~Post by MysteryPeople Crime Fiction Coordinator Scott M.
Tuesday night MysteryPeople had the honor of hosting one of the top authors in the thriller field, John Sanford. He signed his latest book, Shock Wave, which features Virgil Flowers, the character he spun off from his popular Lucas Davenport series.
John talked for almost a full hour. He focused on his approach to writing, using the term “engineering.” He said he made Lucas Davenport violent to appeal to men, and a good looking, sharp dresser to appeal to women. The reason he has strong female characters, he explained, is also to appeal to women readers. Seeing that the audience was about fifty/fifty when it came to gender, it was hard to argue when he said, “None of this is accidental.”
He did admit to some mistakes in his “engineering.” Once he gave a character a certain background to garner sympathy from the reader, forgetting he had given her an entirely different background in a previous book. He also once took a young petty criminal from an early book and brought him back at the same age in another book, when Lucas himself was seventeen years older. “I really wanted to use that kid,” he said.
Sandford told us about his relationship with other authors (Carl Hiassen used to work for him), got folks interested in new author Thomas Young (The Mullah’s Storm), and talked about the differences between Davenport and Flowers. Of course my fondest memory of the evening would have to be witnessing a revered best selling author sing a bar of “One Toke Over The Line.” Not a performance I’ll soon forget.
After he met with fans and signed their books, Sandford signed stack after stack of Shock Wave for us. Signed copies are on the shelf now, you can come down and pick one up. Many thanks to John Sandford for visiting MysteryPeople, and thanks to all the folks who came out to support his appearance. Don’t miss all we have coming up this season– it’s a busy one.
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