My guest on the blog today is Ethan Cross, author of The Prophet. I asked Ethan:

“Serial killers seem to capture the readers imagination. Why do you think this is? A morbid fascination, seeking a thrill-ride or is it something else?”

Here’s what he had to say:

 

Serial killers are like aliens among us. They think and act in ways that most

of us cannot begin to comprehend, which in turn makes them fascinating. When we
turn on the news and see headlines describing the deeds of a serial killer, we
immediately wonder “How could a human being do something like that?” and “What
drove him over the edge?” When trying to unravel these mysteries, investigators
often look to the person’s past. They search for an event or series of events
that led this seemingly normal person to their ultimate fall from the realm of
the socially acceptable into the world of the criminally insane. But then, we
wonder if there is more at work behind these actions than a traumatic childhood
or series of bad experiences. Was this person born broken? Are they evil?
Most researchers accept that the deviant behavior of serial killers is a
combination of many factors. When questioned about nature vs nurture, one
psychologist asked, “Which contributes more to the area of a rectangle, its
length or its width?” And yet, there is no simple answer, and some maintain
that the circumstances into which a person is born determines their personality.

In my novels, The Shepherd and The Prophet, I touch upon the concept of nature
vs nurture as I place the reader into the mind of a twisted psychopath named
Francis Ackerman. Ackerman’s father was a psychologist who wanted to prove that
he could create a monster by subjecting his seemingly normal son to every known
traumatic event that had occurred in the lives of modern day serial killers.
His thinking is obviously flawed because by trying to prove his theories, he
establishes that there must be something broken within himself that he could
have passed onto his son, giving credence to the very concept he set out to
disprove. While this is only a small piece in the grand tapestry of the novel,
it’s still an important factor in understanding the twisted thoughts and
character of a man like Ackerman.

In a study conducted by the FBI, researchers found that 74% of the killers
surveyed experienced some type of abuse, whether physical or psychological,
during their childhood. 43% reported that they experienced sexual abuse
firsthand. The abused child growing up to become a serial killer has become a
cliche within our society, and yet there is a definite link between abuse at a
young age and violent behavior later in life. However, the fact remains that
most people who were abused as a child don’t grow up to become Ted Bundy, and
there are many killers that had a normal childhood. So, while abuse and
circumstance is definitely a factor, there must be more behind the madness.

We like to think that we are the masters of our own fate, but the truth is that
much of who we are was determined before we spoke our first word or even took
our first breath. The intricate make-up of our genes had already laid out a
certain path before us. We can overcome this and change our fate, but that
doesn’t negate the fact that certain barriers or advantages exist from the
moment of our births. A five-foot-four man can play professional basketball,
but he has a much greater barrier than someone born to be seven-foot-one. And
beyond the physical characteristics, there are certain mannerisms and behaviors
that we seem to inherit as well. Since my daughter was a tiny baby, she has
tucked her thumb into her palm and held it with the rest of her fingers. The
gesture seemed strange to me at first, until I realized that I do that
constantly. She obviously didn’t learn this behavior from me, and it’s
fascinating to think that such a small action could be coded within her genetic
sequence. It stands to reason that a person could be born with an inherited
pre-disposition to violent behavior, but is there even more than genetics and
circumstance at work?

There are also certain religious or philosophical issues to consider. Is there
an evil or negative force at work in the universe beyond what we can see and
easily quantify? These factors are often dismissed by the psychiatric
community, but since most of us believe in some sort of higher power, we can’t
help but wonder at the existence of evil. Although this is an area that is even
more difficult to study and classify, I believe it’s where the true key to
deviant behavior may be found. I believe that all serial killers, regardless of
varying circumstance and genetics, share one common trait. They all harbor a
darkness inside themselves, a darkness that shines through in their terrible
deeds. But the truly scary thing is that I believe we all carry this darkness
or capacity for evil to some degree, and this is where genetics, knowledge, and
the events of our pasts come into play. These factors contribute to our ability
to hold the darkness at bay. We’ve all learned from a very young age how to
manage our impulses. Otherwise, we would allow that sudden animal instinct of
anger or lust to elevate into rape or murder and our society would quickly
crumble.

I’ve always found this concept of darkness and the questions that go along with
it to be fascinating. Can the worst killer overcome the darkness and find some
form of redemption? Can they learn to control the darkness despite the barriers
working against them? What happens to a good man who embraces the darkness with
the best of intentions and under a banner of righteousness? It’s these
concepts, along with others, that I explore within the pages of my novels.

Today my guest is Giacomo Giammatteo, I recently read and reviewed his book, Murder Takes Time, and was given the opportunity to ask him some questions:

 

Murder Takes Time, spans quite a chunk of time in terms of the main characters in the book. Was it your intention to do this, as this is the first book in a series, or was it the way you’d always intended to tell the story?

I don’t want to give out too many details for those who haven’t read it yet, but let’s say that because of the way the story unfolds and the actions of a particular character, this story presented a huge problem in determining how to tell it. After a lot of racking my brain—and a few glasses of wine—I determined that the only way to tell it was the way that I did.

What’s funny is that early in the process, when I was trying to go the traditional route of publishing, I had two agents interested but they insisted I tell the story in a linear fashion. I knew that wouldn’t work, so I opted to do it myself.

I think to sum it up best—I was forced to do the story this way because I had to draw out certain reader emotions that otherwise would have left the ending unsatisfactory.

Personal values and relationships are a key part of the story, were you particularly keen to use these to help tell the tale or did they evolve as you wrote?

Those personal values and relationships aren’t just a tool or a plot device to tell the story, they are the story.

I didn’t set out to write a mystery book. I was actually writing fantasy books. My kids kept pestering me to write a book that would use some of the stories about my life growing up. I tried to determine what kind of story that would be and ultimately decided it had to be wrapped into a mystery story of some kind.

I played the old “what if” game. What if we (my friends and I) didn’t separate when we were young. What if we stayed together as friends and let life interfere?

There are lots of nicknames for the characters. How did you come up with them, and are any of them based on people you know?

My whole family is laughing about this one. Because if you knew our family, or for that matter almost any large Italian family from one of the big Northeast cities, you’d know that nicknames were a fact of life. Nobody got called by their proper name. Everybody had to “earn” their name, just like in the book.

As far as the names being based on people I know. I tried to steer clear of real people in most cases, but some I didn’t. The character named “Doggs” was my older brother, down to the “colorful” language he used. Doggs was the only person I knew who could transform the “f” word into every part of speech. But just like the characters in the book, we never used that word around women. A lot different than it is nowadays. I’ve been married to my wife for 43 years and she still doesn’t hear that from me.

The one thing that was constant though, was the way the names were earned. That I kept true. A person’s nickname is what defined them, not their given name.

Who lives, who dies. Did you decide before you started to write or did you just see what happened?

I usually know all of the key points of the book before I start writing. I always know the ending, and I normally know things like who’s going to die. I did have one huge problem though, and that was how to kill one particular person. Since you read the book you know who I’m talking about. I ended up writing that scene three different ways and finally opted to keep it the way I wrote it the very first time, which is the way you see it now.

This is book one in the series. How many do you think there will be in total, and do you have any teasers for us in terms of the later books?

I know exactly how many will be in the series—six. One for each of the “rules of murder” listed in the book. The second one, Murder Has Consequences, will be out later this year. Murder Takes Patience is the third book, and it will be out next year.
In the meantime, I’ve got two other series that I’m working on; in fact, the next book that comes out, A Bullet For Carlos, is the first in the Blood Flows South Series. That features a female protag, which made for quite a change in how I wrote it. It will be out in September or possibly October. I’ll have the first book in the Redemption Series out next Spring. Old Wounds, it’s called, and it will feature yet a third protag.

I recently reviewed Sasha Plotkin’s Deceit by Vaughan Sherman, naturally I had a few questions, and I had the opportunity to put them to the author.

 

 

1 You developed a relationship between the characters of Chris and Sasha that acted as both plot and subplot and transcended time. Did you always intend for them to be the core of your story or did you have other ideas that didn’t make the final draft?

The first driver for plot ideas came while I was posted in Sweden and learned about Gammelsvenskby (Old Swedish Town). I was taking a correspondence course for fiction writing, and thought what a great idea it would be to include a Russian character who is actually an ethnic Swede from Gammelsvenskby. This was an idea that cooked many, many years before I got serious about writing the novel, and it never changed.

2 Sasha Plotkin’s Deceit reminded me of some of the classics of spy and mystery fiction. What do you consider to be the classics of this genre, and did you take any inspiration from any of them in generating the ideas for your story?

My favorite author in the genre is John le Carré, whose novels include The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, Tinker Tailor, Soldier Spy, and The Little Drummer Girl. Unlike spy thriller writers like Robert Ludlum (the Bourne series), le Carré concentrates more on believable relationships and less on unbelievable car chases and shootouts.

Having said that, I have to add that another author of popular fiction, Tom Clancy, rises to believability with his Patriot Games, a novel that I think of as a classic in the genre he writes. Clancy seems to do a lot of research, which makes his plots believable. The Hunt for Red October and A Clear and Present Danger are two works that show his attention to real detail.

And finally, including mystery fiction, I like John Sandford’s Prey series for dialogue. In my CIA career I worked at times with law enforcement, including both active and former FBI agents. Sandford does a great job of capturing their lingo, a talent that adds greatly to his well-plotted and well-written novels.

I make an effort to use my own voice in writing fiction, but there is no doubt that my voice has been influenced by reading these classics.

3 Do you sail? Your descriptions of the Valhalla were accurate and sounded like the classic vessel you portrayed. Does she exist outside of the pages of your book?

Boating has been central to my life, beginning with my father teaching me to run an outboard skiff when I was barely in elementary school. I built a twelve-foot outboard skiff when I was fifteen years old, did a stint in the U.S. Navy between high school and university years, worked on Fish and Wildlife Service boats in southeast Alaska for four seasons, and have rarely been without a power boat for all my adult life.

I sailed one of the early catamarans when stationed in Formosa, have sailed small dinghies and sailing surfboards., but never a large sailboat like the Valhalla. I had a friend in Denmark who owned one of the world’s classic large sailing yachts, and heard many tales about his experiences.  The Colin Archer boats are legendary in Scandinavia.  While spending almost ten years there I heard much about them, and did research for descriptions in the novel.

4 What are your plans for your next book? What are you writing at the moment?

I am outlining another novel, using some of the same characters as in Sasha Plotkin’s Deceit (the twin, Matthew, along with his brother Mark and dad Chris), that will be on the theme of shipping in Puget Sound and the danger of a damaging explosion in Elliot Bay, where downtown Seattle is located.