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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 7th 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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Filed Under: About Books, crime, Huffington Post Column, Interviews Tagged With: dialogue, domestic thrillers, kidnapping, legal thrillers, mysteries

‘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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Filed Under: About Books, book launch, crime, Huffington Post Column, Interviews Tagged With: crime-novels, dialogue, Faye Kellerman, investigations, Jesse Kellerman, Murder, Police procedural, psychology

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