with David Dean
We are delighted to welcome novelist David Dean to Omnimystery News today.
David's latest novel of suspense is The Thirteenth Child (Genius Book Publishing; October 2012 trade paperback and ebook formats), and we recently had a chance to catch up with the author to talk about the book.
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Omnimystery News: We introduced The Thirteenth Child as a novel of suspense. Is that how you would classify it?
Photo provided courtesy of
David Dean
David Dean: No, not really. The Thirteenth Child is a horror novel, though much of it plays out as a police procedural and there's certainly lots of suspense. Before writing TTC I wrote mystery and suspense stories almost exclusively which, I guess, explains why I'm comfortable with the procedural format — the fact that I was a police officer for 25 years didn't hurt either. Even so, I wouldn't categorize the book as a cross-over, as the horror elements prevail throughout.
OMN: Do you find there are advantages or disadvantages to labeling the book as horror?
DD: Firstly, as my meager reputation has been built in the mystery/suspense short story market, I'm not bringing an audience with me necessarily — many mystery readers will not cross the line to horror, or vice-versa for that matter. Personally, I've never had a problem with it. I take my cue from the patron saint of both genres — Edgar Allan Poe. If it was good enough for E.A. it's good enough for me. The only real advantage to the horror label I see is that fans of horror are a ravenous bunch, and I'm hoping they will put TTC on their menu.
OMN: You mentioned you were a police officer for 25 years. How much of your professional experience did you incorporate into the book?
DD: A good deal of my police experience went into The Thirteenth Child, though, like most fiction writers, I took certain liberties in order to keep the story moving forward at a good clip. One of the lead characters, Nick Catesby, is a police chief of the town in which the story takes place. I was also a police chief for the last five years of my career. It would be nice to say that I patterned Nick completely on myself, but in order for that to be true he would need to be smarter and better looking.
OMN: Does the setting of the book, Wessex Township, New Jersey really exist?
DD: Wessex Township doesn't appear on any map of New Jersey that I know of, but it does a have close counterpart in the town that I live in. Originally, I set the story in the real world, but as I was working my way through it became apparent to me that I needed the freedom to create some geography for a more coherent narrative. So I conjured the doppelgänger of Wessex Township. It incorporates the spookiest elements of my hometown (of which there are many) and preserves them in a place of my own creation. The overall setting remains in Southern Jersey, a place far removed from the Sopranos and Snooki. This is the land of the great Pine Barrens, barrier islands, salt marshes and lonely stretches of beach along the Delaware Bay. It was the home to the Lenape Indians and some of the earliest European settlements in North America. The source of both pirate legends and the Jersey Devil.
OMN: What kinds of books did you read when you were young? And did any of these influence your work as a writer?
DD: My earliest influences were Robert Heinlein, Ray Bradbury, Richard Matheson and Edgar Allan Poe. I couldn't get enough. Later, I would discover H.P. Lovecraft, Oscar Wilde, Flannery O'Connor, Ruth Rendell and Graham Greene. It was their writing, as well as that of many, many others that got me to reading in the first place. Without that I would never have progressed to writing. As for their influence on my own fiction, it's both pervasive and difficult to pinpoint at the same time. Certainly atmosphere and setting play a very large part in my stories and novels, so Poe and Lovecraft would undoubtedly get a nod for that. While Greene, Rendell, and O'Connor taught me a lot about character development and plotting.
OMN: What are some of your outside interests? Do any of these find their way into your stories?
DD: Besides the obvious answer of reading, I also like to nature walk, logging two to four miles a day on some very nice biking and walking trails in the area. We're lucky to live at migratory point for birds crossing the Delaware Bay and get to see everything from Peregrine Falcons to the occasional Golden Eagle. Being sandwiched between the Atlantic Ocean and the Delaware Bay I also do a little fair weather sailing in my kayak. I served in the army for seven years and still retain a love of military history. As to the second half of your question, nature plays a role in many, many of my stories beyond that of being merely a setting, sometimes becoming almost a character. In fact, in one story I wrote for Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, titled "Natural Causes", the plot revolved a man who was convinced that nature herself wanted him dead. In another, "Ibrahim's Eyes", my military background played into a story about a young Marine in Lebanon during the 1983 peacekeeping mission. And I'm currently completing an action-thriller novel, tentatively titled Starvation Cay that plays out largely on board boats. No experience is ever wasted, I think.
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David Dean's short stories have appeared regularly in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, as well as a number of anthologies, since 1990. His stories have been nominated for the Shamus, Barry, and Derringer Awards and "Ibrahim's Eyes" won the EQMM Readers Award for 2007. His story "Tomorrow's Dead" was a finalist for the Edgar for best short story of 2011. He is a retired Chief of Police in New Jersey and once served as a paratrooper with the 82nd Airborne Division.
To learn more about the author and his work, find him on Goodreads or Facebook.
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The Thirteenth Child
David Dean
A Novel of Horror
The Snow Boy is a phantom to be greatly feared — when he is known to be in the area, a child is sure to vanish.
Police Chief Nick Catesby is haunted by the unsolved disappearance of a young boy from his small, peaceful New Jersey town seven years before. The nightmare begins anew when a little girl goes missing, followed quickly by two teenaged boys. Nick has only one suspect, disgraced professor and town drunk Preston Howard, whose arrogance has left him with nothing more than his pride, a sea of whiskey, and his only daughter, with whom Nick is falling in love.
Preston insists that he is not a suspect but a witness to a strange and terrifying boy who only appears between dusk and dawn. Nick regards the story as the rantings of an alcoholic, but sightings of the boy lead to a trail of missing and murdered children going back three centuries, Nick and Preston are plunged into a race to save the children of Wessex Township — and the woman they both love.
