Dark Fissures - Interview with Matt Coyle

by Holly West

One of the best things about being a crime fiction writer is being part of the crime fiction community. I count my friendship with Matt Coyle, the Anthony Award-winning author of the Rick Cahill mysteries, as a particular highlight--although you'd never know it to hear us banter with one another.

He's got a new book, DARK FISSURES, coming out on December 6, just in time for your holiday gift giving needs. Tell 'im I sent you.

HW: DARK FISSURES is the third book in your Anthony Award-winning Rick Cahill series. Tell us what it’s about.

MC: Rick is in a tough spot as the book opens. He’s now working solo as a P.I. and about to be foreclosed upon by the bank. He needs money quick and takes a case trying to help a woman prove her husband was murdered and didn’t commit suicide as ruled by the Medical Examiner and backed up by the police. Unfortunately, the [dead] man had been a cop under Rick’s nemesis, police Chief Tony Moretti, who suspects Rick may be responsible for the missing part of a missing person.

HW: Rick Cahill is a man deeply haunted by his complicated past but in DARK FISSURES, he manages to creep forward just a little. Understanding he’ll never be truly free, is Rick finally ready to leave his past behind? Perhaps more importantly, will his enemies let him?

MC: I’m glad you noticed he’s moving forward, even if you had to measure his progress with a magnifying glass. There’s hope. I’ll probably stop writing him if he ever becomes truly healed.
Rick will always have enemies. He’s good at making new ones.

HW: Rule breaking is an integral part of a P.I.’s stock-in-trade, and Rick’s not adverse to breaking a few rules himself when the situation calls for it. But in order to keep his demons (internal and external) at bay, he operates his personal life under a strict code of ethics. In DARK FISSURES, he reluctantly strays from it. Was this a deliberate choice on your part to develop his character or did the choice evolve organically as you wrote the book?

MC: Rick is deeply flawed and sometimes fools himself about his conduct. However, I didn’t intend for him to break the rule I think you have in mind. Secondary characters grow as I write them and force themselves deeper into the story. That’s what happened with Brianne Colton. She’s talented, beautiful and capable. She needs Rick’s help with the case, but doesn’t need to be emotionally rescued. That appeals to Rick. I think his decision to break a rule is a healthy choice and, in a way, aids in his need for emotional rescue.

HW: While your books are masterfully plotted, I think, at heart, they’re character driven. So with that in mind, how would Rick answer these questions from the Proust Questionnaire: What is the trait you most deplore in yourself? 

MC: Emotional weakness.

HW: What is the trait you most deplore in others?
MC: Being unjust…if that makes sense.

HW: For the craft geeks among us: DARK FISSURES is a well-plotted and fast-paced mystery that deftly juggles a couple of different story lines. Do you plot your novels in advance?

MC: Thanks for the compliment. I don’t outline. I find plotting the most difficult part of writing mysteries. I start with an inciting incident and then Rick’s and other characters’ decisions drive the action. Although DARK FISSURES is only my third book, I’ve been writing Rick for fifteen years, so I have a feel for how he’ll react to certain scenarios. I try to pick ones that will cause the most chaos, both plot-wise and emotionally.

HW: DARK FISSURES is a hard-boiled P.I. novel but there’s some police and FBI procedural mixed in. Hell, you’ve even managed to incorporate some mixed martial arts. How do you conduct your research and how important is authenticity? (Remember, it’s okay to say if you make shit up. I know I do).

MC: Authenticity is very important to me, but I’m not a research junkie. I generally only do as much research as I needed to make a scene or character seem authentic. That’s not to say that the only research I so is what comes out on the page. I try to talk to experts in their field and use the one or two things that makes the scene ring true. Of course, I’ve gotten things wrong a couple times because I didn’t do enough research.

HW: I know book one in the series, YESTERDAY’S ECHO, took many years to write and several drafts before it was published. Has your process changed over the course of writing the next two books in the series? Does it ever get easier?

MC: My process has probably gotten even more loose than when I started, but I’ve learned to trust it. That has been a big key for me.

I’ve found my first drafts have gotten a lot cleaner. I throw a lot less stuff out. However, the process itself is a mess. I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone. Sometimes I’ll toss something into a scene that bubbles out of my subconscious. I may expound on it right away or come back later when my subconscious tells me what it means. I call that dropping anchors. Sometimes the anchors give the story and emotion a lot more depth. Sometimes they have to be pulled up and discarded on revision.

DARK FISSURES was probably more difficult to write than the first two because of the way NIGHT TREMORS ended. I had to deal with backstory from that book to satisfy my continuing readers but not spoil things for first readers. A delicate dance that I think I pulled off.

HW: What do you consider your greatest strength as an author?

MC: I think it’s being open to any possibility. Thus, the anchor dropping above. This can lead you into many corners that you have to work very hard to get out of and make the book better. However, it can also lead you into a corner that turns into a box that doesn’t work and costs you a few days of valuable writing time. It’s a dangerous, but exciting way to write. And, although I’ve had my doubts in every book, I still trust the process.

***

Matt Coyle grew up in Southern California battling his Irish/Portuguese siblings for respect and the best spot on the couch in front of the TV. He knew he wanted to be a crime writer as a child when his father gave him THE SIMPLE ART OF MURDER by Raymond Chandler.

His debut novel, YESTERDAY’S ECHO, won the Anthony Award for Best First Novel, the San Diego Book Award for Best Mystery, and the Ben Franklin Silver Award for Best New Voice in Fiction. His second book, NIGHT TREMORS, was named a top pick for 2015 by Bookreporter.com. and was a Lefty, Shamus, and Anthony Award Finalist. DARK FISSURES, is the third book in the Rick Cahill crime series. Matt is a graduate of UC Santa Barbara and lives in San Diego with his Yellow Labrador, Angus, where he is working on the fourth Rick Cahill crime novel.

The Mystery Community

Guest Post by Matt Coyle

Holly's note: In this post, Matt Coyle talks about the generosity of the mystery community. Of course, he omits references to his own generosity. When I needed blurbs for my second novel, MISTRESS OF LIES, he didn't hesitate to send me one. It felt great to have an Anthony Award winner blurb my book (Matt won the Anthony Award for Best First Novel for YESTERDAY'S ECHO), but mostly it was great to know that I had a friend who believed in paying it forward and giving back. The mystery community is full such people and Matt is one of them. He's never once failed to step up when I've asked him for a favor and I appreciate that.

Here's Matt:

My protagonist, Rick Cahill, is tough, heroic, and a loner. I share one trait with him, the last. I can fake it when I have to and act social. When I go to trade shows and national sales meetings for my day job, I interact socially and am a decent conversationalist. However, as soon as my duties end I head up to my hotel room to read or watch limited channel TV. I’ve never been a joiner and spend most weekend nights home alone or with a friend or two. Large parties make me nervous.

Those of you in the mystery community may be surprised by the above admissions. I’m on the board of SoCalMWA, and am a member of SinCLA, ITW, The Private Eye Writers of America, and The International Association of Crime Writers/NA. I do as many book signings as I can, talk to groups, serve on panels and even moderate at writers conferences. I’m a loud and obnoxious regular at the mystery conference traveling poker game. And none of it is a con, an act, a put on.

The mystery community invited me in and accepted me as one of its own from day one. It started sixteen years ago when I took night writing classes at UC San Diego taught by multi- award winning mystery author Carolyn Wheat. She ripped to shreds the first draft of what became my first book on the class whiteboard weekly. But she also told me that I had something and that I should keep at it. That I’d be published someday.

I met Alan Russell and Ken Kulken at the first writers conference I ever went to, Southern California Writers Conference. They had the misfortune of having to read thirty pages of an early draft of that same first book. They encouraged what strengths they could find and pointed out the weaknesses as required, but they went way beyond. They regularly answered my email enquiries for years to come.

I met Darrell James at Left Coast Crime Los Angeles in 2010, the first mystery writers conference I ever attended. I’d volunteered to work the MWA booth and he was my booth-mate. I was a bit intimated because he was an award winning short story writer with a novel coming out and I was a schmo with a drawer full of rejections. He couldn’t have been nicer or more encouraging.

The next year I met Naomi Hirahara at the California Crime Writers Conference. I was in the bookroom, looking like a lost child, and Naomi introduced herself to me. Wanted to know something about me. An Edgar Award winner introduced herself to me!

Over the years, as an unpublished writer and fan at book signings and conferences, I had the pleasure of meeting many New York Times bestselling mystery writers. Each time I’d see them they’d ask how my writing was going. Many responded to my email inquiries about the business of writing.

I sat at Gar Anthony Haywood’s table at a Men of Mystery years back and he volunteered to look at pages from my first book. The advice he gave me helped shore up an early chapter and put the book on the path to publication.

I’d never met Holly West, but when I asked for her a favor via email she helped me out, which ultimately led to me landing an agent.

When I finally got a book deal and needed to get blurbs, Stephen Jay Schwartz agreed to read the book and blurb it for me. I found out later, and not through Stephen, that he was in the middle of reading 200 books for Anthony Award nominations. I’m still blown away by that act of generosity.

Other writers who I’d only known through brief conversations at their book signings who took the time out of their busy schedules to read my books and blurb them have been: Robert Crais, Hilary Davidson, Dianne Emley, Gar Anthony Haywood, T. Jefferson Parker, and Hank Phillippi Ryan.

David Putnam has become an invaluable source for police research twenty-four hours a day. San Diego mystery super fan Micheal Higginbottom has word-of-mouthed my work and helped me land speaking engagements.

Booksellers at my local independent bookstores, Mysterious Galaxy, Warwick’s, and my home away from home to the north, Book Carnival, have steadfastly promoted my books.

My agent, Kimberley Cameron, and publishers, Bob and Pat Gussin at Oceanview have supported me beyond just a business relationship.

There are dozens and dozens of other people in the mystery community who have helped, and continue to help, me get better at the thing that I love. They have all become a second family to me, a loner who doesn’t join groups.

And the family was never more welcomed than at Bouchercon this year.  My ninety-year-old father had suddenly passed away just days earlier. My first family had gotten together and grieved, but the grieving continued, as it does today. Bouchercon was a respite from the grief where I could be with like-minded people and be myself. My better self, that I’d found over the years by being a part of the mystery community.

So, this is a longwinded way of saying thanks to all those in the mystery community who accept strangers and make them part of the family.

…this doesn’t mean I won’t still be loud and obnoxious at the poker table.

***

Matt Coyle grew up in Southern California battling his Irish/Portuguese siblings for respect and the best spot on the couch in front of the TV. He knew he wanted to be a writer as a young teen when his father gave him THE SIMPLE ART OF MURDER by Raymond Chandler.

It took him a few decades but he finally got there. His debut novel, YESTERDAY’S ECHO, won the Anthony Award for Best First Novel, the San Diego Book Award for Best Mystery, the Ben Franklin Silver Award for Best New Voice in Fiction, and was named one of the Best Mysteries of 2013 by DEADLY PLEASURES MYSTERY MAGAZINE. The second book in the Rick Cahill Crime Series, NIGHT TREMORS, came out in June, 2015. Matt lives in San Diego with his Yellow Labrador, Angus where he is currently working on the third Rick Cahill crime novel.