he’s settled into writing a highly acclaimed series starring Philadelphia police detectives Kevin Byrne and Jessica Balzano. His interest in serial killers and the range of human evil continues to attract readers to his work like flies to a body farm.August brought the release of the fourth novel in Montanari’s Byrne and Balzano series, titled Badlands in the States, but Play Dead in the UK. After reading last year’s blistering entry, Broken Angels (U.S. title Merciless), I was excited to see what this author had in store for his fictional detectives, so Random House UK dispatched a review copy in my direction, along with this teaser:
In each soul, a secret ... Philadelphia homicide detectives Kevin Byrne and Jessica Balzano’s first assignment from the Cold Case files is the brutal murder of a young runaway. The lifeless body of Caitlin O’Riordan was found carefully posed in a glass display case in the desolate Philadelphia Badlands, but, as Byrne and Balzano rapidly discover, she was just the first pawn in the killer’s twisted game. ... A mysterious phone call leads them on a scavenger hunt for a second victim. This time a young girl has been dismembered, her body parts left in three boxes in the basement of a deserted house. More clues lead to other victims and, as the body count rises, it becomes clear that there is a serial killer on the loose, hell-bent on completing the “performance” of a lifetime. As more runaways vanish, Byrne and Balzano come to realize that the homicidal mastermind plans to complete seven depraved tricks in his dark and dangerous magic act. With Balzano increasingly obsessed by a case that haunts her, and Byrne struggling with a loss of his own, the stakes are mounting. But this is one game they can’t afford to lose ...After reading Play Dead, I had a chance to talk with Emma Finnigan of Random House UK. She kindly put me in touch with Montanari, as I wanted to ask him a few questions about his life and work, including why he’s so attracted to the grim extremes of the human psyche, what he thought of London during his time living here, the importance of humor in crime fiction, and his thoughts on the fiction of Thomas Harris.
Ali Karim: So, Richard, did you grow up a reader?
Richard Montanari: I did. My mother was a great reader--she spoke five languages, learning English as an adult--so there were always books in our house. We were a working-class family, so the books were mostly from the library or second-hand stores. As much as I love the feel and smell and look of a beautifully bound new hardcover book (admittedly, especially my own), there is genuine magic in picking up an older, used edition. The romantic adventurer in me as a child spent many hours pondering where a previously read book had been, and who had read it. It was almost as exciting as the tale within.
AK: And who influenced both your own reading and writing?
RM: Again, my mother was a huge influence here. She grew up in Tallinn, Estonia, at a time when books were at least as precious as food. I was also fortunate to have a number of wonderful English teachers growing up. Plus, we had three great movie palaces within bicycling distance of my house, so every Saturday I went to a matinée. I grew up with great storytellers like Hitchcock, Kubrick, Lean, Wilder. Later, when an art house opened, Kurosawa, Fellini, Truffaut, De Sica, and many others. Storytelling is storytelling. To me, the form matters little.
AK: What books struck a chord with you over the years, and tempted you to take up writing as a career?
RM: One book that really got me thinking about writing, especially crime fiction, was Double Indemnity, by James M. Cain. I discovered it as a young teenager. Having devoured all the adventure stories of Jack London, along with the westerns of Zane Grey, I was looking for something different. OK, something scandalously lurid and forbidden. I remember finding the book at the Cleveland Public Library, in one of those long, narrow stacks on the second floor. It is a relatively short novel (a novella, actually, first published as an eight-part series in Liberty Magazine), and I read it in one sitting. I began re-reading it on the bus home. That day I discovered crime fiction, and nothing has ever been the same.
AK: I see you’ve led a somewhat eclectic existence, and you lived in London for several years. Can you share a little about your life before the novels came along?
RM: Since leaving school, I’ve held a lot of jobs: construction, retail clothing sales, kennel attendant, advertising copywriter. The worst job ever was installing fiberglass insulation on a 90-degree day. The job that helped my fiction the most was when I worked as a freelance writer for magazines. I did a lot of interviews, wrote a lot of profiles, and it was there I got a feel for the rhythms of dialogue.
AK: What did you make of London when you lived here?
RM: My first visit to London was in 1968, when it was inarguably the center of all things important to a teenage boy--music, fashion, art, and English girls. I remember standing on a corner in Carnaby Street while someone played “Jumpin’ Jack Flash” over and over again. I couldn’t get enough of it. Did I mention English girls? I knew I had to come back. Three years later I did. I lived all over [London]--Maida Vale, Battersea Park, South Ken, Chelsea--bedsits, all, mind you. I worked at a number of odd jobs, none of which brought me any closer to my dream (that being to become the next Bryan Ferry--I’ve always fancied myself a bit of a boulevardier). After a few years I packed up and came home.
But my attraction to all things British began much earlier. When I was 12 I used to take the bus downtown to the one newsstand in Cleveland that sold Melody Maker (at some allowance-devouring price), and I would sit on the street corner with my friends and read it cover to cover. For at least a decade, British blues and rock was all I listened to--The Groundhogs, Chicken Shack, Ten Years After, Savoy Brown, Rory Gallagher, [Peter Green’s] Fleetwood Mac, John Mayall. It was a glorious time. I was, and still am, a closet Brit.
AK: In addition to doing journalism, were you also writing fiction during this time?
RM: I wrote a few short stories that I was fortunate enough to have published. For some reason my short fiction tends toward horror and fantasy (in the Twilight Zone vein, nothing too hardcore), while my long form is crime and suspense. Despite my strange and varied career as a journalist--I wrote about everything from pediatric epilepsy to falconry to Golden Gloves boxing to waste paper management--I never took my eye off fiction. I had some success with short form, but I always had the feeling there was a magnum opus within me.
AK: Deviant Way was your first novel and it marked your work as looking at the dark side of human nature. So, tell us a little about how that book got into print?
RM: I was a film critic for [the] alternative press at the time, and because of my interest in crime stories I was always assigned thrillers. Like everyone else, after about five lousy movies in a row, I declared: “I can do better than this!” Well, having no idea how to write a screenplay, I decided to take a shot at long-form fiction. I went back and re-read all of my favorite serial-killer thrillers--most notably Red Dragon, by Thomas Harris, and By Reason of Insanity, by Shane Stevens--and set to work. When I’d completed the first chapter, I wrote a query letter and sent it out to find an agent. Within a week I was signed, and over the course of the next nine months wrote Deviant Way. My agent shopped the book and within a few weeks it landed at Simon & Schuster. I signed a two-book deal with the legendary editor-in-chief Michael Korda, and was soon off to work on the second book, which became The Violet Hour [1998].
AK: What is it about the deep darkness in human nature that fascinates and inspires you?
RM: Probably the fact that it is something that dwells within us all. The difference between sociopaths and the rest of us--at least, I’m hoping there’s a difference--is that most of us do not act on these dark impulses. I am fascinated by stories of the “regular guy” who lived next door, only to be discovered to have had a chamber of horrors in his basement.
AK: The Violet Hour really proved how skillful you were at writing about the secrets we all hide. Your ability at subtle misdirection also caught me out. Your stories meander like snakes. Do you plot your work out extensively before writing?
RM: While I have many times been compared to an asp (usually by an ex), I always say that, with the next book, I’m going to plot and outline the story to the smallest detail. It never works out that way. I always begin with the killer’s pathology--why he is doing what he is doing, through what prism does he see the world--and let the plot grow out of this. Anyone who has read my work knows that there is always a reason my villains do what they do. As to The Violet Hour, I’m thrilled to announce that Arrow Books will reissue it in 2009. To date, it is my only standalone novel, and I am very fond of it.
AK: Kiss of Evil (2001) again looked deeper into the psycho-sexual side of our natures. I have to ask: What are you like as a person when you are in writing mode?
RM: You know that guy you swore you saw standing in a doorway near your house at 3 in the morning, that guy lurking in the shadows? When I’m writing a new book, that’s me.
AK: Despite the disturbing imagery that pervades your work, there is plenty of black humor. How important is humor, even in noir fiction?
RM: It is very important to me, both as a reader and a storyteller. I don’t think anyone wants 350 pages of unremitting darkness. That said, I think setting out to write black humor is quite difficult. I can count the number of great black-comedy films on one hand. But when the humor grows out of tension (the near miss, the mistaken identity, etc.), I think it can be very effective, and most welcome.
AK: I’m guessing that you have both female and male readers. What’s the appeal of your work to your growing readership?
RM: Judging from the e-mail I receive, I would say more than 60 percent of my readers are female (or maybe women are more inclined to write). As to a growing readership, it is hard to say. I’d like to think it is because I tell an engaging story, and, in what has grown into a quartet of novels set in Philadelphia--beginning with The Rosary Girls [2005]--I believe I have introduced a pair of characters in Jessica Balzano and Kevin Byrne to whom a number of people can relate. Granted, they have authority, and they carry weapons, but they do not go through life unaffected by what they see. In this way, I think they are just like you and me.
AK: Many have compared your work to that of Thomas Harris. Can I assume that you are familiar with the adventures of Dr. Hannibal Lecter? Tell us a little about your thoughts on Harris’ novels, especially the latest, Hannibal Rising.
RM: Thomas Harris has written two of the greatest thrillers of all time: Red Dragon and The Silence of the Lambs. I believe he raised the bar, and changed the genre forever. In his two villains--Francis Dolarhyde and Jame Gumb--he created deep and disturbing motivations for serial murder, transcending a good deal of what had been written before. As to Hannibal Rising, I must confess that I haven’t read it yet. I am very fortunate to have a signed first edition (which, of course, I’m never going to open), and I haven’t yet picked up a reading copy at a bookstore.
AK: Given your name and the themes that pepper your work, I can only presume that you have a Catholic background. So, can you tell us what religion brings to your work?
RM: I was raised Catholic, and the rites, traditions, history, and liturgy seem to seep into my work from time to time. OK, Catholicism took over completely in The Rosary Girls. But now that I’ve written about it, I’m sure it’s out of my system. Ah, who am I kidding? I still have nightmares about nuns with chainsaws.
AK: I enjoyed your last three novels, which form a trilogy of sorts: The Rosary Girls, The Skin Gods (2006), and Broken Angels, all set in Philadelphia. Was this planned as a series, and can you tell us a little about writing these tremendous books?
RM: I really had no idea that the Philadelphia canon would become a series, but I can say that The Rosary Girls marked a major shift in my career. A new venue, a new set of characters, a new tone (along with new
representation and a new publisher in Random House). The creation of Kevin Byrne and Jessica Balzano as series characters allowed me to take my time in their development, and, because the books are told in real time, to observe them changing and growing in any number of small ways. While writing The Skin Gods I knew that I wanted to stay with these people for a while. I had (and still do have) something more to say about them.AK: Like Broken Angels, your latest, this year’s Play Dead (or Badlands) carries a different title in the UK than it does in the States. How did that come to pass?
RM: These sorts of decisions are made at the publishing level. I’m only a humble scribe.
AK: And again, Play Dead/Badlands is part of your series. Tell us why you keep writing about Detectives Kevin Byrne and Jessica Balzano. Is your publisher pressing you to do so, or do you genuinely enjoy spending time in their company?
RM: It isn’t really “pressure”--publishers have a very diplomatic way of suggesting things, usually over gnocchi with basil pesto and roasted pine nuts, my weakness. The truth is, I do enjoy spending time with Kevin, Jessica, Vincent, Sophie, and all the other characters in the Philly series. As crazy as it might sound, I’ll be somewhere, meet someone, and think: “This person reminds me of someone.” Then I’ll realize it’s Jessica or Kevin. Man, talk about full circle. The fun part, for me, is that I can create a new and gruesome scenario, open the door, usher in my detectives, and in many ways know how they are going to react and respond. In other ways, they never cease to surprise me.
AK: Without giving away the ending of your latest book, are you going to continue this series? Or will you perhaps return to the standalone novels that started your crime-fiction career?
RM: The series will continue. The City of Brotherly Love will never run out of stories, and I have plans for the detectives of the Philadelphia Police Department’s Homicide Unit.
AK: You evoke Pennsylvania’s largest city as if it were a character in your work. Are you intimately familiar with that city, and do you have sources in the PPD?
RM: I spend a good deal of time in Philadelphia. I have family there, and have been very fortunate to make many friends in the PPD. I’ve ridden along with the detectives, spent many hours in the “Roundhouse” [the PPD’s headquarters at 1 Franklin Square], simply observing. I’m happy to say that a number of Philly police officers have given my books their stamp of approval. This is good news, as these people are heavily armed.
AK: Considering your popularity in the UK, have you any plans to visit us in the near future? And have you ever fancied setting one of your thrillers in London?
RM: I will be visiting the UK for the launch of my next book in 2009. And as to locale, I would love to set a novel in London.
AK: What books have passed over your reading table lately that you’ve particularly enjoyed?
RM: I’m never without three or four books open on my nightstand. I’ve recently read a lot of non-fiction as research on my next novel. As to fiction, I read everyone in my genre, usually the week their new books are published. I am hopelessly addicted to crime fiction, but I am always seeking out writers who bend the genre. Michael Marshall, John Connolly, and Mo Hayder come to mind.
AK: And what are you working on currently?
RM: I am working on a standalone novel called The Devil’s Garden. It will be published by Random House in 2009.
READ MORE: “Interview with Richard Montanari” (Bookreporter).
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