"Pinter does it again with his fourth Henry Parker outing, an emotional and suspenseful journey with an engaging protagonist," says Library Journal of Jason Pinter's Shamus nominated, THE FURY.
Jason Pinter has a lot of fans, and some of them I'd stumble to my knees before if I met them on the street. Bestselling author Michael Connelly can be quoted "Jason Pinter knows what he's doing. The Fury rocks. Read it!" The Daily Record raved about Pinter's "excellent debut." Tess Gerritsen, Jeffery Deaver, James Patterson and Jeff Abbot share their enthusiasm for Pinter's growing body of work. And growing rapidly. Pinter's The Fury, in stores October, will be followed by The Darkness, also of MIRA, this December.
So what's the furor about? Take a read of The Fury back flap and you'll get a taste. This author's voice is well honed and taut:
Am I my brother's keeper?
If I'd known I had a brother, I might have been. But he's dead--shot point-blank in a rat-hole apartment, wasted by hunger and heroin. Stephen Gaines, a man with whom I shared nothing...except a father.
For some reason this stranger who shared my blood came to me for help...and I blew him off thinking he was just some junkie. Now I'm forced to question everything I ever knew...and figure out why this man was murdered in cold blood.
All I can do for Stephen Gaines now is find his killer--and with the help of Amanda Davies uncover the whole, hard truth. If it means tracking down a vicious drug kingpin--who may or may not exist--then so be it....
And so, the protagonist Henry Parker must uncover the most devastating secret of all...His own. But what about the secret to what makes Jason Pinter tick?
To bone up on Jason I read the answers to the 48 questions posted on his Facebook page. In summary, on a Monday night, after an NFL game and eating a dish of osso bucco, Jason can be found with his trusty MacBook Pro, his editor having refused to read any chicken scratches that Jason calls handwriting. With fingers sticky from New York Super Fudge Chunk ice cream, he writes best at night, when not too teary eyed from watching WALL-E and provided his Shitsu, Wilson, isn't talking to him and he's somehow managed to avoid the siren call of the Playstation 3.
If offered a choice between bungee jumping and dancing, Jason would choose the former, or the color red--green if he was a crayon. Even more curiously, he stands 6 feet 3 inches, but wears 32 inch length pants, making him look 7 feet tall sitting down.
If you're a little confused, and...well...uncomfortable, then you're not alone. In fact, the only pertinent thing I gleaned for we readers was that he prefers happy endings. I decided I'd better ask a few questions of my own.
Jason, you actively solicit requests from Nigerians' who need help unfreezing millions of dollars in assets. You're funny. How much of this comes through in your writing? Is your protagonist, Henry Parker, comic?
I don't think Henry's a 'comic' per se, but I do try and inject some humor into the books. Look at it this way: if you meet someone who's completely humorless, are you going to want to spend fifteen minutes with them, let alone an entire book or entire series of books? I do try and project some of my personality into stuff I write on my blog and elsewhere, and if anything I write is funny it's more than likely by complete accident.
Who is Henry Parker?
Well, this is my fourth book with Henry. In a nutshell, Henry is an ambitious young journalist in New York City, juggling all the issues one might face (relationships, making ends meet, evil drug syndicates, etc...). Over time, Henry has matured, seen both the good and the bad in the city he lives in, but never wavered from his determination to seek out the truth. Henry comes from a broken home, and he's always used that as fuel to motivate him. But in The Fury, that is tested more than ever when he learns that his past isn't exactly what he thought it was.
How much Pinter is in Parker?
There are bits and pieces of Henry that you might find in me. The standard line is that he's probably a little braver than I am. I do think we're both ambitious, a little naive and perhaps overly confident at times, and love the heck out of our respective industries despite the hardships they face. And I think we're both romantics at heart. I created Henry because I felt there weren't a whole lot of characters his (and my) age in crime fiction. Guys who were young enough yet mature enough to be both street smart and optimistic about things, who didn't have years and years of emotional baggage.
Prior to penning your debut thriller, The Mark, you were an editor at Random House, Warner, and St. Martin's. The Fury is your fourth book featuring Henry Parker, a journalist. Where did you get the background to write him with such authenticity?
I've worked in some degree or another in the media and entertainment industry for fifteen years. Whether it was scraping shipping labels off of boxes at a small film studio, reading scripts for Jon Stewart (yes, that Jon Stewart) or working the 3 am shift at the Associated Press, I feel like I know the media, news and entertainment beat pretty well. And I use all three in my books: Books in a way are very much entertainment. My character lives and breathes news, and I understand enough about the media to hopefully write about it with a sense of authenticity.
What did you learn as an editor that you carried into your career as a writer?
The three 'R's'. Read, Rite, and Revise. And use spellcheck. Revising is probably the most important part of the process. One of the most frequent questions I'm asked is how many drafts I write of my books. For The Mark, I believe I went through nine drafts before my agent even began submitting to publishers. As an aspiring author, you're competing for precious few spots against many, many other manuscripts. If your book hasn't been written and polished to the best of your ability, you've already shot yourself in the foot. Keep revising your book until you wouldn't change a single word. I know the despair and frustration of rejection, and the most productive thing an author can do if their work doesn't sell is to focus that emotion inward. Use it to make yourself a better writer. I find it incredibly therapeutic to write with a small chip on my shoulder. Another thing: speak your dialogue out loud. That helps me sound out words and bits that don't sound natural. If it doesn't sound like something a human being would actually say, revise it until it does.
The Fury is part one of a two-part Parker story that will conclude with The Darkness due out December 2009. I've heard you have a penchant for reading epics. Is this an epic cleverly separated into two books, or does THE FURY stand on its own?
Well, it's tricky because I always envisioned The Fury and The Darkness as being a two part series, but I'm well aware that readers expect to be able to jump right in. So with that in mind, I made sure that there was a definitive story that came to a conclusion in The Fury, where if readers read that alone they would be more than satisfied. And if they pick up The Darkness separately, they won't have had to read The Fury to dive in. That said, I do think reading both back-to-back will be a better overall experience, but I'm hoping readers enjoy these whether they read one, the other or (hopefully) both.
What's it like to have not one but two thrillers coming out nearly back to back?
It's exciting. I've been working on these books for a long time, and I can't wait for them to breath in stores around the world. I really do think they're the best ones yet in the series, but I'll be holding my breath as readers get their hands on them. I've tried to grow over the last few years as both a writer and a storyteller, and this is by far the most ambitious and timely story I've written. Once people finish them, I think they'll see a lot of parallels between the books and what's going on as we speak.
You've often mentioned L.A. Confidential as a source of inspiration and specifically the line "Bud White refused to die," and indeed your first novel The Mark opens with the main protagonist, Henry Parker having been shot and thinking he is about to die. What about L.A. Confidential carries such magic for you? What other inspiration can you cite for the premise of The Fury?
To me, it is one of the perfect crime novels, just a top-notch blend of fantastic, searing writing, a brilliant and propulsive plot, and a snapshot of an era from a unique perspective. I'm no Ellroy, but in these books I wanted to tell a story that, like L.A. Confidential, begins with a seemingly isolated crime that upon closer look is actually the tip of a much bigger and sinister iceberg. As well as that book, I drew a lot of inspiration from what's actually going on in America as well as around the world, specifically in regard to the economic crisis. It all stemmed from this question: how far would you go to stay on top? Meaning for the thousands of people making tons of money who lost their incomes--what would they do to keep that lifestyle? How far would they go? And I think the answer, scarily enough, will ring quite true.
The Mark dealt with the themes of our joint obsession with celebrity. How would you describe the theme of The Fury?
The Fury deals with first the issue of family, and whether you truly know how accurate your past is. Henry learns, brutally, of a lie he's been told his whole life that has finally come home to roost. And the second is greed, and the extent to which is can poison a person and, then, and entire society.
Your titles tend to have multiple meanings. The Mark is a new reporter, or an individual marked for death. The opening of The Fury carries the epigraph, "Beware the fury of a patient man." John Dryden. Should we be looking for double entendres in The Fury?
Let's just say there's a reason why this book is called The Fury, but like the book itself you won't know the answer until the whole story is told. Is that cryptic enough?
The Darkness hits the shelves in December, can you give us a sneak peek?
Sure thing! After the death of Henry Parker's brother, he must investigate what appears to be a massive underground drug syndicate that looks to be on the verge of setting New York back twenty five years. And when a man is found murdered, his bones crushed nearly to dust, Henry realizes that somebody is sending a deadly message. And that somebody just might have ties to his murdered brother.
Thanks so much for talking with us today, Jason!
Jason is the bestselling author of The Stolen, The Guilty, The Mark and now The Fury. He has been nominated for the Thriller award, the Strand Critics award, the Shamus award, the Barry award, the CrimeSpree award and the RT Booklovers Reviewers Choice award. Jason's weblog, "The Man in Black," was named one of the top mystery blogs by Library Journal and one of the top writing and publishing blogs by Associated Content, and in October he will begin as a Books columnist for the Huffington Post. His books have been published in over a dozen countries in numerous languages.
He lives in New York City with his wife Susan and their dog Wilson where he is at work on his next novel.
I'd like leave off with one of Pinter's favourite quotes by Chief Bromden in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, which I believe applies to The Fury.
"But it's the truth even if it didn't happen."
Michael F Stewart is the author of several graphic novels published by Oxford University Press Canada. 24 BONES is his debut supernatural thriller. His next novel, HURAKAN, will be released in early 2010. Michael lives and writes in Ottawa, Canada.
