The News Herald (Willoughby, OH)
Working like a dog
Prolific novelist Jeffery Deaver talks about ‘The Final Twist,’ his new Colter Shaw thriller
Jeffery Deaver was sitting on the deck of his second home in North Carolina, talking on his cellphone, competing with a cacophony of barking in the near background.
It was coming from his three briards, the French herding dogs that he breeds and shows at national competitions such as the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show.
“I don’t go into the show rings myself; I have an employee who does that,” said the writer, who also has a home in Virginia. “It’s one of my crazy avocations, but it’s how I relax.”
Otherwise, the New
York Times bestselling thriller writer “spends
10 hours a day in a dark room with the windows closed and the curtains drawn, writing and getting it done.”
Deaver, who holds journalism and law degrees (and once was a singersongwriter in San Francisco), left a career as a corporate attorney 30 years ago to write full time.
“My goal since childhood has been making a living telling stories,” he said. “Now I get paid to make up things. Does it get any better than that?
Deaver, 70, has published 28 titles in five series and 15 standalone novels, along with multiple novellas and short stories for print and audio. His books
have been translated into 25 languages and have sold 50 million copies in 150 countries.
The Lincoln Rhyme series is his most popular.
Its first entry was “The
Bone Collector,” which was made into a 1999 movie starring Denzel Washington as a quadriplegic crime-solving forensics expert, and a recent TV series. The 15th title, “The Midnight Lock,” is due in November.
Deaver’s new book is “The Final Twist,” from G.P. Putnam’s Sons. It’s the third in his “Echo Ridge” series about Colter Shaw, a survivalist who travels the country locating missing people to collect rewards. Q When Colter Shaw sets out on a job, it doesn’t take long for the twists and turns to pile up.
A All my books revolve around elaborate plot twists and surprises. For the series, I’d originally read an article about a reward being offered for a missing woman, and I thought, “What if someone pursued that by intent, kind of an investigator whose specializes in finding missing people?” Q You’ve said, “The Colter Shaw books are a nod to our new entertainment environment.” How so? A We writers are up against passive forms of entertainment — TV, video games. As an experiment, I thought, “What could it hurt to shift my writing to address what the desires of the audience might be?” That included shorter books, shorter chapters, more dialogue and more visuals. Consequently, the Shaw books are easier and faster to write and read. It’s still important to have the psychological and physical conflicts, so those don’t go away. Will anybody notice? I don’t know. Q So you’re aiming directly at your audience, unlike authors who write for themselves and believe that readers can take it or leave it. A Writing is a business, and I’m creating a product that’s out there in the market. I spend a great deal of time making sure my stories are complicated enough to challenge readers on some level, yet evident enough for them to understand what the characters are doing without having to ponder it too much.