Mixed Blood by Roger Smith
When asked about the genesis of his new thriller, MIXED BLOOD, Roger Smith says, "The book started writing itself, somewhere in the back of my head, a long time ago."As a teenager, growing up under apartheid in Johannesburg, South Africa, Smith watched white cops mow down black school kids during the 1976 uprising. A few years later he was drafted into a white army fighting a "meaningless bush war against older versions of those same kids."
"Disaster Zondi, MIXED BLOOD's Zulu investigator, is one of those kids twenty-five years on. And my rogue cop, Rudi Barnard, is a relic from the apartheid era, roaming the badlands of Cape Town, still slaughtering people darker than himself."
Smith says that people think Cape Town mirrors -- or even surpasses -- the beauty of the south of France or California. But looks can be deceiving.
After falling in love with a woman from Cape Flats -- a sprawling ghetto outside the city -- Smith heard true stories that changed his view of that world forever. And after seeing a news report on TV about an American couple who were hiding out in Cape Town after a series of bank robberies in the U.S., an idea began to take shape.
"The story made me think: 'what if?' What if a man with a past, a man on the run -- Jack Burn -- brings his family to Cape Town, seduced by those images of mountains and beaches and freedom? What if they are building new lives for themselves when they are confronted by a random act of violence -- a collision between the Cape Flats and privileged Cape Town?"
Those what-ifs became MIXED BLOOD.
Asked if writing from the point of view of an America was difficult, Smith -- a television writer who has worked on everything from cops shows to comedies -- says, "South Africa, like most of the world, has been happily colonized by American pop culture. We sit glued to American TV shows, clog our arteries with Big Macs, and play air guitar to American rock."
A long time reader of US crime fiction -- favorites like Chandler, Hammet, MacDonald, Thompson, Stark and Leonard -- Smith says he had no problem at all tackling an American character.
It seems as if Americans have no problem with Smith either. Not only is MIXED BLOOD being published by Henry Holt & Company, but the movie rights were recently optioned with Samuel L. Jackson attached to star and a high-powered director in negotations to take the helm.
And if that isn't enough, Smith just completed WAKE UP DEAD, his second thriller for Holt -- another stand-alone also set in Cape Town -- which is slated to be released in early 2010, and he has a third book "in the pipeline."
"The last year has been an unbelievably exciting one for me," Smith says. "The stuff of dreams..." MIXED BLOOD is in stores now.
Robert Gregory Browne is the author of KISS HER GOODBYE and the upcoming WHISPER IN THE DARK, which received a starred review from Publisher's Weekly.
"The story made me think: 'what if?' What if a man with a past, a man on the run -- Jack Burn -- brings his family to Cape Town, seduced by those images of mountains and beaches and freedom? What if they are building new lives for themselves when they are confronted by a random act of violence -- a collision between the Cape Flats and privileged Cape Town?"Those what-ifs became MIXED BLOOD.
Asked if writing from the point of view of an America was difficult, Smith -- a television writer who has worked on everything from cops shows to comedies -- says, "South Africa, like most of the world, has been happily colonized by American pop culture. We sit glued to American TV shows, clog our arteries with Big Macs, and play air guitar to American rock."
A long time reader of US crime fiction -- favorites like Chandler, Hammet, MacDonald, Thompson, Stark and Leonard -- Smith says he had no problem at all tackling an American character.
It seems as if Americans have no problem with Smith either. Not only is MIXED BLOOD being published by Henry Holt & Company, but the movie rights were recently optioned with Samuel L. Jackson attached to star and a high-powered director in negotations to take the helm.
And if that isn't enough, Smith just completed WAKE UP DEAD, his second thriller for Holt -- another stand-alone also set in Cape Town -- which is slated to be released in early 2010, and he has a third book "in the pipeline."
"The last year has been an unbelievably exciting one for me," Smith says. "The stuff of dreams..." MIXED BLOOD is in stores now.
Robert Gregory Browne is the author of KISS HER GOODBYE and the upcoming WHISPER IN THE DARK, which received a starred review from Publisher's Weekly.
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