Jeffery Deaver (EXCERPTS)
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NYPD criminalist Lincoln Rhyme is a complex
character who defies the conventions of the typical
fictional detective and in the process tears to shreds
many of the stereotypes about people sufferingv
from disabilities.
Jeffery Deaver introduced this winning protagonist to the public in 1997 with
The Bone Collector. After suffering a horrifying accident at a crime scene,
Rhyme is rendered quadriplegic and falls into a severe depression, until a
series of crimes around the city brings him back into action. Seven novels
later, the wheelchair-bound forensic scientist is still taking on and
outsmarting some of the most chilling criminals in detective fiction. With his
resourceful partner Amelia Sachs doing much of the legwork, Rhyme has solved
cases that range from tracking down a professional killer in The Coffin Dancer
(1998), to preventing a gruesome act of vengeance by a master illusionist in The
Vanished Man (2003), to stopping a time-obsessed serial killer known as the
Watchmaker in The Cold Moon (2006).
In addition to the Lincoln Rhyme series, Deaver writes a series of novels
featuring talent scout and former stuntman John Pellam, and has recently begun a
new series following the adventures of California Bureau of Investigations
interrogator and kinesics expert, Kathryn Dance. He has also written a number of
highly successful stand-alone novels, including The Devil’s Teardrop (1999), The
Blue Nowhere (2001), and Garden of
Beasts
(2004).
Readers who book a ticket on the rollercoaster ride that is a Deaver novel
are captured by his uniquely frightening and very human criminals, his realistic
rendering of police and forensic procedure and his insights into the minds of
multi-dimensional protagonists. Over his 20-year career as a writer, Deaver has
established himself as a master of the multi-plotted novel, winning acclaim for
fast-paced narratives, complex characters and trademark surprise endings.
In 2002, he received the DREAM Award from the
Western
Law Center
for Disability Rights for his realistic portrayal of a fictional character
suffering from a disability. In 2004, he was awarded the Silver Dagger from the
Crime Writers Association for
Garden of Beasts,
as well as the Short Story Dagger for “The Weekender.” He has also been
nominated six times for Edgar Awards from Mystery Writers of America.
Jeffery Deaver’s latest Lincoln Rhyme novel, The Broken Window, was released
this summer by Simon & Schuster.
AFG: I want to start with one of my favorite books,
Garden of Beasts.
Will you ever try anything like that again? I thought it was one of the best
books I’ve read.
JD: That’s very kind of you, Andrew. I must say, it is probably my
favorite of the books that I’ve written, and it’s the one that I spent the most
time on. Now, I always do a book a year, but this one took me two years to
write. Garden of Beasts was so compelling that I slipped it in between my series
books. I planned it out beforehand so that I would still publish one book a
year. There was a Lincoln Rhyme, then Garden of
Beasts, then another Lincoln Rhyme. I don’t ever
want to neglect my readers because I know they want a book a year. But I do find
that particular subject, so interesting, and was so excited about that book,
that I spent two years doing it. The research was quite extensive, and I wanted
to make sure it worked well. I’m very proud of it. Of course, it won the Crime
Writer’s Association Silver Dagger. I think for several reasons that book
resonated in Europe much more than here,
largely because World War II is much more immediate to them. I had some young
people come up at signings and say they liked it, and that they were now going
to learn more about World War II. They don’t really have a sense of that distant
history. I was born in 1950 so for me, even though it was history, it wasn’t
that far off. Nowadays, for younger readers, it seems like that was a long, long
time ago.
AFG: Do publishers pressure you to continue with the series characters?
JD: Sure. But I do understand it. I as a reader enjoy series characters, so I
have no problem with that. My fans like series characters and I write for my
fans. I think I’ve mentioned this ad nauseum, if not to you, to many people.
This is all about them; it’s not about me. I enjoy writing anything. I can write
standalones or series books. But the fans like series and I’m happy to write
that for them. Of course, when I start out with a book, I never know if it’s
going to be part of a series or not. You can claim it will be, and it may never
come to fruition.
AFG: So when did you decide to become a writer? I know you wrote your first
novel when you were 11.
JD: Well pretty much around that age. One never knows exactly at what
point you make these decisions, but I decided very young that I enjoyed writing
and enjoyed reading. I liked movies, too, but basically I liked the idea of
stories and storytelling. I tried a number of different things. I was a
journalist, I was editor of a literary magazine, I wrote a lot of poetry, I
wrote songs. And yet, much of that was simply because I enjoyed the act of
writing and expressing myself. But in the back of my mind, despite whatever else
I was doing, I wanted to write popular fiction, commercial fiction. I wanted to
be Conan Doyle, or Agatha Christie, or Ian Fleming. That was the type of story
that I enjoyed reading, and that was what I wanted to write. I made a number of
attempts throughout my teens and 20s to do that, and I learned that there are
very few prodigy writers. Presumably Mozart, who was composing at 4 and 5,
displayed some prodigious talent. But writers have to live a while, have to
experience things, otherwise you can’t bring much depth to your books. So, my
early attempts were not very good at all, and I actually threw out almost
everything. But in my 30s, I developed more of a voice, and that’s when the
dream came to fruition. So I quit working in 1989, and I’ve been writing full
time ever since. But I absolutely wanted to be a writer all my life.
AFG: You used the term “commercial fiction.” Would you describe yourself as a
commercial fiction writer? Because I’ve read commercial fiction, and I’ve read
your novels, and I don’t see your work as commercial fiction.
JD: By commercial fiction, I simply mean I write for a living, I write for
profit, and I make no bones about it. And I gear my books to my audience. Now I
do spend a lot of time on them. I do believe I’m a craftsman, at least in terms
of creating a product that will find a good market out there. I don’t think
there’s anything disparaging about referring to these books as products. That
simply means it’s a created object for which there’s a market. So I don’t have
any problem with that. I do feel that some authors are more skilled at doing
that than others. There are some very, very talented commercial fiction writers
out there, and there are some that are hacks, that just churn out a product that
leaves the reader wanting more. But I think my audience is really smart, and
they have high standards. I think my books have a level of complexity that has
in one way limited my audience. The books are very intense, you pick them up and
go through this roller coaster of two or three days, and I have a lot of clues
and a lot of subplots and everything. I mean, authors like John Le Carre for
instance, who is one of my gods in writing, he’s both a commercial and literary
writer, and he’s got a huge market all over the world, a number of movies made
of his books—he’s quite talented.
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