John A. Flanagn is best known for his series of "Ranger's Apprentice" books for children. He has now turned his hand to adult crime novels and was interviewed recently by Leonie Jordan on the "Boomerang Books"
weblog.
You are best-known for your "Ranger's Apprentice" children's fantasy series. What prompted you to branch out into adult crime and what appeals to you most about this genre?
I've always chosen to write the sort of books I enjoy reading. Typically, over the years, this has meant fantasy and crime fiction. And Storm Peak isn't a branching out. In fact, I was developing it at the same time I was working on the "Rangers" series. It's just that "Rangers" found a place in the market first. As to the crime genre, I'm more concerned with character interaction against a crime and/or action background than in creating a "whodunnit?" type of book. There's obviously a mystery to be solved in Storm Peak but personally, I think it's secondary to the action and the interaction of the main characters.Your prose style in Storm Peak is at times reminiscent of "hardboiled" crime writers such as Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett: laconic, wry, punctuated by terse, deadpan remarks. Which authors were you most influenced by when writing the novel?
Thank you for the reference to Raymond Chandler. He was one of my earliest influences and I loved his style. Then I followed the English author Gavin Lyall, who had a wonderfully wry style in his earlier novels. Since then, I've loved the work of Ed McBain -- the master of dialogue, Michael Connelly, Nelson de Mille and James Lee Burke. All of these writers excel in character-driven stories. They all create characters the reader cares about.
