After having our books signed by members of the New Blood panel, my son, Alex, and I headed off to the hotel’s Thackery Suite for a cocktails-and-buffet celebration of Simon Kernick’s
latest thriller, Deadline. Transworld Publishing’s publishing director, Selina Walker, welcomed all of us who showed up and was clearly delighted by Kernick’s success. At one point, she held up the latest issue of Waterstone’s Books Quarterly--a crime-fiction special on the cover of which appeared a menacing Simon Kernick, supposedly digging a grave in a forest. Kernick, when he took up the microphone, thanked us all for our support and indicated that although he had started his writing career penning police procedurals, he felt far more at home composing thrillers. He recounted the tale of a nightmare he suffered at a Bouchercon conference, which he turned into a Richard & Judy selection, Relentless (2007).After mingling with the other guests, Alex and I wandered off to the bar, where we joined Andrew Gross (The Dark Tide) and Joseph Finder (Power Play) for drinks. I told Gross that I had read several of the novels he wrote with James Patterson, The Jester (2003) being my favorite--stylistically distinctive, and extremely engaging. Gross beamed and admitted to me that it was his favorite, as well. Then we turned to talk with Joe Finder about the business side of writing and how much time it takes away from the actual writing process. Finder still gets up at 4:30 a.m. every day to write, and after an initial half-hour of reading and responding to e-mail messages, he hits the keyboard until 9 a.m., then takes a break and continues on until lunch. It was a pleasure to talk with Gross and Finder, and they were very gracious in ensuring that my 15-year-old son was kept in the conversational loop. Afterward, Alex purchased Finder’s Paranoia and Gross’ The Dark Tide, both of which I thought would be suitable for somebody his age, and asked the authors to sign them.
My son has become quite the crime-fiction enthusiast. Conventions such as Harrogate inspire his further investigation of this genre. Since he met Harlan Coben last year, he has read the entire Myron Bolitar series and regularly corresponds with Coben himself via their respective MySpace pages. (Alex’s is here.) It seems Coben actually writes his own MySpace material, rather than turning that chore over to a Webmaster of some sort.
Just as we were parting from Gross and Finder, Simon Kernick stepped up and overheard us conversing about Harlan Coben. He laughed, seeing me with my camera and recalling a rather dreadful photograph I took of him and Coben at the Las Vegas Boucheron in 2003. Both authors wish I would take that shot down off the Internet, but every time I see it, it makes me laugh. To share in the amusement, click here.
Then we were on to meet with Texas author Cody McFadyen (photographed at the top of this post), who I had arranged beforehand to interview. I first met McFadyen a few years ago, after his first dark thriller, Shadow Man (2006), was published. He has since composed a pair of sequels--The Face of Death (2007) and his latest, The Darker Side (2008)--both of which also feature a damaged FBI agent named Smoky Barrett. With three books under his belt now, McFadyen seems to have come out of the shadows a bit, even blogging about Harrogate here.
With my trusty tape machine in hand, I sat down with McFadyen, hoping to discover how such a mild-mannered chap became the author of such noticeably dark books.
Ali Karim: So, I hear you were at ThrillerFest in New York last week. Care to tell us your impressions of that event?
Cody McFadyen: Well, I attended one panel and I was on another, and it was great. The thing I got out of it the most was the sense of perspective, because I met up with a number of authors who were having a breakout success with their fifth or sixth book, and so as a writer it was helpful for me to see that sometimes you need to settle in and write good books that people want to read and not sit back and watch your Amazon ranking every half an hour.
AK: Is it true that ThrillerFest was the first crime/thriller fiction convention you’ve attended?
CM: Yes, it was. And it certainly won’t be my last, as I am coming to Bouchercon in Baltimore this fall.
AK: You now have three books out in Britain, including The Darker Side. Is that new novel due for publication in the States soon?
CM: That’s right. The Darker Side is out in the UK currently, but not out in the U.S. until September 29 from Bantam Press.
AK: The Darker Side is your third book to feature Smoky Barrett. I find her, as a protagonist, fascinating. Could you tell us a little about what she faces in this latest yarn?
CM: Sure, Smoky is a female FBI agent. In the first novel, Shadow Man, she lost her family [her husband and daughter] to a serial killer who attacked her and disfigured her. She killed him, but it took its toll on her and she’s not in the best of shape as a result. As the books go on, she’s healed somewhat. The Darker Side takes place two years after the second book, The Face of Death, and she’s a lot more stable--she’s not suicidal anymore, she has a love interest, she has an adopted daughter. I won’t say she’s entirely well--in fact, I don’t think she’ll be entirely well ever--but she’s managing.
AK: Now, Cody, your novels are very dark. In fact, they’re the sort of books you can’t begin until you’ve checked that all the doors and windows are locked …
CM: Sure, there’s no getting around the fact that these are dark books.
AK: So, what attracted you to the distant, darkest edge of the crime-fiction genre?
CM: I really don’t know, and I do get asked this question a lot. In fact, I listened to a panel at ThrillerFest where a novelist who also writes dark/violent work was asked this question. His response is akin to my own thoughts. Basically, he is aware of the modern reality of living in a violent society and how it disturbed him, and so the only way he found he was able to deal with it is by writing about it. Afterward, I met up with him and thanked him because it mirrored my own thoughts in why I write such dark material.
AK: Some people would be perplexed to see someone so dapper and debonair writing such dark and, in some cases, sick stuff.
CM: [Laughing] Yes, I get asked that question a lot--sometimes accusingly. But I must say, I’ve run into a lot of bad people in my life.
AK: Care to say more about those individuals?
CM: In my past, I used to counsel drug addicts and I got to meet some really bad people. … And to augment that, I also read a lot, especially true crime. In fact, there is nothing in fiction that gets anywhere near the horrors of the real world and that is a fact, believe me. I find it’s actually therapeutic to write about this stuff, and the interesting side of it is I have a lot of female readers.
AK: But that might be because Smoky Barrett is a particularly strong female protagonist.
CM: Precisely--that’s the point. [Although I’m] writing something so dark, believe me that most of my books have redemptive and loosely “happy endings,” so if you take and deal with the worst, it can help bring out the best. Contrasts, I like big contrasts.
AK: Such as … ?
CM: Well, have you ever read Jack Ketchum?
AK: Yes. In fact, I find some of his work, such as The Girl Next Door [1989], too disturbing for my tastes--and I read very dark works. But his short story “The Box” is one of the greatest short stories I have ever read--a really scary tale; not visceral, but as frightening as hell.
CM: Well, when I read The Girl Next Door, I was frankly … appalled. Then I saw the movie and I was even more appalled--and I have a really strong stomach for that stuff. As the novel and movie disturbed me so much, I did a little research and I was shocked to discover that it was based on a real event, and what made it more shocking was that the real event was even worse than Ketchum’s novel and subsequent film.
But tell me about “The Box.”
AK: “The Box” is an award-winning short story that I read in Al Sarrantonio’s collection, 999. However, it has also appeared in many other horror-fiction collections. Basically, it’s about a man who roams the subways looking for another man who is carrying a cardboard box. What’s in the box, and what it did to his children is the McGuffin in that very disturbing story. The surreal thing is that, you mention Ketchum today, but a couple of years ago when [British publisher] Hodder and Stoughton arranged a literary lunch in London for you to meet with some critics, including Mark Timlin, Susanna Yeager, Barry Forshaw, and me, we talked about Ketchum’s “The Box.” Kerry Hood and Eleni Fostiropoulos of Hodder were so intrigued, that I actually sent them copies of the story and they agreed that it chilled them.
CM: Yes, I remember and I’ll have to check it out.
AK: So, without giving too much away, are we destined to see a fourth Smoky Barrett novel in the future?
CM: Yes, we are. In fact, I’m working on that book right now.
AK: Using Smoky Barrett as a series character is great. But was that a decision based on publisher pressure to create a series, or is it because you like her so much as a protagonist?CM: It’s totally about the character. In fact, for amusement I started writing a standalone, which I haven’t finished yet, and it is fun to do. But I kinda wanted to go back to Smoky’s world--it’s comfortable; it’s like I want to know more about these people and see how their lives pan out.
AK: That’s all well and good, but I have to admit your books do give me, well, nightmares.
CM: [Laughing] I’m glad they do.
AK: Now, a tough question: How do you function as a person when you are writing the Smoky Barrett books, and you are forced to look into the abyss all the time? Are you a difficult person to live with, when you are deep in the darkness?
CM: In a word--yes. I am a difficult person to be around when I’m writing. I write every day and tend to think about it all the time, irrespective of what I’m doing. Like, I could be watching TV but in reality my mind is still trapped in the story. I dream about the book [I’m working on] sometimes, and that can make me very distracted. In fact, it was book number two [The Face of Death], that really was tough for me. It may sound clichéd, but I was a mess writing that book--I drank a lot, I couldn’t sleep. Maybe because it was also my second novel, [I felt the] added the pressure on me. The new book, my third, I found a lot less stressful writing, maybe because I felt more confident as a writer, and found the craft easier …
AK: I’ve noticed that you now have a Web site and have even started blogging. How did all that come about?
CM: I’ve wanted to do this for some time. I first put a Web site up, but it was a shell, and I’d always wanted to do something properly, which I finally did recently. I decided to add a blog, as there are things I would like to say. I also get a lot of e-mail correspondence about the books, so I thought blogging was the answer. One thing I know as a reader is that if I am a fan-boy of a particular writer, I’d like to know more about them and their work, but not what they had for breakfast …
AK: Who are the writers you most admire?
CM: Obvious ones, Stephen King, Thomas Harris, John Connolly … In fact I am halfway through [Connolly’s] The Unquiet, which is just stunning.
AK: Now that I think about it, Connolly’s work is similar to your own in terms of themes. However, he tends to look more toward the supernatural than the forensic. And on the subject of Thomas Harris, did you read Hannibal Rising?
CM: I like Harris’ work, but he doesn’t write often enough. I have his latest, but the interesting fact is that the movie versions are nowhere near as dark as his novels.
AK: So are you now writing full-time?
CM: Yes, I am. And it’s interesting, as I have a brother who has a wife, three kids, and a hard job--so whenever I get fed up I think of him and how he has to really work hard to support his family, and that straightens me out.
AK: Your fiction is very cinematic in terms of style and theme. Has there been any interest in committing your stories to film?
CM: Thank you. Yes, there was initial interest from a film company, but the main problem is that they want rights to the character[s], not just the books. That poses a problem, as they are not optioning Shadowman, [for instance, but] they’re optioning Smoky Barrett.
AK: So what’s the plan?
CM: Well, I’ve leave the film rights to my agent, and concentrate on the novels. In fact, I could quite easily write two books a year, so maybe I’ll start doing that. I am considering doing standalones, or may start a new series as well as Smoky Barrett. I could be more prolific. Unless I am in my office writing for at least four hours each day, I feel guilty. So I guess I will increase my output.
(Part III can be found here.)
READ MORE: “ Cody McFadyen on Writing The Darker Side” (Shots).
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