with Kevin Greene
We are delighted to welcome author Kevin Greene to Omnimystery News.
Kevin's debut novel, The Swan King (February 2015 trade paperback and ebook formats), is a "comic" take on a detective story, and we asked him to tell us more about it … which is the subject of his guest post for us today.
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Photo provided courtesy of
Kevin Greene
The Swan King is my first book and, understandably, one that I am a bit nervous about. For years I've read detective fiction and wanted to write some but never quite got there. I kicked around some ideas of an African-American ex-cop detective with an office in Downtown Brooklyn for a long time but never really put pen to paper (I may revisit it one day). But ultimately I decided to write something that was both a detective novel and not a detective novel, per se. Being an artist I thought about a sort of hybrid book about an art expert on the trail of a missing painting. Now, I'm more of a caricaturist and cartoonist so I knew that there would be a fair amount of research to go into. What art style should the painting be? Cubist? Renaissance? Then I remembered that old saying; write what you know. And I know comic books.
Original comic art is a big deal. Well, maybe not to you but you know how a niche audience gets about their things. And original comic art can be a very expensive hobby. A few years ago an Action Comics Superman cover featuring President Kennedy sold for more than $110,000 in an auction. So … yeah. I befriended a coworker named Rich Cirillo who is a comic art aficionado. Rich was always telling me interesting tidbits about buying and selling art. I was writing the book but I never told Rich about it. I never told anybody, really. But I absorbed a lot of what he said, not so much in the details but in the way it works. For his troubles Rich gets a mention in the book. I hope he likes it.
That brings me back to me being nervous. Not only have I finally written a mystery novel, I've also included a ton of stuff for the geek crowd (of which I am a card carrying member). So I have two crowds to please. Yikes.
The Swan King is the story of William Farrar, a comic art dealer (and a guy who is known for finding a particular piece that someone wants) who is tasked by a rich old man to find a missing piece of cover art. I love Raymond Chandler and the set up is intentionally The Big Sleep-esque. In fact I love Raymond Chandler so much that he subconsciously slipped into my head in other areas. It took me thirty pages to realize that I made the old man's last name Chandler. I swear, that was an accident. But two cops named Tidyman and Himes was definitely on purpose. I also wanted to honor the creators of Shaft, Coffin Ed and Gravedigger Jones, three black investigators, in my book.
Along the way Farrar runs afoul of various characters who want the art as well, for reasons that are not readily apparent. So it becomes a Maltese Falcon type search with bad people doing bad things. But the Maltese Falcon was supposed to be of great value. This particular piece that Farrar is searching for is not supposed to be in that class … so why do people keep dying?
I am the kind of person that finds humor in just about anything so I tried to inject that into the book. I couldn't have it be dour and deadly serious throughout. One of my favorite Philip Marlowe stories is Trouble Is My Business. Marlowe is always funny but he kills me in that one. I laugh every time I read it, even with dead bodies turning up. Or maybe it's just me. Anyway, I hope that the reader will actually find parts of my book amusing. I definitely like that Marlowe-Elvis Cole smartassery. Since Farrar isn't a hardboiled gumshoe he doesn't crack wise to every one but the humor, I hope, comes through.
So here's hoping that my sort of detective book is well received by the reader, be it a mystery fan or comic fan. I certainly enjoyed writing it, though switching back and forth between my shamus hat and geek hat got a little tiresome on my right arm.
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Kevin Greene was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York and, showing an attribute for art, went to the High School of Art and Design and the School of Visual Arts, both in Manhattan. He has worked in the art field as a freelance artist and caricaturist and in the apparel industry as a graphic designer. In 2012 he published an art book titled Heroes and Villains: The Science Fiction Caricature Art of Kevin Greene, which combines his love of Sci-Fi movies and television with his love of caricature. He currently lives in South Orange, New Jersey.
For more information about the author, please visit his author page on Goodreads or find him on Facebook.
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The Swan King
Kevin Greene
A Mystery
William Farrar, an original comic art dealer, is tasked by a wealthy man to track down a missing piece of classic Silver Age art.
But Farrar soon discovers that others are searching for the art is well. Others who will stop at nothing to obtain it … even murder.
