From his Q & A with Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg for the Wall Street Journal:
What exactly is a ghostman?Learn more about the book and author at Roger Hobbs's website.
Roger Hobbs: A ghostman is an identity thief geared for criminal organizations. He helps people disappear. No, ghostmen don’t really exist. I created them, as well as the term. But the other criminal terms in I use in the book, such as box man and wheelman, are things from reality.
There are two set pieces in the story, one the robbing of an armored car in Atlantic City, the other a bank in Kuala Lumpur. What made you focus on those crimes?
I wanted to play around with old school criminals, and old school armed robbers. Essentially I wanted my characters to be analog players in a digital world. What would a really bank robbery look like in the 21st century. Major league heists are few and far between but they do take place, as we saw recently in Antwerp.
You’ve also got two ticking clocks: the first when the armored car robbers are waiting to spring into action, and the second involving the ghostman, who has resolve a botched casino robbery in what amounts to 37 hours. Where did you get the idea of using a ticking clock as a dramatic device for raising adrenaline levels?
The ticking clock is a...[read on]
The Page 69 Test: Ghostman.
Writers Read: Roger Hobbs.
--Marshal Zeringue