Besides four decades of writing fiction, John C. Boland
has worked as a Senior Editor of Barron’s Financial Weekly,
contributed often to the Sunday New York Times and
The Wall Street Journal, and run a profitable hedge fund.
He is the author of what Market Logic
called “the best book ever written on insider trading”—
Wall Street’s Insiders (Morrow).
The two-time Shamus nominee was a finalist for the
International Thriller Writers Association’s
“Best Short Story” award in 2009.
His novels include several from St. Martin’s Press:
EASY MONEY, RICH MAN’S BLOOD, DEATH IN JERUSALEM, THE MARGIN;
and two from Pocket Books:
BROKERED DEATH and THE SEVENTH BEARER.
His web site is www.JohnCBoland.com.
|
International Thriller Writers Interview
Ethan Cross interviewed John Boland in the late fall of 2011
in connection with the publication of HOMINID.
Here is a slightly shortened text, from the ITW's
on-line publication The Big Thrill.
______________
Publishers Weekly stated that author John C. Boland “excels in rendering epiphanies.”
And his new novel, Hominid, is no exception as it explores evolution,
genetics, archaeology, and a centuries-old mystery. I recently had
an opportunity to interview the author.
Ethan Cross: Many of your past books have been mysteries. How would
you classify Hominid? Mystery, thriller, scientific thriller, etc.?
John Boland: Hominid is a science thriller that develops as a series
of mysteries: what happened among early colonists on Ewell Island?
why were three of them buried in lead-shrouded coffins? why
were a four-year-old child and her father murdered?
why is the mother’s coffin empty? who is sponsoring the island
excavation and why? The big question comes a bit later,
and it concerns deviations in the child’s DNA
from the normal human genome.
EC: Is Hominid entirely fictional or is it based upon actual
local lore and legend?
JB: It’s fiction with many factual reference points—starting
with the discovery in St. Marys City, Maryland, twenty years ago
of three lead coffins buried in a church dating from the 1660s.
The use of lead coffins wasn’t uncommon in England, but it taxed
the resources of an early American colony. So the reality
was fascinating. I shifted the location to a nearby island, where
St. Marys dissidents in fact had settled, and created the
“local lore” that the buried family were viewed in 1700 as “devils.”
EC: Where does “science faction” end and “science fiction”
begin within the novel?
JB: Publishers Weekly called the novel “science fiction,” but I don’t
regard it as such. The science is well-grounded. The key speculation
is fictional, but it’s also consistent with what we know about
Darwinian evolution. The pressure on scientific research by government
is also factual—as is the misuse of science by government and other
institutions, witness the eugenics movement in the United States
that led to forced sterilizations. So there’s a very dangerous
mix of competing interests and beliefs.
EC: Hominid deals with the discovery of a new humanoid species
through the unearthing of some colonial-era cadavers. Is the
book focused upon the mystery of what happened in the past
or are there current dangers that arise because of the discovery?
JB: The dangers appear in the first chapter, when a young
archaeologist is killed in the deep excavation and the main character
almost loses his life. It gets worse. The story occurs entirely
in the present. The role of the past is to provide evidence of what
has been happening for perhaps millennia, unseen and unsuspected:
the development of a human variant that threatens to supplant us.
This raises the philosophical and moral question: Threatened by extinction,
would we stand aside and let evolution take its course?
Or would Homo sapiens sapiens launch an extermination
campaign against the newcomer?
EC: What kind of research did you do for your new book?
JB: The research was fun. I visited genetic testing labs. In New York,
I toured Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. I read dozens of books
on evolution and speciation. The challenge was to keep the research
OUT of the novel—the idea was to tell a good story that wasn’t
inconsistent with what is known. There is a reading list at the back of
the book in case anyone is interested in this fast-moving branch of science.
EC: Was there anything particularly interesting that you
discovered during your research that didn’t make it into the
novel or something that you’d like to highlight?
JB: The key thing made it in, and I’m intrigued by it. That is, how
plausible the idea is of a human mutation developing within
an island population, and secondly how rapidly evolution occurs
under strong selection. There’s a fellow at the University of Chicago
whose work suggests that one very useful gene, the “lactase” gene
that permits adults to metabolize milk, has penetrated most of the
European population in about seven thousand years. I speeded
things up for the novel, but I wonder by how much? We had a tiny
hominid cousin, Homo floresiensis, living in Indonesia as
recently as thirteen thousand years ago. I’d better add right now
that Hominid isn’t a treatise on evolution: it’s a thriller, full of immediate
conflict, a love story, and a lot of mayhem. I really laid on the mayhem.
EC: What are you reading now? What are some of your favorite
books/authors and who has had the greatest influence
upon your own work?
JB: Right now, in truth, for some reason I’m reading the old Perry Masons.
They’re almost straightforward “story.” I can picture Della Street from
the TV series, but Gardner sure doesn’t tell us what she looks like.
I liked the early Dick Francis novels a great deal, probably
for bad reasons: there was quite a dollop of sadism in them,
but the hero always pushed ahead, and the romantic subplots
appealed to me, especially in Nerve. I loved some of
Geoffrey Household’s thrillers: The Courtesy of Death (which also
has an archaeological aspect) and Dance of the Dwarfs.
Intelligent, elegantly written thrillers. Among contemporary writers,
I admire John Sandford and Lee Child, both of whom produce
smooth, fast-moving prose. On the science front, I’m reading a superb
book by Richard Dawkins, The Greatest Show on Earth, which
should be part of every high school science curriculum.
EC: What’s something that you’ve learned about the publishing
business that you weren’t expecting?
JB: That sixty or more literary agents can decline to represent
a novel that gets a starred review in Publishers Weekly.
EC: Do you have any advice for aspiring (or struggling)
writers out there?
JB: They should read the answer to the preceding question.
It cuts two ways. And for heaven’s sake, develop a good
income outside this field.
EC: Are you currently working on a new book?
Can we get a sneak peek?
JB: I spend a fair amount of time writing short stories for
Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. One novel I’m
tinkering with is altogether different from Hominid. It’s called
The Man Who Knew Brecht, has an artist heroine, and deals
with murder growing out of old far-left political activity.
(And apropos the previous question: if you want to self-sabotage
a writing career, write novels that explore widely different
themes and settings. I’ve found this works very well.)
|
Publishers Weekly Starred Review:
"Superior science thriller. . . . Boland's taut atmospherics are top-notch,
and the evolutionary themes he explores are easily accessible to
nonscientists."
Mystery Scene Review:
"A riveting scientific suspense novel on the order of the popular Preston
and Child thrillers. . . . Boland makes complicated theories about DNA
and genetically linked illnesses easily understood. And in contrast to
many science-heavy suspense novelists, Boland also has the ability to
create three-dimensional characters. [The hero's] love life is a mess; Silas
Merton, the island's mayor and only clergyman, is also the town drunk;
and even brutish Luther turns out to be much, much more than your
average killer. . . . Hominid never fails to make for exciting reading."
(Betty Webb)
|
|
Archaeologist David Isaac joins a team excavating a crypt
on a remote island where a colonial-era family lies buried.
By local lore, the family were "devils." The expedition's
leader hopes to revive his career by proving
they were murdered by neighbors in a burst
of religious hysteria.
But these cadavers harbor an older and deadlier secret.
And nobody is prepared for what is about to emerge.
HOMINID JOHN C. BOLAND 350 PAGES $15.95 ISBN: 978-1-935797-16-6
"Roars along like a BMW in heat." Kirkus on DEATH IN JERUSALEM
|
24 stories from Alfred Hitchcock's
and Ellery Queen's magazines.
USA Today called JOHN C. BOLAND’s
debut novel EASY MONEY (St. Martin’s Press):
an “Entertaining whodunit. Great fun!”
30 YEARS IN THE PULPS,
from Perfect Crime Books,
brings together more than a score of the
Shamus-nominated author's novelettes and
short stories from Ellery Queen's
and Alfred Hitchcock's
mystery magazines, including the
2009 International Thriller Writers finalist
"Last Island South."
"If you're looking for atmosphere . . . and a fine prose style,
then you came to the right story."
Steven Torres, Nasty.Brutish.Short.blogspot.com, about: "The Passenger"
"An understated, realistic tale of espionage."
Gerald So, Nasty.Brutish.Short.blogspot.com, about: "Marley's Woman"
"A nicely nasty tale of betrayal and revenge."
Bob Tinsley, TheShortofIt.blogspot.com, about: "Marley's Ghost"
30 YEARS IN THE PULPS
346 PAGES $14.95
ISBN: 978-0-9825157-2-3
|
"Fast-paced . . . nice plot swerves."
Baltimore Sun on EASY MONEY
|
|
MURDER IN KEY WEST
Novice investigator Meggie Trevor is so broke
she’ll take on any client who pays cash
in this suspenseful tale by
International Thriller Writers finalist JOHN C. BOLAND.
Her CIA agent father is missing on the Gulf of Mexico.
So is a yacht carrying a deadly cargo.
Too bad Meggie's client
hasn't told her everything he knows . . .
they both might live longer.
USA Today called JOHN C. BOLAND’s
debut novel EASY MONEY (St. Martin’s Press):
an “Entertaining whodunit. Great fun!”
The Washington Times warned readers
of DEATH IN JERUSALEM
(St. Martin’s) to “hang on around the corners.”
Kirkus Reviews said that book
“roars along like a BMW in heat.”
LAST ISLAND SOUTH
244 pages $12.95
ISBN: 978-0-9825157-8-5
|
|
"Roars along like a BMW in heat."
Kirkus on DEATH IN JERUSALEM
|
|
LOVE & DEATH IN KEY WEST
The boy cursed his pain, cursed me. I stopped
walking. I was blowing like a horse and sweating.
"I don't feel good," he said.
It was tempting to slip my aching shoulder
out from under his arm. His head was lolling.
His face was turned toward me, pimpled by
insect bites, eyes closed. I didn't think we
were going to make it to the car.
We crossed the footbridge, and I heard a boat
nearby in the mangrove. The motor was throttled
down, bubbling like a big soup pot.
We were out of time.
MEGGIE TREVOR (LAST ISLAND SOUTH) is back,
ashamed she's working security for the guy
who wants to be Porn King of the Keys.
Her mother had better not find out! Mixing it up
with arts patrons, amateur sex stars, and a
shotgun-toting chef, she's not even sure
of her friends in a town that's never been scruffier,
or more dangerous.
|
|
OUT OF HER DEPTH
255 PAGES $12.95
ISBN: 978-0-9825157-9-2
|
|
|
