Turnabout’s Fair Play

On Monday, Northern California novelist Steve Hockensmith talked with Texas Bill Crider (Of All Sad Words) for Marshal Zeringue’s Author Interviews blog. That’s followed up today by the two men switching roles. This time, Crider quizzes Hockensmith, who shows a marked wit as he talks about the cover of his third Gustav and Otto Amlingmeyer mystery (The Black Dove), how he balances short-story writing with novel composition, and how he’d like to have seen Darren McGavin and Jack Warden as his two redheaded protagonists. Too bad they’re both deceased.

But my favorite moment in this interview comes when Crider asks Hockensmith why, when “the Western is dead,” he ever chose to concoct a western mystery series. Hockensmith answers:

Why Westerns? In a word, stupidity. You see, in the beginning I had no idea I was writing Westerns. To me, the Big Red/Old Red stories were--and are--mysteries first and foremost. They just happened to be set in the Old West. I love Westerns, but I never set out to do them myself. It was an accident.

If I’d been smarter and really thought the premise through, I never would’ve tried writing books about these guys. I mean, really--fair-play puzzle mysteries starring cowboys who worship Sherlock Holmes? Chuh? It’s so retro and off-the-wall and uncommercial it’s ridiculous.

Thank God I didn’t think it through, though, because by some miracle it’s all worked out dandy. I wrote the first book about Big Red and Old Red because I’d done a couple short stories with them and I knew they were fun. I wanted to try to sell a mystery series, so I plugged them in and gave it a crack. Simple as that. Sometimes it pays to be dense.

The full exchange can be appreciated here.