Sunday, June 29, 2008

Q & A with Michael Wiley


We interview the winner of the PWA best first PI novel contest Michael Wiley...

Q: What makes Joe Kozmarski different from other PIs?
He’s not so different. But I like to think he’s very good at being who he is. I’m a big fan of classic hardboiled detectives, and when I decided to write a PI novel I wanted my guy to play in that line. Joe Kozmarski is a forty-three year old Polish-American ex-cop working in present-day Chicago. He has an ex-wife and a current lover. His eleven year old nephew lives with him. He has high standards for himself and he constantly fails to live up to them. He’s a man of 2008 and a detective of the 1930s.

Difference for the sake of difference doesn’t make for an interesting character. Not that there’s anything wrong with difference. It just isn’t necessary, even in a character-driven genre like the first-person PI novel. If a PI is well written, he or she will be fresh, interesting, funny, real. That’s what I’m aiming for.


Q: What are your thoughts on the psycho sidekick in PI novels?
Okay, so that’s how Joe Kozmarski is different. He doesn’t have a psycho sidekick.
Like the well-written, truly “different” PI, the well-written psycho sidekick can be a lot of fun, and I admire anyone who writes a character well. Pike in the early Elvis Cole books is hard to beat. But a psycho sidekick can become an excuse for failing to face what’s dark and troubling in a PI, and that’s no good. So I prefer the troubled and troubling PI, the one who might do something totally unexpected and hurt someone irrevocably, especially himself.

Q: Do you do a lot of research?
Writing PI novels gives me a reason to research really interesting things. I get to go to gun ranges and strip clubs, churches and courthouses, all in the name of work. Best, I get to read other PI novels to see how others are doing what I like to do. Yes, I do a lot of research.

Q: Why did you choose to write about a PI?
For me, the better question is, Why doesn’t everyone write about PIs? A lot of the great stories are murder mysteries, even when we call them something else. Even Hamlet. But unlike Hamlet, the PI gets to carry a gun, deal with sexy people, and sometimes take home a paycheck. Think of what Hamlet might have been like if he’d gotten to carry a Glock. Ophelia still would have died, but she and Hamlet would have had a steamy sex scene first and she, not he, would have killed her father. Just for starters.

Q: What’s next for you and Joe?
I’m working on the second Joe Kozmarski mystery now. It’s called The Bad Kitty Lounge and it involves a dead nun with an inconvenient past and an indiscreet tattoo. It’s set a month after The Last Striptease and involves the same cast of good guys and a bunch of new bad guys.

Q: How do you promote your books?
I go on the road to independent bookstores and conventions (from Israel to Alaska with The Last Striptease). I send letters to newspapers and magazines where I have connections. I talk on the radio and TV when I can convince someone to talk with me. I e-mail friends and acquaintances, present and past. I haven’t resorted to putting on a costume or doing embarrassing stunts. Yet.

Q: Do you have any favorite Sons of Spade yourself?
Philip Marlowe, Easy Rawlins, Bill Smith, the early Elvis Cole – Anyone who does the job well.

Q: In the last century we've seen new waves of PI-writers, first influenced by Hammett, then Chandler, Macdonald, Parker, later Lehane. Who do you think will influence the coming generation and in what way?I’ve never been good at calling horse races. But we’ve been living in a time of anxiety and so I figure the time is right for writing and reading PI novels since they register anxiety and work through it – or laugh at it – better than anything else on the pop fiction shelf. The writers I’m excited about reading in the coming generation will capture the new global fears in local ways (as Hammett did in the 1930s and beyond). They’ll be young and dark and hilarious.


Q: Martyn Waites came up with the following question: Do you think that there is still space in the PI genre for it to expand and grow, or is it just a collection of stylistic tics left over from the last century?
I figure the PI novel has a place in the world as long as we remain interested in sex and death and the possibility that an underpaid man or woman, with or without a psycho sidekick, can look at a bloody mess while blinking a little less often than most of us do.


Q: What questions should we ask every PI writer we interview and what is your answer?Where can I get a copy of your books? At your independent book seller and anywhere else fine books are sold.

For more on this author visit: http://www.michaelwileyonline.com

Sunday, June 8, 2008

Q & A with Brendan DuBois


We had a Q & A with Brendan DuBois of the Lewis Cole novels...

Q: What makes Lewis Cole different from other (unofficial) PI's?
While he’s not paid and would otherwise be considered an “amateur” PI, he’s quite professional in his dealings with law enforcement and other people he encounters along the way while investigating things mysterious. Due to his past as a research analyst with a secretive Department of Defense intelligence agency, he also has a way of sorting through fact and fiction to find out what’s going on, and also due to something that happened to him while working for the Department of Defense, he has a true thirst for justice.

Q: What are your thoughts on the psycho sidekick in PI novels?
I guess it depends on one’s definition of “psycho.” Most PIs do have a sidekick with expertise in weapons and hand-to-hand combat, and Lewis is no different. His sidekick, Felix Tinios, a former mob enforcer from Boston and a security consultant, does assist Lewis here and there, and does this from affection and a sense of kinship with Lewis. I like to think that Felix is Lewis’ dark shadow, his dark brother.

Q: Do you do a lot of research?
It depends on the book. For my novel BURIED DREAMS, involving the possibility of Viking artifacts being found on the coast of New Hampshire, I did research on archaeology and Viking settlements in North America. However, my latest Lewis Cole novel, PRIMARY STORM, concerns the presidential primary season in New Hampshire, and to do research for that novel just involved me growing up here.

Q: What's next for you and Lewis ?
I’m currently outlining a new Lewis Cole novel, tentatively titled BARREN COVE, about a murder taking part during an anti-nuclear power plant demonstration on the New Hampshire seacoast.

Q: Has your writing changed a lot over time?
It has, and in odd ways. I find now that my writing seems more direct, more to the point. I tend now to strip out a lot of description and scene-setting. Hopefully, that’s been an improvement. I also don’t do as much outlining as before, letting things happen in the novel by chance or happenstance, just to keep me (and the reader!) surprised.

Q: How do you promote your books?
I promote my works through my website – www.BrendanDuBois.com -- which doesn’t get updated nearly enough, by doing local signings and events, and by appearing in fine blogs like these.

Q: Do you have any favorite Sons of Spade yourself?
Being from New Hampshire, I tend to lean towards the New England authors because I know most of them and enjoy their work, from Jeremiah Healy to Linda Barnes, Robert Parker and William Tapply, and of course, Dennis Lehane.

Q: In the last century we've seen new waves of PI-writers, first influenced by Hammett, then Chandler, Macdonald, Parker, later Lehane. Who do you think will influence the coming generation and in what way?
Beats the heck out of me. I have a hard enough time keeping my own stories straight without thinking about the coming generation and what will influence them. But whatever they do, they should worry about first telling a good story. Nothing else matters.

Q: Martyn Waites came up with the following question: Do you think that there is still space in the PI genre for it to expand and grow, or is it just a collection of stylistic tics left over from the last century? Yes, there’s always room to expand and grow, and to do so in areas we can’t even imagine. That’s the joy of writing, of bringing something to life that never existed before.

Q: What questions should we ask every PI writer we interview and what is your answer?
With so many PIs and so many PI series, how do you keep it fresh? My odd answer… I try to read outside of the genre as much as possible, so I don’t get into the trap of being imitative… and I also try to turn convention on its head. In my very first Lewis Cole novel, he’s best friends with a female police detective… I wanted most readers to say, a-ha, Lewis is going to have a romantic relationship with the female police detective, until I reveal early on in the book that she’s a lesbian. And through six novels, they’ve remained best of friends, without even a hint of anything possibly romantic occurring.