The Devil's Company by David Liss
For David Liss, writing about the worlds of history, finance and corporations is interesting. Perhaps because they are subjects that fascinate him.Or perhaps because he populates them with mayhem and intrigue.
"I do my best to keep the dull stuff out of my books," he said. Instead, he focuses on "what I think makes this sort of material exciting. At their core, my novels are often about the dangerous and despicable things people will often do to obtain or keep money."
In THE DEVIL'S COMPANY, due for release in July by Random House, ruffian Benjamin Weaver is pushed into doing dangerous things to help another man obtain money - specifically, financial information from one of the 18th Century's most massive corporations, the British East India Company. The former pugilist gets sucked into a world of intrigue that, as more and more intersecting plots and operatives are uncovered, could threaten the fate of England itself.
Because his books are deeply embedded in their historical setting, Liss backs up his writing with meticulous research. And sitting in a library isn't a foreign setting for the almost-PhD in 18th Century British literature.
"If things had not worked out with fiction, I probably would have kept to my graduate school career track and sought a job as a literature professor," he said. "I have written contemporary fiction, and there are definitely times when I think it would be a lot easier not to have to do all that research, but at the end of the day I absolutely love writing stories set in certain historical periods."
Sometimes the research inspires the writing; sometimes the idea drives the research, he added."THE DEVIL'S COMPANY was a very unusual experience for me," he said. "I began reading a book about corporate espionage in the 18th Century, made it about 30 pages in, and set it down because I had an idea coming to me. Ten minutes later, I had the entire story in my mind. The final version changed somewhat, but it is still remarkably like the original idea. I don't ever expect to have things come to me that easily again."
But despite all the research, and despite the popular conception that spy novels must involve high-tech weapons, stolen flash drives and satellite images, his books aren't about mere ideas, he said. The stories won't work without characters; conflict and sacrifice are compelling regardless of era, he said.
"What readers care about is that the characters want something and they have to do difficult or dangerous things in order to accomplish their goals," he said.
His focus on people has won acclaim from not only critics, but humanitarian groups. In 2008, he was named Artist for Integrity by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime.
And as the world has been plunged a real-life financial crisis during the last year, he has been all too aware of how timely his latest book, set 300 years ago, appears to be.
"It is my great hope that my novels are merely predicting financial upheaval and not causing it, because that would make me some sort of super-villain," he said. "And that would be weird."
For more on Liss and THE DEVIL'S COMPANY, visit his Web site, www.davidliss.com.
Contributing editor Gerry Doyle
is the author of numerous short stories published in the United States,
abroad and on the Internet. His first novel, From the Depths, was
released in November 2007 by McBooks Press. He has worked as an editor
and a reporter for the Chicago Tribune since 2001. He's also OK at
ping-pong and has had cocktails on three continents. He doesn't put
much stock in astrology but just in case: He's a Leo.ThrillerFest
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