We are delighted to welcome author Denison Hatch to Omnimystery News today.
Denison's debut thriller, the first in a new series, is Flash Crash (Lookout Press; April 2016 ebook format) and we recently had the opportunity to spend some time with him talking about it.
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Omnimystery News: How did you come up with the premise for Flash Crash?
Photo provided courtesy of
Denison Hatch
Denison Hatch: This novel began when I first learned about the job of a "quantitative programmer" on Wall Street. When most people think about Wall Street — myself included — I'm pretty sure they imagine the blue-blood, Ivy League-type. And I went to Cornell. I knew a lot of those guys. But what fascinated me much more than them was the fact that computers were starting to eat everyone's lunch. And big firms, and small secretive ones too, were no longer as interested in hiring the same old people that they used to hire. Now they were hiring PhDs, mathematics, and computer science majors.
The reason for this is that trading has become much more complicated than, as one of my characters says in the book, "Luck, spit and a handshake." But the thing is that change doesn't come easily, and the old hierarchy still reigned inside many banks. So you have these people, the quants, who are sort of like second-class citizens inside their institutions. But they were also critical to the bottom line of the bank. And you can imagine they might start getting mad about it …
So what I decided to do was set that up as the opening premise of my novel. The ultimate questions is: What would happen if a quantitative programmer went into his own bank one day, and he was a guy who got picked on all the time, and he decided — on this day — he was going to use an algorithm he'd written and intentionally crash the gold market?
OMN: Tell us a little more about your series lead, Jake Rivett.
DH: I always love to flip perception and established norms on their head. So, with Jake Rivett, I knew that I didn't want to guy who wore polyester suits and was your classic, hard-boiled detective. I think the truth of the modern world is that everyone, detectives included, have their work "identity" and that may be different from whom they really are when they are "off duty." Maybe this is a new dynamic, a millennial dynamic. But Jake Rivett certainly has his own escape: And that is he's the lead singer of a struggling Scream-o band. Maybe in another life he would have pursued that passion fully — but what's also refreshing about Jake is that he doesn't really try to put up a wall between who he really is and his job.
Jake is different from all of the other detectives in many ways, but one of the most prominent is his tactics. He essentially adopts the aggressive attitude of his Scream-o alter ego, all the time. That's what makes him special. There's a lot of rage inside of him, and in the book, the reader will eventually understand why Jake is this way. But his rage also becomes his secret weapon. It's what makes him impressive on stage, and what makes people do what he tells them to do while investigating cases.
Originally, Jake started out simply as a foil to my quant character, David Belov. But what I discovered over the course of the novel was that he had become the character that readers were really going to want to keep following. I've had middle-aged women on Goodreads call themselves "Rivett fangirl's" already — and that's incredible. Within the novel, he doesn't occupy your classic "detective" role either. He's both a detective, and a predator with his eyes set on David. You may not really like him at first, or wonder if he's good or bad. And that's the point. He keeps everyone — the reader included — on their toes. But that's also why he's the franchise man. He's the person that you'll want to keep reading about in future books.
OMN: How did you come to write the book?
DH: When I graduated from college, I had a double major in Film and Economics. I'd worked at a bank the summer after my junior year. I knew that the time was now to either "chase the dream" or take a desk job like David has in Flash Crash. So I drove across the country to Los Angeles, with no job, and less than a handful of connections or people I even knew. I started working in film development, first at Anonymous Content, then for a major screenwriter, and finally at Original Film (producers of the Fast & Furious franchise, Jump Street, etc.). I was writing the entire time on the side, just like Rivett does his singing — because I didn't want to simply be a film executive. I eventually was lucky enough to find myself representatives and sell a script called Vanish Man to Lionsgate. It's in development now, along with a few other projects I've written. But what I've discovered about the film industry is how long it takes to go from an idea to a movie. It can take twenty years — per project! So that's why I decided to branch out a bit and write books as well. I have much more control, and who knows, maybe we'll be able to sell them back to the studios eventually.
OMN: How do you see Jake evolving over the course of a series?
DH: You can rest assured that Jake Rivett is going to change quite a bit, both personally and professionally. I already have a six-book trajectory planned out. All I will say is that he won't even stay an NYPD detective for long. Somewhere around the end of book three, which is tentatively titled Mr. Massacre, Jake is going to be offered to get onto a private jet — and introduced to the world of international espionage. And just wait until he's in his own hellish, Heart of Darkness-like journey for book five. That one will be called One Thousand Dry Tears. But don't worry, every single book is going to have an insane mystery that Jake has to untangle.
OMN: How would you tweet a summary of Flash Crash?
DH: One algorithm: Executed. Four tons of gold: Gone. One quant: Suspected.
OMN: You mentioned a broad plan for the series, but when starting a new book, which comes first: the plot or the characters who will play key roles in the story?
DH: What I would say is that it's never beneficial to hold to a "hard" rule. In the eighties and nineties, authors started with plot. Lately, character has been paramount. But both are absolutely required — so whether you start with one or the other doesn't really matter. I find myself often beginning, like I did in Flash Crash, with a character that is drawn directly out of the modern zeitgeist. Someone who does something very interesting, and very fresh. What type of person is that? What type of person is, for example, a drone operator? A quant programmer? Someone who specializes in erasing online identities? These are the types of fresh, interesting characters that also happen to come with their own world attached.
OMN: What is the best advice you've received as an author?
DH: Put words on the page every single day (or at least five days a week.) The solution to both writer's block and a career is to write. You can't call yourself a "writer" if you are not writing — it's that simple. The other writers that I know personally, who are successful, don't stop at one, or two, or three scripts or books. You have to view your career as a constant, perpetual process. You can't fall in love with any idea, because by the definition of the perpetual process, you will always need to move onto the next one, no matter how good the last one was. So, I hate to say it, but don't be the person with the "one great story" that you've been dying to tell for ten years but haven't put to paper. That's not a writer, that's just someone out there in the world. Writer's write.
OMN: What kinds of books did you read when you were young?
DH: One interesting fact about myself is that I grew up without a television. There was no TV in our house — it was a philosophical decision my parents made very early on. So yes, boy did I read a lot. It was my only way of developing my imagination, and probably the best thing that ever happened to me. As I read more, I also began to read very quickly. And so I devoured books. When I would read John Grisham, I didn't just read The Firm, I literally read every single published John Gristham book, etc.
The books that I read as a child definitely influenced the genre that I love. I read everything, but I really loved thrillers and mysteries. It started with the Hardy Boys, then I was given the entire Sherlock Holmes collection. Then I moved into John Grisham and Tom Clancy and Ken Follett and continued from there.
OMN: Create a Top 5 list for us on any topic.
DH: Top 5 favorite books:
Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson.
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson.
Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates.
Hollywood by Charles Bukowski.
Kane and Abel by Jeffrey Archer.
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Denison Hatch is a screenwriter and novelist based in Los Angeles. Although he lives in the proverbial desert now, he is originally from Delaware — land of rolling hills, forested valleys, and DuPont gunpowder. Denison has a number of feature and television projects in development, including his original screenplay, Vanish Man, which is set up at Lionsgate. A graduate of Cornell University who worked in film development before becoming a full-time writer, Denison lives with his fiancé in a little house in Hollywood.
For more information about the author, please visit his website at DenisonHatch.com and his author page on Goodreads, or find him on Facebook and Twitter.
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Flash Crash by Denison Hatch
A Jake Rivett Heist Thriller
Publisher: Lookout Press
David Belov, a quant programmer working for an investment bank in New York, is blackmailed into writing an algorithm that will intentionally crash the gold market.
David discovers that his virtual "Flash Crash" was simply a required stepping stone towards the largest physical gold robbery in history, and that's he's been framed for the resulting chaos, the lives of his beloved wife and son on the balance …
With Detective Jake Rivett and the NYPD's finest operators from the Major Crimes Division actively seeking to locate and arrest David, and other, darker elements nipping at his heels, David is forced to confront his own past in order to have a future.
— Flash Crash by Denison Hatch
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