Earlier this year I read American Devil by Oliver Stark. I thought it was one of the best debut thrillers I have read in years and gave it a five star review both here and on Amazon. It seems I had the honour of writing the first ever review of this book and the first that Oliver had ever had and was thrilled to bits about this. I was also thrilled to see when opening the paperback edition that my name and part of my review on Random has been used on the opening page.
I am delighted to say that Oliver kindly agreed to give me an interview for Random Jottings. He told me I could edit it down as he felt he had gone on a bit but I am not going to do that as I found what he had to say totally fascinating. So I am posting this across two days and part one is here below.
ALSO please note that Headline books have offered three copies of this edition for a prize draw on Random so just leave your name in the comments section, whichever day you read this, and your name will be entered.
Oliver, it was a real surprise to me to discover that you are an English writer as this book is steeped in the feel of New York and it has the grittiness and urban feel that so many US thriller writers have. I understand that you have been fascinated by American detective writing all your life. Can you tell us why and what it is about this genre that attracts you?
Firstly, I'd like to thank you for reading 'American Devil' and to say how pleased I am that you found much in it to enjoy. Writing a debut book is very exciting but it also comes with its moments of terror. Most of them are about how people will react to the story, the characters and the writing. As a writer, you just never know how anyone else is going to take to your book. So far, I've been delighted that so many readers have responded pretty positively and I take heart from that. You feel very lucky, getting published, but it means very little without readers who are willing to try you out and enjoy what you're producing. So thank you!
As I was starting writing the book, I was unsure of where to set the story. There are earlier versions of this story set in London and San Francisco as well as New York. I tried different places out to see what happened and what they felt like. I suppose I was trying to find the right tone for a story that was only half formed in my head. I knew what I wanted, but couldn't see it very clearly. So I had to try various incarnations until one just seemed right.
The setting of New York acts like a bass note, it sets the mood. As an English writer, it gave me the freedom to write about crime in a way that I'd find hard in an English setting. Perhaps it's something to do with distance. New York is a partly mythical place and I found the cityscape could absorb some of the more horrible aspects of the killings more easily than the more provincial English setting.
New York is also a place of story and stories and I wanted my book to work with multiple perspectives, whether of a narcissistic psycho-therapist, a delusional psychopath or a hard-bitten cop. My enjoyment of American crime fiction first came from television and black and white films. It wasn't just the classic crime writers I liked, I was also hooked by later gritty films like Taxi Driver and Mean Streets. They show a city that is dark, dangerous and exciting. And they show a city where law and order is a battle and moral decisions are never simple or easy.
I didn't experience that kind of moral uncertainty or that level of visceral grit in the English writing I came across. Englishness comes with a high degree of order and moral certainty and however cruel and terrible a killer in the English school, I always felt that at the end of the day, he or she had to be disposed of, so that life could return to its norms. And that meant that the killer and his or her motives also had to be dealt with in that way. I'm not saying that's what's happening in British crime fiction now, but what I saw in the seventies in film, TV and Agatha Christie had that tone to it.
So it was American fiction that opened that door to some of the interesting questions about law and order, moral certainty and the darkness of the human soul and what people are capable of doing. It was also the nature of the cops. They were hard, cynical, cold and always had great lines. It was hard not to love them and the American pulp style. They are great stylists and some of the most memorable lines in crime fiction still, to me, come from the mouths of men like Sam Spade and Philip Marlowe.
So America gripped my imagination because it didn't try to answer all the difficult questions, but it explored them all the same and left some things unanswered.
I see from your biography on your website that you like to get into the country when you can and this is illustrated by a photograph of flying birds. We first meet your detective hero, Tom Harper, bird watching and it seems to me that this is the only time he is at peace with himself. Is this an aspect of your own personality that you used in this characterisation and what do you think drives him and makes him such a good detective?
I have to say that I have always got a lot of pleasure and peace from being alone and being close to nature. At the same time, I'd find it hard not to live in the city. Everyone has a way to find some kind of peace and balance, that time when your head stops thinking and you just start breathing. Watching birds can do that, but most of all, just being out in the country can switch off the logical or anxious side of your brain.
The birds on my website are Red Kites - one of the most beautiful of our birds of prey. They were nearly hunted to extinction in the UK and only a few pairs survived in rural Mid Wales. They are now breeding and numbers are increasing, but their survival has been down to a few dedicated people and a small number of committed rural communities. They are a symbol of survival and it should make us wonder that something so beautiful should have been hunted as vermin for so many centuries.
Cops like Tom Harper were also near extinction but he's been saved too! There is something that Harper sees in birds that he identifies with. Partly, I think, it's simply their wildness, but they also allow him to show emotion for something. Tom Harper doesn't have too many distractions in his life, he thinks about his cases nonstop and he lives with knowledge of the worst side of human experiences and action. Because of this, he needs a way out and he has tried to avoid the cliché of becoming a drinker, but he so easily could go that way. The bird watching allows him to stop thinking for a while and it shows him as himself.
I think that he's a good detective because although he's got the drive, determination and single-mindedness of the best hunter, he's also a team player and uses the expertise of those around him. It's also not just a job for him, it's more of an expression of who he is. It allows him to use and express his abilities and talents and therefore, it's not just about catching the killer, it's always a question of engaging at the highest level. Harper likes the difficult cases, because it's where he can get deeply involved in a case. What drives him is also the thought that catching serial killers is often down to one or two moments of luck or insight and he couldn't bear to leave that to anyone else, in case they missed it.
Part two tomorrow - don't forget to enter for the prize draw
