Sam Wiebe is the author of Cut You Down, Invisible Dead and Last of the Independents, and the editor of the Vancouver Noir. Wiebe lives in Vancouver.From his Q&A with Dana Gee for the Vancouver Sun:
Q: You are a crime writer by trade, so I was wondering looking back, are there books that terrified you?Visit Sam Wiebe's website.
A: Red Dragon by Thomas Harris and Zombie by Joyce Carol Oates. Both make you identify with very unpleasant people.
Q: What must a story be to be classified noir? What are the key elements?
A: Dennis Lehane called noir “working-class tragedy,” and I think there’s some truth to that. It’s about bad things happening to people a lot like us.
Q: What are the clichés that should be avoided when writing these types of stories?
A: It’s only a cliché if you do it poorly. A femme fatale in 2018 with a predilection for shoulder pads and venetian blinds would be silly. But a character well-versed in sexual psychology? Endlessly fascinating.
Q: Vancouver is not typically considered a noir type place, but that assumption is very wrong, right?
A: Dead wrong. Noir is about...[read on]
My Book, The Movie: Invisible Dead.
The Page 69 Test: Invisible Dead.
The Page 69 Test: Cut You Down.
--Marshal Zeringue