The Q & A opens:
Read the complete Q & A.PIC: SAFER is a grabber of a suspense novel that falls into the "dealing with a deranged neighbor" sub-genre. Why did you make the jump from crime to suspense?
SD: This will sound coy but it really wasn't a calculated move. If anything I saw it not so much a jump in subgenre as a jump in fictional property taxes. The main characters in Safer live in adifferent neighborhood than the main characters in my other books. They all have college degrees and kids and SUVs and lawns--which, frankly, is probably the closest I've come so far to "write what you know." The truth is I'm much closer to a suburban English teacher than I am to an arsonist or a cop.
During the writing, did the career-minded, strategy-conscious lizard part of my brain ever think, "Hey, maybe a larger percentage of the book-buying public will relate to this suburban setting and maybe reach for this one?" Hell yeah. But it was never the first thought. The first thought is always, always, "Write a book I'd want to read."
PIC: What's the biggest difference between the crime and suspense forms for you? Or is there any?
SD: That's a good question. All the books revolve around crime and I'm always going for suspense, knowing no other way to keep reader turning pages, but you're right, there is a different feel. I could try and come up with a theory, but then we'd sit around and quickly think up two dozen different books that blow my little theory out of the water. I dunno. . .I guess I personally think of "crime fiction" as ice cream, with "suspense" and "mystery" and "thriller" all being flavors. But I'm wrong about all sorts of things.
The Page 69 Test: Safer.
--Marshal Zeringue