New interview with mystery novelist Ed Duncan

Novelist Ed Duncan is back for a visit! Today we’re chatting about his new crime thriller, The Last Straw

Bio:

Ed Duncan is a graduate of Oberlin College and Northwestern University Law School. He was a partner at a national law firm in Cleveland, Ohio for many years. He currently lives outside of Cleveland, OH and is at work on the third installment in the Pigeon-Blood Red series.

Welcome back to Reviews and Interviews, Ed. Please tell us about your newest release.

In this novel, a teenage girl witnesses a carjacking gone bad. As a result, she is marked for death by a crime boss with no apparent motive. A black partner at a large law firm, who is a friend of the family, and a white enforcer who have an unlikely history together forge an uneasy alliance to protect the girl from a hit man with an agenda of his own.

What inspired you to write this book?

The Last Straw is the second installment in the trilogy that began with Pigeon-Blood Red. (On Amazon and elsewhere the three books are collectively referred to as the Pigeon-Blood Red trilogy.) The last in the series will be called Rico Stays. Since I decided very early that I would write at least a trilogy involving the same main characters, the inspiration for the second novel is essentially that same as that for the first in the trilogy. 

I was attending a legal seminar in Honolulu in the mid-90's when one evening the germ of fan idea came to me. In my mind's eye I saw a beautiful, mysterious woman traveling alone and carrying something valuable that bad people -- dangerous people -- were trying to get their hands on, and I saw a lawyer coming to her rescue. That was all I knew about the novel I hoped to write. I had the inspiration and now all I needed was the time to write. Alas, I did not get that until I retired.

Over the months and years that followed the initial inspiration, I filled in details, many of which changed as a result of the many drafts and re-drafts. The "something" the woman was carrying became a priceless necklace. After I settled on jewelry as the "McGuffin," to use Hitchcock's phrase, I searched the library (pre-Google days) for something exotic and discovered the phrase "pigeon-blood red" which, of course, was coined by Indian gem dealers centuries ago and describes the color of the rarest and most valuable rubies in the world, the same color as the first two drops of blood that trickle from the nostrils of a freshly killed pigeon.

I determined early on that the woman in danger, Evelyn (unlike her namesake in the movie Chinatown), would not be a femme fatale and instead would be an innocent victim. The hardest part of the novel was figuring out how to get the purloined necklace into her hands without her knowing it was stolen and how to get the pivotal characters from Chicago to Honolulu, the two places where I wanted the action to take place, without the plot appearing to be contrived.

What is your biggest challenge when writing a new book? (or with writing this book)

My main characters are Rico, a white hit man/enforcer, and Paul, a black partner in a large law firm headquartered in Chicago. The biggest challenge for all three novels has been to dream up a plot that causes these characters to cross paths in an interesting and realistic way where each has an impact on the life of the other and on the lives of their significant others, respectively Jean, a high end call girl/prostitute, and Evelyn, a college professor. Obviously, the lives of these characters would not normally intersect at all, let alone three times (or more if I decide to extend the series). I'm very pleased with the ultimate results, but getting there has been, as you say in your question, a challenge.

If your novels require research, please talk about the process. Do you do the research first and then write, while you're writing, after the novel is complete and you need to fill in the gaps?

In Pigeon-Blood Red, as mentioned earlier, I had to research the origin and history of "pigeon-blood red" rubies, which turned out to be fascinating. I did that research before I started writing because I wanted to find something interesting and exotic if possible that I knew I would be able to write about. Incidentally, in the novel I gave a figure for the most expensive rubies sold at auction as of the writing of the novel, which of course I researched. Before it was published, however, I read about a more expensive ruby that had sold at auction between the time I finished the novel and its publication. Fortunately, I had time to change the novel to use the most recent valuation. Also, Rico, the hit man in the novels, uses a particular hand gun that I wanted to be the best and most expensive of its kind. From the research I did (again, in advance) that gun turned out to be a Sig Sauer, known in some circles as the Cadillac of hand guns. I had never heard of it before I did the research, however.

What's your writing space like? Do you have a particular spot to write where the muse is more active? Please tell us about it.

I write my first draft in long hand on a white legal pad. Mostly that occurs on a narrow table that separates my kitchen from the family room. Because I live alone, I don't have any distractions. My computer is upstairs in my study. That is where I transfer my first draft to a Word document, which of course goes through a number of additional drafts. There is nothing particularly unusual about either space, except that study has a more comfortable chair. It's the one I used when I was still practicing law. It's a high back leather chair with arm rests. It swivels and allows me to slide across the floor on a plastic pad to look at files behind me and to my right without having to stand. It's also easier to fall asleep in than the one downstairs!

What authors do you enjoy reading within or outside of your genre?

Authors within my genre that I enjoy reading include Dashiell Hammett, Lee Child, Dennis Lehane, Scott Turow and Walter Mosley. Outside my genre they include Ernest Hemingway, James Jones, Somerset Maugham, Richard Wright, Ken Follett, and Theodore Dreiser.

What's the next writing project?

The next writing project is the third in my trilogy, Rico Stays. In it Paul and Rico lock horns with killers seeking revenge against Rico, and this time Rico, recovering from multiple gunshot wounds, reluctantly accepts help from Paul.

Anything additional you want to share with the readers today?

Screenplays have been written for each of the three novels. (I have yet to write the third novel, but in this case the screenplay was written first). I collaborated on the first two scripts and wrote the third alone. I'm trying to interest producers in getting one or more made into a movie for the screen or television. The odds of success are long but I intend to keep trying!

Thanks for your questions!

To learn more, go to my website. Readers can connect with me on Facebook, Twitter, and Goodreads.

Thanks for stopping in, Ed. All the best with your writing!

Interview with crime thriller author Ed Duncan

Kicking off a holiday week with an interview with Ed Duncan about his crime thriller Pigeon-Blood Red.

Bio:

Ed Duncan is a graduate of Oberlin College and Northwestern University Law School. He was a partner at a national law firm in Cleveland, Ohio for many years. He currently lives outside of Cleveland, OH and is at work on the second installment in the Pigeon-Blood Red trilogy.

Welcome, Ed. Please tell us about your current release.

Set in Chicago and Honolulu, Pigeon-Blood Red tells the story of an underworld enforcer's pursuit of a man who stole a "pigeon-blood red" ruby necklace worth millions, and it describes the effect the chase ultimately has on the enforcer and on a couple of innocent bystanders who accidentally become embroiled in the crime. The hardened hitman is faced with a dilemma when he develops a grudging respect for the couple, the thief's estranged wife who is oblivious to his crime, and an old flame who comes to her rescue. His dilemma? He is ordered to kill the couple and if he does not, he will endanger the life of the woman he loves.

What inspired you to write this book?

I had been a practicing lawyer at a national law firm for about twenty years when the idea of the novel first came to me. I was attending a legal seminar in Honolulu. One evening after dinner I sat on a bench outside to admire the lush grounds of the hotel, and the kernel of an idea sprang to mind. What if a lawyer on holiday in Honolulu, or attending a seminar, as I was, had a chance encounter with a mysterious woman who was both attractive and vulnerable? And what if the woman was running for her life from some unknown danger? And, finally, what if the lawyer, against great odds, managed to save her?

In my novel the lawyer, Paul Elliott, became the old flame and the mysterious woman, Evelyn Rogers, became the estranged wife. The underworld enforcer became Rico, a killer with a conscience. And, of course, the unknown danger was that Evelyn's husband had stolen the priceless ruby necklace, thereby unwittingly marking her and Paul for death. The odd thing was, though, that Rico's character is so interesting that it was a struggle to keep him from becoming the central focus of a story whose main character I had meant to be Paul, the lawyer and my alter ego. I think I was successful in reining him in somewhat, but you'll have to read the novel to see whether you agree.

What exciting story are you working on next?

Right now, the sequel to Pigeon-Blood Red (no title yet), which was always meant to be the first in a trilogy. The third installment is an unproduced screenplay (also untitled) I wrote that I'll convert to a novel.

How did the third installment start out as a screenplay? 

While I was waiting to get Pigeon-Blood Red published, I converted that novel and the next installment in the trilogy into screenplays. Then, rather than beginning with a novel that I would turn into a script, I thought it would be interesting to start with the script, so that's what I did with the third installment in the trilogy. Maybe one day one of the three novels will generate interest in one of the screenplays or vice versa -- at least that's the plan.

When did you first consider yourself a writer?

In the last years of my legal practice, I wrote a text for lawyers and judges called "Ohio Insurance Coverage" and I supplied annual updates for five years. I suppose I could have considered myself a writer at that point. However, it was only upon publication of Pigeon-Blood Red in February of this year that I actually thought of myself as a writer. Writing the legal text was part of my job as a lawyer. Writing my novel was my vocation as an author.

I retired from my law firm in 2012 to write and travel. Since then I've traveled outside the U.S. at least once a year and sometimes twice. Next up is South Africa this fall and Hawaii the following spring. I hope to dream up some new ideas for novels during one or both trips. In the meantime, I've already written a draft of the sequel to Pigeon-Blood Red.

Do you write full-time? If so, what's your work day like? If not, what do you do other than write and how do you find time to write?

Since I'm retired, I don't force myself into a regular writing schedule. I write when I feel like it and it's much easier to do when it's raining in the summertime or anytime in the winter. After my trilogy is complete, I'll probably shoehorn myself into a schedule of sorts but right now I don't feel the need to do so.

What would you say is your interesting writing quirk?

I'm not sure you would call it a quirk, but I write sections of my novels (of varying length depending on my mood) out in long hand, and then I do multiple revisions of each section before transferring it to my computer. I have the impression (perhaps mistaken) that most writers today have abandoned long hand as their starting point. By the time I've finished with the revisions, no one can read my draft except me and sometimes even I have trouble following all of the inserts and deletions.

As a child, what did you want to be when you grew up?

When I was a child I think the first thing I wanted to be when I grew up was a cowboy. My father and mother and all of my brothers were big western fans, and we watched westerns on television -- both regular series and movies -- religiously. My favorite series were "Have Gun Will Travel" and "Wanted Dead or Alive," and my favorite movie was "Shane." I'm certain some of the traits of the heroes and villains in those TV shows and movies have found their way into the Paul and Rico characters in my novel.

Anything additional you want to share with the readers?

One of my biggest influences as a writer is film noir and the novels on which many of the best of those films are based. Perhaps the novel and film of the same name that has influenced me the most is "The Maltese Falcon." The movie took much of the dialogue directly from Dashiell Hammett's novel, which is one of the reasons the movie is so good. If I ever even approached Hammett's masterful use of dialogue, I would be one happy camper.

Links:

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Thanks for being here today, Ed! All the best with your writing.