William Goldman RIP

Very sad news late last week, when I heard of the death of William Goldman. I’ve been a fan of William Goldman since the age of 15, when I first read MARATHON MAN, at which point everything changed. I didn’t realise it at the time, but if there is such a thing as the Top Five Thriller Twists, at least two, and maybe three, are to be found in MARATHON MAN.
  Goldman, of course, was a novelist and screenwriter, winning two Oscars. His finest work included the scripts for Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and All the President’s Men, as well as the novel (and screenplay) THE PRINCESS BRIDE.
  I watched The Princess Bride last Friday night, and read MARATHON MAN over the weekend, and both are as fresh as the day they were released (“My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die.”).
  It was probably my fifth or sixth reading of MARATHON MAN, and maybe it’s because of my age now, but I’d never realised how truly brutal and cynical it is, especially as it nears its climax, when its reluctant hero, college student Babe Levy, addresses his nemesis, the former Nazi Szell:

‘I don’t know if you’ll understand this, but once upon a time, long ago, I was a scholar and a marathon man, but that fella’s gone now, dead I suppose, but I remember something he thought, which was that if you don’t learn the mistakes of the past, you’ll be doomed to repeat them. Well, we’ve been making mistakes with people like you, because public trials are bullshit and executions are games for winners – all this time we should have been giving you back pain. That’s the real lesson. That’s the loser’s share, just pain, pure and simple, pain and torture, no hotshot lawyers running around trying to see that justice is done. I think we’d have a nice peaceful place here if all you war-makers knew you better not start something because if you lost, agony was just around the bend. That’s what I’d like to give you. Agony.’

  All of which is a longer, and rather more vengeful, version of Orestes’ address to his father’s murderer, Aegisthus, at the conclusion of Sophocles’ Electra:

Orestes: You must go before me.
Aegisthus: That I may not escape you?
Orestes: That you may not be killed where you would choose. You shall taste all the bitterness of death. If retribution were swift and certain, and the lawless man paid with his life, there would be fewer villains.

  So there you have it – justice as swift and savage retribution, and only a couple millennia or so between them. If you’re an aspiring thriller writer, and you haven’t read MARATHON MAN, I’d suggest buying it immediately and then leaving it to one side until you’ve finished your first draft, lest you discover yourself, as I did, sorely tempted to steal all its best bits.

A Secret Passion For Mercy

Justice as blood, agony and revenge came up in William Goldman’s MARATHON MAN a week or so ago, but Ross Macdonald’s private detective Lew Archer offers a rather different take in THE GOODBYE LOOK. To wit:

  “That isn’t your real motivation,” [she said]. “I know your type. You have a secret passion for justice. Why don’t you admit it?”
  “I have a secret passion for mercy,” I said. “But justice is what keeps happening to people.”

  Mercy isn’t a quality we usually associate with the crime / mystery / thriller genre, but it’s probably why Ross Macdonald is one of the enduring greats, and why he is considered a superior – or more sophisticated, at least – writer when compared to his predecessors, Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler.
  I still hold a candle for Chandler, but maybe that’s because I’ve read virtually everything Chandler wrote and I’ve only read four or five of Macdonald’s novels so far.
  Tobias Jones had a very nice piece on Ross Macdonald in the Guardian way back in 2009, in which he writes about the evolution of Macdonald as a writer, from being a disciple of Hammett and Chandler to outstripping both in terms of his ambition for the private detective novel. He also quotes Macdonald on plot:

“It should be as complex as contemporary life, but balanced enough to say true things about it. The surprise with which a detective novel concludes should set up tragic vibrations which run backward through the entire structure.”

  The full piece is here …

Is It Safe?

I mentioned earlier in the week that I’ve been struggling for the last while with a new book, so God only knows what possessed me to read William Goldman’s MARATHON MAN again. I’ve loved that book for about 30 years now, give or take, and to read it now suggests that I harbour a self-destructive (and possibly masochistic) streak a mile wide. If you’re ever seriously doubting your ability to write a good thriller, and need that one last nudge that will tip you over the edge and take your typewriter / laptop with you into the abyss, just read MARATHON MAN and go gently into that good night, amen, etc.
  (Writing Tip to Self: try having interesting things happen to interesting people in a blackly humorous way on nearly every page. It’s worth a shot, at least, surely?)
  Anyway, given that we all know that the whole point of the crime / mystery novel is the righting of wrongs and the pursuit of justice, the following passages leapt out at me:

‘Police?’ Babe blinked. ‘Police? Why should I call them, what good would that do?’ He buttoned the raincoat. ‘I don’t want justice, are you kidding, screw justice, we’re way past justice, it’s blood now …’ (pg 227)

  And again:

‘Well, we’ve been making a mistake with people like you, because public trials are bullshit and executions are games for winners – all this time we should have been giving back pain. That’s the real lesson. That’s the loser’s share, just pain, pure and simple, pain and torture, no hotshot lawyers running around trying to see that justice is done. I think we’d have a nice peaceful place here if all you war-makers knew you better not start something because if you lost, agony was just around the bend.’ (pg 273)

  So – what exactly is it crave from our deliciously escapist crime / thriller fiction? Justice? Or blood and agony?

Resistance Is Futile

I was planning on getting along to the launch of CONQUEST by John Connolly and Jennifer Ridyard yesterday evening, but then life in the shape of work reared its ugly head. Which is a pity, because CONQUEST sounds like a smashing book. To wit:

It may not qualify as Irish crime fiction / mystery, exactly, but it would be remiss of me not to mention the new novel CONQUEST: THE BOOK OF THE INVADERS (Headline), given that it’s written by John Connolly and Jennifer Ridyard and sounds like it’s terrific fun – and I, for one, welcome our new overlords. Quoth the blurb elves:

  Earth is no longer ours. It is ruled by the Illyri, a beautiful, civilised yet ruthless alien species. But humankind has not given up the fight, and Paul Kerr is one of a new generation of young Resistance leaders waging war on the invaders.
  Syl Hellais is the first of the Illyri to be born on Earth. Trapped inside the walls of her father’s stronghold, hated by the humans, she longs to escape.
  But on her sixteenth birthday, Syl’s life is about to change forever. She will become an outcast, an enemy of her people, for daring to save the life of one human: Paul Kerr. Only together do they have a chance of saving each other, and the planet they both call home.
  For there is a greater darkness behind the Illyri conquest of Earth, and the real invasion has not yet even begun ...

  CONQUEST is ‘the start of an epic new series from bestselling author John Connolly and Jennifer Ridyard’, by the way, so there’ll be plenty more where that came from. I do hope, for the Illyri’s sake, that they’ve read up on their Donagh MacDonagh …
  Hats off to John Connolly. He’s already given us private eye fiction, gothic supernatural, young adult comedy, fairy tale reinvention – and now, with Jennifer Ridyard, epic fantasy. He’s turning into the Irish William Goldman before our very eyes.

Doing His Eoin Thing

I had the great pleasure last week of sitting down with Eoin Colfer (right), to interview him on the occasion of the publication of the final chapter in the Artemis Fowl story, THE LAST GUARDIAN. He’s a lovely guy: funny and generous and self-deprecating, and entirely free of any unnecessary ego.
  That interview was published in the Irish Times on Saturday, and a very nice spread it was too. It opened as follows:

Forthright but quietly spoken, understated but unambiguous, Eoin Colfer, the self-deprecating creator of the Artemis Fowl phenomenon, is a bundle of contradictions, writes DECLAN BURKE

IT COMES AS no surprise to learn that William Goldman is one of Eoin Colfer’s favourite writers. “I think Marathon Man is one of the best thrillers ever written,” he says. “And Goldman also wrote The Princess Bride, which is one of the best fantasy books ever written. It’s amazing that the same guy wrote both, but he also wrote Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.”
  Colfer is no slouch himself when it comes to dabbling in different genres. Whether it’s selling 20 million copies of the Artemis Fowl series of books, being shortlisted for the Los Angeles Times Book Prizes with his debut crime-fiction novel for adults, or collaborating on musical theatre before writing the sixth instalment in the “increasingly improbable” Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy series, Colfer has an endless fascination with new forms.
  If there is one constant in his work, it’s humour. “I find it very hard not to write humour,” he says. “I feel uncomfortable when no one is talking at a dinner table. I always feel like I’m the one who has to jump in and fill the gap. It was the same when I was writing plays. I was always worried when the audience was silent. Because I wasn’t getting the affirmation, maybe, that it was good. So I would invariably jam in as many jokes as I could. And it’s the same with the books. I’m just afraid that if people don’t laugh all the time they’re not enjoying themselves.”

  For the rest, clickety-click here …

Play Ball

Many, many moons ago I read Bernard Malamud’s THE NATURAL, and fell head-over-heels for baseball. So profound was the experience that I’ve been unable to read another Malamud to this day, on the basis that, to the best of my knowledge at least, none of his other books are about baseball.
  Of course, it was a young man’s love. By which I mean, I fell in love with the idea of baseball, with its lore and language and what it represented, and particularly its mythic status as America’s national pastime. And so, over the years, I’ve watched plenty of baseball movies, and read some books, in the process putting together a very sketchy understanding of the game its great names, among them Di Maggio, Ruth, Robinson, Mays, Williams, Jackson, Gehrig, and the gloriously despised Ty Cobb. And then there are the team names; the Cubs and the various Sox, the Cardinals, the Tigers and Pirates and Indians and the perfidious Dodgers; and the ball parks themselves, from Fenway to Candlestick.
  It’s impossible to engage with American popular culture and not be infected by baseball by a process of osmosis. One of my favourite novels, for example, William Goldman’s MARATHON MAN, is steeped in the game; the game’s argot is pervasive, seeping into the language of film and novel and play, of casual conversation and political speech. I understood the audacity of stealing a base before I knew what base-stealing was; I could contextualise curveballs and pinch hitters and double plays and the bottom of the ninth long before I understood their technical meaning.
  Fast forward to many moons ago, when I spent a very pleasant week in Atlanta in the company of a very pleasant young woman, who very kindly showed me the town, the highlight of which was a tour of Turner Field. That was in March, unfortunately; still, it was nice to finally step into a ball park.
  But it wasn’t until about a month ago that I actually sat down to watch an entire game of baseball on TV. I have no idea why I did so; these days I don’t even have time to watch a full game of hurling, and I couldn’t even tell you who was playing that night. It took about two innings before I was hooked. Given that most live baseball games run three to four hours, and that most games shown here are on ESPN around midnight, I’ve developed the very bad (i.e., time-consuming) habit of recording a night’s game and watching it the following evening. I’m not rooting for any one team; to be honest, I don’t even care who wins, or the score. I’m just fascinated by what these guys are doing, their technical proficiency in a game of millimetres. And I’m less interested in the Hollywood plays, the booming homer to the second tier, as I am by the more mundane plays; my favourite, as it happens, is the third baseman or short stop picking up an infield drive and rifling it across to the hungry glove on first base. Overall, and contrary to what I would have believed from watching baseball movies, and as thrilling as it is to watch a guy lean back and smack the pill into the middle of next week, I’m far more interested in watching the pitchers than the batters, and the fielding, and particularly that of the infielders.
  When I opened Dennis Lehane’s superb THE GIVEN DAY last week, and discovered that the opening chapter was a beautifully written fictional account of the Babe stepping down off a stalled train to go play ball in a field in the middle of nowhere, it’s safe to say that Lehane was pushing at an open door.
  Which brings me to the point of this post. I have THE NATURAL lined up for a long overdue re-read, but I’m open to suggestions about other books about baseball. I’ve read SHOELESS JOE, and it’s probably a bit too soon to go back to it; but if anyone can suggest a novel about baseball, I’m all ears (suggestions on college baseball particularly welcome). Short stories would work too, given the nature of the game. And if anyone can recommend a good history of baseball, preferably one containing potted histories of the great players and teams, that would be a bonus.
  Finally, I have a Baseball Reader around here somewhere, which I’ve been looking for in vain for the last couple of weeks, one which contains Ty Cobb’s letter to the Hall of Fame detailing his Greatest Team. If anyone can tell me which book that’s in, I’d be very grateful.
  Play ball …

He Steals Souls

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.

The Neville Will Find Work For Idle Hands To Do

I interviewed Stuart Neville (right) last week, and a very pleasant experience it was too, not least because Stuart is in a very good place these days. Recently married, he’s on the shortlist for tonight’s LA Times’ Mystery / Thriller Book Awards with COLLUSION, a gong he scooped last year for his debut novel, THE TWELVE, aka THE GHOSTS OF BELFAST. Could he possibly win two years running? It’s a big ask, as they say, particularly given the quality of the opposition: our own Tana French, for FAITHFUL PLACE; Kelli Stanley for CITY OF DRAGONS; Laura Lippman for I’D KNOW YOU ANYWHERE; and Tom Franklin for CROOKED LETTER, CROOKED LETTER, which is the best novel I’ve read this year to date (although my current read, IRON HOUSE by John Hart, is running it close).
  Meanwhile, Stuart is also gearing up to the release of his third novel, STOLEN SOULS, which he describes as ‘a much more streamlined, ticking-clock kind of thriller’, influenced by classic ’70s thrillers such as William Goldman’s MARATHON MAN, and the early novels of Thomas Harris. Sounds tasty. For more on STOLEN SOULS, clickety-click here …
  Anyway, I asked Stuart in passing if he’d like to nominate an Irish crime title to recommend to readers, to which he responded thusly:

“The new Gene Kerrigan book, THE RAGE, is absolutely terrific. It captures that sense of Ireland on the down-slope of the rollercoaster, he’s done that very, very well. But also, his journalistic background makes it seem like there’s almost a documentary feel to it. You feel like you could be reading an actual description of a crime in it, as opposed to a fictional crime. It has a real core of authenticity to it. It’s very impressive. I’d hope that the Irish Book Awards win last year, and the CWA nomination, will help raise his profile. He’s a terrific writer.”

  That makes Stuart’s nod the third very positive recommendation for THE RAGE I’ve heard in the last couple of weeks. It isn’t released until June 2nd, but already it seems set to catapult Gene Kerrigan into the stratosphere. Here’s hoping.
  What I love most about Gene Kerrigan’s books, I think, is the ring of authenticity Stuart refers to, which is very probably derived from his years spent as a court reporter. Not for Kerrigan the demonising of criminals, little or otherwise. I never tire of repeating the line Kerrigan used during a conversation on crime writing a few years ago, when he suggested that the typical criminal isn’t all that different to law-abiding folk. “This guy will babysit your kids on a Friday night,” he said, “then go to work on Saturday morning with a gun in his pocket.”
  I always get an image of some uncle-type babysitter driven demented by an unruly brood who refuse to go to bed on time, whose shoulders straighten the next morning as he leaves the house, checking the safety on his Glock before he slouches off, some rough beast, headed for the mean streets to be born again …

UPDATE: Tom Franklin’s CROOKED LETTER, CROOKED LETTER won the LA Times’ Book Awards Best Mystery / Thriller last night, and while I’m disappointed on behalf of our own Stuart Neville and Tana French, there’s no disputing the fact that Franklin’s is a wonderful novel. Here’s the review I wrote back in February as part of that month’s Irish Times column:

Set in rural Mississippi, Tom Franklin’s CROOKED LETTER, CROOKED LETTER (Macmillan, £11.99, pb) opens with the shooting of small town mechanic Larry Ott, a semi-recluse who has long been suspected of the abduction and murder of a local girl some decades before. Local deputy Silas Jones is reluctant to lead the investigation into the shooting, as he and Larry were childhood friends before an ugly racial incident drove them apart, but the disappearance of another young girl overrules Silas’s personal distaste for the case. Ostensibly a police procedural, Franklin’s third novel deploys the genre’s narrative conventions as a framework for a much deeper exploration of the psychology of small-town America and its recent racist past. Both Larry and Silas are superbly drawn and fully fleshed characters, their personalities and conflict chthonic to rural Mississippi but luminously relevant, in Franklin’s hands, to any locale on the planet. Factor in a mesmerising evocation of rural Mississippi, language of sinuous and shimmering elegance, and a finely tuned ear for the nuances of dialogue, and you have a novel that is an early contender for one of the great novels of the year. - Declan Burke

On Rewrites, Pseudonyms And Deep-Fried Mars Bars

Mrs Wife is a scientist in the field of food health and safety. This suggests that we should be eating the right foods rather than the wrong foods, but the good news is that there’s no such thing as ‘good’ or ‘bad’ foods. Cheeseburgers, whipped cream, a full Irish fry (with baked beans), deep-fried Mars bars - they’re all good. Except for the deep-fried Mars bars, obviously.
  Anyway, and according to Mrs Wife, the central issue when it comes to healthy eating is variety. Eat nothing but cheeseburgers, say, and you’ll end up a very sick puppy.
  I’m wondering if the same applies to books. If reading too much of the same kind of book doesn’t cause problems for the imagination’s digestive system. If reading too much crime fiction, say, doesn’t dull the taste-buds and cause all kinds of mental blockages. I mean, there’s nothing like a week without a good cheeseburger to whet the appetite for a good cheeseburger.
  I’ve been reading a lot of crime fiction lately, some of it very good indeed, but in the normal run of things crime writing would account for about half or less of my reading. I’ll happily read most kinds of fiction, and ditto for travel writing, science, history, mythology and legend, religion and philosophy, and pretty much anything else that seems interesting and well written.
  Life’s too short for eating nothing but cheeseburgers, no matter how tasty they are.
  But here’s the thing. I like to write a bit too. And while I do like to write crime fiction, I like to write, or try to write, other kinds of fiction as well.
  I like William Goldman. Partly because some of his novels are brilliant (THE PRINCESS BRIDE, MARATHON MAN), but also because he wrote in so many different genres (Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid being one my favourite Westerns, and All the President’s Men being a superb thriller).
  I like John Connolly, too. THE BOOK OF LOST THINGS is my favourite of his novels, in part because it’s terrific stuff, but also because of the gamble it represented in this day and age.
  If William Goldman were starting out now, would he get away with that kind of genre-hopping? Would Ray Bradbury be allowed to published the superb DEATH IS A LONELY BUSINESS?
  By the way my brain has started flashing lately, I reckon I’m gearing up for a rewrite of a novel that I’ve been writing on and off for the last eight years or so. It’s a bit of a mongrel, because it contains elements of WWII, Greek mythology, quantum physics and a good old-fashioned amnesia story. It’s a mess right now, and clocks in around 150k words, but hey, writing is really rewriting, no?
  I also reckon that the most important piece of rewriting I’ll do is on the name that goes on the front of the manuscript. For one, the name ‘Declan Burke’ hasn’t exactly sent the boys at Nielsen into a tizzy. For two, the very fact that I’ve published two crime novels means that I’m now, for better or worse (the latter, mostly), a crime writer, and even though the new story revolves around a crime, it’s not a crime novel. At least, I don’t think it is. Maybe I’m wrong.
  Anyway, any suggestions for a pseudonym? I’m thinking Stryker Ramoré.
  I’m off on holidays this week (I’m writing this post in advance) and no doubt, in the quieter moments, I’ll be thinking about the rewrite. Whether I can commit to it time-wise. If I’m quibbling about committing to it because I’m afraid I’m not good enough to write the book I want to write. If there’s any real point in investing all that time and energy when there’s a strong likelihood the book won’t be taken seriously regardless of how good I can make it, given that it was written by ‘Declan Burke’.
  Questions, questions …
  Anyway, I’m looking forward to the holiday. It’s been a rollercoaster six months, and I need the break, and the space and time it affords you to breathe out and sit back and recharge the batteries, and spend quality time with Mrs Wife and the Princess Lilyput. See you next week, folks …

You Never Show Me Your Funny

Off with yours truly and my good lady wife to Belfast on Saturday, only to discover that John Connolly had been in to No Alibis on Friday night to launch THE GATES. Boo, etc. No doubt a good time was had by all.
  I read THE GATES a couple of months ago, and loved it, and what I liked best about it was that it represents yet another string to Connolly’s bow. I’ve always loved William Goldman for his ability to write terrific stories regardless of genre – MARATHON MAN, THE PRINCESS BRIDE, the screenplay for Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid – and for his ability to play it straight when required, but to mix it up and have fun whenever he gets the chance. To date John Connolly has written straight crime novels (BAD MEN), crime blended with the supernatural (the Charlie Parker novels), a collection of short stories infused by the classic fairytales of Charles Perrault (NOCTURNES) and the mythology mash-up of the superb THE BOOK OF LOST THINGS. THE GATES blends Satanism, quantum physics and good old-fashioned fun in a tale that put me in mind of THE HITCHHIKER’S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY. It really is one for all the family.
  These days, of course, it’s tough to write in more than one genre, because publishers believe that a writer shouldn’t confuse the oh-so-easily confused readership by offering them anything that deviates from the established brand. Connolly, who writes his non-crime offerings out of contract, is to be celebrated not only for taking a gamble with his time and energies, but for having faith in his readers. Yes, it’s entirely probable that THE GATES will not sell in anything approaching the numbers that the next Charlie Parker novel will. By the same token, it’s also very likely that the publishing house will more than recoup its investment.
  I don’t care, particularly, about the profit margins and bottom line of any publishing house, but if THE GATES does sell well, then there’s a good chance we’ll get another novel featuring the dauntless Samuel Johnson and his faithful daschund Boswell (there’s rumours of a possible three-book series). Which means, and this is my bottom line, that we’ll get another fun book. Remember when you read for fun? Gosh, those were the days …
  Maybe it’s just me, but it can often seem that the publishing biz takes itself far too seriously, writers included. Yes, there are bottom lines to attend to, and in these straitened times there are jobs at stake when a potential best-seller fails to meet expectations. But even taking all that on board, there’s no reason in the world why books – some of them, at least – can’t be fun to read. In fact, in times like these, the industry might do well to play to (and profit from) people’s need to laugh, for the childish (in the best sense of the word) impulse to find fun in the most improbable of places. And John Connolly is a funny guy. Were I a publishing exec, in this day and age, I’d be tickling his funny-bone and hoping it’d get his fingers busy on a keyboard.
  Meanwhile, beg, borrow or steal (or go crazy, and buy) a copy of THE GATES. You owe yourself some fun.

“Ya Wanna Do It Here Or Down The Station, Punk?” # 2,067: Brett Battles

Yep, it’s rubber-hose time, folks: a rapid-fire Q&A for those shifty-looking usual suspects ...

What crime novel would you most like to have written?
Since my focus is more toward the intrigue / spy type of thing, I’d have to say a three-way tie - either MARATHON MAN by William Goldman, THE BOURNE IDENTITY by Robert Ludlum or one of my favourite books of all time, THE QUIET AMERICAN by Graham Greene. They’re all books I continue to reread when the mood strikes.
Who do you read for guilty pleasures?
I guess I would have to say Steven Hockensmith. His HOLMES ON THE RANGE series about a couple of cowboy Sherlock Holmes wannabes set in the 1890s is not something I would typically pick up. But once I read the first one, I was hooked. The series is hilarious and fun and smart. It’s a nice change from the other books I usually read.
Most satisfying writing moment?
Finishing a chapter or scene that worked out even better than I expected it to. I get kind of a runner’s high after that, and feel great for the rest of the day.
The best Irish crime novel is ...?
Ever changing ... but for now, I’ll go with THE GUARDS by Ken Bruen.
Worst / best thing about being a writer?
Best, creating stories that other people enjoy, and meeting other authors. Worst, deadlines. No question.
The pitch for your next novel is ...?
Jonathan Quinn, the protagonist from THE CLEANER, returns in THE DECEIVED. Quinn’s hired to do a simple job – remove a body that has shown up at the Port of Los Angeles in a shipping container. Only when he opens it, and sees whose body it is, he realized the job isn’t going to be so simple.
Who are you reading right now?
I just finished an Ian Rankin, and was trying to figure out what was next. As you can probably guess I read a lot of thriller and crime fiction. Sometimes I just need to step away. So that’s exactly what I’ve done. I picked up a book I’ve read many times before but falls outside my typical genres ... THE RAZOR’S EDGE by Somerset Maugham.
The three best words to describe your own writing are ...?
Clean. Fast. Engaging.

Brett Battles’ THE CLEANER is published in paperback on March 6.