We are delighted to welcome author Mark Allen Smith to Omnimystery News today.
Mark's second thriller to feature "information retrieval" expert Geiger is The Confessor (Simon & Schuster trade paperback and ebook formats) and we recently had the opportunity to spend some time with him talking about the character and the series.
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Omnimystery News: Introduce us to Geiger.
Photo provided courtesy of
Mark Allen Smith; Photo credit Rachel Smith.
Mark Allen Smith: In the first book, The Inquisitor, Geiger was the best in "Information Retrieval" — interrogation for information. His clients were global — private, corporate, organized crime, intelligence agencies. He made "I.R." an art and science, never drawing blood, with a mix of technology and psychological and physical torture. Inscrutable, unemotive, expert at reading others' feelings but without any of his own. Like an orchestra conductor who senses one flat note in a sea of sound, Geiger knows a lie when he hears it. He has remarkable knowledge of pain's power and effects, and an extraordinary ability to deal with his own pain. What he didn't know was anything about himself before he arrived in New York City on a bus 15 years ago: his real name … his age … his origins … how he got the dozens of scars on his hamstrings and calves … why he walks with a faint limp.
He lived "off the grid" — no Social Security number, bank account, credit cards — in a house with a cat named Cat and a vast music collection. Geiger is a synesthete — he tastes and smells colors, sees musical notes. Every aspect of his life is regimented — a diet of raw vegetables and fruit, obsessive workouts, nightly jogs, four hours of sleep … and I.R. Everything was about the work. Then a client brought in a 12-year old boy for interrogation and something snapped in Geiger. He grabbed the boy, Ezra, took him back to his home, and their growing bond and machinations of outside forces beyond Geiger's control slowly set loose the brutal, buried secrets of his past.
Nine months later, in The Confessor, Geiger is "missing and presumed dead (drowned)," living a quiet, secret life making furniture. When his ex-partner, Harry, disappears, Geiger comes back out into the world to find him — and discovers there are people and forces who have been patiently waiting for his return, and payback.
OMN: Give us a summary of The Confessor in a tweet.
MAS: Geiger, brilliant ex-torturer, saved a boy's life & disappeared. But when his ex-partner vanishes Geiger comes out of hiding, & his vengeful rival Dalton is waiting.
OMN: Describe your writing process.
MAS: For me, a project almost always starts with a character coming to life in my head, but he/she always brings along a predicament and issue that gives me a jump-start and substance for the plot. Once characters take on a vibrant reality for me I end up following them as they move along in the story. Which is to say — life is weird when I'm writing. I live with my characters 24-7. I watch them, listen to them, guess what they're thinking and what they'll choose to do next. I write basic plot outlines but keep them loose — because it's crucial for me to have room for moments and turns that surprise me. I'll be going along, on solid ground in the plot, and Wham!, I see a new moment that never occurred to me. These moments are a favorite part of my writing process. The other thing to mention here is that I am constantly rewriting — not necessarily for plot, but style. The flow and rhythm of words is crucial to me. Reworking a sentence a dozen times is a common event. (I've even been known to suffer over the choice of "the" or "a.")
OMN: And where do you most often find yourself writing?
MAS: I live in an apartment in Harlem, in New York City, and have an office — a long antique desk, walls filled with photos of people I love. I'm at my desk by 9.00 AM with coffee and a wistful desire for the cigarette I shall not smoke. I re-read the last five or ten pages of the work-in-progress to get my brain up to speed. I eat little until dinner, so except for trips to the coffee pot for refills I usually stay planted at my computer all day. When I get stuck — alas, not infrequently — I swivel in my chair to my Yamaha keyboard and play music for a few minutes, until I start to feel guilty, and then swivel back to my "job." I stop when my wife Cathy gets home, we cook a good dinner and eat, then I usually go back to work with my wine until 11.00, or later. At night, I'll have jazz or classical music playing. Some days, I'll write up to five pages — some days, half a page. Perhaps my best description of the writing process is the rhyme by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.
When she was good
she was very very good;
And when she was bad she was horrid.
OMN: How do you go about researching the plot points of your stories?
MAS: I am a slave to research, addicted to it. Being on solid ground about what I'm writing about is crucial — it gives me a much-needed sense of confidence and comfort. And — there are few things that irk a reader more than reading something and stopping cold with the reaction of "This is something I know about, and the author got it wrong!" So I am obsessed with details, and because there is so much Idon't know about so many things, I am endlessly reading up to try and get it right. I try and pick the brains of an "expert" sometimes, but the Internet is my go-to, my sanctum and my savior.
OMN: If we could send you anywhere in the world, all expenses paid, to research the setting for a book, where would it be?
MAS: In 1990, when I was a screenwriter, I wrote a script inspired by a real event that took place in New Zealand. I was unable to travel all the way down there, so I did months of research — reading, watching videos, interviewing New Zealanders by phone — and fell in love with the place from a distance. Every once in a while I think about turning the script into a novel, so an all-expenses paid trip to New Zealand would be a dream come true.
OMN: What are some of your outside interests? And have any of these found their way into your books?
MAS: Music is precious to me — listening to it, playing, composing. I can't imagine living without it. As I mentioned earlier, I even listen to it and play while I'm writing. So — the fact that music is Geiger's life-blood, his one true companion, is not a coincidence.
OMN: What is the best advice — and harshest criticism — you've received as an author?
MAS: Tough questions.
The best advice?
I got it from my college theater professor, Herbert Metz. Before you write Word One of something, know the reason why you are writing it. Meaning — are you writing to a reader's expectations? To sell a lot of books? Are you writing because you have a story and characters you are passionate about? Because you have "something to say"? There was no bias in Metz's advice. He thought writing in a commercial vein was as legitimate as trying to write something "meaningful." His point was — know what your purpose is — because that knowledge will help you approach and craft your creation.
The harshest criticism?
I've been lucky (so far) to not have gotten criticism that really laid me low, but — we all have things about our writing that we take pride in. We'll write something and go — "Ooh, that's a nice image …" or an elegant turn of phrase, or a sharp line of dialogue. I consider myself very fortunate readers have praised my writing style, especially my use of metaphors — and, as you might guess, I can succumb to the dreaded metaphormania — the inability to resist stuffing "just one more" metaphor into a paragraph where it is not needed — and I've certainly gotten criticism from my editors about it. (I'm getting better at it.) What I've learned from that criticism, and may be worth sharing here, is that it's dangerous for writers to fall in love with what we consider our best skills. Sometimes words can easily get in the way of saying something. Beware admiring yourself.
OMN: What advice might you offer aspiring writers?
MAS: Two humble, subjective thoughts here:
1) Do not read fiction when writing fiction. In other words, do everything in your power to discover and isolate your own voice, and to home in on the sound and rhythm of it.
2) Love words. Use them to create as much texture and music as you can — then be mercilessly cruel to them, and edit and cut diligently, until a sentence is like a jazz solo where every note has anuncontestable reason for being where it is.
OMN: What kinds of books did you read as a child?
MAS: You name it, I read it growing up. The classics, sci-fi, thrillers, detective stories, plays, westerns, poetry, comic books, fairy tales. It's all in my head, a word kaleidoscope, but there was not one particular genre that influenced me more than another.
OMN: Have any specific authors influenced how and what you write today?
MAS: Several.
John Barth (The End Of The Road, The Sot Weed Factor, Chimera) — for his audacity and courage at pushing the envelope in every respect — plot, style and language;
Herman Melville — for changing the way I looked into myself and others by writing Bartleby The Scrivener (and yeah, some other stuff, too);
Harry Crews (Car, The Hawk Is Dying, A Feast Of Snakes) — one of the most fearless writers, willing and eager to embrace and explore the strange, the grotesque, the bizarre, and find the beauty and humanity in it all;
Charles Dickens (Great Expectations, A Christmas Carol, Oliver Twist, and everything else) — the most brilliant storyteller and chronicler of the human condition;
J.P. Donleavy (The Ginger Man, Beastly Beatitudes of Balthazar B, A Fairy Tale Of New York) — one of the great jazz musicians of prose, and lover of all that is melancholy;
Robert Coover (The Universal Baseball Association, J. Henry Waugh, Proprietor, The Origin Of The Brunists) — two visionary novels;
Raymond Chandler (The Big Sleep, The Long Goodbye, Farewell, My Lovely) — the greatest metaphorist (is that a word?) of all time.
OMN: Create a Top 5 list for us on any topic.
MAS: Here are two.
Favorite movies (had to list 6!):
• On The Waterfront
• Brazil
• Casablanca
• Goodfellas
• Blade Runner
• Great Expectations (David Lean version)
Favorite musicians:
• Chick Corea
• Kal David
• Michael Brecker
• Jeff Baxter
• Steve Howe
OMN: What's next for you?
MAS: I have personally paid for Geiger to go on vacation. He needs a rest and so do I. Dealing with him is exhausting. During our break, I am writing a long, picaresque tragicomedy about a revered novelist who discovers he has a rare, incurable disease and decides he must write one final book before he kicks. But fate and chaos and global forces have other plans for him. Death, god, pharmaceuticals, terrorism … I'm really enjoying the work — when it isn't making me miserable.
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The Confessor by Mark Allen Smith
A Geiger Thriller
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Everyone is looking for Geiger …
Detached and with an innate ability to recognize lies, Geiger was the best of the best in the field of Information Retrieval. Until he was asked to break his only rule and do the unthinkable — to torture a child. Something broke in Geiger's neatly controlled mind, opening up a flood of terrible memories long kept at bay. And now Geiger is missing, presumed dead.
But, with no body ever found, there are a number of people invested in finding out the truth. One of those people is Harry Boddicker, Geiger's old handler and friend. Another is his bitter rival, Dalton, who is determined to find Geiger and extract a final confession from him, before carrying out his deadly revenge.
But no one has reckoned on Zanni Soames — a woman more dangerous than any of them could imagine, and hell-bent on winning the race to find Geiger first.
— The Confessor by Mark Allen Smith
