D.E. Johnson writes tense tight thrillers.

His acclaimed novel ‘The Detroit Electric scheme’ has been called “essential for historical fans” by Library Journal.  Booklist  chose it as one of the Top Ten First Crime Novels of the year, with a starred review. They said “Every bit as powerful a Patricia Highsmith’s Ripley series, this gem as a debut showcases an author to watch very closely”.

He was interviewed by Jay Leno.

He met me at The Slaughterhouse where we talked about odometers and madness.

To what extent do speed and odometers play a part in your latest novel ‘Motor City Shakedown’?

Odometers play a pretty important role in my first book, The Detroit Electric Scheme. The backdrop for the story is the electric car industry in 1910 Detroit. The electric car companies were dealing with the same objections they are today, including that the vehicles wouldn’t go far enough on a charge of batteries, so they all tried to set world records in mileage to demonstrate that their cars would take you everywhere you needed to go. Detroit Electric set a new record of 211.3 miles in September 1910, which was eclipsed by Baker Electric later that year when they got a staggering 244 miles on a single charge. (Both used the new Edison nickel-steel battery to achieve those numbers.) 244 miles on a single charge – in 1910. What are the electrics getting today?

Speed comes in primarily with Edsel Ford, who is a teenage friend of Will Anderson, the protagonist of both The Detroit Electric Scheme and Motor City Shakedown. Will is the fictional son of the real owner of Detroit Electric, William C. Anderson. Edsel was a speed freak who built a special version of the Model T Torpedo, in which he would scream around Detroit, obliterating the speed limit (which, admittedly, wasn’t hard to do, since it was ten miles per hour). At this time, a car that would go over 30 was of interest, and Edsel drove his Torpedo at 50+ mph, which was almost unheard of at the time. In Motor City Shakedown, Will buys the car from Edsel, who at this time in real life was working with the men at the Ford factory on a Speedster that would go much faster. Will spends a fair amount of time trying to get control of the Torpedo, which was quite different from the electrics he normally would have driven.

Who are your literary influences?

Ooh.  There are hundreds I could list, but I don’t like writing lists any more than I like reading them, so I’ll pick four contemporary authors as my biggest influences–two who write historical fiction and two who write mystery/crime, and then I’ll throw a songwriter in the mix as well.

On the historical side, E.L. Doctorow is brilliant at making times and places come alive. There are many great examples, but World’s Fair sticks out to me. The other is William Kennedy, who wrote the phenomenal Albany trilogy, which included Ironweed, which might be my favorite book of all time. Both of these guys are amazing writers who have pitch-perfect command of the language and toss off amazing sentence after amazing sentence.

On the crime side, nobody does it better than Elmore Leonard. Dialogue that snaps back and forth in voices that ring absolutely true, smart and smart-ass characters you root for even knowing they’re scumbags, and a different book every time, rather than settling into a formula, like so many authors do after they achieve financial success. The other is Dennis Lehane, who writes the mystery genre better than anybody. Mystery is so much sleight of hand–providing all the clues the reader needs to solve the puzzle, but doing so while directing their eye somewhere else. You can read 300 pages of a Lehane novel, and then in one-page the entire book is reframed, and your understanding of everything you read has changed. (Sort of like the film The Usual Suspects, a brilliant piece of film making.)

The man who I think is the best American storyteller, however, is Tom Waits. His skill with metaphor is incredible, and with a hundred words he tells complex stories that range from hilarious to heart-wrenching, with all the nuance of a well-written novel. The guy is amazing. It doesn’t hurt that I love his music too.

I aim for the sense of place that Doctorow and Kennedy provide with the snappy dialogue of Leonard, the mind-bending plot twists of Lehane, and the heart of Waits. It’s a big reach, and I know I have a long way to go, but I’ve got a lot of books in me, and I intend for each to be better than the last.

Do you think absolute powerlessness is as corrupting as absolute power and how do they relate to the motivations in crime fiction?

Hmm, that’s a tough one. I’d have to argue that, particularly thinking about literature, that we don’t see many characters who are absolutely powerless. They wouldn’t have any function except as victims, and it’s boring to read about conflicts that are foregone conclusions. Protagonists often feel they’re powerless but end up discovering that they really have some level of control over their situation and then turn the tables.

It’s a cliche – but a useful one – to have a protagonist in crime fiction who appears to be powerless until we discover that she was trained by the Mossad in an earlier life that she has tried to put behind her (or something equally as unlikely), or just the normal, everyday guy on his way to the office who’s somehow thrown into a world of violence and intrigue. We have to believe the antagonist is the one with the power, but ultimately the protagonist ends up being the one with more, generally only because of superior guts and determination.

As a general point, I’d guess that absolute powerlessness most likely creates either a feeling of desperation or of freedom. Both could be corrupting, and both are great motivators that can lead to a wide variety of actions, things that could ultimately be either positive or negative.

To what extent do you think madness informs the history of crimes?

First of all, I think “madness” is a difficult term to define as it relates to the real world. I believe sanity and insanity are the ends of a continuum, and most of us fall somewhere between those extremes.

Who is completely honest with themselves? Who really understands why they do what they do? Who acts rationally all the time?

I do believe, however, that almost all crime is the result of a “sane” mind. People rationalize the means to gain what they want, be it the death of a rival or the ownership of a necklace. A person begins down a path and becomes locked into the realization of the end result, regardless of what they have to do to gain it. It’s the “slippery slope” in which the first step may be small and easily rationalized, but having done that, it becomes easier to perform the next and more heinous act, and so on.

Of course, there are the lunatics whose criminal activities are the result of a disconnect with reality, but even sociopaths seem to act rationally and logically, just from a different point of reference.

It seems to me that people want what they want, and many, if not most, will do what they need to in order to get it–so long as they believe they won’t be caught.

Do you think the e book is changing the world of publishing?

Thanks for lobbing one at me. These questions are making my brain hurt. There’s no question that e-books are changing the publishing world. I recently read that something like 317,000 books were traditionally published in the U.S. in 2010 and more than 2.7 million were published in other ways. A large percentage of them were available only as e-books.

There are a few established authors who are selling new works only through Amazon and taking the 70% royalty rather than the 10-20% that most publishers offer. They can sell their books at a lower price and still make significantly more money per book. The difficulty is that it’s tough to be noticed in that world unless you’re established. E-books are still less than 10% of the market, but that will rise quickly while compressing pricing, which will make more literature available to more people.

To me, this is just like the music world, in which albums were the way we bought music for decades. There were incremental changes, such as the cassette tape and then the CD allowing us to take our music with us, but the ipod changed everything. Music became primarily a private experience and downloads became the preferred method of purchasing. There are still those who prefer vinyl for the sound quality (and the coolness factor), but the market has moved on.

However, the music companies still have the dominant part of the market, as will book publishers. In my opinion, even in an e-book world, publishers still bring a lot to the table. The editorial help I’ve received would have been difficult to duplicate at any price, and they act as a filter that indicates to readers that the books they’ve vetted are of good quality (though everyone has their own opinion on that). While publishers aren’t spending the money on marketing their authors like they used to, they still dramatically improve all their authors’ visibility.

I’m a holdout – because I love books so damn much – but one of these days I’ll pick up an e-reader and join the 21st century.

Do you think crime fiction is about resolving crime or raising fear?

Back to the tough ones, I see. For me, it’s not really about either. My interest in crime fiction comes from the idea of exploring human nature. Why do people do what they do? Good crime fiction raises the questions, “Would I do that?” and “What am I willing to do to get what I want?”

We all are drawn to the “dark side,” whether we let it rise to the surface or not. We don’t have enough excitement in our own lives so we want to live in the head of someone who is dancing on the edge. We wonder what would happen if we chucked our 9-5 lives and did something crazy.

I think crime fiction also appeals to those who want people to pay for their sins. Most crime novels end with the good guys victorious and the bad guys punished. That doesn’t really appeal to me personally, because life is a lot more complicated than that. If the protagonist doesn’t pay dearly for the victory it seems false to me. I like those complicated endings, where the good guy ultimately wins, but also loses something he values greatly.

Do you think revenge is lawless justice and its appeal lies in the fact that it involves men and women stepping outside the law?

I would agree with that. Most of the time we are hurt in same way we let it go, which is generally a good thing, since there would be a lot more of us in prison otherwise. We then proceed to think about it for decades, with an “I shoulda…” kind of thought, usually ending with, depending on your inclinations, “… told him off,” “… kicked his ass,” or “… killed the mother-f***er.”

We let it go on the outside, but it just keeps eating away at us. Hence the appeal of reading about what we wish we ourselves had done. “Justice” is an absolute term that has subjective interpretations, so justice in my eyes may be very different from justice in the eyes of my enemy. (But, of course, I’m right – and so must the character be if we are going to root for her.)

I think reading about revenge gives us a little of the retribution we wished we had taken, whether legally or illegally, and there is great appeal to a morally-just character stepping outside the law when it has failed her.

What do you think are the greatest crime novels and why?

I’ll start by saying I feel completely unqualified to answer this question. I’d like to have some unexpected answer to impress the literati, but I read almost entirely contemporary fiction and don’t have much background in the “classics.” With that in mind, I’ll give a couple of my favorites:

Mystic River by Dennis Lehane – I marvel at Lehane’s ability to create a complex and detailed world in books that are great character studies as well as fascinating mysteries. He is also one of, if not the best, at hitting me from left field with a revelation that reframes the entire book. Mystic River is a great look at working-class Boston and the relationships that build and are destroyed between people who inhabit the same few blocks their entire lives.

Get Shorty by Elmore Leonard – I could choose a dozen of Leonard’s books, but this is the funniest of the bunch, and in some ways the smartest. Chili Palmer is a phenomenal protagonist, a bad guy we love who takes no shit from anybody and always lands on his feet. Great satirical look at the movie business and the characters who populate that world. I’d also put Get Shorty up there with any crime book when it comes to smart dialogue. The book reads like a breeze and sticks with you afterward.

So, no Dostoevski or Nabakov that would make me seem well read, just books I like.

Do you think Westerns and crime fiction are related?

Thematically, there are a lot of similarities between westerns and crime fiction, and I suppose you could argue that westerns, for the most part, are crime fiction anyway, just set in a particular location. Some of the great crime writers, including Elmore Leonard and Loren Estleman, have written a pile of westerns, some of which blur the distinction between the two genres.

In both cases, we have morality plays–good vs. evil, generally with major temptation for the protagonist to just give up or chuck it all and side with the antagonist. Crime fiction traditionally has been grittier, although genre fiction in general has been moving in that direction for some time, so soon the only difference might be setting.

You have been praised for your detailed descriptions of Detroit in 1910 and obviously did a lot of research. What was the most surprising fact you discovered?

That only about 10% of the 465,000 people who lived in Detroit in 1910 had even been born in the State of Michigan. It’s incredible to think of: 400,000+ of the 465,000 city residents were born somewhere far away. There had been wave after wave of immigration–the Irish, Germans, and other northern Europeans early on, followed by southern and eastern Europeans in the early part of the 20th Century. In 1910, Italians, Greeks, and Russian Jews were the predominant immigrants pouring into the area looking for jobs.

I think about New York in these terms–the big ethnic enclaves filled with people who never had to learn English because their whole lives revolved around their countrymen. I never realized that Detroit was the same. This is before the “Great Migration,” when workers from the southern states, particularly African-Americans, moved to the North for jobs as well as more equitable treatment.

As a side note, the recent census puts the population of Detroit at 713,000 (the lowest number of any census since 1910). That’s after hitting a peak of almost 2 million in the mid-fifties. So there are give or take 1.25 million fewer people living within the city limits than there were sixty years ago. No wonder it can feel like a ghost town. Unfortunately, there’s a new “Great Migration occurring, with Detroit residents migrating to other parts of the U.S, particularly the South. It’s been sad to watch a great city become a blight. Maybe someday…

Thank you Dan for a brilliant and informative interview.

Find all things D.E. Johnson at his website, dejohnsonauthor.com here.

If you like horror fiction you’ll know Angel Zapata. His stories have a tongue in cheek feel to them sometimes that undermines the reassurances a reader seeks. He is adept at subverting what it is the reader thinks he is taking away. He allows the things that breed on horror to seep through the cracks. He is also a fantastic poet and he has a collection of short stories called ‘The Man Of Shadows’.

He met me at The Slaughterhouse where we talked about William Blake and the irrational.

How much do you think crime and horror fiction overlap?

I can’t remember the exact quote, but to loosely paraphrase, author Douglas Winter said, “Horror is not a genre or a kind of fiction, it’s an emotion.” So using that statement as a definition, there is no overlap because there is no parallel. It’s possible to have crime fiction with or without elements of horror. For example, suppose your character is a shoplifter. Yes, it’s a crime, but unless he’s shoplifting babies, there’s really nothing horrific about the act itself. Thus, “horror” can only be a reaction, and not a world unto itself. That’s why it’s impossible to spin a tale of horror without utilizing a complimentary genre such as crime, mystery, suspense, sci-fi or fantasy.

Of course I say all this and on my recent fiction collection it specifically denotes it as a “horror short story collection” as if that’s sufficient enough to describe it. Go figure. It’s like William Blake said, “This world is a fiction, made up of contradiction.”

Who are your literary influences?

Hands-down, William Blake is the most influential writer in my life. I know the majority of his work is poetry and engravings, and that he was considered everything from mystic to lunatic, but he had the ability to transform simplistic strings of words into tangible sunlight and breath. I think this type of skill is what makes literary “literary.” It’s the difference between “reading” words versus “feeling” words. In my opinion, in order to create literary fiction you can’t just be a writer. You have to be an alchemist of language.

Regarding works of horror, H.P. Lovecraft rules my heart. He could describe a white wall and make me either weep or gasp in awe.

Do you think if he was alive today William Blake would create a new form of illuminated e book and would he add anything to ‘The Marriage Of Heaven And Hell’?

 

An illuminated eBook sounds positively magical. Blake would most certainly purchase a Kindle as the name fits his inclination for igniting emotion, and then he’d probably hand-paint each of the sleep-mode images as they formed. It would be amazing to see how prolific Blake would become in the digital age. I think a man who painstakingly wrote and painted his own individually engraved plate transfers would be delighted by the absolute magnitude of self-published books today. Here’s a man who believed that “those who restrain desire, do it because theirs is weak enough to be restrained.” No longer must writers find themselves fettered by publication inhibitions or lack of means. Now writers can thrive in a utopian unity of opposites, a divine order where writer becomes publisher, publisher returns to the pen, and somewhere in between the two converge. More than anything Blake restlessly awaited a world “without contraries,” because he knew it would offer “no progression.”

At the end of The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, Blake writes about sharing the bible only with devils and giving the world a hell bible whether they want it or not. Watch the evening news. His caveat remains regrettably relevant. From what I know of the man, Blake would never deviate from his own cause, so he wouldn’t add or delete anything from his work.

How do you interpret Blake’s comment ‘Sooner murder an infant in its cradle than nurse an unacted desire’ and how do you reconcile it with his comment ‘Opposition is true friendship’?

Blake was a beautiful thinker, wasn’t he? ‘Desire’ for Blake was always the prompt for exposing the spiritual, imaginative self which most of us repress or fear to reveal, and without desire there would be no foundation for reason. Thus, a life without ‘desire’ would equate with death. And death of one’s own imagination far outweighed physical death, regardless of perceived innocence.

Now ‘opposition’ was one of the strongest forces of energy Blake vehemently advocated. It wasn’t so much conflict, but moreso identifying similarities and contraries, negatives and positives, dualities in every aspect of life; be it religious, political, etc. His greatest works alone prove this: Songs of Innocence and Experience and The Marriage of Heaven and Hell. He questioned everything. It’s all about pulling down the veil of pretense and exposing truth, regardless if beautiful or ugly, because he wanted to take what was conventional or intolerable and turn it inside-out, eliminating the need for such distinctions.

These two concepts flow like intercepting rivers. Or to put it another way, ‘opposition’ seeks balance while ‘desire’ is the weight on the scales.

Wordsworth defined poetry as ‘the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings’ arising from ’emotion recollected in tranquillity’. Blake wrote in his Marginalia on Wordsworth ‘Imagination has nothing to do with Memory’. What do you make of his observation?

For most of us, using one’s Imagination is basically the real-world creation of something invented in the mind; a physical manifestation based on an intellectual prompt. So for Blake, Imagination without action could be likened to an unfulfilled desire. Wordsworth was usually passive with his creativity, like in his poem Daffodils, ‘For oft, when on my couch I lie’ or The Solitary Reaper ‘I listened motionless and still.’ Imagination was a matter of life and death for Blake; it was passionate, violent, constantly pushing forward: ‘He who desires, but acts not, breeds pestilence’ or “Imagination is the real world.’ It would seem Wordsworth’s poetry was based primarily on self-discovery. Blake’s poetry shouted, “This is who I am!” vs. “Who am I?”

That type of clarity is what I strive for in my own work.

So who are you?

I define myself as a man standing between two property lines. On one side, I’m a husband, father, and blue-collar worker. On the other side, I’m a writer. I struggle to find balance. Although I’ve come a long way in the craft, I’m still not always comfortable calling myself a writer because with the confession comes inquiry. And with that curious stranger’s probing comes departure from my safe, solitary cocoon. That’s the honest truth. In fact, outside my small community of bloggers, very few people know I write. My immediate family knows I write, but my wife and eldest son are the only ones who actually read any of it.

I know many writers will probably shun me for the sacrilege, but it’s possible I’ll someday surrender the pen and explore some other expression of art. There are plenty of ways to tell stories without words. I have a multitude of desires, and as Blake said, I don’t want to be guilty of not acting on them. But until then, these fingers remain slave to my beautiful muse.

I’m always pushing myself to be better and explore new styles and genres. As of late, I’ve shied away from horror short stories. I have poems I want to share and a slowly gestating novel. I’m also having fun editing 5×5 Fiction.

What do you make of Michel Foucault’s observation in ‘The Archaeology Of Knowledge’ that: ‘The frontiers of a book are never clear-cut: beyond the title, the first lines, and the last full stop, beyond its internal configuration and it autonomous form, it is caught up in a system of references to other books, other texts, other sentences: it is a node within a network?’

Is everything I write or you’ve written connected in some underlying way? Definitely. Fiction or non-fiction, there are always elements of truth that the writer has either observed or experienced. We create and/or document history.

Awhile back I read an article that said it’s conceivable our genes, the very DNA in our bodies, contain the memories of our ancestors; everything they saw and did is locked away inside of us. If it can be proven, it would totally give new meaning to the notion that there are ‘no new ideas’ only adaptations of previously existed life. And as writers, if we can learn how to consciously tap into that well of information; think about the knowledge we could pass on to the reader.

Tell us about your book.

My book, ‘The Man of Shadows’ is a collection of twenty-five short stories of horror and is published by Panic Press. It was written over the course of approximately three years. My goal was to breathe new life into zombies and vampires while simultaneously introducing readers to new dark folklores and fresh perspectives on demonic activity. There’s blood and guts for the hardcore horror fan as well as controlled chaos for those who prefer their horror a bit more suggestive or cerebral. The first story, ‘The Mouth of Babes’ is one of my own personal favorites. It’s about a guy who runs an online web service featuring real death images. A friend who works at the morgue has a particularly strange body to show him. It’s a woman with a tattoo of a vicious-looking mouth on her abdomen. And somehow, the mouth is still alive on the dead woman’s skin. Believe me, you’re in for a fun ride, especially if you enjoy the company of junkies, winos, prostitutes, devils, witches, and cannibals.

Do you think that you can’t get rid of your demons without getting rid of your angels and how is this idea involved in your writing?

Interesting question. The idea that angels and demons are raging war all around us has always fascinated me. Most of my writing is plagued with devils and angels masquerading as men, so it goes without saying, the constant struggle for that good vs. evil balance is foremost on my mind. When I first started writing, I suffered a constant hesitation of thought. I was fearful of my own dark ideas. Call it residual damage from years of Catholicism, a brief stint at apostasy, Pentecostal brainwashing, and frustrations with the occult. It wasn’t until I surrendered to both of these inner voices, demon and angel, that I was able to truly create without restraint.

I don’t know, maybe this is too spiritual an answer, but I agree with the statement. You can’t have one without the other, nor can you have unequal sides. Equilibrium of thought is paramount to successful writing.

Joseph Conrad in ‘Heart Of Darkness’ suggests that civilisation is a lie. Do you think that we are ruled by the irrational?

 

Hmmm, I’ll apply the ‘we’ here to mean ‘writers.’ When you ask fiction writers why they write, most will answer, ‘Because I must.’ Must what? Write… create. Create what? People, cultures, and worlds. In a word: civilizations. This impulse, addiction, overwhelming drive to write must, at times, seem ‘irrational’ to those around us. But somewhere in our brains there’s a need to create order, succumb to chaos, to breathe life into every shade of ink. Are we ruled by it? I think anything we allow ourselves to be ruled by can become a type of irrationality. Just look at how many illogical decisions have been made in the name of love or religion. I don’t know how many of us are ruled by irrationality, but as for me, I’ll stay slave to the pen.

Thank you Angel for giving a profound and unforgettable interview.

Angel Zapata is author of the horror short story collection, The Man of Shadows, available in paperback or eBook through Panic Press, Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk. He also edits 5×5 Fiction: 25-word stories told in 5 sentences of 5 words each. Visit A Rage of Angel and 5×5 Fiction.

Allan Guthrie is an award-winning Scottish crime writer.

His debut novel, TWO-WAY SPLIT, was shortlisted for the CWA Debut Dagger award and went on to win the Theakstons Crime Novel Of The Year in 2007.

He is the author of four other novels: KISS HER GOODBYE (nominated for an Edgar), HARD MAN, SAVAGE NIGHT and SLAMMER and three novellas: KILL CLOCK , KILLING MUM and BYE BYE BABY.

When he’s not writing, he’s a literary agent with Jenny Brown Associates. He also runs Criminal-E, a blog on ebook crime fiction.

He met me at The Slaughterhouse where we talked about psychosis and vegetables.

Do you think that the pathology of extreme psychosis such as evinced by a paranoid schizophrenic is more disturbing than the psychology of a gangster in terms of crime fiction or is there no divide?

What we’re talking about is abnormal behaviour, and whether or not it comes about through mental illness or personal choice. At least that’s what I hope we’re talking about. I don’t think there’s an easy answer. If you’re talking about a gangster like Tony Soprano, then he’s certainly a disturbing guy.  But then so are Jim Thompson’s first person narrators. Not much to choose between them, I don’t think.  Of course gangsters can be paranoid schizophrenics too. Wasn’t Ronnie Kray a sufferer?

Tell us about your literary influences.

I think different influences show up in different books. I’ll try to pinpoint them.

Two-Way Split: David Goodis, the godfather of noir. I set out to see if I could write a modern noir novel set in Edinburgh and Goodis was my yardstick. Also some hardboiled detective authors from the same period. Wade Miller in particular. The major influence on this book wasn’t literary though: it was David Lynch.

Kiss Her Goodbye: Day Keene, another ’50s writer like Goodis. Again, the major influence wasn’t literary, it was a technique I discovered from scriptwriting which I used to develop the plot.

Hard Man: Scotland’s most talented exponent of literary crime fiction: Ray Banks. He gave me the kick in the arse I needed to write the book in several character-specific third person voices. Another major influence was Monty Python. And also the movie Old Boy (and several others which are name-checked as section headers).

Savage Night: Really tough to pinpoint a literary influence here.  The title comes from another ’50s noir master, Jim Thompson, who I mentioned in the previous answer. But I don’t think the book owes much else to him. Possibly the character of Park is a bit like some of Thompson’s psycho narrators. You might guess it owes a lot to Ted Lewis — GBH in particular. And I’d agree if it weren’t for the fact that I didn’t read GBH until after I wrote this. If I’d read GBH first, I probably wouldn’t have bothered, since GBH is so good it makes everything else seem pointless. Anyway, the major influence in Savage Night comes from the movies again. The chopped-up chronology of the narrative was just me wondering why we rarely see this in fiction when we see it in the movie world all the time, and wondering if I could make it work.

Slammer: This one’s the novel that’s most like Jim Thompson, I think. Probably because I use an unreliable narrator, which he’s famous for.  I read quite a few prison books as research, so they were undoubtedly influential: Jimmy Boyle, Erwin James, James Campbell, Malcolm Braly, a number of others.

All my books are pretty heavily influenced by Jacobean Revenge drama and all kinds of absurdity, from Alfred Jarry through Monty Python to Erskine Caldwell, Charles Willeford and Douglas Lindsay.  I also read a lot of screenplays, and that might show in terms of the visual writing, minimal description, terse dialogue, short scenes.  I only started reading lots of screenplays in the last few years, so it may not be a direct influence, but movies certainly are.

To what extent do you think that revenge is lawless justice and why do you think it is such a strong dramatic device?

I think ‘lawless justice’ would be making quite an assumption about revenge. Sometimes the avenger is mistaken and an innocent person suffers. So while there’s a perceived notion of justice initially, it may not last. Even if it does, an objective observer may look at matters differently. With regard to its dramatic potential, revenge is emotionally motivated and almost always requires the avenger to be active. The victim often has to be active in defending themselves. All of which creates vast amounts of conflict. Which tends to result in quite a bit of drama.

How do vegetables feature in your writing?

Can I assume you’re referring to a short story called The Turnip Farm? That’s a story about someone who loves vegetables. I mean he really, really loves them.  I thought everyone would enjoy a bit of absurdist bucolic erotica, but I was studying for a creative writing MA when I wrote it and my tutor — otherwise a man of excellent taste — didn’t care for it one little bit. Can’t win ’em all. The story’s in the annual Best British Crime anthology, if anyone cares to have a look. Lots of good stuff in there, even if you agree with my tutor about The Turnip Farm.

Do you think that humanity is motivated by a will to power and how does this manifest itself in crime fiction?

I can’t speak for humanity, but my observations of most of the people I know is that they’re motivated by pretty basic needs such as keeping themselves and their families warm, fed and safe. That applies to most of the characters in my books too. Even in Hard Man, which could be seen to be about various power struggles, the motivations for everybody’s actions are related to family. I’m trying to think of an exception but I can’t. I just write hardboiled soap operas, you know.

What do you think the future of E books is?

I see eBooks becoming the dominant format and good books finding readers more easily than ever. The industry will adapt and bring out the sort of niche imprints they couldn’t afford to invest in otherwise. Bright new digital publishers will spring up. The market for short stories and novellas will explode. Writers will love the freedom to experiment, while continuing to publish traditionally (or not). Readers will love the choice and, eventually, the price.

Do you think it’s possible to write a novel that can go straight to film?

Certainly some books lend themselves to adaptation better than others. THE MALTESE FALCON springs to mind. Hammett’s technique is perfect for movie adaptation. His storytelling relies entirely on action, dialogue and description. He never tells you what his characters think or feel. Those are the same restrictions movies impose on the writer (voiceovers aside). Anyone else who writes in the Hammett style enjoys the same benefits when it comes to screen adaptation. But no matter how cinematic a novel might appear to be, it’s unlikely to go straight to film unless it’s an incredibly short novel (or an incredibly long film).

Some of the best writing in the world is coming out of the genre of crime fiction, do you think that there is a formula for the Booker Prize?

The first part of your sentence may well be true. I’ll have to take your word for it because I don’t read widely enough to be able to judge. As for the question:  I expect that if you analyse any data closely enough you’ll uncover patterns which will create the appearance of something that’s less than random. So I’m sure it’s possible to find a formula. I’m not sure of what value it would be though. Giving somebody a formula for writing a novel doesn’t make them a good writer any more than giving somebody a recipe makes them a good cook. Or are you suggesting that the formula is one which excludes crime fiction?  I don’t know. I expect a lot has to do with labelling. You could argue, for instance, that TRUE HISTORY OF THE KELLY GANG is an historical crime novel.

Do you think crime writing is motivated by a desire to control death?

My motivation for writing crime fiction is far more prosaic (as far as I’m aware). I just enjoy writing the kinds of stories where characters are placed in extreme situations. And  I like exploring the emotional consequences of that. I would say, though, that there’s an element of playing God involved in all writing, not just crime writing, in as much as the author creates an imaginary world in which he decides who lives and who dies. But that particular aspect is not my motivation for writing, simply a side-effect of it. I write because I have stories to tell about characters I hope readers will find interesting.

What new projects do you have in the pipeline?

Back at the tail-end of last year, I made a couple of short novellas available as eBooks, Bye Bye Baby and Killing Mum. They ended up in the Kindle Bestseller charts, peaking at #6 and #25 respectively. So I’m working on a third novella which’ll also be released digitally. Kill Clock was originally published in print by Barrington Stoke in 2007 but I’m overhauling it at the moment. The new version is now on its fourth round of edits. I’m lucky enough to have had some superb editorial feedback, so have been working on that, trying to do my editors justice. We still have the same basic story, but I hope that even those who’ve read the first edition will enjoy the new version once it’s available. Besides Kill Clock, the print version of Bye Bye Baby (also from Barrington Stoke) is out in November. I’m hopeful I’ll be able to announce some information about digital versions of my backlist novels soon too. Plus a collaborative horror novella. But I can only hint for now, I’m afraid.

Thank you Allan for giving a great and informative interview.

Allan Guthrie

‘Bye Bye Baby’

UK, 86p: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Bye-Baby/dp/B003Y5H8FI/

US, 99 cents: http://www.amazon.com/Bye-Baby-ebook/dp/B003Y5H8FI/