A Conversation with Novelist Warren Adler

with Warren Adler

We are delighted to welcome novelist Warren Adler to Omnimystery News today.

In 1982 Warren introduced Washington DC homicide detective Fiona Fitzgerald in American Quartet, which was reissued earlier this year by Stonehouse Press in digital format.

Currently in development for the author is the Hollywood sequel to The War of the Roses — The War of the Roses: The Children, along with other projects including Capitol Crimes, a television series based on his Fiona Fitzgerald mystery novels as well as a feature film based on his WWII thriller co-written with James Humes, Target Churchill, in association with Myles Nestel and Lisa Wilson of The Solution Entertainment Group.

Warren has a new mystery in the Fiona Fitzgerald series coming out later this year — Red Herring — and we had the chance to catch up with him to talk about both the series and his work in general.

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Omnimystery News: How would you categorize your novels?

Photo provided courtesy of
Warren Adler

Warren Adler: My work has covered a full spectrum of the genres, but I would generally categorize my work as literary fiction. Being outside of a genre category represents a challenging marketing problem for my work. Even my Fiona Fitzgerald mystery series, although categorized as "mystery" or a "police procedural" is outside the traditional genre definition. Nevertheless, I have a pretty good survival record, and am still in the game.

OMN: Are the characters in your books based on people you know?

WA: Of course they are. All of my stories come from my biography, my experiences, and my observations of people/events around me. For the passionate novelist every observation, every person he/she meets, every episode in his/her life, every thought, memory, reflection and cogitation is geared, consciously or subconsciously, to the concept of what will make a story. For example my works like the Henderson Equation, We Are Holding the President Hostage, my Fiona Fitzgerald series and many others are set in Washington D.C. where I lived for about 30 years, and New York Echoes (and New York Echoes 2), Banquet Before Dawn, The Housewife Blues and others are set in New York City. When they come together in a writer's subconscious they are driven by imagination.

OMN: Describe your writing process for us.

WA: Writing a novel is like life. It is unpredictable. As a consequence, I can't outline. I never really outline plots and there is no detailed synopsis from which I expand. My writing always begins when a character is conceived. That character begins to work out his or her own destiny and it is ultimately the journey of the characters that drives the plot — they are constantly expanding. Clarity, simplicity and rhythm are my style watchwords. A story must move the reader to turn the page. Once I get the rhythm, I am off and running.

OMN: How do you go about researching the plot points of your stories? Any particularly exciting or challenging topics?

WA: Well, we can take my novel Trans-Siberian Express as a great example of an exciting topic I researched. I studied the history of the Trans-Siberian Railroad, which began construction at the turn of the century, 1891 to be exact, and I delved into all the literature of Siberia that I could find.

In those days, a writer could roam the stacks of the Library of Congress, and I was able to tap into their vast supply of titles that were germane to the subject. I visited with experts on train travel with specific reference to the Trans-Siberian, how their carriages were configured, how the on-board service in all classes were carried out, what cities were on the route, what their stations looked like, the climate in Siberia, and ferreted out as much material as I could gather on the mind-set of the Russian people and their leaders. You can read more about it on Publishing Perspectives.

OMN: In a novel like Trans-Siberian Express, how true are you to the setting?

WA: I am true to the geography and local environment — these are the details from which I derive a tremendous amount of inspiration and they are also paramount in shaping my characters. I had to recreate the journey through my imagination, but I was dedicated to research and geographical accuracy, which would give it authenticity.

OMN: What is the best advice you've received as an author?

WA: Write. Write. Write. And Read. Read. Read. The more you write and the more you read the work of others, the better will be your own performance. If you are a true writer you will never give up, no matter how many rejections and bad reviews you might receive. I've had them both.

OMN: And what advice might you offer aspiring writers?

WA: This advice is not recommended for the faint of heart. Never give up. It may be impractical, unwise, foolish, pure madness, but if you truly believe in yourself, your talent, your ideas, your calling, your personal mission, why not, as Lewis Carroll wrote, "go on until the end, and then stop."

OMN: What kinds of books did you read as a child? And did any of them influence how and what you write today?

WA: The works I read most as a child certainly had an influence on the kinds of books I write today; My Mother got her latest novels from back of the store lending libraries for a few cents a day. Perhaps seeing my mother at her favorite pastime encouraged my own reading habits. I haunted the children's library on Stone Avenue in Brooklyn, NY, and must have cleared whole shelves of books for boys, mostly serials like the Boy Allies, The Hardy Boys, Bomba the Jungle Boy, The Rover Boys, and gobbled up the books of Robert Louis Stevenson.

OMN: And what do you read now for pleasure?

WA: For pleasure I read the mystery category. A writer who is of great influence to me is Georges Simenon who wrote more than 300 novels. He wrote both mysteries and mainstream psychological novels. My all-time favorite is the marvelous Ruth Rendell (who also writes under the name of Barbara Vine. In my opinion Ruth is the best mystery writer in the English language still writing today. I have also read classics like Stendhal's The Red and the Black many times over.

OMN: Many readers possibly know you best for your novel The War of the Roses, which was adapted into the film of the same title and starring Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner. Looking at it from the other perspective, have any films you've seen given you inspiration for a novel?

WA: I cannot trace any films to have inspired my books. But there are films that have lingered in my mind. For example, Brief Encounter, the early version of this Noel Coward piece with Celia Johnson is my all time favorite. Next would be Lawrence of Arabia with Peter O'Toole, who along with Michael Caine and Cary Grant and Gary Cooper are my favorite actors. Note the generational hiccup. The third all time favorite is High Noon, starring Gary Cooper.

OMN: What's next for you?

WA: About my upcoming works — keep watching! My newest book, Red Herring, which will be the 9th book in my Fiona Fitzgerald Mystery Series, is going to be released this year and writer Alex McAuley will adapt for Permut Presentations and Grey Eagle Productions the novel War of the Roses: The Children, the sequel to The War of the Roses.

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Warren Adler is an author, playwright, poet, and essayist. With over 40 years of an insider's view of the exclusive domain of the nation's political elite, Adler writes with a unique insight and command rendering him an invaluable voice in the evolving American experience, and a trademark in American literature.

For more information about the author, please visit website at WarrenAdler.com or find on Facebook and Twitter.

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American Quartet
Warren Adler
A Fiona Fitzgerald Mystery

Detective Fiona Fitzgerald is an unlikely force for justice in Washington D.C.'s predominantly male police force. As a Senator's daughter and top investigator in the homicide division of the Metropolitan Police Department, Fiona maneuvers between two vastly different worlds, moving quickly from opulent State galas to gritty crime scenes. Born into the elite social circles of the nation's capital, and armed with intimate knowledge of the true face of the political establishment, Fiona is determined to expose the chicanery concealed within the highest echelons of the American political aristocracy.

When a string of inexplicable murders rocks the hallowed streets of central D.C., Fiona finds herself charging through shadows of a mysterious conspiracy. Faced with an investigation with no leads and a rising body count, Fiona's reputation as top investigator of the Miami Division is called into question.

At the brink of professional ruin, an encounter with the eccentric yet charismatic Thaddeus Remington III at his museum-like mansion sends Fiona hurtling headlong through a whirlwind of clues. Where once the desperate detective blundered through traceless footsteps of a triple murderer, the answers to her case now seem to be whispered from bloodstained graves of fallen Presidents. Fiona stands ready, her finger on the trigger, as an assassination plot decades in the making is about to change history forever.