1.
What
inspired you to write your new book? I’ve long been intrigued by the hypocrisy
surrounding gambling on sporting events. Federal law bans it in all but four
states that were grandfathered in, and most states (which rake in millions from
official lotteries) also have laws against it. Yet the total Americans bet on
sports is estimated at three hundred and eighty billion dollars annually—enough
to fund the Pentagon for twelve months with enough left over to start another
small war. Studies indicate that eighty-five percent of Americans place sports
bets at least occasionally, much of it on the Super Bowl and the NCAA’s March
Madness basketball tournament. Recently, a number of states including New
Jersey, where I live, have proposed legalizing it so they can tax the revenue.
The NCAA and the major sports leagues are vehemently opposed (although the NBA
softened its opposition recently), claiming that legalization would threaten
the integrity of their games. They take this position even though they profit
handsomely from sports betting. It is, after all, a major reason why many
people follow sports. But the sports leagues are not alone in viewing
legalization as a threat. Las Vegas casinos’ want to keep their near-monopoly
on legal sports gambling, and criminal organizations are aghast at the prospect
of losing the cash they rake in from bookmaking. Pitting these powerful forces
against one another in a struggle over legalization is a rich subject for a
hardboiled crime novel.
2.
What
are some of the key themes presented in your new book? In A
Scourge of Vipers, Rhode Island’s colorful fictional governor, a former
religious sister nicknamed Attila the Nun, proposes legalizing sports gambling
to ease the state’s budget crisis. Powerful organizations that have a lot to
lose—or gain—if gambling is made legal flood the little state with money to buy
the votes of state legislators. As my protagonist, Liam Mulligan, an
investigative reporter for a dying newspaper, digs into the story, several
people including a state legislator and a mobbed-up bagman turn up dead. And
shadowy forces try to derail Mulligan’s investigation by destroying his career,
his reputation, and perhaps his life. The result is a suspenseful murder
mystery that provides a vehicle for exploring the duel themes of the hypocrisy
surrounding sports betting and the corrupting influence of big money on
politics. This is the fourth novel featuring Mulligan, and each of them also
deals with the decline of America’s newspapers—and the damage being done to the
American democracy as these honest brokers of news and information fade into
history. It is my hope that as readers see the skill and dedication with which
Mulligan works, they will gain a greater appreciation for what is being lost.
3.
Is
it similar or different from your prior books? Each Mulligan novel focuses on a
different main theme. For example, the second, Cliff Walk, is at once a murder mystery and an exploration of sex
and religion in the age of ubiquitous pornography. But each novel is also
different because the ordeals I put Mulligan through can’t help but change him.
At the start of Cliff Walk, for
example, he believes that what men do with their money and what women do with
their bodies is nobody’s business but their own. But as he investigates the
public corruption that allows prostitution and pornography to flourish, he is
forced to wade through the ugly underbelly of the sex trade; and what he finds
challenges everything he has believed about sexual morality and religion. The
evolution of Mulligan’s character keeps each new story fresh. But perhaps the
main difference is that in A Scourge of
Vipers, the tone is lighter. The first three novels were littered with
innocent victims, but in the new book, nearly everyone who gets hurt had it
coming.
4.
What
challenges or rewards came about from writing it? Each book in the series has
presented a different challenge. The first, the Edgar Award-winning Rogue Island, poured out effortlessly,
the first draft needing only a few minor revisions. That made me think that the
next one would also come easy, but instead, the plotting was a struggle. When I
mentioned that to a crime-writing colleague, he said, “Of course. You spent
years thinking about the first book, and now you’re trying to write the second
one in a few months.” Luckily, A Scourge
of Vipers also came easily; but now I’m struggling again as I try finish
the next one, tentatively titled Dreadline,
for publication next year. For me, the biggest challenge is always the same as
the biggest reward: discovering the story as I write. I never outline. Instead,
I being each novel with a clear idea of its theme and set my characters in
motion to see what will happen. I do this partly because I figure that if I
don’t know what’s going to happen next, my readers probably won’t either. But
the main reason is that discovering the story is what puts my butt in my
writing chair every day. If I knew in advance how it was all going to turn out,
my desire to write the story would vanish.
5.
Did
you tap into the journalist side from your 40 years in the media when writing
this book? My books are very much novels of place--an evocation of 21st century life in
Providence, R.I. I know Providence well because I began my journalism career
there as an investigative reporter. Unlike the big, anonymous cities where
many fine crime novels are set, Providence is so small that it’s
claustrophobic. Almost everybody you see on the street knows your name, and
it’s almost impossible to keep a secret. Yet it’s big enough to be both cosmopolitan
and rife with urban problems. And its history of organized crime and
corruption, which dates all the way back to a colonial governor dining with a
famous pirate named Captain Kidd, makes it an ideal setting for crime fiction.
I have made Providence not just the setting but something akin to a major
character. One reviewer called my
portrayal of the place “jaundiced but affectionate,” and I think that gets it
exactly right. And by making my protagonist an investigative reporter instead
of a cop or a private eye, I am writing about what I know best.
6.
What
should make people go out and buy it? The fiction I most enjoy reading are the
crime novels that use the popular form of the crime novel to address
significant social issues. If you admire the work of writers such as George
Pelecanos, Laura Lippman, and Richard Price, I think you will like A Scourge of Vipers, which has already
received starred reviews from Publishers
Weekly and Library Journal. But
let me give the last word to Mystery Writers of America Grand Master James Lee
Burke, who read the book months before it was published. Here’s what he had to
say: “Bruce DeSilva writes a story in the tradition of Hammett and Higgins, and
he writes it with the knowledge of an oldtime police reporter. DeSilva knows
cops, corruption in eastern cities, wiseguys, rounders, bounders, gamblers, and
midnight ramblers. He writes with authority about the issues of our times, and
he does it with honesty and candor. His newsman protagonist feigns the role of
the cynic, but in his way represents the virtues most of us admire. If you want
a hardboiled view of how a city actually works, this is your book.”
DON’T MISS: ALL NEW RESOURCE OF THE YEAR
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Brian Feinblum’s
views, opinions, and ideas expressed in this blog are his alone and not that of
his employer. You can follow
him on Twitter @theprexpert and email him at brianfeinblum@gmail.com. He feels more important when discussed in
the third-person. This is copyrighted by BookMarketingBuzzBlog © 2015
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