A little biography about yourself and New York. You are a native of the city, can you provide us with some colour and flavour of the place, describe where you grew up and what the city means to you now. Could you imagine setting your books in any other location?

I've lived in the New York area most of my life. I grew up in Brooklyn, in a working class neighborhood, and went to college in upstate New York, then moved to Manhattan where I still live today. Currently, I live on the Upper East Side, a neighborhood which is filled with a lot of lawyers, doctors, and investment bankers. I write in coffee bars a lot and I'm the only one who seems to be a writer. Everyone else is studying for their law school or business school exams. I don't mind it, though--I kind of enjoy the anonymity, isolation and obscurity of the neighborhood. It's true that, so far, my novels have taken place mainly in the New York area. This is mainly because I like to write about what I know intimately, without having to do too much research to bog things down. Of course if there's something I need to know for a book I'm writing I'll research it thoroughly, but I think there are some books out there that seem "too researched," which kind of annoys me as a reader, so I try to stay away from that as much as possible. Actually, when I'm writing about a subject I don't know very well, I try to make up the information as I'm going along, so I don't get slowed down, then I go back and do the research later.

How long have you been writing? Are you committed exclusively to crime?

I started writing in college. I was a creative writing major, but I kind of regret that now. I know some writers like writing workshops, but I hated them. There's nothing more annoying than hearing a bunch of people critique your work just for the sake of critiquing it. For example, I remember one girl in one of my classes once didn't like the name of one of my characters so we all spent a half hour discussing "the naming of characters."  But the plus side of taking writing classes in college is that it gave me a lot of free time to write. I would've written on my own anyway so it was like having one less class on my schedule. Some people enjoy writing working shops, and feel it motivates them to write, so I wouldn't discourage writing workshops, so if you need the workshops to help discipline yourself then for go for it. Personally, I always found them to be torturous. As for crime writing, I didn't get that at all until after I graduated from college and started reading crime fiction on my own. I discovered the classic crime fiction of the forties and fifties, and sixties, then went on to current day stuff and I was hooked.

Your writing has been likened to that of Charles Willeford. Are you flattered or do you prefer to avoid 'tags'?

Willeford's probably one of my top five favorite all-time crime writers so of course that's flattering. I also get marketed as "in the tradition of Highsmith and Thompson," and James M. Cain's name comes up; this is flattering too because they're all big favorites of mine, but these comparisons have a downside too. For example, sometimes the comparisons invites reviewers to spend an entire review explaining how my writing isn't at all like the writer the publisher has compared the book too. What I hope people understand is that comparisons are just a marketing tool. If someone has never heard of me and happens to pick up one of my books in a bookstore, maybe a Jim Thompson comparison will give them a rough idea of what genre the book fits into, but expecting one author to be exactly like another is going to be a letdown. Actually, I don't really think my books are like Thompson's, except in a very general way.

Your work is rooted in the noir genre. How did you come to adopt this or did it choose you?

I never set out to write noir novels. In fact, I had no idea I was even writing noir until I got my first rejection letter which said something like, "We're sorry, we don't publish noir at this house." That was a great rejection because then I knew how to market my books. Instead of writing "Enclosed is my psychological thriller Cold Caller," I wrote "Enclosed is my noir novel Cold Caller," and I eventually found my first publisher, No Exit Press. But I started writing these types of novels because I wanted to write the type of books I enjoy reading myself. Previously, I wrote plays, without crime themes, and fiction that didn't have anything to do with crimes, but I don't really think I found my true voice until I wrote Cold Caller.

You seem very comfortable dealing with both male and female perspectives. The relationships your characters endure are so raw and authentic. Do you find this difficult to write?

You know there's a big reality TV craze going on and, I have to admit, I'm a reality TV junkie. I watch Survivor, American Idol, Big Brother--a personal favorite--just to name a few. One of the things I enjoy about the shows are the real characters and situations and how tensions develop from this. Similarly, in my writing I try to keep my characters and situations as real as possible, and have the story lines develop from seemingly banal situations. My characters are usually average people who have seemingly average problems and desires, and then I see how far I can take it. But I do enjoy "getting into the heads" of men, women, and people of different ethnic backgrounds. I think this comes out most clearly in Nothing Personal, which I wrote from six different point of views. And that's another great thing about living and writing in New York. I'll never run out of screwed-up people to write about in this city.

All your characters seem to have at their centre frustrated dreams. What is the appeal of this for you?

I've never really thought about that before but I guess many of my characters do have unfulfilled dreams, especially Tommy from Fake I.D. and, in a different way, Mickey in Tough Luck. I think it's interesting to put characters in these types of situations, where they feel things haven't gone the way they expected to, and they have to find something else to replace that desire. Bill in Cold Caller is definitely like that.

The terrible situations they find themselves in, the heartbreak and daily grind reminded me of David Goodis. Do you find it difficult to keep with a character? Do you find it depressing to create such people?

Once I create a character I try to go all the way with him or her. Even if the person's life is heading straight downhill or they turn into the world's biggest dick I try not to cheat the reader by toning down the writing or thinking, Maybe I shouldn't have this character kill this guy, or Maybe he shouldn't hit that woman, or whatever. But I don't find this depressing at all because I find the whole process of what happens to these people very interesting and I really enjoy writing about them. Hopefully people can see the dark humor in my writing too, so I don't think I'm quite as downbeat as Goodis. But thanks for the Goodis mention--I think we'll list all of my favorite classic crime writers before this interview is through!
A love of horse racing is a recurring theme.

Is that a personal like?

You noticed that, huh? Yes, I do have horse racing themes a few of my books; mainly in Fake I.D. and of course Nothing Personal, but horse racing mentions do pop up in some of my other books too. I started going to the racetrack with my father when I was five or six years old. I used to tell him what horses to bet, he never listened, and they always seemed to win. Then I learned how to read the Racing Form and my handicapping ability went downhill from there. Nowadays, I have a young daughter, so I don't go to the track very often--a couple of times a year, and I try to get up to Saratoga for a day or two during the summer meet. I do make an off-track bet from time to time, usually just the Triple Crown and Breeder's Cup races, but thank God I'm not as far gone as some of my compulsive gambling characters.

Do you have a favourite from the books you have written?

I like different things about different books. I like what I did with the plot in Nothing Personal, and I like the darkness of Hard Feelings, and I like the humor in Cold Caller.  I'm not sure which one I like best, though. Sometimes I go back and read bits and pieces of the different books, but I've never gone back and read the books straight through. Maybe if I do that someday I could pick a favorite.

Tough Luck is your latest book, a terrific read. Where did the idea for it come from?

The book is set in Brooklyn, in 1984, in the neighborhood where I grew up. I had some friends who used to work at a fish store, so that's where the setting came from. Then I had an idea about this guy who works at the store: Mickey Prada, a naive 18-year-old, who is really more like 15. I wondered what would happen if a mob guy befriended him, took him into his confidence. How would Mickey be able to say no to the guy? This was the premise for the book and I just let it go from there. It was a lot of fun writing it, reinventing the neighborhood where I grew up, describing the bookie joints and bowling alleys I used to hang out at. I also think Mickey is different from some of my other "heroes." He's more of a victim than an instigator.

Were you concerned about writing a Mafia character in that this theme has been possibly done to death in print and then you have The Sopranos...?

No, I wasn't really concerned about that at all. First off, I think my mob character is somewhat different from other Mafia characters in film and TV, but I also wanted this character to be someone readers, and Mickey could immediately get an impression about, so you know the danger in advance. But, as a rule, I never let the idea that something has been done before prevent me from writing something. I think writers should find new ways of telling stories, no matter how many times something has been done before. Hell, Cold Caller, was about telemarketers, but if I thought I had a great idea for a character who was a telemarketer I'd still write the book. I'd just make it a lot different, that's all.

You have written screenplays. Do you find this a challenge after writing novels or is it just the opposite?

I love writing screenplays. Maybe it's because my novels have a lot of dialogue and action in them, but the whole screenwriting process is very natural for me. I wanted to be a screenwriter before I started writing novels so I guess it's kind of ironic that I'm writing screenplays now. I wrote a screen adaptation of my novel Nothing Personal and some people think it's better than the book. It's different from the book in a lot of spots, but I'm not sure if it's really better.

Are we likely to see any film adaptations of your work in the near future?

I hope so. Nothing Personal and Cold Caller in particular look very promising right now, but as Kenny Rogers says, "Never count your money, sittin' at the table..." I've found that this advice comes in quite handy in Hollywood. It's incredible how things could look so great one day, so bleak the next, then start looking great again. But I'm spending a lot of time and energy trying to get a movie adaptation going and I think it's going to happen soon.

What do you have planned for the future?

I wrote an original movie script for Halle Berry, which is not based on one of my novels, called October Squall. It's not like my novels, although there are a couple of dark, twisted characters in it. We're hopeful that movie will film later this year. I also have a new novel coming out from Vintage Crime Black Lizard in 2004 that I think is one of the best I've written. I'm also working on a novel to follow that one so I guess I'll be drinking a lot of Starbucks. •

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