with Terry Irving
We are delighted to welcome novelist Terry Irving to Omnimystery News today, courtesy of JKSCommunications, which is coordinating his current book tour. We encourage you to visit all of the participating host sites; you can find his schedule here.
Terry's debut thriller is Courier (Exhibit A; April 2014 mass market paperback and ebook formats), in which a news courier and Vietnam veteran escapes his nightmares by pushing his motorcycle to the limit–but is it fast enough to escape a death squad?
We recently had a chance to speak with Terry about his book.
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Omnimystery News: We used the catch-all "thriller" to describe your new book, Courier. How do you categorize it?
Photo provided courtesy of
Terry Irving
Terry Irving: I originally set out to write a book that would fit into an airport book kiosk and people would grab it to get them through a long flight. I haven't found a genre for that yet so I've been calling Courier a political/motorcycle thriller. Oddly only one person online has asked what that meant and I responded that he would just have to buy it and see.
(This reminds me of when I was the Executive Producer of the Imus on MSNBC program and we developed a graphics look that was half Navajo Indian and half mystical. In particular, we had a tape recorder that would run on the bottom of the screen when Imus would play a pre-recorded segment. I got emails all the time pointing out that the reels were turning the wrong way. I would respond with, "How do you know which way the reels on a Mystical Navajo Tape Recorder turn?")
Returning to the subject at hand, I suppose that Courier is a classic Hitchcockian thriller. An ordinary guy suddenly finds himself caught in a terrible situation where all these people are trying to kill him. There's even a Maguffin. That was Hitchcock's term for something that appears to be the point of the plot but isn't. The perfect example is the Maltese Falcon. The second they find it, it proves to be worthless but the plot never was about the damn statue — it was always exactly as Bogie described it:
Spade: When a man's partner is killed, he's supposed to do something about it. It doesn't make any difference what you thought of him. He was your partner and you're supposed to do something about it.
In other words, the classic American theme of the single person who has to decide to live by a code in a society without honor. Courier appears to be about Watergate — and it is — but it's really about an extremely damaged soldier who dances with death to clear the ghosts from his head and whether he will open up enough to let anyone else in.
Don't get depressed, it's not Kafka, there are also a LOT of fast motorcycles. It's a thriller, for Pete's sake!
OMN: Introduce us to Rick Putnam. Is Courier the first in a series featuring him as a lead character?
TI: I was a motorcycle courier for ABC News in 1973 and, in the very beginning, I tried to base Rick Putnam, the lead character, on myself. I don't think it took 30 minutes to realize that even I wouldn't read a book about me.
So I went looking for someone to hang the story on and I found a picture of a very young Nick Cage on a motorcycle. He was perfect: better-looking, smarter, a better bike rider, and a sexy guy. If there is a movie, I want him in the lead role. Now, I don't know Mr. Cage (pray for a movie option,) so as I went along, bits and pieces of other people I've known were added in. The Vietnam scenes came from several vets that I'd worked with over the years, the dual driver's licenses from a friend of my brother, Rick's roommates from a trio of roommates in my first group house. And then, as I was writing, everyone would change in very surprising ways. The only real criterion was that he or she had to be consistent with the person I could see in my mind's eye. I don't even think Rick was a Vietnam vet until I was thinking of "why would this guy be driving so fast?" and remembered how learning to race Formula Fords would clear all the cobwebs out of my head on the one chance I had to try it.
Once you've gone to all the effort of creating a viable, living character, it seems dumb to kill him or her off. I've already written the sequel, Warrior, where the characters grow and fill out. I've always like series novels — Spenser, Dennis LeHane's Angie Gennaro and Patrick Kenzie, all the way back to John D. MacDonald and his buddy Meyer.
OMN: You've mentioned a few series characters. Do you have a list of favorite series characters — or even literary characters, who may have appeared only once?
TI: In no particular order:
• Rudyard Kipling's Stalky
• Rudyard Kipling's Kim
• John D. MacDonald's Travis McGee
• Lee Child's Jack Reacher
• Barry Eisler's John Rain
• John Buchan's Richard Hannay
• John Le Carrė's George Smiley
• Dorothy Sayer's Lord Peter Death Bredon Whimsy
• Steven Erikson's Fiddler/Sarge
• Elmore Leonard's (and television's) Raylan Givens
• Jim Butcher's Harry Dresden
• Kim Harrison's Rachel Morgan
I could go on …
OMN: You and Rick Putnam seem to share a lot of the same experience.
TI: OK, this is something I have to make people understand.
I am not Rick Putnam.
I wish I was as cool, strong, and outrageous but it's never happened and I suppose there's no chance of it happening now. What I used from my own experience was the reality of Washington DC in 1972. I'll bet that everyone has a time and place that is simply chiseled deep into their memory — when you first went to college, when you got your first job, your first apartment, joined the military. What I was able to do in Courier was throw myself back to a time where everyone smoked all the time, where there was one female and one black correspondent on the network, no women except secretaries, where sexual harassment was a fun way to pass the time for most men, where Washington was a small town where friendship mattered far more than ideology.
Now, not only have all the social aspects changed, even the streets and buildings I describe are simply gone. There is no red light district, no strolling hookers two blocks from the White House, no dark and dingy bars, no old run-down back-alleys. They are all replaced by high-rise office buildings and gleaming (but usually empty) parks. (I still wonder about where all the working girls went — there used to be hundreds out there, they can't all be online, can they?)
As for the roles of blacks, women, gays, Hispanics and human beings in general, all of that began to change with the group of young people I started with. I went to high school with 6 kids who were the first to be in a co-ed class at places like Harvard, Princeton, and Yale. I roomed in a co-ed dorm in college. My girlfriend went to law school when there were only 5% women in a class and was told that she had to work for the government because no firm would allow a woman to be the lead attorney.
I keep getting criticisms — well-meaning and otherwise — about inaccuracies:
• How can I say that paralegals didn't know what they were doing? Well, because we were the first paralegals ever hired and the law firms had no clue what to do with us.
• How can I say that a motorcycle takes corners faster than a car? Because cars back then had horrible suspensions and would go right off the road if you turned at more than 25 MPH.
• How can I say that people were playing Dungeons and Dragons (or a variant) in 1972? After all, Wikipedia says it wasn't published until 1974. Because I bought the damn 12 sided dice while I was in college and couldn't find anyone to play with.
• Cars didn't have alarms back then. Sure did because they used to keep me awake in West Philly during the summers.
Sorry, I was just letting off steam. Please continue.
OMN: How true are you to the setting of Washington DC?
TI: I was either completely accurate or totally inaccurate. If the location was a real place that I remembered like the news bureau, I knew the number of steps to a turn in the hall. I knew how the place smelled, I knew how you could scrape nicotine off the walls. Even streets were awfully familiar: I can remember where there was gravel along MacArthur Boulevard and you'd lose traction, traffic lights that were timed so you could hit them all on the green, and one curve out in Maryland that I damn near died on because I was racing another courier (right outside Howard Hunt's house, as a matter of fact).
If, on the other hand, I was creating a place like an apartment or a garage interior, I just wanted to make it something that would reasonably fit into the period. Either way, I spent a lot of time searching for pictures of the period, or newspapers, or community newsletters. Even if you don't use that particular piece of research, you get a jolt by seeing the hairstyles, the clothes, the enormous cars, the battered storefronts. All that kicks off new ideas and new possibilities. I would have revisited more locations but — as I said — most of them are gone.
I also did a good deal of research on Watergate (and I do think that the basic premise of the novel is extremely possible — if not probable) but I didn't put most of that in because the book was about this guy named Rick and not about the Dick in the White House.
OMN: Describe your overall writing process for us.
TI: My writing process can best be described as like a demolition derby: chaotic and fast with stuff being thrown out right and left.
I was a writer for television and that means deadlines. I can remember doing a lineup of a show (in pencil and you had to learn to subtract minutes and seconds in your head — try that sometime!) and I looked up to realize that I had four cigarettes burning and my hand was so cramped from holding the pencil that I couldn't flatten it out.)
The most useful course I ever took in high school was typing because, if I can just put my fingers on the keys, words will simply flow. I tested that out one day at CNN when I had to write a moving obituary for a very nice co-worker who I simply didn't know. I looked at the research, slammed through some of the pictures, and found myself standing behind my desk. I looked up and saw that I had ten minutes to write the piece so it could have pictures laid on. I just sat down and put my fingers on the keys.
I was told it was very moving and became to go-to guy for poetic and sensitive scripts from then on. You know what they say, writing is all about sincere emotion and real connection with the reader.
And if you can fake that, you've got it made.
So, I'm fast. I wrote the first draft of Courier in 10 weeks and was irritated because I wanted to do it in two months. Now, I also re-wrote the book at least 5 times from beginning to end. I'm never satisfied with my work and hate to read the book or watch the documentary when it goes to air because I'm going to find a mistake — it's a guarantee. I also listen to other writers and marvel at how damn good they are. I can only write in a very plain, newspaper style and I envy the people who can make words jump up and dance.
So, to sum this up, my writing method is to sit down and write. Most of the time, I have at least a vague idea of where I'm going but that can change. Characters will say something and it will completely change who they are, events occur that I don't expect, conversations appear out of nowhere. I'll read a newspaper from the period and that will kick off a possible plot twist.
I just keep on writing and, usually, things begin to fall into place. That's not to say that I don't have (and read) The Seven Basic Plots, 20 Master Plots, How to Write a Damn Good Thriller, and How to Write about Guns for Writers who don't have Guns. I do and I am conscious of whether the tension levels are going up or down, where I am in the Killing of the Monster plot, or whatever. I just don't worry about it very much.
OMN: What's next for you?
TI: This process has been a wild ride. After being a courier, a copy boy, a producer, a combat producer, a senior producer, content boss for a couple of dotcoms, ghostwriter, and an expert in the legal placement of explosives on semi-trailer trucks, this is all new and extremely exciting.
I have already written the sequel to Courier and begun the third book (or at least begun to think about it,) I've done the first draft of the Courier movie screenplay, written the first draft of an urban paranormal thriller, and blocked out some of the elements of a private eye series set in 1930's Manila. That's all fairly easy. What I don't know how to do is to publicize a book, act correctly during interviews, and manage to get through a book-signing. If I can, I'm going to hit every bookstore and convention in sight.
Finally, this isn't really just for fun. I began this by mentioning that I've just been fired. For a number of very good reasons, I have very little retirement savings so this book thing really has to make some money. They could well be under pseudonyms but I promise you'll be seeing a steady stream of new books from me over the next few years. I suppose the object is just to keep trying until I get it right.
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From Terry Irving: Born in 1951 in Bryn Mawr PA so as to be close to my mother. Well, she said she was my mother but she lied about everything else, so who knows. Had no interest in being a journalist but somehow was editor of newspapers at age 3, age 5, 5th Grade, 7th Grade, 9th Grade and 12th Grade. Took a job as a motorcycle courier for ABC News in 1973 because … well, they were paying me to ride a BMW all day! Worked ABC News for 20 years, then something along the lines of 20 jobs in the next 30 years. I have now been fired more often than I've received Emmy Awards (5 and 4, if you're keeping score.) Over the past 25 years, I've turned to writing because people hate to write and consequently they'll pay you more for it. I've written anchor copy, reports from the field, commercial videos, CD-ROMs, Users Manuals, advertising for satellite data switching software, standup comedy, and documentaries. When I was fired in 2012, I realized that everyone in the news business knew who I was and therefore, there was no hope of getting another real job.
So I wrote a novel.
For more information about the author, please visit his website at TerryIrving.com or find him on Facebook and Twitter.
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Courier
Terry Irving
A Suspense Thriller
It's 1972. The Watergate scandal has Washington on edge and Putnam, a Vietnam veteran and courier for one of the capital's leading television stations, is trying to get his life back together after his nightmarish ordeal in the war. Racing at breakneck speed through the streets of the capital, he not only intends to be the best courier in the business, he also intends to escape the demons that haunt him. But when Rick picks up film from a news crew interviewing a government worker with a hot story, his life begins to unravel as everyone involved in the story dies within hours of the interview and Rick realizes he is the next target.
Enlisting the aid of friends who have discovered a way to hack into the government's computer databases, and a beautiful young Indian Rights activist, Eva Buffalo Calf, Rick races full throttle through the streets of the nation's capital to stay ahead of his pursuers as he searches for answers. When he discovers the killings have been orchestrated by a rogue CIA agent and his team of assassins, Rick isn't surprised when his road to the truth leads directly to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
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