with Douglas Corleone
We are delighted to welcome mystery author Douglas Corleone to Omnimystery News today.
Doug is the author of the Kevin Corvelli mysteries but his latest book, Good As Gone (Minotaur Books; August 2013 hardcover and ebook formats), introduces a new series character, Simon Fisk.
We recently had the opportunity to ask Doug a few questions about his new book.
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Omnimystery News: Simon Fisk is your second series character. What is it about series mysteries and thrillers that appeals to you?
Photo provided courtesy of
Douglas Corleone
Douglas Corleone: I actually chose to write a series specifically so that I could explore the changes in my character over time. Simon Fisk is a formal U.S. Marshal with a painful history. Ten years before the events in Good As Gone take place, his own young daughter was abducted while he was working overseas. Shortly after he returned, his wife Tasha committed suicide. So, as you can imagine, Simon Fisk is wracked not only with grief but with guilt, a theme which I deal with personally and which I've used in previous books. It becomes clear within the first few chapters of Good As Gone that Simon Fisk's ultimate personal goal is redemption. He can't help but wonder whether he could have protected his daughter if he hadn't requested assignments overseas; whether he could have done more to find his daughter in the days immediately following her abduction; and whether he could have prevented his wife's suicide if he'd been less stoic. It's evident early on in Good As Gone that Simon is obsessive about his current work, which is retrieving missing and abducted children. Whether Simon realizes it or not, his obsession in searching for the little girl abducted from her parents' hotel room in Paris is really an extension of his obsession in searching for personal redemption. That's a journey that can't be adequately explored in a single book; it's a journey that, I suspect, will last a lifetime.
OMN: Into what genre would you place Good As Gone?
DC: I categorize Good As Gone as an international thriller, and I think that term conveys that it's a story with action, suspense, and mystery. There are definite advantages in categorizing books, but I think it helps to go a little further. Pan Macmillan, my Australian publisher, placed two blurbs on the cover of their trade paperback edition. One says, "If you love the Jason Bourne and Taken films, you'll love this book!" In addition to getting Bourne lovers excited about Good As Gone, I think that description goes a long way in telling potential readers what to expect. The second blurb is from The Pack author Jason Starr, who generously said that Good As Gone "propels Douglas Corleone into Lee Child territory. Yeah, it's that good." While I wouldn't dare to compare myself to Lee Child, or Simon Fisk to Jack Reacher, I do think the blurb helps to foreshadow and highlight what type of series this will be — a series about a lone wolf without a true home searching for something deep within by coming to the rescue of those who need it. Lee Child is one of my favorite authors and his Jack Reacher series largely inspired Good As Gone. That a talent like Jason Starr recognized any similarity is a wonderful compliment, and I hope it further conveys to readers what they can expect from this series.
OMN: If you were tweeting a desciption of Good As Gone to a potential reader, what would you say?
DC: Haunted by his daughter's disappearance years ago Simon Fisk races across Europe to find a child taken from her parents' hotel room in Paris.
OMN: The cover features an image of the Eiffel Tower, but we know the book is set throughout Europe. How true are you to the settings?
DC: I try to be as true to a setting's geography and environment as possible. But I won't hesitate to take liberties if it will further the story. The cities in Good As Gone play a pivotal role in the plot; they're almost like characters themselves. I know Paris fairly well, so I was confident I got it right. But it was just as important for me to get Berlin and Warsaw and other cities in the story right as well. Some of the places I hadn't been to in years; some not at all. So when the book sold to publishers in Germany and Poland, it was a great source of pride. I probably do more research with respect to setting than anything else. And I pretty much enjoy every minute of it.
OMN: You mentioned that Jack Reacher was an inspiration for Simon Fisk. What other series characters are among your favorites?
DC: In addition to Lee Child's Jack Reacher series, there are several series characters that I follow religiously. Jeff Abbott's Sam Capra had me hooked from the first book, Adrenaline. I'm a former defense attorney and I follow a number of legal series, including Steve Martini's Paul Madriani series, David Ellis's Jason Kolarich, James Grippando's Jack Swytek, John Lescroart's Dismas Hardy, and David Rosenfelt's hilarious Andy Carpenter series, to name a few.
OMN: What's next for you?
DC: The second book in the Simon Fisk series Payoff will be released in 2014.
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Douglas Corleons's debut novel One Man's Paradise was a finalist for the 2010 Shamus Award for Best First Novel and won the 2009 Minotaur Books / Mystery Writers of America First Crime Novel Award. A former New York City criminal defense attorney, Doug now resides in the Hawaiian Islands. For more information about the author and his work, please visit his website at DouglasCorleone.com or find him on Facebook and Twitter.
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Good As Gone
Douglas Corleone
A Simon Fisk Thriller
Former U.S. Marshal Simon Fisk works as a private contractor, tracking down and recovering children who were kidnapped by their own estranged parents. He only has one rule: he won't touch stranger abduction cases. He's still haunted by the disappearance of his own daughter when she was just a child, still unsolved, and stranger kidnappings hit too close to home.
Until, that is, six-year-old Lindsay Sorkin disappears from her parents' hotel room in Paris, and the French police deliver Simon an ultimatum: he can spend years in a French jail, or he can take the case and recover the missing girl. Simon sets out in pursuit of Lindsay and the truth behind her disappearance. But Lindsay's captors did not leave an easy trail, and following it will take Simon across the continent, through the ritziest nightclubs and the seediest back alleys, into a terrifying world of international intrigue and dark corners of his past he'd rather leave well alone.
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