Gotta love those Q&As

And let’s start over at Powells.com, the online arm of the independent bookstore chain, where Ian Rankin gives seriously good interview. He talks about most of the usual things — Rebus’s origins, the fate of the series, his massively growing CD collection, but also gets into why crime writers are so collegial:

There are not that many of us — well there are a few hundred — but   not really that many, and we do tend to meet up and get to know each other in   a way that is not always true of the literary novel. I don’t find the same backstabbing and bitching that you do in the literary novel world. Usually when crime writers   get together they get on great. They’ll help each other when they possibly can.

I’m touring with Peter Robinson when I come to the states because we’re good mates and we’ve known each other for donkey’s years, and we share the same taste in beer and the same taste in music, so we’re doing a lot of gigs together this trip. And you know, I don’t think you’d get Salman Rushdie and Martin Amis touring together — probably not. Norman Mailer and John Updike? You just can’t imagine these things happening. So it is quite nice having that sort of community. And if we can’t meet, quite a lot of us keep in touch by email.

George Pelecanos is here in April and I’m desperately trying to arrange that we can meet up. And if Michael Connelly comes into town I’ll try to take him out for dinner. Many of these crime writers have at one time or another been treated to a drink at the Oxford Bar by me because it is a real bar and it is slap bang right next to where we have our book festival in August each year.

Actually, I think it would be hilarious if two literary writers who detested each other in print had to, I dunno, suddenly share an apartment. The Odd Couple — the literary edition!

Before I get to the second interview, Rankin also appears in today’s edition of the Scotsman, talking about how weird it is to reread his own books — and realize he forgot who did it in some of them!

"I’m reading through all my old books as research for this new book, which is bizarre because it’s the first time I’ve ever read them. Normally, they get published and that’s the end of it, I’ve got another one to do.

"It’s interesting too, because I’m three quarters of the way through The Hanging Garden and I don’t know how it ends, I can’t remember. I had to do it because it is the first time I have ever written a non-fiction book. It will be partly my autobiography and partly Rebus’ biography.

"It will be predominantly for Rebus fans, but I suppose also for people who don’t know Scotland. It will be a way to separate fact from fiction and will explain why I have written the way I have about certain places in the novels and will explain some of the in-jokes in the novels that very few people know about. There are so many things in Rebus based on my own life and experiences. The description of Nairn in one of the books, for example, is based on the holidays we used to have there.

"Another thing is that the guy who until recently owned the Oxford Bar, John Gates, is actually the city pathologist Professor Gates in the novels. You wouldn’t know that unless you drank in the Oxford Bar."

He wants to finish writing REBUS’S SCOTLAND before the Edinburgh book festival, but it might be later — since, typically, he hasn’t started writing it yet…

But moving on, James W. Hall knows a different side of the crime world, as he’s both a writer of seriously good novels (like his current standalone FORESTS OF THE NIGHT) and a professor at Florida International University. Kevin Burton Smith caught up with Hall, and the resulting interview at January Magazine reveals all sorts of goodies about craft, who he’s taught, and Hall’s current project: a book about the common traits of bestsellers:

And now, I understand, you’re doing your own non-fiction book, on — what else? — writing. How’s that going?

I’m slogging my way through. It’s not like anything I’ve ever written before. It’s based on a course I’ve taught several times over the years, on the biggest best-sellers of all time: Gone With the Wind, Jaws, Valley of the Dolls, The Godfather, The Exorcist, ToKill a Mockingbird, etc. and what all these very          different books have in common.

The DaVinci Code?

Didn’t care much for it, actually. “His eyes were wide as saucers. His jaw dropped.” I like my potboilers with less clichés.

And yet, Dan Brown’s novel has sold skedillions of copies. What do you think is its appeal?

Mega-skedillions, actually. I’m not going to give away any of the 12 recurring features of best-sellers (yet), but rest assured, The DaVinci Code has all of them — in spades. As you might guess, one of those recurring features is not stylistic gracefulness. ****But I  can tell you this — the biggest best-sellers all share a fixed set of common denominators that are so similar, it’s scary.

It’s been fun to research this book, but man, writing it is tough. I really don’t want it to sound academic or stodgy or snooty, so finding the right tone and sustaining it is the hardest part.

Whenever that book’s ready, I’ll definitely be in line to buy it, even though I doubt very highly I’ll ever be able to write a bestseller..

(thanks to SC for the first link)