Walter Satterthwait Interview
Jan 2002
http://www.Satterthwait.com

1) How would you describe your Joshua Croft series?

It’s a series about a wise-ass private detective who lives in Santa Fe and tries to solve various mysteries with the help of his partner, Rita Mondragon.

2) Do you put a bit of yourself into the character?

I suppose I put a bit of myself in all of my characters, good and bad. It’s probably inevitable that I do.

3) What got you interested in Houdini and Conan Doyle enough to write them as characters in Escapade?

I wanted to put an American private detective into an historical British locked room mystery. If you’re doing a locked room mystery, why not use Harry Houdini? And if you’re going to use Harry Houdini, why not use his sometime friend, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle? It sort of grew, like Topsy.

And I ended up liking the two main characters, Phil Beaumont and Jane Turner, so much that I put them in another book, MASQUERADE, set in Paris in 1923, and featuring people like Ernest Hemingway, Gertrude Stein, and Eric Satie.

4) Why did you pick New Mexico for the Croft series?

I live here, and, at the time I started doing the Croft series, no one was really using Santa Fe as a background for mysteries. Dorothy B. Hughes had used it once, years ago, and Tony Hillerman had used the Navajo Reservation, but when I began WALL OF GLASS, Santa Fe was pretty much virgin territory.

5) How do you approach research for your books?

I read as much as I can about the subject or place, and I talk to people who know more about it than I do, which is frequently everyone.

6) Who are some of your favorite authors?

In terms of mysteries, I suppose I’d probably start with the California Trinity: Dashiel Hammett, Raymond Chandler, Ross Macdonald. Those guys are great. But there are a slew of writers whom I like and who have, in one way or another, influenced me. Among the Americans, I’d include John D. MacDonald, Ross Thomas, Donald Hamilton, Philip Atlee, and Frank McAuliffe. Among the Europeans, Janwillem van der Wetering, Len Dieghton, and Nicholas Freeling.

77) What else have you done besides write novels?

Sold encyclopedias, worked as a bartender and bar manager.

8) Croft seems to get involved in some pretty weird cases. A dead magician new age guru, searching for the estranged wife of a drug dealer's nephew, cowboys with hot diamonds, and looking for the remains of Indians. How do you come up with this stuff?

God knows. It comes from the ether. Or the unconscious. When you’re working on one book, you sometimes get an idea that you can’t use in it, but may become the starting point for another book.

9) Your books with Pinkerton operative Phil Beaumont is wonderful. It also seems full of possibilities. Have you thought of doing more?

Thanks. I liked writing ESCAPADE and MASQUERADE. At the moment I’m working on a new one, CAVALCADE, which is set in Berlin and Munich in 1923, and features Adolph Hitler and his band of zanies.

10)In Cavalcade, and in Escapade and Masquerade as well, do you try to keep to strict historical portrayals, or is the essecnce of the real life characters enough?

I try to be as accurate as possible. But I do take liberties. Houdini's diction, for example, was probably not as elaborate as I made it. But his writing was, and I basically used the writing as a template for his talking.

A few people have complained about the way I portrayed Hemingway in MASQUERADE, as physically clumsy and also not a very nice guy. But the fact is, he was physically clumsy and he wasn't a very nice guy.

11)When can we look for Cavalcade?

It'll be finished in March. If it finds an American publisher -- my German publisher, Goldmanns, has already bought it -- it should be out sometime early next year.

12) Do you think websites help authors get their names out there and help make the readers more aware of them?

I honestly don’t know. I’ve got a web page - http://www.Satterthwait.com - and occasionally I get e-mail from someone who’s stumbled upon it. But I don’t know that it’s actually helped sell books.

13) Do you attend mystery conventions?

Occasionally. They’re a great way to see old friends, like Sinclair Browning or Bill Crider. But I don’t do them as often as I used to. I’m not much good on panels - I’d rather write books than talk about them. I suppose that if I were better at talking about them, I’d feel differently.

14) A lot of mystery books lately seem to criticized for having too much violence. Do you think this is really a problem?

Not for me. I don’t think that my own books are particularly violent, but I don’t mind violence in anyone else’s book. With the caveat that I’m not real anxious to read about violence perpetrated upon children.

15) Would you let your books be turned into movies or television programs?

In a New York minute.

16) When George Chesbro had trouble getting his books published and his backlist out in paperback, he started his own publishing house. Have you considered something like this?

I haven’t got the time or patience for that. Through the Authors Guild, and i-Universe, however, I’ve arranged to make MISS LIZZIE, my novel about Lizzie Borden, available as a Print On Demand book. Anyone who wants the book can order it through Amazon or Barnes and Nobel. I’m thinking about doing the same thing with WILDE WEST, my novel about Oscar Wilde’s American tour.

17) What kind of movies do you enjoy?

All kinds. This year I’ve liked MEMENTO, MULHOLLAND DRIVE, GOSFORD PARK, SHREK, CRUMB, DANGEROUS BEAUTY, and GINGER SNAPS, a great werewolf movie, to name a few. Some of these aren’t current, but I’ve seen them this year for the first time. I think that the DVD is the greatest invention since Saran Wrap.

18) If you were able to talk to yourself as a young man, what advice would you share with your younger self?

Marry a rich widow with a cough.

19) What kind of things do you like to do to relax?

Ride my motorcycle.

20)What kind of motorcycle do you ride? (coming from Milwaukee, I need to know...)

I ride a BMW R100RT, a touring bike. It's a '93, which was the last year that the R series BMWs used the classic, horizontally opposed, air-cooled cylinders. Subsequent bikes have a sleeve over each cylinder, beneath which oil is pumped. This is supposed to let the bikes operate in a higher ambient temperature. But I've driven across the Arizona desert in the middle of the summer and never had a problem with the bike. (I, myself, on the other hand, was over-heating on a regular basis.)

21) You’ve lived in a lot of different places. Why did you decide to stay in the southwest?

When I first came to New Mexico, it reminded me of Greece, where I'd lived for a few years. It still does, and I'M MARRIED NOW, AND MY WIFE CAROLINE AND I still like it.

22) What do you think is the trickiest part of writing mysteries?

Convincing someone to pay you money for them.

23) What’s the one thing that is always in your refrigerator?

A severed head.