Interview with new mystery author Paul Petrucci
on a floating home so we have access to water sports, especially kayaking. I love to read, I love raising my two year old daughter. My wife and I both love to watch movies and to give breakfast parties – before parenthood it used to be dinner parties.
SUITE: Sounds like fun. Do you have a favorite author/authors?
PAUL: My favorite authors outside of the mystery genre are Michael Chabon, Saul Bellow, John Irving, Barbara Kingsolver. Right now I’m reading Simone de Beauvoir’s The Mandarins, a roman à clef about the existential philosophers in post-war Paris. My mystery favorites are Stephen Greenleaf, James Ellroy, Carol O’Connell, Michael Dibdin, Robert Ferrigno, Umberto Eco, Arturo Perez-Reverte. My current mystery reading is An Instance of the Fingerpost by Iain Pears.
SUITE: A book or author that influenced you a lot? Personally or professionally.
PAUL: Umberto Eco gave me something to aspire to: a literary mystery novel that had both Gothic overtones and psychological suspense. Arturo Perez-Reverte is of the same mold, if more accessible; his books have wonderful characters and intricate plots. Stephen Greenleaf was one of my instructors at the University of Washington program. His books, along with those of the other two authors, offered the message that it’s okay not do dummy down your plot, to trust your readers and not insult their intelligence.
SUITE: Favorite mystery movie?
PAUL: The two that pop into my head are both noir films - L. A. Confidential and The Big Sleep. I love Bogie and Bacall and the crisp dialogue. Both have intricate plots and move briskly. The plots actually hang together, but you have to watch them a few times to believe it.
SUITE: Great movies. Favorite mystery TV show? If you don't have a favorite mystery one, then some other type of TV show that is a favorite.
PAUL: Nope. I traded cable TV for a cable modem.
SUITE: How do you feel about writing? And how does it feel when you are writing? Excited, frustrated, is it just business?
PAUL: There is a difference in feeling between a first draft and subsequent drafts. When writing a first draft, I let everything go and try to have my fingers keep pace with my thoughts. I have found that I listen to words as I write them – I am more auditory than visual – and when the words sound right, I feel like laughing, even if the material isn’t necessarily funny. Even if my first draft strays from its
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