Adam Plantinga

Adam Plantinga been in law enforcement for twenty-five years, seven with the Milwaukee PD and eighteen with the San Francisco PD. His first two nonfiction books— 400 Things Cops Know and Police Craft— have become his calling cards to the world of thrillers. 400 Things was nominated for an Agatha, a Macavity, and was deemed “the new Bible for crime writers” by the Wall Street Journal. Plantinga’s fiction debut, The Ascent, became a USA Today bestseller.

His new novel is Dark Country.

My Q&A with the author:

How much work does your title do to take readers into the story?

I’m hoping it does some heavy lifting. This is a road trip book where my main character and a 17-year-old boy he’s protecting push west to escape the reach of some dangerous men who are after the boy. The title Dark Country refers to both the deadly terrain they have to navigate and the fact that they have no idea why the boy is being hunted—they’re operating in the dark.

In a previous Q&A you explained how Kurt Argento, your main character, got his name. For good reason, he's now living under an assumed name. How did you/he come up with the alias?

His alias is Joe Brookens. The first name is a basic one that’s easy to remember. Argento is a former Detroit cop so the last name is borrowed from former Detroit Tigers’ third baseman Tom Brookens. I grew up in Michigan, so my books are really just tissue-thin excuses to drop multiple Detroit sports references.

How surprised would your teenage reader self be by your novel?

What a great question. As a kid, I used to draw a lot of soldiers and pirates and intergalactic warriors, so I don’t think he’d be surprised by the action and the fast pace. He might be puzzled by some of the nuances of the adult relationships. Overall, I’d like to think his reaction would be Cool!

Name a favorite fictional cop from fiction, film, or TV and tell us how Kurt Argento is (un)like him/her.

You know who I’m fond of? West Yorkshire Police Sergeant Catherine Cawood from the sublime television show Happy Valley. I think two things she shares with Kurt Argento are grit and heart.

You're a cop in real life. If you were in another line of work, do you think you would be writing crime novels with a police officer main character?

I don’t think so. As a working cop, I have a window into the worlds of crime and punishment, urban blight, drug addiction, mental health, and police culture. It helps me put an authentic skin on my fiction. Without that front row seat, I don’t know that I’d have the writing chops to create a cop character who was both engaging and convincing. There are authors who can pull it off, like Richard Price and Robert Crais, and I salute them.

Visit Adam Plantinga's website.

My Book, The Movie: The Ascent.

Q&A with Adam Plantinga (April 2025).

--Marshal Zeringue