Hi again Ted and thanks for joining us today to talk about your latest book.Lilith – Demon of the nightcontinuing the Detective Louis Martelli series.
TJC: Hello, Gary. It’s good to be with you again.
PBR: At first I thought the book would be hard for readers to maintain a serious frame of mind, with the undertone of vampirism throughout the book, but you stayed true to the characters and used the “ridiculous” beliefs as something the NYPD wanted. avoid exposing. Please tell us how you see the balance between the macabre and the real in modern police work, and how you intend to play down the weirdness.
TJC: There’s no question that vampirism is as weird as it sounds. And yet, as you know, you can find associated crimes cited in the history of recent criminal cases. So for me, it was simply a matter of treating what happens in the novel as you would any other crime I’ve written about. I did this using factual presentations and catchy dialogue peppered with graphic details. But… I wanted to be true to myself. I mean, you know that all my novels are a mixture of truth and fiction.
PBR: Tell me about that!
TJC: I didn’t say it would be easy to separate them. But in lilith, I wanted to make sure I didn’t stray into fantasy. I think doing so would have destroyed the entire character and story of ‘Martelli’… maybe even the series. And it would have made me very uncomfortable. I do not write real fiction, but enjoying taking something real and, let’s say, ‘beautifying’ it by taking it in new and different ways. So to balance the macabre with the reality of modern police work, as you say, I used the pretense that the police didn’t want the story played out in the media. This allowed me to play down the sensationalism, to keep a check on things. It allowed me to focus on police procedures and more specifically on the work of Martelli and O’Keeffe.
PBR: Martelli teams up with O’Keeffe for this novel. Tell me a little about how you see your relationship. Where does it go from here?
TJC: That’s a very good question. I was hit by Marty Shaw from reader views when you reviewed my latest Martelli novel, House of Cards: Dead Men Tell No Tales.
PBR: I reviewed that too, Ted, and I really enjoyed it. what it was its beef?
TJC: Well, Marty loved the novel, too, but felt that O’Keeffe should have been given a ‘more robust role.’
PBR: It certainly sounds like you took Marty’s comments to heart.
TJC: Absolutely. One of the best things about being a novelist is being able to create characters out of nothing and, once created, bring them to life. And so it was with ‘Sean O’Keeffe’. For all intents and purposes, neither of Martelli’s two previous novels said much about the man. All readers knew about him was that he was Martelli’s partner, he was a pretty smart guy, and to Martelli’s benefit, he was a great shot with a pistol. Beyond that, his life was a mystery.
PBR: But after reading lilith, it is no longer a mystery.
TJC: You’re right. I think readers will enjoy learning about his past and how he came to be the person he is. In some ways, he is Martelli’s alter ego, but in others, the two have a lot in common. It’s clear that they care about each other, and more importantly, they work well as a team. Both are reckless to some degree, but in different ways. And that makes writing about them fun because I get to put them in situations where they ‘work’ with each other.
PBR: I liked the references you made to your other books on vampirism within the story. What were your thoughts when you mentioned this type of dialogue when writing the scenes?
TJC: The references, in these particular cases, were added for a number of reasons, one of which was to add credibility and embellish the story. But they also dropped as clues, so maybe that’s where we should leave it. As for dialogue, I really enjoy writing exchanges between people. The dialogues between Martelli and Missy Dugan, a senior information technology specialist for the NYPD, are among my favorites, as are those between Martelli and his wife, Stephanie. And in lilith, of course several exchanges between Martelli and O’Keeffe left me laughing at the keyboard.
PBR: Your research on police policies and procedures is very impressive. How did you learn so much about the “industry” of law enforcement?
TJC: an expert today. You have to remember that you are talking to someone who has been watching detective and private eye shows on TV since 1948! I mean, he was watching shows like Boston Blackie-“Enemy to the enemy, friend to the friendless”-before you were a twinkle in your father’s eye. And even before that, he listened to radio shows like Gang hunters. These days, I love to see CSI Las Vegas Y NCIS. Now, this is all fiction, of course. So, for an actual ‘basic truth’, Officer Sy Nankin of the Essex County (NJ) Sheriff’s Department is keeping me posted. He has read all of Martelli’s books and has provided me with the “fine adjustments” I needed in certain areas to ensure that police procedures are portrayed in a more realistic light than I could if left to my own devices.
PBR: The way the “perpetrator” was found was really a slow and methodical effort by many talented investigators. How do you imagine advances in CSI, biometrics, and computer databases will affect our society over the next decade?
TJC: It’s going to be awesome. See how genetics changed the entire area of forensic science. The problem, of course, will be the need to educate the public about the new technologies used and build the basis for their acceptance. Without an educated public… one that accepts what science has to offer… the ability to employ new technologies in the prosecution of crimes will be hampered in court.
PBR: What’s next for our favorite detectives?
TJC: I have no idea. Really. I literally don’t know what I’m going to write about until I wake up one morning and say, ‘Hey, this or that could be an interesting story.’
PBR: Is that what happened with lilith? I mean, what at work triggered a story about vampires, aside from the fact that we seem to be bombarded these days with all kinds and shapes of vampire books and movies, the Twilight Sagaperhaps, being the best known?
TJC: Actually, I was exchanging emails with Irene Watson from reader views one morning last November about the sale of books. She had noticed that the sales of house of cards had not reached the level that the sales of death for wall street it had reached when it was first released. We think it could be the result of two factors. First of all, there are a ton of new books released every year, maybe a million or more in 2011, so the competition is great. Second, in case you haven’t noticed, the economy isn’t exactly flying high.
PBR: You don’t have to tell me.
TJC: Anyway, Irene says, ‘What you have to do is write a teen vampire romance novel. That will sell. And I’m thinking, ‘Right.’ But then, I heard about one or two cases of real vampirism that had been reported in the press, and I got to thinking, “Why not a Martelli book based on a vampire cult in New York City?”
PBR: And that was it?
TJC: That was it! And here we are.
PBR: We wish you the best of success, as always, and look forward to much more from your prolific keyboard. Happy New Year to you and your family from all of us.
TJC: Happy New Year to you, Nicole, and also to Sophia, Gary.
(This book contains language for adults)