The Coming Stark Resurgence

Donald Westlake is one of the best crime writers to ever put pen to paper, and he may be one of the best writers of the last century period. The literary historians will have to argue over that assertion, but with his broad range and his prolific output it is easy to say Westlake has written something for just about everyone.

While his Dortmunder novels are well thought of and he has earned critical acclaim for his stand alone The Ax, his reputation, in large part, rests on his Parker novels written under the pseudonym Richard Stark. His first Parker novel, The Hunter, published in 1962, has been filmed twice. The first adaptation, Point Blank, released in 1967, starred Lee Marvin as Parker (although he was renamed Walker). The second adaptation, 1999's Payback, starred Mel Gibson as Parker (this time renamed Porter). As Stark, Westlake has, by my count, written 24 Parker novels and another four featuring Parker's sometime partner Grofield, a thief who uses his ill gotten gains to finance his passion for community theatre.

Twenty-four books in a series is an extrodinary run for a character. Series books can get bogged down with backstory and history, but Westlake never let that happen with Parker, who has very little in the way of a history or personal allegiance to slow him down. He does, over the course of the novels, gain a girlfriend and house in Jersey, but he's not really the stay-at-home type. And while there are those who argue that the later Parker novels do not match the quality of Westlake's earlier books, even the critics must admit that mediocre Westlake is better than a the best that a lot of other authors have to offer.

The early Parker novels have been in an out of print for as long as they've been around. More recently they have been hard to find, but that is about to change. Westlake's most famous character is getting some attention from two very different parts of the publishing world. The University of Chicago Press is going to reprint three Parker books a year until they've covered the entire series. The reprints begin this September with The Hunter, The Man with the Getaway Face, and The Outfit. It's a long way from the paperback racks in drugstores to the world of academic presses, and U of C Press' decision to pick up Westlake's series certaintly goes a long way toward validating the opinion of many that Westlake, with his Parker novels, has earned a place in hard boiled fiction up there with Hammett or Chandler, both of whom have been considered worthy of academic attention for some time. (Whether all the academic attention these authors have received is, in final analyis, worth anything, is a question open to debate.)

On the flipside of the coin, Parker is getting the graphic novel treatment from IDW and artist Darwyn Cooke. The first of four graphic novels, which should hew closely to their source material, will hit shelves next summer. (Bear in mind, however, that comic publishing dates are notoriously unreliable). According to Cooke, Westlake has been closely involved in the project, which is a good sign.

Surely, the fact that Westlake's work can receive attention from both an academic publisher and a comic book publisher at the same time says a lot about the enduring nature of Parker, who has been around for 46 years. Westlake has created a character who has truly taken on a life of his own, and his story will continue to reach people in many media for years to come. If that's not success, I don't know what is.

There's Something About Parker

If you follow this blog, you know that Donald Westlake's best known creation, professional thief Parker, has been on my mind of late. In the last two weeks I've read the first three Parker novels' The Hunter, The Man with the Getaway Face and The Outfit, and I've also watched the director's cut of Payback, director and screenwriter Brian Helgeland's adaptation of The Hunter featuring Mel Gibson.

Helgeland's film is much different than the film that made it to the screen. It has a third act that follows Westlake's book much more closely and the overall tone of the film is much more in keeping with Westlake's vision of Parker. The theatrical version of Payback made Porter (the Parker character) accessible via a wisecracking voiceover (voiceovers are almost always a bad sign in a movie) and provided a happy ending. I liked the theatrical version well enough, but the director's cut was much better. With the voiceover gone, Gibson's character was much more self-contained and mysterious. The DVD had a documentary about the making of the film, and how the suits and Gibson (who was a producer) had second thoughts about the level of violence, ambiguous ending and the very nature of the character. The director's cut Porter hits his ex-wife and shoots people in cold blood. He's not a psycho, but he's not exactly a thief with a heart of gold either.

Now, it's not surprising that the movie version of Westlake's hard ass character would be watered down. That's what Hollywood does. They need to reach as many people as possible to make as much money as possible. The result of trying to please everybody is usually an inferior product, and I think you can make that argument with Payback, but, on the other hand, there is a validity to the concerns of the suits in this case. Parker is unlike most fictional characters in that he has no redeeming qualities. He is not nice to dogs and children. He does not have any interesting hobbies. He does not give the money he steals to the poor. He has no friends, just associates, and he'll kill them the minute he thinks they might trip him up, and he's not tortured or tormented either. The people he kills and the violent acts he commits never cause him to lose a moment of sleep.

Westlake intended for Parker to get caught at the end of The Hunter, figuring the guy was just too mean for more than one novel, but the editor at Crest, the outfit that bought the book, wanted a series based on the character, so Westlake obliged. So, what is it about Parker, who has now traipsed through around twenty novels, that appeals to people? Is it Parker's complete amorality? Is it his professionalism? Is it his lack of emotion? For me, I think it's his tenacity. In the opening page of The Hunter Parker is walking across the George Washington Bridge. He is broke. A guy offers him a ride and Parker's response is to tell him to go to hell. He then proceeds to go into the city and steal enough money to begin his campaign of revenge. I think that's why I root for him. He's always coming from nothing and pulling himself up out of the gutter. Every time he thinks he's got a problem solved another one comes up and he's got to start all over again. It never gets him down and he never gives up, and that's a good quality to have even if you are a thief.

The Jugger

With the realization that the next set of Stark reprints are imminent, I figure I'd better say something about the latest batch if I'm going to say anything, and I am, so here it goes.



Earlier, I touched on what it is about Parker that makes him such an enduring character. I concluded that a large part of his appeal was due to his persistence and determination. Parker soldiers on relentlessly know matter what sort of setbacks he runs into. Now, it would be possible to base an entire series on an underworld ubermensch who is constantly overcoming working to overcome the treachery and incompetence of others, but Westlake is more skillful than that. Parker isn't a superthief. He's just a thief, and he sometimes, despite his best efforts, makes mistakes.



The Jugger, which is certaintly the strongest of the reprints yet, is the story of a mistake. When Parker receives correspondence from an acquaintence that makes him wonder if his cover is about to be blown, Parker decided to take action. When Parker arrives in town, he finds his acquaintance dead under suspicious circumstances, so he feels obligated to investigate to make sure his identity is protected. Little does he know that every action he takes is actually bringing him closer to being exposed to the authorities.



The Jugger, like The Hunter, shows Parker as a man of stone with feet of clay, and it is that added depth which, along with Westlake's remarkable prose and storytelling ability, that allow the character and the series to endure. Parker is at the mercy of a set of rules that make it impossible for him to to trust anyone, and yet he must trust them, and this tension results in much flailing about in an information vacuum where bad intentions must be assumed by everyone. In a situation like that, everyone is going to make mistakes. It's a long way from Raffles, Gentleman Thief, that's for sure.



(Image shamelessly ripped off from The Violent World of Parker).

Let's Psychoanalyze Parker!

Some time ago, I tried to get at the reason why Donald Westlake's enduring thief Parker, who's been going through a bit of a renaissance recently, is so appealing. I concluded it was his tenacity, and his ability to work through even the most difficult problems to come out on top. I have been recently working my way through the latest set of reprints from the University of Chicago, and, coincidentally, I've been reading up on the Myers-Briggs personality test or the Keirsey Temperament sorter, or whatever they're calling it these days. I'm sure you're probably familiar with the test, which is based on the work of Carl Jung. Psychoanalysis is, at best, a dubious endeavor, and I've always been skeptical of it in general, but I've taken the Myers-Briggs test several times throughout my life, and I've always found it to be uncannily accurate.

I always test as an INTJ. INTJs are long range thinkers and planners, who tend to be pragmatic. They hate small talk, and always (well, almost always) think in pragmatic terms. This often leads to a rather, shall we say, amoral outlook on life. Rules that are good are followed. Rules that aren't are ignored, especially if there's something to be gained.

The more I read the Parker stories, the more I see a lot of myself in him. Don't get me wrong, I'm not a cold blooded killer or a thief, but like him, I tend to be cautious and research all the risks before I take action, and I tend to have very little time for small talk, which is one of Parker's defining traits. I also value staying cool under pressure, and if anyone's the embodiment of that quality it's Parker. When things don't go as planned he switches plans, just like that. He never panics. He never stops thinking. He does what has to be done. All of this makes me wonder if Parker isn't so enduring because he's a modern day Jungian Archetype. Jung had story archetypes like the Hero, The Trickster and the Earth Mother, all drawn from myth. Parker isn't exactly believable as a real person, but he does represent something, unique to our culture. He is the ultimate businessman. His work is his life and his life is his work. It's almost like he's some monster representation of the negative elements of American society. He's a myth, just like Chandler's man who walks down the mean streets who is not himself mean.

Darwyn Cooke's Parker: The Martini Edition

I was taking a little Amazon window shopping break when I ran across this, the yet to be released Parker: Martini Edition, which combines the first two of Cooke's Parker graphic novels, along with some new content. It also says it contains a "brand new story," and I'm not sure what that means. I would like to own this, but if I have to buy a deluxe edition to get the next installment in a graphic novel series I already own, I'm not going to be that happy. Hopefully, the new story is something separate from the project of interpreting the first four Parker novels.

Also, I'm not sure why they called it the "Martini Edition." The only thing I can see Parker doing with a martini, is dumping it on the floor, breaking the glass and then stabbing the broken stem into someone's neck.

Mystery versus Crime Fiction

Crime fiction is a pretty broad label that can encompass anything from Sherlock Holmes to Lolita. It is, like most labels, artificial. It's also useful. Labels generally are. If you went to the bookstore and the romance and the crime fiction were shelved together with chick lit then browsing at the bookstore would be a less enjoyable experience because everyone would have to wade through ten things they have no interest in to find one thing they might want to look at. Having handy categories is a must, even if the lines can blur at times.

Still, there are some labels that have a pretty clear meaning. Take "mystery" for example. While there are different types of mysteries, it is pretty easy to find the common thread in books as different as The Orient Express and The Maltese Falcon. There are questions to be answered. The author uses unanswered questions to keep the reader in suspense. The term mystery is often abused, though. Many bookstores will label their crime fiction section mystery, even though mystery fiction is a subset of crime fiction. Sometimes it creeps onto book covers as well.

The recent reprints of Donald Westlake's Parker novels from the University of Chicago are labeled mystery on the back cover. Now the label is undoubtedly intended to help let those stocking shelves know where to put them, but it's not an accurate label for the books. While the Parker novels are crime fiction, there is no mystery element to them. There is never a whodunit element in the books because the reader knows Parker's doing it. The suspense comes from finding out how he's going to pull off the crimes he commits.

Now, I'm not picking on U of C, here. The books are very nice, and I'm reading these old Parker novels for the first time now that they are back in print, and I'm enjoying them quite a bit. It does bother me a little, however, seeing mystery used as shorthand for crime fiction because mystery has a certain meaning, and it promises a reader a certain experience. If you start labeling everything on the shelf a mystery the meaning of the word is eroded. Of course I'm a sticker for precision in language, and I could be the only person in the world who this bothers.

More Westlake

Given yesterday's sad news, I thought it might be appropriate to revisit some of my recent posts on Westlake's work as Richard Stark. First off, there was already a significant surge of interest in his older Parker novels before his death. The U of Chicago Press has already reprinted the first three in the series; The Hunter, The Man with the Getaway Face, and The Outfit. The next three, The Jugger, The Mourner and The Score are being released in May. The new editions will have a foreward by John Banville, who has called Westlake one of the greatest writers of the 20th Century.

Darwyn Cook is also working on a graphic novel adaptation of the first four Parker novels, and Hard Case Crime will soon reprint his first novel under his own name.


If there's any such thing as a silver lining to someone's death, in this case it's the fact that the world loves a dead artist. Their should be an even greater interest in Westlake's work now that he's gone, so hopefully these projects will get the attention they deserve.


I ponder the appeal of a bastard like Parker here.

And, for the record, this is my favorite non-Stark Westlake novel.

Darwyn Cooke's The Hunter

I finally got my copy of Darwyn Cooke's adaptation of The Hunter this week. It's nice. I mean, really nice. I was expecting something like your usual graphic novel, but this is more like a nice hardcover book in both dimensions and quality. This presentation is perhaps fitting given the new respectability of graphic novels. I remember when the term was used to describe several issues of a comic book series cheaply slapped together to bring in a few extra bucks. Cooke's The Hunter is anything but cheap, and it certainly bears all the hallmarks of a labor of love. There's no attempt to fancy up the source material, or make it more modern. It's set in 1962, when the original book was set, and, with the exception of the ending, it hews closely to the original story. I suspect the bit Cooke saw fit to cut will actually show up in his planned adpatation of the next novel, The Man with the Getaway Face. The graphic novel's ending allows it work as a stand alone story, which strikes me as the author hedging his bets. The remaining three adapations showing up on store shelves is probably contingent on how well The Hunter sells, so a cliffhanger might leave people hanging forever.

Cooke's Parker inhabits a world that is black, white and blue. The choice works very well. Full color would have been too much, and black and white would have been a bit too stark (no pun intended). The color and the artwork, both complement the tone of the story. Cooke's Parker, who the reader does not see from the front for the first twenty or so pages. All in all, I was very pleased with this book. I hope it will turn some people on to some of these Stark reprints.

Kiss Me, Stupid: What is Mickey Spillane's Appeal?

The recent arrival of Dead Street, the latest Hard Case Crime release, and the final crime novel by writer (not author) Mickey Spillane, has got me wondering, exactly what is the appeal of the man's work? I intended to write a review of Dead Street, but I don't think I'm going to be able to finish it. It's too corny. This isn't my first attempt at reading Spillane. I've tried a couple times before and always given up. I'm beginning to think it's him, not me. I posed a similar question on the mailing list Rara Avis, and no one has yet to offer a real defense of Spillane's work. There has been a lot of talk about how successful he was, and there's no arguing with that. He was a one man publishing phenomenon, and one of the most successful writers of the 20th Century. Still, he's not any good. His characters are all the same-psychopathic thugs. His dialogue is stilted and ridiculous (Was there ever a time when men called women doll?) and his plots don't exactly leave room for shades of gray. Violence is always the answer. In Spillane's world there's no problem that can't be solved with a gun. It's always the first resort. In Dead Street, in a particularly stupid scene, the protagonist fantasizes about shooting a veterinarian in the face. A veterinarian who bought him coffee and wanted to talk to him. The veterinarian's mistake is bringing up a traumatic event from the protagonist's past. That's all it takes to set this guy off. That's not tough. It's pathetic. But Spillane doesn't present him as the damage case he obviously is. No, there's nothing wrong with this guy. Now, I like a tough guy protagonist. Take Westlake's Parker, for instance. He's a guy for whom violence is always the answer. But he's a crook and a psycho. Westlake doesn't hold him up as a hero. Violence also causes Parker as many problems as it solves. In Spillane's world violence only solves problems. Is that what made him so popular? Is there really a longing deep in the hearts of men to shoot every guy who says the wrong thing and every woman who does them wrong? If so, Spillane's success says a lot about human nature, none of it good.

The Outfit

Darwyn Cooke's follow-up to his adaptation of Richard Stark's The Hunter, hit shelves this month. The book glosses over much of what happens in The Man With the Getaway Face, the second Parker novel, in favor of the more exciting third novel. While this choice makes artistic and economic sense, it does, however, leave the book feeling a bit stuffed.

The Outfit was a book which had a lot going on, and the book described many different robberies by many different thieves. Cooke cheats a bit when it gets to this bit of the story, which feels like a bit of a gyp, since the description of clever heists is part of the appeal of the Parker stories. At one point, Cooke merely excerpts an account of a crime directly from the novel, disguising it as a newspaper article. This little trick doesn't work because Stark's prose doesn't feel like a newspaper article, and because this is a graphic novel. I've already read the novel. I own it. I can read it any time I want. The entire purpose of a graphic novel is to see as well as read. The other crimes, however, are presented in unique visual styles of their own, separating them from the rest of the book, which is a good trick, even if the entire section feels a bit perfunctory. Fortunately, the book is just as gorgeous as the first one, and is, overall, faithful to Stark's famous character. The three color artwork, and Cooke's obvious attention to period detail make the book a pleasure to read. I just finished it, and I think I'm going to go back and read it again, just to pick up any details I may have missed.

Review of Payback

Payback by Russell James (Point Blank, 2007) is a novel that, on the surface, shares a lot of similarities with Get Carter (a.k.a. Jack’s Return Home). You can start with the premise: A man with a checkered past returns home to investigate the death of his estranged brother. Both stories are set among the English working class. The main characters of both books share a surname. Both men commit acts of violence in their quest to uncover the truth. But Floyd Carter, the protagonist of Payback, is no Jack Carter. Jack is a hard man; a cold blooded killer, and Floyd, while he’s no angel, is not a Jack. He is an altogether more humane figure.

Despite their superficial similarities, Payback and Get Carter are very different stories. While the latter is a straightforward revenge tale, with bad people doing bad things to each other, the former is a story about the nature of family and friendship with a revenge element.

Floyd Carter returns from Germany to London to bury his brother Albie, a local drug dealer, who was killed in a hit and run. The police are the only ones who think Albie’s death was an accident, so when Floyd returns, all eyes are on him. He has a reputation, after all. Soon, Floyd finds himself embroiled in a war between two rival drug gangs competing for territory. Floyd has other concerns, however. His best friend has turned into a junkie. The woman he cares for has a teenage daughter headed for trouble, and his brother’s death has left him responsible for his retarded brother, Ludo.

Floyd feels compelled to find out who killed his brother, even though they had not spoken in years, and even though he worries about how his actions will affect his loved ones. It is this additional element that keeps Payback from being your run-of-the-mill revenge story. He’s not a single minded killer like Jack Carter or Donald Westlake’s Parker. He’s a man who wonders if his desire for revenge might end up hurting the ones he loves. The conflict gives the story depth it needs to stand out.

The heroin-addicted friend subplot doesn’t really go anywhere, but it does give James a chance to riff on the drug trade, which he writes about well, pointing out the absurdity of both the user’s attitude and the way the authorities combat drugs. His point is well taken, but it’s too bad the subplot feels tacked on.

Giving Away Darwyn Cooke's The Hunter Part Deux

In our last episode, our hero, announced he was giving away two copies of Darwyn Cooke's adaptation of The Hunter. As part of the contest, he asked would-be entrants to answer a trivia question. Upon reflection, the question may have been too difficult (or blog readers too lazy), because exactly no one sent in an entry. I've done giveaways before, and always had entrants. So, lesson learned, we're going to try this again. I still have two copies of this graphic novel to give away, and I'm still going to ask a trivia question, but I'm going to make it much, much easier.

To enter for a chance to win The Hunter, send an email to IndieCrime-at-gmail-dotcom with Contest in the subject line. Include your address and the answer to this question:


Who is the man Parker comes to New York to kill in The Hunter?

Can I make it any easier than that? Yeah, probably, but I'm not going to. Next Sunday, I'm either announcing the winners or I'm just going to give the goddamn things to homeless people.

The Violent World of Parker Redesign

The only site on the Web dedicated to Donald Westlake's alter ego's greatest creation has relaunched with a much improved design. (You can see the old design here.) Be sure to catch the tribute page, which has a good collection of links to Westlake obit pieces. The page also has great collections of covers for each novel, including the Grofield novels. It's a good way to kill an hour or so.

The Colorado Kid gets turned into something it's not

Stephen King's supremely shitty entry in the Hard Case Crime lineup has been optioned for a television show for the Syfy (I, know, I know, Syfy. Was there something wrong with Sci-Fi?) network for a TV show called Haven. Here's the show's description:

Syfy's all-new one-hour drama series Haven, starring Emily Rose (Jericho, Brothers and Sisters) is based on the novella The Colorado Kid from renowned author Stephen King. The series follows the shrewd and confident FBI agent Audrey Parker (Rose) who has a lost past, and arrives in the small town of Haven, Maine on a routine case. Before long, her natural curiosity lands her in the epicenter of activity in this curious enclave, which turns out to be a longtime refuge for people that are affected by a range of supernatural afflictions.

As the townspeople's dormant abilities begin to express themselves, Audrey helps keep these forces at bay while discovering the many secrets of Haven — including one surrounding her own surprising connections to this extraordinary place.

Now here's the description of The Colorado Kid:

On an island off the coast of Maine, a man is found dead. There’s no identification on the body. Only the dogged work of a pair of local newspapermen and a graduate student in forensics turns up any clues, and it’s more than a year before the man is identified.

And that’s just the beginning of the mystery. Because the more they learn about the man and the baffling circumstances of his death, the less they understand. Was it an impossible crime? Or something stranger still...?

No one but Stephen King could tell this story about the darkness at the heart of the unknown and our compulsion to investigate the unexplained. With echoes of Dashiell Hammett’s The Maltese Falcon and the work of Graham Greene, one of the world’s great storytellers presents a moving and surprising tale whose subject is nothing less than the nature of mystery itself...

Do these two descriptions even seem remotely similar? Call me cynical, but it seems like someone bought the only Stephen King novel not under option just so they could put his name on a new series in hopes of getting people to watch it.

Call me when someone options Money Shot for a television show. I'd watch that.

The Third Set of Parker Reprints from U of Chicago

Messing around on Amazon today, I discovered the covers for The Seventh, The Handle and The Rare Coin Score, the next three novels to get reprinted by the U. of Chicago Press. The official publication date is August 15, but if the first two batches of reprints are any indication, they will be available a month or two early.

Yet More Stark

While I've been distracted Bruce Grossman weighed in on the new Richard Stark reprints (no prizes for guessing what he thinks), and Time Out Chicago ran a little piece on Parker's latest comeback. (The latter link via).

The New Parker Covers

From the U of Chicago Press. Scheduled for May 1 publicaton.

New Stark Reprints in the Wild

The Mourner, The Jugger and The Score from the University of Chicago Press are now available for purchase from the vendor of your choice.

The next three books, The Seventh, The Handle and The Rare Coin Score are scheduled for August, and will have a foreward by Luc Sante. I guess this means they're skipping the Grofield Stark's since The Damsel was published between The Handle and The Rare Coin Score, according to The Violent World of Parker.

Sundries

You already know about Fifty-to-One, the fiftieth book in the Hard Case Crime series, but Bookgasm is reporting that there's going to be a special leather bound edition of only 5o copies, each one autographed by multiple Hard Case authors. It'll only cost $750. Who's going to volunteer to buy one for me?

Bleak House Publisher Ben LeRoy and author Nathan Singer (In the Light of You) have put their heads together to come up with the 32 most Rock and Roll Rock and Roll songs.

Over at Behind the Black Mask Shannon Clute and Richard Edwards interview George Pelecanos.

Continuing my fascination with all things Parker, I present to you an interview with Donald Westlake from the University of Chicago Press Web site.

And to bring it back to rock and roll, the two best bands in the country will be touring together this fall.

Interview with Seth Harwood

Podcaster and novelist Seth Harwood was in town last week, and he took the time to sit down and talk a little about his work. Seth is currently in the middle of podcasting his second novel, This is Life, featuring washed up actor Jack Palms. He has podcasted Jacks first adventure, Jack Wakes Up, which will see print in March from Breakneck Books. He's also podcasted a collection of non-crime short stories called A Long Way from Disney.

What made you decide to go the podcast route, as opposed to what David Wellington did with putting his horror novels up on the ‘net?

I got really interested in the net about a year and a half ago. So first it was all about short stories for me. I published like a dozen short stories in small literary journals. They’re not crime, and it’s like I get my two copies and tell my friends about it and they say great, but no one can ever read it because no one can find it. There’s no distribution with them. Then I got a story accepted by this online place and all of a sudden everyone was reading it, and I could tell my friends go to this site and read it and I was getting a lot of feedback from that, so I got the idea to start my Web site and put my stuff there, and I wanted to put Jack Wakes Up there. When I started thinking about that I was in Boston, where I’m from originally, and one guy said I should do a podcast, and he connected me with Scott Sigler, who is huge in podcasting, and Scott basically walked me through how to get it started. I don’t know how Wellington did it, but it seemed to me like it was easier to get people to listen to a podcast right of the bat, than to read my stuff online.

What made you want to move into genre fiction, as opposed to staying with the short fiction?

I was working on writing a novel, and I was doing my best to read literary novels, and I started trying to write a literary novel and I didn’t know what to write it about. I got to a point where I was like, let me write a novel I’m going to have fun with. It’s going to have action. It’s not going to be 100 percent character driven. It’s going to have plot points. Things are going to happen. People are going to have guns. This is the type of stuff that excites me, so I said, ‘let me do something and have fun with it.’

Jack Wakes Up is getting published. How did that work? Did the publisher come to you? Were you shopping it around while you were podcasting? How did that come about?

I've been shopping this book around before, during and after I podcast it. My initial idea was that someone (an agent or an editor) would appreciate this initiative and my audience when I told them about it in a cover letter. That never happened. Bascially, I've come to see that they want something they can trust--an Amazon sales rank is what they feel they can trust. As a result of this, having the book published and selling it becomes a necessary part of marketing it. Seems odd, but what you're really marketing is yourself as a writer and a "brand." So be it. With that in mind, I started contacting smaller publishers, knowing that my own marketing through the podcast would be what sold the book anyway.

Luckily, Jeremy Robinson of Breakneck Books, a guru and a veteran of online independent publishing, realized that the audience I've created can translate immediately to selling books. Now we're working together: he's doing all the book-side stuff that I don't know about and I'm rolling out the podcast audience promotion. The listeners have already named the plan: it's called "Shake 'Em Down on Amazon.com!" after Jack Palms' fictitious big action movie, Shake 'Em Down. And with Jack Palms being the protagonist, there's no better day for the book to come out than Palm(s) Sunday!

How involved are fans of your podcast?

All my artwork is from my fans. Most of my cool marketing ideas come from my fans. Some of the fans are doing voices on the podcast. That’s another cool thing about podcasting. There’s so much back and forth with them (fans). The relationship with the fans is one of the best things about it (podcasting).

Do you write from an outline?

No. I’m a big believer in a lot of your best writing and material development coming from your subconscious. Whatever you know in your conscious mind there’s other stuff that’s back there and you just have to write it. You have to be writing to access that stuff. If you’re writing you can pull it out of there and it becomes the story. To me it seems like writing is an exploration, and often for me the most exciting stuff that happens are the things I don’t predict. The most exciting days are the days where I sit down and something completely blows me away and surprises me, and I have to stop writng and be like, ‘can this really happen? Am I okay with this? Can I deal with working this in?’ And those things often end up being some of the best stuff.

Talk about Jack a little bit. Where did he come from?

Have you ever seen The Transporter? It's a bad movie right? But here was this guy (Jason Statham) who I had only seen in this serious movie (Guy Ritchie's Snatch) where he was a funny character gets into this movie and kicks the shit out of hundreds and hundreds of guys. To me that seemed utterly ridiculous, and I was like ‘What would happen if a guy who was just a normal actor was in this movie and did huge amounts of ass kicking. What would happen to his life is he was suddenly perceived as this big ass kicker, and he wasn’t doing acting anymore and he had to deal with people on the street.

Who are your influences?

People like Elmore Leonard and Robert Parker. A lot of my early crime influences are people I would listen to. I’ve never read an Elmore Leonard book, but I would listen to them on tape in the car. A lot of my early influences came about from listening to them in the car, and now I’m doing podcasts. It’s sort of come full circle. When I was growing up I read a lot of Michael Connelly. I read a lot of comic books. Stephen King. Now, I’m into Chandler and Lawrence Block.