Matt Hilton's Dead Men's Dust is "a dose of pure rocket fuel. Starts fast, gets faster, and doesn't quit right through the slam bang finale. Dead Men's Dust is as enjoyable a thriller as you will read this year, and I do mean 'Thriller!' My ears are still ringing with gunfire! I loved this book." Christopher Reich, best-selling author of Rules of Deception. Contributing editor Janice Gable Bashman chats with Matt Hilton about his thriller and his writing process.Tell us about Dead Men's Dust.
It's the first in a new thriller series featuring Joe Hunter, an ex-soldier searching for his younger brother, John, who has gone missing in the USA. Hunter has no idea that John is on the run from mob hit men and has also run afoul of a serial killer called Tubal Cain, who intends on making John his latest victim. It's a cat and mouse chase that takes Hunter across country and to a climatic showdown in the Mojave Desert.
What triggered the idea for the book?
I had one of those odd moments, thinking about how powerful a handgun was and if someone could shoot through a ceiling and kill someone in the room above. Because of this I wrote a short scene where some people are assaulting a building. I then wondered why they were there and decided that they were looking for someone who may or may not be held by the gangsters inside. This one scene led to the entire novel. I wrote the beginning with a view to including the aforementioned scene, which now appears somewhere in the middle albeit in a slightly different form. From there I completed the book. Normally I start at the beginning and work through to the end. I don't plot that much out beforehand, just write as the story unfolds from my imagination.
Your protagonist Joe Hunter says, "Some may call me a vigilante. I think I've just got problems to fix." Explain.
Since leaving the military, Hunter has made a living as what he terms a 'security consultant.' In this role he acts outside the remit of the law and has gained the reputation of being a vigilante. Hunter disagrees: where the law fails he sees himself as someone victims can turn to for help.
How does your background as a police officer, a security specialist, and a highly-ranked martial artist inform your writing?You'd think with my background I'd be writing crime/police procedurals, but I've always been attracted to the more cinematic action thrillers of American writers like Robert Crais and Lee Child. Where I use my experience is in the action scenes. I've been in many scary situations and know how it feels to be locked in combat with someone, how frightening and desperate those situations are. I like to think that familiarity lends some authenticity to my writing.
From a young age you've known you wanted to become a published author. You wrote your first novel at age 13 and wrote seven others before Dead Men's Dust. Tell us about your path to publishing your first thriller.
I was writing stand-alone thrillers and getting nowhere, and realized that publishers preferred series characters that were likeable and commercial. I invented the character of Joe Hunter and gave him the background and skills to sustain an ongoing series. When the first book was completed, I researched agents and approached Luigi Bonomi, who I'd heard great things about. I sent off the obligatory letter, synopsis and sample chapters, but also mentioned my plans for follow-up books in the series. After several re-writes under Luigi's guidance, the book was sent to nine publishers. An auction was held, and I was ecstatic to hear that I'd been offered a five book deal from Hodder and Stoughton. Foreign rights and the US deal followed very shortly after. I count myself as very fortunate to have found the right agent at the right time.
Following Dead Men's Dust, the next four novels in the Joe Hunter series will be released at six-month intervals. That's a pretty fast publishing schedule. What's your writing process?
I was fortunate enough to be in a position where I could give up employment and now write on a full-time basis: a few hours in the morning, and then four or five hours in the evening. For me the writing comes quite easy, it's the editing and rewriting and all the asides that take the time. I've completed books 2 and 3 and am currently about eighty-thousand words into the rough draft of book 4.
I have a different publishing schedule in the US, where the books will be coming out annually. I'm busy writing book 4, am polishing book 3 with my UK editor, while awaiting a line edit of book 2 from my US editor. It sounds confusing, but I'm also one of those odd people who can read various books at the same time without losing the plot or any enjoyment.
What's next for Joe Hunter?
In his next outing, Hunter is up against a contract killer who goes by the name of a fallen angel, Dantalion. Book 2, Judgement and Wrath, will be published in October in the UK, but it will probably be May of 2010 before the US edition is on the shelves. It's an action packed thriller that I hope readers will love.
Contributing editor, Janice Gable Bashman, writes for leading
publications, including "Novel & Short Story Writer's Market," "US
Industry Today," "Food & Drink Quarterly," "The Wild River Review,"
"Bucks," and others. Her serial feature "Thrill Ride: The Dark World of
Mysteries and Thrillers" (co-written with Jonathan Maberry for the
"Wild River Review") includes interviews with Barry Eisler, Lawrence
Block, Steve Hamilton, and other thriller and mystery writers. She is
working on a thriller, "Vengeance," and her writing won multiple awards
at the 2007 Philadelphia Writer's Conference.
