Beau Tackles Nick Kolakowski

Today Beau Johnson brings you A Brutal Bunch of Heartbroken Saps from Nick Kolakowski and Shotgun Honey.

***

“Kolakowski’s got a gift of scratching his readers’ itch for pulpy, gut-wrenching narrative that moves a mile a minute and never lets you go. A Brutal Bunch of Heartbroken Saps is a hell of a yarn that sets the stage for what should be an essential series for fans of the genre.”
—Angel Luis Colón, author of No Happy Endings and The Fury of Blacky Jaguar

“Ruthless, off-the-wall and surprisingly heartfelt, A Brutal Bunch of Heartbroken Saps is much more than a heist book, and showcases the skills of an emerging writer in Nick Kolakowski. Featuring memorable characters, a down-on-his-luck protagonist and a story that’s equal parts insane and sincere, Saps is the kind of book you read fast and revisit immediately to savor the experience again.”
—Alex Segura, acclaimed author of Dangerous Ends and Down the Dark Street

“A Brutal Bunch of Heartbroken Saps is a hell of a ride. Put on the Elvis tunes, or your best glittery suit, and enjoy Bill’s escape from the boys in New York. He’s trying to ditch his life of crime but it’s pretty hard to do when you have a bunch of stolen money in your trunk and a band of people on your tail. Maybe a woman could save Bill’s body and soul, and all that money? Whatever the outcome, Kolakowski’s fabulous writing shines and the twists and turns will keep you reading to the very last page. A wonderful, entertaining read.”
—Jen Conley, author of Cannibals: Stories from the Edge of the Pine Barrens

***

Bill is a hustler’s hustler with a taste for the high life. He pulls off big scores for one of New York City’s more vicious gangs…until he suddenly grows a conscience. However, living the clean life takes a whole lot of money, and so Bill decides to steal a fortune from his employer before skipping town.

With a bag of cash in the trunk of his car, Bill heads west, ready for a new life. But all that money makes him a tempting target for some bad people he meets on the road—and if that wasn’t dangerous enough, some old friends are close behind him, and they intend to make a trophy of his head.

Pursued by crooked cops, dimwitted bouncers, and a wisecracking assassin in the midst of a midlife crisis, Bill will need to be a quick study in the way of the gun if he wants to survive his own getaway. Who knew that an honest attempt at redemption could rack up a body count like this?

A Brutal Bunch of Heartbroken Saps is a gonzo noir journey into obsession, violence, and the power of love.

Buy it here

Alex Segura: The BLACKOUT Interview

By Steve Weddle

The lovely and talented Alex Segura did a stint as a regular blogger here at Do Some Damage. He's written a number of comic books, as well as the Pete Fernandez Miami Mystery series. Pete is back in BLACKOUT, the fourth in the series. 

In BLACKOUT, startling new evidence in a cold case that's haunted Pete drags the exiled PI back to his hometown of Miami. But as Pete and his partner Kathy Bentley delve deeper into the unsolved murder, they become entangled in Miami’s obsession with a charismatic and dangerous cult leader and his even more menacing followers. At the same time, the detectives find themselves at odds with a Florida politician’s fixation on wealth, fame and power. It all converges in the heart of the Magic City and Pete is left scrambling to pick up the pieces—or die trying. 

I recently fired up the email machine to chat with Alex about his new book.

Steve Weddle: The relationship between Pete Fernandez and Kathy Bentley has evolved over the books, and it’s been compared to the pairing of Dennis Lehane's McKenzie / Gennaro. Is that a fair comparison? How do you see the dynamic between your pair?

Alex Segura: I think it's fair, and I'll never dodge a Lehane comparison. Those books were hugely influential for me - the way Lehane shows that relationships, romantic and friendly, can be sloppy and wallow in the gray areas. I didn't know Kathy was going to be such a key player until near the end of SILENT CITY, when Pete finds her and she just jumps off the page. But even back then, you know there's a connection between them. So I put that in my back pocket and let the next two books unfurl, and they developed this really strong bond as partners and friends that I found myself enjoying as a reader and writer, which is rare. But I knew I had to shake things up in BLACKOUT, because while DANGEROUS ENDS, the third and most recent novel, finds them settling into a bit of a happy ending, they were still on the run - there was stuff bubbling under the surface. So, without giving too much away, I pivoted the relationship in a direction I think people wanted, but yanked it back in kind of a cruel way. It made it more interesting to me, and at the end of the day, that's my gauge for whether to write something one way or another - would I get a kick out of it as a reader? I get bored easily when things are happy and linear. I like gray areas and messy situations. I see them as eternal partners - whether that's professional, friendly or romantic depends on the circumstances, but in the same way Miami will always be a part of the series, so will Kathy. She's Pete's co-conspirator and as much of a star to the series as he is.

 

Image swiped from writersdigest.com

SW: One of the characteristics of the Pete Fernandez novels has been music as setting. Have you built scenes around songs or do you match the soundtrack up after you know what you want to happen?

AS: I think about music a lot when writing or when thinking about the novels. It's like creating a soundtrack to a movie in my head. Sometimes these references pop up in the actual book - whatever Pete is listening to in the car or at home, a nod to an artist - or in the playlists I put together as I write. Sometimes both. Like Bosch or Spenser or other iconic detectives, I wanted Pete to be a music fan - to unwind and think a case over while playing a favorite record. I've imbued him with similar tastes to mine because a) it was easier, not gonna lie and b) I felt like a lot of other books I was reading defaulted to jazz or older music - which is fine - but I wanted Pete to feel a little different, more vibrant - in the same vein as Nick Stefanos or his contemporaries.  

SW: You've had organized crime and gangs and more in the previous books, and you've got a cult in this one. How much fun was it to write about a cult and did you find yourself tempted to go over the top?

AS: That's a great question. Yeah, I had to really keep it in check, because so many cults are known for their insane methods or some other, secondary fact and the cult I was creating for BLACKOUT needed to be more disturbing than that. So that's why it evolved into a faded, "defunct" cult that ends up being not so dormant by the time Pete crosses paths with them. I wanted it to seem like they were running a skeleton crew as opposed to being this robust, well-funded operation. In my research, I found that a lot of these cults, at least the ones that had long stretches, started out actually doing some good - helping the poor and undocumented, feeding the homeless, that sort of thing. Then there was a major wrong turn at some point, and a lot of the members felt trapped, tied to the rocket, basically. I used that as a template - this was a group that included some good people that were corrupted and morphed into something much more menacing, then went away and sprung back once they discover Pete meddling in something that could hurt them. 

SW: How has Miami changed since you started writing about it?

AS: It's very different. The landscape has changed. Neighborhoods that were not great are now gentrified and hip. Wynwood didn't exist, really, when I lived there. The Miami I write is as true to the city as I can be, but is also "my" version of Miami. Places that maybe have closed still exist in my version. I get down there often because my parents live there and I have friends there, so I use that time as research along with socializing - I need to keep up with the changing skyline, honestly, and it's not easy. But as long as I do my research and stick to the things I'm familiar with, along with some great beta readers, I end up okay. 

SW: We've see Pete change over the course of these past few novels, but how have you changed as a writer? Would Pete be a different character if you started writing him now?

AS: I think so. While you see hints of what the series is going to become in Silent City, it's still very much a linear PI novel, and while I think it's different, it also honors the genre and its tropes clearly. I don't think I'd write it the same way now, as you can probably see from the books that follow SC, which isn't a diss on PI novels, I'm just saying I don't really approach the Pete books that way. I'm aware it's a series and he's a private investigator, so there are some things that have to be there - a crime, a mystery, etc. But I also just want to write about whatever is interesting to me in the moment, and I'll find a way to make that work within the framework of Pete I've created, so I'm engaged in the writing, whereas with the first book I was very much thinking "how do I add to this pantheon of private investigators? What does this series need and how can I make it different?" And, of course, I'd also like to think I'm better. I don't know what other authors do, but I don't reread my older books. I'll flip through them to reference something or make sure my info is correct, but I don't have the desire to sit back and crack open one of my books - they're done. I'm on to the next thing and that's what I'm interested in: how can I make the next book something else, something more than the ones that came before. 

SW: Whether a book or movie or TV show, a series can be tricky because people are reluctant to drop in after the story has started and, if you're already halfway through a season, who wants to go back and start all over? With that in mind. how easy is it to jump right into this series with this new book? Would you recommend a new reader start with four and go back? Or start with the first book and work forward?

AS: I always read series from the beginning. That's just me. I like to start at ground zero, or the author's desired ground zero, to learn about the characters and their world. That said, I've started series in the middle sometimes, picking up he "most acclaimed" book. But I always end up going back to the start. But I write each Pete book as a standalone, with the idea that it's going to be someone's first, because, if I'm doing my job, you're going to get new readers with each new book. I try my best to recap clearly and concisely, without bogging down the current book's narrative, because that, to me trumps all - the new book wins all. That's what matters most - making it good. But I do want readers of the series to feel like they're getting something special for being around since the first one, and on the flipside, I don't want new readers to feel lost or, even worse, bogged down by exposition. It's a tightrope, I won't lie. I've had beta readers say "Whoa, you just spoiled the whole series here!" And I get that, but I also think readers are savvy enough to figure out that they're coming into things late and hopefully they'll enjoy it enough to go back and read 'em all, even if they know where Pete will end up. 

SW: I've seen authors spend a month high on a good review and wallow in the mire after a bad one. How do you deal with reviews? Do you even look?

AS: Yeah, I look. I have a publicity background, which is a huge help to me when promoting the books because I'm a total ham when it comes to interviews or what-have-you, but that also means I'm vigilant about coverage, including reviews. I see them pretty fast, and I don't have the self-control to not read them. Unfortunately, I feel like most authors are wired to dwell on bad reviews much longer than they should, whereas with the good ones it's like empty calories - like potato chips. You want another one because you're still hungry. I have gotten better, though. If I do get a bad review I get over it faster, and I try to appreciate the fact that the person took time out of their lives to read the book. Few things are for everyone, mystery novels included. Same with good reviews - I give myself a day to enjoy it then I move on, because people/fans forget about the good ones as fast as the bad ones, I think. The one lesson I've learned, over time, is that the best solution to any kind of review/promotional or perceptional book problem is to take a step back and talk about someone else's work. I try to plug authors all the time because it's a tough racket. There's value in recognizing good work, and I try to spread the love as much as possible. It also helps me, selfishly, because it gets my mind off whatever minor thing is stressing me out in relation to publishing - whether it's a review or potential review or whatever.

SW: I've heard that the key to marketing your product is to have other people break your news, so that you're not guilty of blatant self-promotion. What is something helpful to your author career that you've learned from your marketing/publicity career? What is something authors misunderstand here?

AS: Well, first off - there's no magic bullet, no single review or outlet that will "make or break" you. There's a handful of spots - New York Times, NPR, etc. - that will definitely move copies, but at the end of the day, it's about word of mouth, which is this vague hard to quantify thing. You need to get your books in the hands of the right people - tastemakers that will give the promotional cycle a life of its own. As a publicist, you're always happy when a PR hit you worked on happens. You're even happier when people you didn't even pitch start reviewing the book or asking for copies. It means the work resonated, and it all goes back to the book. Write a good book first and foremost, then worry about the window dressing.

Another thing that I think about a lot, especially when I'm careening toward release date and stressing about every little thing - plug other writers. Spread the love. It's the best tonic to the inside baseball publishing hamster wheel.

SW: Now that you've got a stack of books under your belt, what do you wish you'd known with your debut?

AS: I guess I'd tell myself to enjoy it more - events, panels, the writing. We can get so caught up in "what's next?" that we don't think about what's happening. It's something I've gotten better at, for sure, but I remember a lot of early events or things where I wasn't in the moment, and that's not ideal.

I'd also just tell myself to write the book I want to read, because no one else is, and that makes it unique - which is what you want your work to be: compelling and different.

Buy BLACKOUT

Crime Wave in Charlottesville

March 21-25 this year is the week for the Virginia Festival of the Book, an annual event punctuated on that Saturday by Crime Wave.

This year, Rob Hart, Alex Segura, Alison Gaylin, Steve Weddle, Kate Moretti, Attica Locke, Deanna Raybourn, Lyndsay Faye, and many others will be empanelled for your pleasure. Check speaker list here and select by letter.

You have no chance to survive make your time

VaBook.org

Crime Wave Brunch with Attica Locke

Sat. March 24, 10:00 AM - 11:30 AM

Omni Hotel - Ballroom A

212 Ridge McIntire Road, Charlottesville, VA 22903

Sponsored by: University of Virginia Gamma Knife Center

Join hundreds of other Crime Wave readers for Saturday morning brunch with Attica Locke, the New York Timesbestselling author of Bluebird, Bluebird and winner of the 2016 Harper Lee Prize for Legal Fiction.

Additional Crime Wave authors will join readers for the Brunch, and book sales and a signing by Ms. Locke will follow.

Why should you attend?

“Attica Locke has both mastered the thriller and exceeded it… I loved everything about this book.”—Ann Patchett, author of Commonwealth

“Locke, having stockpiled an acclaimed array of crime novels, deserves a career breakthrough for this deftly plotted whodunit whose writing pulses throughout with a raw, blues-inflected lyricism.”―Kirkus Reviews starred review

“Attica Locke is a must-read author who writes with power, grace, and heart, and Bluebird, Bluebird is a remarkable achievement. This is a rare novel that thrills, educates, and inspires all at once. Don’t miss it.”—Michael Koryta, author of Rise the Dark

The Post-Launch Blues

By Alex Segura

Great pre-pub buzz.

Good momentum.

Everything’s clicking.

Strong pre-orders on this one.

You hear these things sometimes. Maybe I do more than most, working as a publicist by day. As an author, these phrases are like the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Especially after months or years spent toiling away at a novel. Finally! Someone read it! Someone even likes it!

It’s a validation, in a way, of the hard work you put in. If your publisher is on their game, it’s also a testament to them and their ability to get the word out and make sure the right people have copies of your book. Of course, the story comes first. If your book doesn’t work or isn’t the best it can be, these things don’t happen. But let’s assume we all know what we’re doing and you’ve written a good book. The early reviews are strong. The blurbs are in. The launch party went great. You’re riding high.

All good, right?

Well, let’s fast forward to a few months after release. The shine is off the apple. A handful of “pub days” have sped by. Your book isn’t the new kid in school. The review cycle has wound down and your emails to your people no longer sound like that of an excited kid on Christmas - “Look at this great review!” - but more akin to an ex hoping to rekindle a one-sided affair…”Hey, how’s it going…?”

It’s a question that’s plagued authors for a good long while: how do you keep interest alive after your book’s come out? I don’t claim to have any answers, aside from my own experience on the other side of the fence, promoting books myself. I will say, it’s become even harder now that we’re in a 24-hour news cycle and riddled with distractions galore. Why think about a book that came out in February when it’s June and Rooney Mara and Jake Gyllenhaal took a walk together in NYC? Everyone’s talking about that OJ documentary - who cares about your book?

There’s no definite answer, but there are a few options. The easiest one, and the one that speaks to our skill sets as writers is simple: write the next one. There’s only so much you, the author, can control in terms of the “greater conversation.” The initial promotional lap is exhausting, brain-melting and feels like a job unto itself. I don’t know about you, but I got very little writing done while promoting my second Pete Fernandez book, Down the Darkest Street. Actually, that’s not true - I did a lot of writing. But it wasn’t actual novel work. There were guest blogs, interviews, reviews, promotional tweets and Facebook posts...you get it. It’s all part of the game, right? But to my point: there will come a time where that well dries up. The train has passed you by and your only real choice is to pick up your tools and get to work on the next one. It’s frightening (“I don’t want to give up on my book!”) but also liberating - this is what we want to be doing, the writing. Even for someone well versed in the PR game like me, the publicity rounds can be a little soul-draining. It’s nice to hop back in the saddle and just tell stories.

The other thing you can do, which I’ve touched on before, is to talk about books. Specifically, not your books. Talk about the novel you’re reading. Talk about the author you’re enjoying. Spread the word. Karma is a vague, subjective thing - but it works for me. It’s nice to get out of my own headspace and just praise the book I’m enjoying or looking forward to. It’s not as direct as, say, pleading for Amazon reviews - but it sure tastes better.

This is where I press play on Elton John’s “The Circle of Life” and ask you, fellow writer, to share what you do in this situation. How do you handle the post-launch blues?

Help a Writer Out

By Alex Segura

Launching a book is stressful. We all know this. I don’t even want to get into how it’s stressful because I’m in the thick of it.

But there's something you can do in situations like these to alleviate the stress. And, if you'll allow me to get a bit New Age-y here, Ill tell you: help another writer. I've found that helping another author is the guaranteed best way to get my mind off whatever's jamming me up in my own head and it puts whatever I'm dealing with in the right perspective.

I try to be mindful of this concept, especially on social media. It’s probably because I do publicity for a living, but I’m always thinking about spreading the word on books or authors. Word of mouth trumps a lot of traditional means of generating “buzz,” because it, well, is buzz.

So, when you’re stressing out about that middling Goodreads review or waiting impatiently for your agent/editor/collaborator to email you back about that Major Thing, take a minute and do a few of these things for another author. I guarantee you’ll feel better.

Leave a review. Did you enjoy their book? Why not cobble together 3-4 sentences and let it be known somewhere? Amazon, Barnes & Noble, your blog - whatever. Believe it or not, these things move the needle, and help customers decide if they’re going to shell out cash for someone’s book.

Plug, plug, plug. Let people know you’re reading something and (hopefully) enjoying it. I usually mention a book a few times if I’m liking it. Sometimes, it even starts a discussion with people who feel the same way. It gets the social media conversation going, and that helps the author. It could be something as simple as posting a photo of a book you just bought or taking part in #fridayreads - anything that mentions an author you’re a fan of helps.

Be a reader. Publicity is part of any book launch. You’ll have to do interviews, guest blogs, live-tweets, AMAs, you name it. But if given the opportunity, you can diverge from your default answers and tip your hat to authors you admire or books you’re immersed in. All writers (well, all good ones) are readers - and they’ll appreciate you mentioning their work. Plus, it might turn a few new people onto their books.

Team up. Solo events can be a little daunting. They’re an important part of the promotional process, but every once in a while, it doesn’t hurt to pool your fans with a fellow writer and do a joint event. This way, you not only open yourself up to potentially new fans, but also return the favor. Noir at the Bars are a good, multi-author example of this, as are panels at conventions. But it can also just be a two-author event at a bookstore. Anything to help cross-pollinate.

This isn’t meant to sound like a concentrated plan. You should do this stuff naturally and if the mood strikes. You don’t want it to seem forced. Be honest - talk about the books you like, the books that inspired you to do what you do as a writer and the books you want to read. Getting people chatting about books is never a bad thing, and if it gets your mind off your own book stress, all the better.

A conversation with Neely Tucker

By Alex Segura

You should be reading Neely Tucker.

Whenever someone asks me for a crime fiction author suggestion, one that might be flying a little under the radar, Neely comes to mind. He writes great mysteries and makes it seem easy - an impressive feat.

Tucker’s Sully Carter books - The Ways of the Dead and Murder, D.C., out now, with a third, Only the Hunted Run, on the way - paint a realistic, compelling and eye-opening picture of the nation’s capital through the eyes of a flawed and all-too-human protagonist. It has the ingredients of some of of my favorite private detective series - think Lippman, Pelecanos, Connelly and Lehane - with a flair and rhythm all its own. Carter’s petulant, smart, thick-headed and brave. He’s a guy you can root for and curse at in the space of a few pages. Tucker’s prose is vibrant but compact, befitting a journalist of his pedigree. The only downside to his novels? I usually read them in a few days and have to wait for the next one.

I was first introduced to Tucker through mutual journalism friends and finally had the pleasure of meeting him in person at Miami Book Fair last year. Trust me when I say you won’t regret picking up his books.

Thanks to Neely for swinging by and chatting. This interview was edited for space and clarity. A version of this interview will show up in my newsletter this week, too - you can sign up for that here.

Neely, thanks for taking the time to chat. Can you give readers a quick introduction to you and your work?

Sure. By day, I'm a reporter on the Washington Post's national desk, currently assigned to the 2016 Presidential campaign. By night, I'm a novelist and non-fiction author. I've been a journalist for thirty years,  sixteen of them at the Post, eight of them abroad. Worked in sixty plus countries or territories in Europe, Africa, the Mid-East, lots of it in conflict situations. Published four books (three fiction) and a chapter in another. Three kids. Wife. Dog. Grill. Football. Bourbon. Seventh-generation Mississippian now living just outside D.C.

What was the inspiration for the Sully Carter books? What made you want to shift to writing fiction after your success in newspapers and nonfiction?

When I came back to the U.S. in 2000,  the Post assigned me to the courthouse as a way of getting to know the city. There was a fascinating case of the last serial killer to work in D.C., a guy named Darryl Turner. He killed prostitutes in a rough part of town. Got away with it for years. That was the inspiration for the novel. In the first draft, Sully  was just one of several primary characters involved the case. He was a reporter who'd come home from covering the Bosnian war, damaged psychologically and physically. He was an amalgamation of things that I and a lot of other reporters had been through. My agent thought he was the strongest character in the draft, and, besides, he had the possibility of being the narrator of a series. So I rewrote it from his point of view.

As to the switch....I wanted to be a novelist since I was a kid. I grew up outside of a tiny little town in Mississippi and loved to read and write stories. I don't know why. My parents were very conservative but they'd let me read just about anything in the town library. So I was reading "Lord of the Rings" and Hemingway and Stephen King and the Hardy Boys and Faulkner and "The Exorcist" and Tennessee Williams and Truman Capote and Eudora Welty, even when a lot of it was WAY over my head.

I got interested in journalism only halfway through college. Willie Morris, the first actual writer I ever met, said that since I wanted to travel as well as write, there was always a newspaper where ever you wanted to go, and then you could meet interesting people all the time and never have to get a real job. Plus, you need to learn how to write sentences, and newspapers can teach you that. I may be the only person who  took career advice from an inebriated southern writer at a Saturday night baseball game and didn't wind up in a holding cell.  

And the advice paid off! 

Like some of my favorite detective series, the Sully novels feature a strong sense of history and place. I know you’re not a native of DC, but what made you want to set the first few books there? And why was it important to give Sully a journalism background?

Practicality, mostly. I wanted the books grounded in reality, but I also wanted them to have a natural way of taking place in a national spotlight. Ergo: Gritty crime in D.C. that gets tangled up, one way or another, with the "ruling class" of federal D.C. In the first book, the teenage daughter of a powerful D.C. appellate judge who might be the next Supreme Court nominee - hello, today's headlines! - is killed in a bad part of town. Like that.

As far as the sense of place....thank you. I think reporting from so many different places around the planet gives you a pretty good idea for what's distinctive about a place, and how to dive into that. 

The second book in particular, was steeped in D.C. history - some fictional, most real. What was the research for that like? Do you find that aspect of writing fiction - the research and organization of data - easier to handle with your background as a journalist?

Murder, D.C. is about the death of the scion of one of the city's wealthiest black families. He's killed in a waterfront park that's long been a haven for drugs. Which, as it happens,is on the site of a former slave-holding pen before the Civil War. The park is wholly invented, but not that much -- the nation's biggest slave-selling auction house was just across the Potomac in Virginia, a distance of about half a mile.

I would argue that the background as a journalist both helps and hurts the research. It helps in that you know how to find what you're looking for and how to synthesize large amounts of information. It hurts in that you tend to rely on that too much.

In fiction, readers don't care if you describe the interrogation room exactly as it is. It only matters you describe is so authoritatively that they believe it. I once profiled Richard Price, who is famous for doing tons of research. He'd go out riding with cops and hanging out in bars and take all these notes and then....never look at it. Never opened a notebook while writing. He said his job was to understand the plausible and then lie responsibly. I thought that was brilliant. (Even in "Clockers," perhaps his most famous book, the title is not actually slang for a street dealer. He just made it up, but now everybody thinks that it was real. The Oxford English Dictionary even called him about it.)

That's a great Price story - and such a relevant point about fiction. It's all about making someone believe your story. My own novels feature a washed up journalist in Pete Fernandez. Sully’s career is much more successful, though they both seem to suffer from similar problems - drinking and a dangerous curiosity being the most obvious. How important was it for you to have a protagonist who wasn’t a seasoned detective, per se?

Very. Sully needed to be a reporter in order to bring in the mysterious workings of the media (some good, some not so much) in these high-profile murder cases. That was something I wanted to write about. Also, so that  he could be a surrogate for the reader. He's not a cop or detective. He doesn't have subpoena power. He can't make people talk to him. He doesn't get to analyze fingerprints or DNA or shell casings. He is bound by a fairly strict ethical code. So he's just this guy on the street, behind the yellow tape,  trying to figure out a violent crime. Of course, everybody's lying to him about their role in it, or might be, or they might be telling the truth as they know it, but they might be factually mistaken. He has to figure out who's telling the truth, then publish the public narrative of the crime...but if he gets it wrong, he gets fired. Or worse. High stakes all around.  

Your third Sully book is on the way. What can you tell us about it?

Only the Hunted Run, is based on the very real assault on the Capitol Building by a schizophrenic named Russell Weston. In 1997, he made it into the building and killed two security guards. In "Hunted," a killer makes it much further into the Capitol and eventually winds up at St. Elizabeths (no apostrophe), the gothic-era  mental hospital on a hill in Southeast DC. Happily, in real life, it really does overlook the rest of the city, which it also does in "Hunted." (Take that metaphor as far as you wish.) Sully is in the Capitol when the shooting starts. Like all the Sully books, it's sort of a crime story about the American Dream gone really, really wrong.

I can't wait to read it. Now, I have to ask this, because his books played a huge part in my own decision to write crime fiction, and I see a lot of echoes of his work in your own - are you a fan of George Pelecanos’s work? The D.C. you portray isn’t identical to his, nor would I expect it to be, but you touch on a lot of the same issues afflicting the city. Mainly things like the dangerous racial divide and the stark contrast between the political elites and the nameless poor that are sometimes just a mile apart. Can you talk about that a bit?

George and I are both greatly influenced by the late great Elmore Leonard, particularly the dialogue. I think what you're seeing in both of us is the ghost of Dutch. I worked in Detroit and got to know him. We were friends for twenty years. You learned from Dutch just by being around him. Lovely, lovely man.  I've only met George once, but we've talked several times by phone and e-mail. He's great. We share a lot of the same likes and dislikes, and I really admire his writing. I stopped reading him, though, as soon as I started my books in the city. I didn't want to be unconsciously influenced in how I was doing my stories set on the same turf. You've got to do your own thing. But, man, I'd love to work with him on a script or something. How fab would that be?

Sign me up. I see the Leonard influence, too - that makes a lot of sense. What an amazing person to learn from.

Are there any books or movies that you’ve been enjoying lately?

I've got two jobs and three kids. I'm way behind on everything. The wife and I just watched all five seasons of "Game of Thrones" in about three weeks. It was awesome. Just read All the Light We Cannot See, which I really liked. Read So Long, See You Tomorrow, William Maxwell's classic. Swamplandia! by Karen Russell. Into the Heart of the Sea. At the moment, I'm picking through stories in The Annotated Lovecraft. As a journalist, I should be thrilled that "Spotlight" won the Academy Award for Best Picture....but I would have voted for "Mad Max: Fury Road."

Pulling the pin

By Alex Segura

I have a hard time giving up on things. Books especially. Letting go isn’t my strong suit.

This isn’t a bad thing, per se, but it can be particularly difficult for two of my most-read genres: crime and comic books. Both often require a multi-book commitment, because they're written in series form.

So, this leads me to my question: when do you give up on a book or series? What’s your breaking point? What are the exceptions to the rule? OK, that was a few questions - but humor me here.

I sometimes want to be like the cool kids and toss a book across the room whenever it stops grabbing me. Life’s too short, I’ve got better things to read and so on. It sounds easy, right? It’s not for me. I know too much about how the sausage is made - I know how much effort goes into writing even a mediocre book. I try to give each one I read as fair a shake as I can. On the other hand, my time (like yours) is precious - so why waste it on a bad book?

I’m all over the place when it comes to this. I’ve powered through a 10-book detective series even though the last three books were mediocre, at best. I've stuck with books in the hopes that they'd get better only to toss them aside when they fell flat in the end. It varies.

I experienced this feeling of book ennui recently. I was reading an acclaimed, bestselling novel outside my usual genre and it just wasn't resonating with me. I was well into the book and found myself wondering, “What is the point of this book? Do I even care about these characters?”

Turns out, I did. I kept reading and really enjoyed how the book ended. The third act - which was not The Best Thing Ever, but good enough to almost make up for the sluggish start - propelled me toward more books by the author, which I subsequently enjoyed.

So, my answer is simple: there isn’t an answer. There are a ton of factors that go into whether I finish a book. Most of the time I do. I usually pick books I end up liking. However, if something doesn’t grab me and there isn’t enough to keep me interested (even in the earlier example, I at least liked some of the characters and world-building), then I chuck it and start something else. Hell, even my mood can affect whether I stick with a book. If I’ve started a crime novel after dozens of similar books, I might feel burnt out and want to read something completely different. I’ve stopped reading mid-series only to come back years later, in a different mindset, and finish. It’s hard to predict, but I’ve learned to just listen to my gut.

Life is too short to read bad books. But sometimes you don’t realize it as quickly as you should.

What are your warning signs that it might be time to bail on the book you’re reading? How much time do you give a book to right itself before you move on?

The books I'm looking forward to this year

By Alex Segura

I did this as a combo post last year - meaning, I listed my 2014 besties with my most anticipated for 2015. This year, I figured I'd split them in two. Not sure why, but here we are.

I've read a handful of these already - and they did not let me down. I very much enjoyed the new Ian Rankin, Rob Hart, Dave White and Reed Farrel Coleman novels - definitely check those out.

One note - I tried to include Scott Adlerberg's latest, Graveyard Love, but Riffle wouldn't let me. I've also read that one and loved it. You will, too.

So, here they are. The books I'm most excited about this year, so far. It's gonna be a good  year for books...

Dave White talks BAD BEAT with Rob Hart and Alex Segura

By Alex Segura

What happens when you get two crime writers talking about comic books? They start brainstorming crossovers of their own. At least that’s what happened earlier this year when I got a bite with fellow novelist (and Polis Books author) Rob Hart. Aside from being friends, we were also fans of each other’s work. I dug Rob’s debut Ash McKenna novel, New Yorked, and Rob said a few nice things about my first Pete Fernandez book, Silent City.

The idea seemed almost too good to be true: a story that featured both our series stars, set before both debuts and timed to hit in advance of the Polis reissue of Silent City and Rob’s second Ash novel, City of Rose. We ran the idea by Polis head honcho Jason Pinter and we were set. The theoretical story would also feature teases for both Silent City and New Yorked, serving as a teaser trailer for our debuts.

Now we just had to write the damn thing. A little crime caper that would eventually become Bad Beat.

Collaboration is always where things get interesting. Everyone, in theory, likes the idea of working with another creative person. But the fact is, writing is a solitary and personal thing, at least when it comes to novels and prose. Luckily, Rob and I both come from a journalistic background. I’ve also written a bunch of comics - we were used to getting feedback and adapting to hit a larger goal. We’re also both kind of workaholics. The ideas flowed easily and the writing happened fast, creating a final product that was unique and gave a fair share of screen time to both Ash and Pete, allowing readers a peek into their lives before New Yorked and Silent City. Most importantly, aside from making the work good, was that the story counted - it’s an essential and important chapter in Ash and Pete’s lives - and made for a tasty appetizer to fans that might be interested in reading their ongoing adventures.

Bad Beat is a dark, dirty short pulled from the New Jersey gutters that features backroom deals, old friends, kidnapping and the dark side of college football - all told through the prism of Ash and Pete’s first meeting. I guess “first” implies there’ll be more…

We wrangled fellow Polis author Dave White (pre-order An Empty Hell!) to serve as DSD’s own James Lipton for a quick interview with Rob and I. Hope you enjoy.





Dave: So, how did the idea for Bad Beat come around?

Alex: It was pretty organic. Rob and I had dinner and were talking shop, which veered into comic books. We both grew up reading comics and I work in the industry, too. We were going on about how cool crossovers were, and we wondered aloud why that didn't happen much with mysteries. Then we started theorizing about having our characters interact and it grew from there. We pitched Jason Pinter, our publisher at Polis Books, on the idea and away we went.

Rob: I sort of assumed it wouldn't happen! Alex and I are both pretty busy with our day jobs, and most things sound good over a couple of drinks (I'm sure I had a couple of drinks). But it turned out, we're pretty simpatico on a lot of things, in terms of process, and keeping our egos in check. That helped keep things moving.



Having already read Silent City and New Yorked, it strikes me that Ash McKenna and Pete Fernandez are very different protagonists.  Did their differences help or hinder the story coming together?

Rob: The difference between Ash and Pete is what makes it work. If they were too similar, there wouldn't be anything for them to do. It'd be two tough guys posturing the whole time, or two quieter guys unwilling to make a bold move. Ash likes to hit things. Pete likes to think things through. They compliment each other well.

Alex: I think it helped. They provide contrast to each other. We'll get into the timeline of it all later, but when you see Pete in this story, he's very different. Kind of proto-Pete in relation to Silent City and its sequel, Down the Darkest Street. So, having Ash, who's more of a bruiser and less emo than Pete really helped propel the story, and hopefully it worked the other way, too. I had a fun time writing Ash - and it really did have the same feel as those older Marvel comics, where the heroes meet, disagree/fight, then join forces against a common enemy. Plus football.



Where in the chronology of your two books does Bad Beat come into play?  Was it more difficult getting into your characters' mindsets at that point in their lives?

Alex: The story happens before our first novels - Silent City for me, New Yorked for Rob. So, it serves as a prequel. You meet Pete before he moves back to Miami - and you get a sense for how bad things have gotten for him.

I liked zooming out a bit and writing an earlier version of Pete - I wrote a short story that ran in Crimespree Magazine called "Quarters for the Meter" that happened shortly after Pete returned, involving Pete, his best friend Mike and a robbery, but it was fun to really explore the world he lived in prior to Silent City. I felt like there was a lot of room to play that I hadn't expected.

Rob: Writing Ash before New Yorked was fun. Because New Yorked was about him accepting things about himself--he needed to grow up, he needed to be less of an idiot. So I got to go back to him as an immature idiot, which was a good bit of fun.



Rob, in the announcement interview on LitReactor, you talked a bit about having concerns with third person, which you eventually overcame. Were there any moments where you two really had to discuss and compromise on a story point?  How did you deal with it?

Rob: I don't think we had any big objections. We're both former journalists, so we're both used to getting edited. I think early on we promised each other there'd be no egos--the story has to win. A few times we had to look at whether something was working, but we were never far from a solution.

Alex: The only disagreement I remember was so minor it’s not really even worth a mention. The whole process was painless, which I didn’t expect - not because it was Rob, but because collaborating is like being roommates with someone, in a weird way - you get a peek under the hood that you wouldn’t normally get as friends or colleagues. But it was totally fine, and elevated both of us a bit, I think.



Both of you really get into a strong sense of place in your books.  Is the setting in Bad Beat different for either of you?  Was switching locales tricky?  

Alex: It definitely involved more research. But even writing about Miami, I find I have to double-check stuff to make sure I'm not completely off, or writing from memories that are no longer relevant. The fact that we were writing a story set in Jersey, near Rutgers, makes me wonder if Jackson Donne was around at all. Sequel, perhaps?

Rob: I had fun writing about Jersey because Jersey is the worst and it was important for me to convey that. I hope I did!

Okay, lightning round.  Rob, your second Ash McKenna book is City of Rose, and Alex, you have two books out in the next few months in Silent City and Down the Darkest Street.  Give me the elevator pitches for both, and how (if at all) they tie into Bad Beat.

Alex: In Silent City, we meet down-on-his-luck journalist Pete Fernandez. His fiancé’s ditched him, his father's died and he's on the brink of unemployment. He's also drinking himself sick. When a colleague asks him to help find his missing daughter, Pete's dragged into a dark, unexplored corner of the Miami underworld that involves an urban legend known as the Silent Death - one that turns out to be much deadlier than anyone anticipated. Down the Darkest Street jumps forward, and we find Pete trying to get his life in order after the tragic events of Silent City. But just as Pete starts to create some semblance of an existence together, he finds himself forced to investigate a series of grisly murders - pitting Pete against true darkness when he's most vulnerable. Bad Beat really gets the ball rolling for both of these books and serves as a nice primer for both characters, I think. It's really smart marketing by Polis - you can pick up the story and then read the first two chapters of Silent City and New Yorked - a perfect teaser to get tapped into these two PI series.

Rob: In City of Rose, Ash has moved to Portland. He's working as a bouncer in a vegan strip club. One of the dancers tries to hire him--her daughter has gone missing. He refuses to take the job, because he's in a place where he's trying to avoid his past habits. Later that evening a guy in a chicken mask throws him in a trunk, holds a gun to his head, and tells him to stay away from the girls. That just serves to piss him off. So he takes the job and then things get bad. Because it's Ash, and he's not nearly as clever as he thinks he is.

He does meet with a journalist and I was going to work in a joke about Pete and like a dummy I forgot and it's already gone to press. Sorry, Alex. :(

Alex: Dammit, Rob. I did manage to tweak something in Silent City to reference Ash - so there’s that.



Please write a 70,000 word essay on how awesome Dave White is.

Alex: No. But Dave, lemme ask you - if you could cross Jackson Donne with any other writer's protagonist, who would it be?

Rob: Yeah. Just don't say Bryon. No one needs that.

I always thought Donne would get a lot out of a long sit down with Spenser.  Kind of a "Shut up and figure out your shit" talk from an east coast master.  As a more contemporary team-up?  Donne would fall right in line with Todd Robinson's Boo and Junior, who'd essentially run roughshod over Donne so he'd have no choice but to get caught up in whatever hi jinx they'd gotten themselves into this time.  Donne follows and then tries to catch up and take the lead at the end.

Alex: Dude - I was totally setting you up to say Ash and Pete. Sigh.