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“A debut novel with an assured, strongly focused voice and hard-boiled writing that reminds you of Mickey Spillane. Darwin's Nightmare announces a new and serious mystery writer on the Canadian scene...The pace of the story kept me turning pages. The violence is raw, the energy of the writing is addictive, and the story reveals life as it unravels from the wrong side of the gun...Darwin's Nightmare is a debut novel not to be missed.”
Mike Knowles is Hamilton's newest mystery author. ECW Press launches his outstanding debut work, Darwin's Nightmare, October 21 at Bryan Prince Bookseller. We recently chatted about writing and life in Hamilton.
Knowles grew up in Ancaster, now lives in Stoney Creek, teaches in Hamilton and is a McMaster University graduate in English and history.
Q: How did you find your way into writing?
A: I got a chance to write various literary forms and genres and found out how much I loved to write. I bounced my work off people, got to listen to what registered with them ... and what I liked and what bored me stiff.
Q: What led to the mystery-crime angle?
A: A chance encounter with The Hunter by Richard Stark. It was a complete 180 from the material I'd been exposed to. It was raw, gritty and visceral--I read it in a day and found every other book in the series and then moved to Mickey Spillane and other pulp authors from the '60s and '70s.
Q: The story is told in first person -- from the perpetrator's perspective -- an uncommon take.
A: I noticed that everything I wanted to happen in most of the books I read, never did. I missed the scam.
Spillane was a master at dealing with low-level crime in a manner befitting the streets, and no one ever picked up after him. Worse, few authors gave a voice to the other side.
I love to read the bad guy and, even more, I love to write the bad guy. In Darwin's Nightmare there are no do-gooder private eyes or reporters after the truth. No white knights. Characters are mostly black and shades of grey. I write about criminals because I find them inherently more complex. And, of course, crime fiction is pure escapism. It makes you part of something you would never experience in your everyday world.
Q: I feel a Spillane tone. What are you influences?
A: Stark, Spillane, Parker ... and anything pulp. Growing up, I read any obscure book I could find in a used book store. I found one called, The Name of the Game is Death. I couldn't believe I'd never heard of it. There are lots of others who showed me angles and perspectives that need more of a voice.
I also found inspiration in comic books. Frank Miller, Brian Azzarello and Ed Brubaker created works that were throwbacks to the original noir books. Reading them opened my eyes to the way old pulp could be splashed on a current canvas.
Q: Hamilton is integral to your novel; I'm interested in why you chose it.
A: Hamilton has everything: diversity, wealth, poverty, crime and concrete -- tons of concrete. As I grew up, I learned that the city has a hard beauty. Each rough edge makes Hamilton more interesting and more exotic than almost anywhere else. I set my next two books here because I think the setting will appeal to both a Canadian and international audience. Canada offers a wealth of diversity that cannot be replicated in American crime fiction. Writing about Canada provides a different take on ethnicity and culture. Hamilton specifically offers numerous cultures to explore: a diversity capable of spawning interesting characters and dilemmas rarely seen in popular American crime fiction.
More to come: In the fall of 2009 in a yet to be titled work, protagonist Wilson learns the city doesn't let go so easily. Hamilton is more than bricks. It's a machine that runs on the blood of hard men and women. The hardest among them remembers Wilson and will stop at nothing to get him back. In fall 2010, in the third in the series, faces from the past join in getting even, and Wilson fights the Mob and corrupt cops.
Hamilton's newest mystery writer, Mike Knowles, presents a debut novel with an assured, strongly focused voice and hard-boiled writing that reminds you of Mickey Spillane. Darwin's Nightmare announces a new and serious mystery writer on the Canadian scene.
What captured me, beyond the command of riveting storytelling dialogue and a sense of place that lifts Hamilton into an integral part of the story, is the twist. No private eyes attached at the hip to a bottle or a dubious past. No truth-seeking journalists or multidivorced detectives. The main character, Wilson, lives in the shadows, works for the dark side and one day crosses the line, seriously pissing off a Mob boss who describes himself as Charles Darwin's worst nightmare.
Told in the first person, Chapter 1 sets the hook. Wilson shoves a roll of coins into the back of a young man at the Hamilton airport, forces him into the john and relieves him of a package. Obeying the code of ethics in such business transactions, Wilson doesn't open the package. He waits in his office, the package is picked up, Wilson is paid, and his descent into hell begins.
The pace of the story kept me turning pages. The violence is raw, the energy of the writing is addictive, and the story reveals life as it unravels from the wrong side of the gun. Wilson's business is practised as if the alternative were death -- which it is. There's a glimpse of Wilson's soul, the trail that brought him to where he is, the yearning for something different and the nongratuitous reality of his life below the radar.
Darwin's Nightmare is a debut novel not to be missed.
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