I interviewed Stuart Neville a couple of weeks back for an Irish Times interview, during which Stuart had this to say about his forthcoming novel, STOLEN SOULS, his third offering after THE TWELVE and COLLUSION: “STOLEN SOULS is a much more streamlined thriller. Because the first couple of books, whether it was intentional or not, both have this very strong political slant, I really wanted to make a very definite step away from that. And I wanted too to give a nod to some of the thrillers I really enjoyed reading when I was younger. I was a big fan of those thrillers that were maybe 200 pages long and were just punch-punch-punch, that go full tilt from first to last page, no flab. So STOLEN SOULS really does hit the ground running, and doesn’t let up until the last page. There are far fewer organisations with three-letter acronyms, for starters (laughs). It can be hard to keep track of that kind of thing. It’s much more of a ticking-clock kind of thriller, and I hope that it’ll work for readers.”Intriguing stuff, with Stuart citing ’70s-set novels such as William Goldman’s MARATHON MAN as one inspiration. For the full interview, clickety-click here …
Meanwhile, Stuart has contributed a short story, ‘The Craftsman’, to DOWN THESE GREEN STREETS. As I said to him at the time, if ‘The Craftsman’ is indicative of his new direction, we’re in for a defter, more subtle novel than the propulsive THE TWELVE and COLLUSION. For an audio version of ‘The Craftsman’, click here for the BBC iPlayer …
STOLEN SOULS, by the way, is published in October by Soho Crime.
9 comments:
That was very interesting and Stuart's path to publication is very inspirational. Hoping to read Collusion within the next couple weeks, and Stolen Souls sounds good. Thanks for the tip on The Craftsman as well.
Cracking interview. I'm looking forward to Stolen Souls.
gb
great interview, can't wait for Stolen Souls.
You scared me, not mentioning its October release until the end. I thought i was two books behind. I'd better get busy on COLLUSION.
I think STOLEN SOULS will be more on the propulsive side than the deft and subtle side! But I might not be the best judge of that.
What I can say for certain is that the next book, provisionally titled DWELLER ON THE THRESHOLD, will be a more considered and measured affair. Where STOLENS SOULS goes like a train from the first page, DWELLER ON THE THRESHOLD shows a little more restraint. It's set in the early 60s, and features the The Craftsman's Albert Ryan as a young G2 officer, and also tells the story of how he met Celia.
In writing this book, I'm approaching it a little differently than the others. I've read four books recently - ORCHID BLUE by Eoin McNamee, BURY ME DEEP by Megan Abbott, THE TERROR OF LIVING by Urban Waite, and CROOKED LETTER, CROOKED LETTER by Tom Franklin - that have made me think hard about what a crime novel can deliver in terms of the quality of story telling. They've made me up my game, in other words.
Looking forward to this one. Great news!
Yep, another good one, Dec. I like the concept of various characters passing through a constant or similar setting. That's the look I'm going for meself. If Midsomer is big enough for all the mayhem then the 'big city' of Kilkenny certainly is.
Cheers,
Ruby.
The opening is pretty propulsive, all right.
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