Meeting Montanari

(Editor’s note: This is the final installment of a two-part report from British correspondent Ali Karim. Part I can be read here.)

Ali Karim waits for Richard Montanari to sign all of his books.

So, after bidding a final farewell to Maxim Jakubowski at London’s Murder One bookstore, I walked over to the ritzy private club Soho House, to which I’d been invited for lunch by Emma Finnigan, Random House UK’s publicity director. The occasion was a celebration of the arrival in Britain of best-selling thriller writer Richard Montanari, whose latest work, Play Dead (U.S. title: Badlands), has just been released in paperback. Finnigan had arranged for me to interview Montanari for The Rap Sheet via telephone last year, with him speaking from his home in Cleveland, Ohio. At the time, Montanari had indicated that he was planning to visit England in 2009, and said he’d like to meet me, knowing that I’ve been an avid fan of his work for the last decade.

Arriving at the club, I was pleased to discover that joining Montanari, Finnigan, and me for lunch were critic Barry Forshaw, Liz Thomson of the book industry news site Bookbrunch, three senior managers from Borders UK, and a trio of Finnigan’s Random House colleagues. As we all walked to our table, I remarked to the Borders team how impressed I was by their having secured a visit from U.S. best-sellers Dennis Lehane and Tess Gerritsen to their company’s flagship store in Charing Cross Road in mid-February. They shared my excitement, as they were fans as well of Lehane, who hasn’t made a public visit to the UK since the millennium, when he was promoting his last Patrick Kenzie/Angie Gennaro novel, Prayers for Rain.

I shook Richard Montanari’s hand as the author came over, explaining to him what a treat it was for me to meet him in person at long last. Forshaw remarked to the author that he had only just discovered his work, having been clued in thanks to my Rap Sheet interview. What followed was a bit of mutual complimenting, as Forshaw remarked on my frequent contributions not only to The Rap Sheet, but also to Shots and Existentialist Man. I, in turn, told Montanari a little about Forshaw’s labors, including his well-reviewed new book, British Crime Writing: An Encyclopedia.

Once seated, we formally welcomed Montanari back to England. Although he’s a huge Anglophile, it had been many years since he was last in London. He told me previously that spiritually, the British capital has always been his home:

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.

As we chatted, waiting for our meals to arrive, it became clear that Montanari is extremely well-read, witty, and knowledgeable about modern life. He was also quite modest about his own authorial talents. He blushed when I proposed a toast to his success, recognizing the fact that each time a new book of his is published in the UK, it shoots into the top-10 list of hardcover sales. Apart from Montanari’s skill at fiction-writing, he also has a quite well-developed sense of humor. Considering how dark his work can be, one would expect this creator of Philadelphia police detectives Kevin Byrne and Jessica Balzano to be more melancholic. Nothing could be farther from the truth. In fact, this luncheon was a delight.

I asked Montanari why Badlands had been retitled Play Dead for British book-buyers, only to have him shrug his shoulders. “That’s a question for Random House UK,” he said, “but let me tell you why it’s embarrassing for me. I get a lot of e-mail via my Web site and yesterday I got a mail from a reader that went something like this: ‘Mr. Montanari, let me just say that I really loved your last book, Badlands; in fact, I just ordered the new one, Play Dead, as I can’t wait to read it.’ Oh boy, I cringe, thinking about him getting the same book, but with a different cover.”

With the arrival of our starter dishes, conversation turned to Montanari’s skill at writing some of the most disturbing serial-killer novels in recent memory. The author was interested to know which of his books were our favorites. He plainly hoped we’d all say “Your last one,” which most of us at the table did; however, Montanari smiled when I told him that I preferred The Violet Hour (1988). It seems Montanari also has a soft spot for that very disturbing book, the plot of which his publisher describes this way:

A popular priest lies dead of a heroin overdose in an inner-city flop house, following an apparent tryst with a high-priced call girl. Nicholas Stella knew the man, and he knows saleable news when he finds it.

But there is something waiting for the struggling freelance journalist on the dead cleric’s e-mail that suggests that this is not just another sordid case of fatal human frailty. A clue, a warning, a threat in the words of a great poet cries out that this was no accident.

And it’s beckoning Nick Stella into the dark, twisted and terrifying mind of a psychopath.

In an affluent Ohio suburb a world away, Amelia Saintsbury’s computer screen carries the same cryptic message. Someone is watching her ... and waiting. A nightmare stands just outside her door, ready to devour everything and everyone she cares about--her life, her home, her innocent little girl--uniting Amelia and an unorthodox city reporter in a desperate hunt for a killer.

Another thing I learned as we tucked into our midday repast: Montanari’s back catalogue of books is set to be re-released soon in Britain, in association with the debut this summer of his next novel, a standalone called The Devil’s Garden (not to be confused with Ace Atkins’ historical thriller of the same name, due out in April).

I had a chance to ask him about that reintroduction of his work, as well as some other subjects, during a brief postprandial interview.

Ali Karim: Richard--good seeing you in London again. How long has it been since you were last here?

Richard Montanari: Well, I guess it’s been over 30 years.

AK: So I guess you must see some big changes.

RM: Not really. Places like Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, Parliament Square--well, these type of places don’t really change, and they are pretty much as I remember them [from] when I lived here. I’m using a car, so I’m not really doing a walking tour this time. But I will be stopping around Carnaby Street tomorrow, which was my old haunt back in the 1960s.

AK: Since Random House UK launched Rosary Girls in 2005, the first in your Jessica Balzano and Kevin Byrne series, your work has dominated the best-seller lists worldwide. How do you explain the popularity of that Philadelphia crime series in Britain?

RM: It’s hard to say. I have always been a big fan of British crime fiction, including the many British TV crime series. In fact, prior to writing what would be the start of the series with Rosary Girls, I went back and watched a slug of British TV crime dramas, such as Cracker, Prime Suspect, and especially Val McDermid’s excellent Wire in the Blood. There is something about British crime fiction, something that I term “dark sensibility.” It’s this dark sensibility, both in novel form as well as TV versions of British crime fiction, that I find so captivating. So, as those British TV crime shows are so very popular, ... maybe there’s a link in there somewhere.

AK: In our last chat, you mentioned that you enjoy Michael Marshall’s fiction. Can you tell us why his work appeals to you?

RM: I first discovered Marshall’s work with The Straw Men, and then followed his subsequent work, such as The Intruders. Marshall’s work is so interesting, because when you start one of his books, you think it is about one thing, an overarching story which takes the shape of a crime novel, a conflict; but in reality there is something much bigger at work there, and it is much more frightening. I just think he is a terrific writer who makes you question things.

AK: Tell us about the re-release of your early novels.

RM: I am very excited about seeing The Violet Hour this year, and Kiss of Evil will be out either late this year or early next year. Then I hope to see Deviant Way--my debut novel--come out as well. Seeing all these books back in print in the UK is simply thrilling.

AK: You’re a huge seller in the crime-fiction genre, very popular with readers. But I have never seen you at any of the American conventions, not at Bouchercon or ThrillerFest. Have you any plans to go to Bouchercon this year in Indianapolis?

RM: Yes, you’re right: I’ve not attended any of these events. But Indianapolis is not far from home for me, so I may consider it. E-mail me some details and we’ll see.

After getting Montanari to sign my entire collection of UK and U.S. editions of his work, I shook hands with the author, and then he was whisked back by cab to Random House headquarters to resume his busy British tour schedule.

I, meanwhile, boarded a train for home. During that excursion, I re-read sections of The Violent Hour, feeling transported by that means back to the 1990s, when Richard Montanari was still a mostly unknown writer in the UK and the now-shuttered Murder One bookstore was just one of several specialty booksellers in London. Looking around my seat, I noticed that I was the only person on the train with his nose in a book; my fellow passengers were punching buttons and reading from their phones, hooked up to iPods or similar PDA devices, reading newspapers (mostly of the sort I wouldn’t wipe my bottom with, their writing being of the lowest common denominator), or napping at the end oftheir soul-destroying workdays. I felt old, but I had to smile inwardly. Escape was what I craved, and I could accomplish that by returning to Montanari’s fictional world. Where would I be without books?