Irish author Declan Burke (who you can catch tonight at Noir at the Bar in Philadelphia) was quizzed by the Philadelphia City Paper about his new book The Big O. He talked about everything from how he got the idea for the story (from his then-girlfriend, now wife), why he's been calling the book "The Little Engine That Could," and his thoughts on dialogue: "I like listening to the rhythms of the conversation — the give and take and the back and forth — and how some people start halfway through a sentence and the other person will finish it for them. Clunky dialogue can really put you off a book. I think if you can get the dialogue right, it can really cover up a lot of sins elsewhere in the book. What they say is one thing, but the way they say it will tell you absolutely volumes about the character."
Alifair Burke (no relation to Declan), a former deputy district attorney and professor of criminal law, is lucky to have the kind of background she can draw on for her series of legal novels about Portland prosecutor Samantha Kincaid. In an interview with Reuters, she said "I was always a big reader of crime fiction but then I got to the point where I was surrounded by this great dialogue and these cases in the DA's office and it started to dawn on me that I had the material for a really good book." She was also asked if it helped having a father (James Lee Burke) and cousins who are writers. She replied,"Obviously you don't inherit prose but I think it makes some sense that there are several writers in one family as you see that it is possible to finish a book which can seem undoable otherwise. Also you can't write a book if you don't read books and writing families tend to read a lot."
Doug Johnstone interviewed Icelandic crime writer Arnaldur Indridason for the Times Online. "We didn't have any tradition in crime writing," the author admitted. "It wasn't looked upon as any form of literature at all. It was seen as dirt, considered cheap, a very stupid thing." Like Burke, above, he had a famous writer (Indridi G. Thorsteinsson) for a father. But he was more influenced by film than any familial ties, as well as the most famous Icelandic literature of all: "I am heavily influenced by the Icelandic sagas," he admits. "The sagas are huge stories of families and events, murder and mayhem, and they were written on rare cowskin so they had to be very concise. They don't use two words when one will do, and I take my cue from that. If you describe things, keep it simple, say what you need to say and go on with the story, never stop the story."
The Seattle Times pinned down Alexander McCall Smith during a whirlwind book tour (he's touching down in every state but Montana, Wyoming and the Dakotas this year). Asked why he inserted philosophy into the characters and subjects of his book, he replied, "Im very interested in applied ethics and philosophy generally. I wanted something that would let me go off on little tangents about that. So many interesting philosophical issues crop up in everyday life. For example, friendship. How far can friendship extend? Another example would be how we decide what we do for others, for charities. How far do you carry helping the less fortunate?"
James Ellroy was interviewed recently while he was in Santa Barbara to accept the 2008 Ross Macdonald Award for "a California writer whose work raises the standard of literary excellence" from the Santa Barbara Books Council. In addition to indulging in some election-year snark, he said "The idea is the traditional formula in crime fiction is an individual in conflict with authority, but I’m writing about bad men doing bad things for authority, on behalf of authority. I’m not trying to do anything to the other tradition. I am just writing about what interests me. It’s what I prefer."
