do what she must. This character quality makes writing the books a lot more fun for me since I’m not constricted by the conventions I thought were in place when I first started writing these novels. I’m going to let Kay Scarpetta do whatever she wants to do.

Speaking of a character evolving, how has the relationship between Kay and Pete Marino evolved over the course of the novels?

Scarpetta and Marino went from having a rather adversarial relationship to one of being compatible partners, except for the times they find themselves at loggerheads over some issue.

In The Book of the Dead, published in 2007, the pair entered a very dark phase when Marino went off the rails and acted very badly. Everything they had built together had to be torn down, and they needed to start all over again.

Over the last nine years, they’ve matured and there’s no bitterness or edge to their working together, harmoniously and with great synergy.

I think the decision I made to have Marino return to working for the police department rather than as a death investigator was crucial to the series. He derives a sense of power from being a cop. Their relationship is stronger because of that development.

Chaos depicts some frightening possibilities about technology and the use of weapons. Tell us about that.

In the first decade of my career, the main character in the novel was the forensics. In my writing, I spent a great deal of time showing readers things with which they were totally unfamiliar. For example, in the mid-nineties when Unnatural Exposure was written, no one gave a thought to the possibility of biological terrorism involving the idea of weaponizing a plague like small pox. Now, we worry all the time about this kind of scenario.

When I started writing, I seized upon the idea of having some malevolent person or organization exploit the wonders of technology by perverting them to achieve catastrophic ends. That kind of situation puts the characters through unimaginable stress to try to figure out how to prevent a cataclysmic event from happening.

This formula has served me well; and I’m even more inspired now than ever before because technology is proliferating at lightening speed. I can barley keep up with all the developments and advances. In fact, the weapon used in Chaos is already in use, albeit not in the manner it’s employed in the book.

There’s a technology war going on, and that’s what I use in my stories.

Speaking of technology, especially concerning weapons, does anything about the future frighten you?

Everything about the future frightens me. The possibility of creating weapons for which we have no defense is immense. There’s no end in sight for the creative things people can do to wreak havoc on civilization. Whether it’s cyberattacks on an election or on the power grids, these are vulnerabilities that if creatively exploited, would be devastating to our society. I sincerely believe that if you allow yourself to think about it, someone will try.

Reading Chaos and your other books makes clear that you’re well-versed in science. What scientific resources do you use to stay so current about forensics and technology?

People don’t know that I have a whole team of consultants available to me. Over the years, I’ve amassed a network of the best and the brightest people out there—whether its expertise on DNA, medical examiner’s techniques, microscopic or trace evidence experts, I’ve had the privilege of being in the company of some of the best and most skilled professionals in the world. They’re also my friends, and even when we’re just hanging out, having dinner, we talk “shop.” Many of them have one foot in the military and a good deal of the latest technology is born during warfare. A decade later, it trickles down and pops up in law enforcement. So, fortunately, I hear about some things before some people in criminalistics and forensics hear about them. I try to run with it in my writing.

You’re producing a Kay Scarpetta novel each year. How do you remain so prolific?

It’s not easy. The actual sitting down and writing a novel requires intricate work, and can be painstakingly exhausting. I can do it when I have the time, but occasionally, something else comes up, like book promotion, and finding time to research and write becomes more difficult.

What’s coming next from Patricia Cornwell?

In January, 2017 Ripper, the Secret Life of Walter Sickert will be published. There are also a couple of potential Hollywood projects you may be hearing about. And, I’m in the early stages of researching the next Scarpetta book.

Congratulations on writing Chaos, another high-stakes Kay Scarpetta novel melding psychology, technology, forensics and suspense in an un-putdown-able novel sure to be another bestseller.

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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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‘Santorini Caesars,’ A Conversation with Jeffrey Siger

September 21, 2016 by Mark Rubinstein Leave a Comment

Jeffrey Siger, a former Wall Street attorney, gave up his legal career to write mystery thrillers. Living on the Greek island of Mykonos, he has written his eighth novel in the Chief Inspector Andreas Kaldis series. His books have been nominated for the Left Coast Crime and Barry Awards.

Santorini Caesars begins with the assassination of a young demonstrator by trained killers in the heart of protest-charged Athens. Chief Inspector Kaldis, convinced the killing was far more than what it seemed, takes the investigation to the beautiful island of Santorini where he encounters a secret gathering of Greece’s top military commanders who are devising their own response to the uncertainties and political crisis facing their country.

It could be a coup d’état, or something else since Greece has a history of deposing duly-elected governments. The international intrigue escalates as the threat of another assassination looms, and Kaldis moves to expose what is going on and tries to stop it.

Andreas Kaldis is an intriguing character. Tell us a little about him.

Andreas is a second generation cop living in a land where police are not highly regarded. No matter how the political winds blow, he stands up for what he believes is right. He deals with the issues confronting his country and has the authority to investigate crime as well as political corruption.

How has he evolved over the course of eight novels?

For his first assignment, Kaldis started off on the island of Mykonos. He was sent there as ‘punishment’ for having been too closely on the heels of certain corrupt officials back in Athens. On Mykonos, he met Yanni Kouros, who becomes his sidekick for the rest of the series. Kaldis gets married and eventually returns to Athens. There, he is promoted to his present position of Chief Inspector and is empowered to investigate a variety of crises confronting Greece.

Each book in the series is essentially an element in a mosaic exploring a crisis for Greece as well as for Europe. Whether it be the relationship of Greece to the church, its relationship to its own government, the situation with migrants, or other social and political issues, each book delves into a contemporary problem.

The island of Santorini plays an important role in this novel and almost becomes a character. Tell us about this island’s history and role in the novel.

Santorini has probably been more firmly fixed in the world’s imagination than any other Greek island. It’s said to be the lost island of Atlantis. Enormous earthquakes and volcanoes have happened in this area. If you look at Santorini, it’s the view from the caldera, the rim of what once was the volcano, that is one of the world’s most intriguing vantage points. You will see blues and greens you’ve never seen elsewhere. Strangely, the very earthquakes that destroyed much of the island, are responsible for it having become an important Greek tourist destination.

How does the current refugee crisis in Europe make for fertile ground in writing your mystery novels?

Are you reading the draft of my next book? [Laughter]. That’s precisely what I’m writing about. The refugee situation is a crisis for the world. If you live in the Middle East or Africa and fear for your children, you look toward Europe as a safe haven. The only rational wish is to get your children out of these places.

That’s the motivation driving this migration by refugees. It will never end until the world recognizes something must be done politically and environmentally. Greece has become the filter-trap for refugees. Previously, Greece had a homogeneous population. With the influx of a million refugees into a country of ten million people, there’s been a ten percent increase in population. The politics have become more polarized. There are now people of different faiths and cultures in the country. Everything has become intensified. This has given rise to the growing power of right-wing parties. These dynamics are playing out in a country that doesn’t have the money to sustain itself because Greece is basically bankrupt.

Each pressure creates a reaction and that’s very rich fodder for my books. Living on Mykonos, I have access to people in government and business, so my writing becomes informed. Andreas Kaldis is the perfect vehicle for expressing concerns about these compelling national and world issues.

What made you give up practicing law to become a full- time novelist?

When I was younger, I always thought I’d become a writer.

I went to school with a kid with whom I played football. One day in class, he stood up and read something he had written. The teacher said, ‘All of you writers…if you work hard, you’ll be able to write like this young man.’ I never believed I could write as well as he did, so I became a lawyer.

That guy’s name is John Edgar Wideman, who went on to write Philadelphia Fire, which won the 1990 PEN/Faulkner Award. He’s a distinguished novelist.

Years later, someone who read my writing encouraged me to begin writing full-time. I had a successful law practice and didn’t want to give that up to become a struggling writer.

But, while practicing law, I sat down and wrote a book which was very well-received. A friend urged me to pursue writing full-time. It was after 9/11, and I said to myself, ‘Life’s too short.’ I walked away from my law practice, began to write full-time, and have never regretted a moment of it. I teach mystery writing at a university and tell my students, ‘Writing is a lousy way to make a living, but a wonderful way to make a life.’ Not having become a writer earlier allowed me to more comfortably practice my art as a writer.

Which authors in the mystery/thriller genres do you read?

When I’m writing, I don’t read other mystery writers. It can throw me off my game. My favorite writer is Cormac McCarthy. Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes mysteries are a favorite of mine. If I named all my favorite writers, I’d probably lose a number of friends [Laughter].

What’s coming next from Jeffrey Siger?

You already anticipated my next book. I’m involved in a project dealing with the refugee crisis and haven’t as yet determined how I’m going to handle this issue in the next Andreas Kaldis novel, but it will get done.

Congratulations on writing Santorini Caesars, a novel that’s both a rock-solid mystery and comments incisively about so many issues besetting Europe and the world today.

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‘Debt to Pay,” A Talk with Reed Farrel Coleman

September 13, 2016 by Mark Rubinstein Leave a Comment

Reed Farrel Coleman, a best selling author of 24 previous novels, has penned the popular Moe Prager series as well as other well-received books. He’s a three-time winner of the Shamus Award, and has won the Macavity and Barry Awards, among others.

Robert Parker, considered by many to have been the dean of American crime fiction, was the author of seventy books, including the series featuring Chief Jesse Stone.

After Parker’s death in 2010, Reed Farrel Coleman was chosen to keep this immensely popular series alive.

In Debt to Pay we find Chief Jesse Stone romantically involved with former FBI agent Diana Evans. When a Boston crime boss is murdered, Jesse suspects it’s the work of Mr. Peepers, a deranged assassin who has caused trouble for Jesse in the past. Peepers promised revenge against the Mob, Jesse, and one of Jesse’s cops, and against Jesse’s ex-wife Jenn. Peepers toys with the police as to the when and where he’ll strike, and Jesse knows there’s a steep debt to pay and blood will be spilled in the process.

Debt to Pay is the third Jesse Stone novel you’ve written. What was it like to take over a series written by the legendary Robert B. Parker?

It was an interesting challenge because I felt like a psychologist might feel stepping into Sigmund Freud’s shoes. [Laughter] It’s not like I took over some minor writer’s character…I tried not to worry about that reality, and decided not to try to live up to Bob’s legacy. I think writing is difficult enough without throwing more hurdles in front of myself than already exist. I realized how momentous a task it was, but my approach was to simply write the best book I could.

Do you feel you had to adhere to Robert Parker’s voice for Jesse, or were you tempted to take him in a slightly different direction?

When I was offered the opportunity, one of the first people I called was my friend, Tom Schreck. He’s an author, New York State boxing judge, a drug counselor, and a huge Robert B. Parker fan. I wanted his advice about how to go about writing these books. He said something that crystallized my approach to this series.

Tom is an avid Elvis Presley fan. He said, ‘I’ve seen all the best Elvis impersonators, but no matter how good they are, there are two things you can never get past: number one is, you’re aware it’s an imitation, and number two is, the impersonator can never do anything new. He’s trapped in the Elvis persona. His words were like an explosion in my head. I determined not to try imitating Bob, because I could never escape the fact that readers would see it as imitation. And, imitation—no matter how good—is never as good as the original. And, I could never do anything new if I was going to mimic what Bob did. I decided I’d be true to the character—Jesse Stone would act as he had in the past, but the reader would see different aspects of Jesse emerge, and the town of Paradise would evolve. So, in a sense, I use the same camera Bob did, but my focus is different.

In Debt to Pay, Jesse has given up drinking alcohol. What accounts for this turn of events?

He gives it up temporarily. If you think of Jesse Stone, you think of Tom Selleck, who played him on TV … a tall, handsome guy who’s athletic and whom women love. A reader can have trouble relating to someone like that. Everyday people relate to Jesse because he struggles, as do we all. Personal challenges are what make us human. I think it’s really important to show Jesse having serious problems with alcohol. Sometimes he succeeds, and sometimes he fails.

I’m familiar with your series’ characters: Moe Prager, Gus Murphy, and now, Jesse Stone. How do you go about formulating different characters for various different series?

My own series are easier because the best place to look for new characters is to look in the mirror. Somewhat like method acting for writing, I try coming up with some aspect of a character that I feel within myself—a flaw, an emotion, an incident—something that happens to me, and it becomes the basis for a character. It’s far more challenging to find a way into somebody else’s character. My way into Jesse was his baseball career because I’ve always been an avid baseball fan and consider myself a jock. That was my route into Jesse.

You’ve been called a ‘hard-boiled poet’ and the ‘noir poet laureate’ by various critics. What about your writing has resulted in these characterizations?

Bribery. [Laughter]. I started as a poet when I was thirteen, and it’s evolved into prose, but I’ve never lost my love for the sound of language. I’m not conscious of it while working, but when I re-read my writing, I see a certain lyricism, and know I’ve never lost the love of the sound of words.

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

That’s pretty easy for me to answer. It would be The Long Goodbye by Raymond Chandler. It has its flaws, but it’s the kind of writing I wish I could do. There are others like Slaughterhouse Five that come close, and if I didn’t write crime novels for a living, it would be a different novel.

What, if anything, keeps you awake at night?

The cat and the New York Mets. [Laughter].

I don’t regret things. I don’t look back and rue my decisions. I’m not a big sleeper; I sleep five or six hours at most. So nothing really keeps me up at night.

Looking back at your career, has your writing process changed in any way?

I’m not sure my process has changed, but I’ve changed as a writer. I’ve never stopped being influenced by other writers. My writing has become slightly more refined. For me, the more I write, the better I get at it. When I no longer feel I’m getting better as a writer, that’s when I’ll stop. For example, I once had an idea for a novel, but I wasn’t yet a good enough writer to tackle it. It took me five years to complete Gun Church because it took me that long to develop the skills needed to write that novel.

What’s coming next from Reed Farrel Coleman?

Another Gus Murphy novel is coming next. It’s called What You Break.

Congratulations on writing Debt to Pay, a beautifully crafted novel that captures Robert B. Parker’s world view, as it tells the tense story of a flawed but intrepid police chief who finds himself pitted against a tenacious “cat-and-mouse” killer.

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

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