The Strand was fortunate enough to interview Andrew Welsh-Huggins regarding his new standalone book, The End of the Road. While probably best known for his series, The Andy Hayes Mysteries, Welsh-Huggins’s responses will entice you to read and enjoy his new novel just as fervently.
TSM: What do you think sparked your love of the mystery, crime, and thriller genres and inspired you to work so heavily in that realm both as a writer and an editor? Are there any particular books or authors in the genre that you enjoy or that have inspired you in the past?
AWH: As a kid, I devoured Donald Sobol’s Encyclopedia Brown books and books in a Stratemeyer Syndicate mystery series called The Happy Hollisters. What probably cast the die for good, however, was pulling my mom’s Erle Stanley Gardner Perry Mason paperbacks off the shelf at around age eight. Even though I didn’t understand a lot, those tantalizing covers and the—at least to me—debonair plots made a big impression. As an adult, I’ve been enthralled by the private eye novels of Steph Cha, Matt Coyle, Loren Estleman, Sue Grafton, Kristen Lepionka, Laura Lippman, Ross Macdonald, John D. MacDonald, Robert B. Parker, Sara Paretsky, Les Roberts, and many others. I’m also a huge fan of Lee Child, Michael Connelly, S.A. Cosby, Karen Dionne, Lisa Gardner, Stephen King, Walter Mosley, Karin Slaughter, and Stuart Kaminsky, again, among multitudes of other great writers.
TSM: In addition to your numerous fiction novels and short stories, you’ve also written some nonfiction about political crises and criminal justice. Has anything you’ve encountered in your research for your nonfiction books ever impacted how you wrote or what you wrote in your fiction?
AWH: I’ve often tapped stories or subjects I covered as a reporter for my mystery fiction, usually as literary launching pads as opposed to simply fictionalizing a true crime. For example, I called on my coverage of efforts to help victims of human trafficking in my novel The Hunt and my reporting on concerns of radicalization in the Somali community for my novel The Third Brother. In An Empty Grave, I took as inspiration the real-life case of a burglar who shot a Columbus police officer, then fell through the cracks in the criminal justice system for decades. However, the reason my fictional burglar disappeared was completely drawn from my imagination, not real life, and that’s true of almost all my mining of my journalism.
TSM: Do you think that being a reporter for the Associated Press in Columbus has given you any sort of insight into the human condition that you’ve been able to insert into your books?
AWH: My twenty-four years as an Associated Press reporter gave me a seat at some of the biggest stories of the day, from the shocking discovery of Ariel Castro’s detention of three women in his Cleveland house for nearly ten years; to the infamous slaughter of eight members of the Rhoden family in southern Ohio; to multiple stories about the death penalty, including witnessing thirteen executions. My experiences chronicling those events are with me almost every day as a novelist.
TSM: Can you tell us a bit about your newest release, The End of the Road?
AWH: The End of the Road is my first stand-alone novel after seven books in my Andy Hayes private eye series and the anthology I edited, Columbus Noir. It weaves together the stories of three characters: Penny, a young woman on a solo journey of revenge after her boyfriend is shot and left for dead; Pryor, the one-eyed villain who shot her boyfriend and whom Penny relentlessly hunts; and J.P., a sheriff’s deputy in a rural county near Columbus who inadvertently crosses paths with both Penny and J.P.
TSM: The End of the Road is also supposed to be “a (very) loose retelling of the Odyssey.” What about the story of the Odyssey inspired you during the writing process?
AWH: I was a Classics major at Kenyon College where I focused on Homer, and—a bit like the youthful thrill I felt reading those Perry Mason books—the story of a traveler facing enormous obstacles on a long journey stuck with me. What inspired this particular book was the idea of retelling the Odyssey in modern times and from the perspective of Penelope.
TSM: Were there any unanticipated challenges you faced while writing this novel? Conversely, was there anything you found yourself enjoying during the writing process that you didn’t expect to like?
AWH: In addition to being a stand-alone, this was also my first book-length go at writing in third-person limited so that took some getting used to. Figuring out how long to stay in each of the three characters’ heads chapter by chapter was also a challenge. Although this is Penny’s book, I needed to keep a focus on Pryor and J.P. to make her story work. All three characters surprised me along the way with decisions they made and back stories that needed to be told, and that was fun.
TSM: Is there any advice you’d give to aspiring or beginner writers or advice you wish you were given when you were starting out as a writer?
AWH: I usually tell aspiring writers to establish the basics first: commit to a schedule of writing (before work, on your lunch hour, late at night—whenever), settle on a place to write (at a desk, on the couch, in bed—wherever), and then during the drafting process, try to write at least five days a week, even if just a little bit. In addition, I recommend that new writers find a like-minded community, whether by joining an association like Sisters in Crime, attending book talks at local bookstores or libraries, or seeking out a local writing group. Finally, I urge new writers to familiarize themselves with their genre or subgenre and to read as much and as widely as possible.
TSM: Finally, are there any upcoming projects you have in the works that we can look forward to?
AWH: I have an eighth book in my Andy Hayes private eye series on submission and hope to have some good news about that soon. I’m also beginning a new thriller series featuring freelance mailman Mercury Carter. The elevator pitch goes like this: Carter delivers almost anything for a price: items, information, and sometimes even people. He’s never missed a delivery and he’ll do almost anything to keep that streak alive. I’ve published three stories about Carter (a fourth will be out soon) and am finishing revisions on his first book-length adventure.