Tuesday, March 22, 2022

Blog Tour: A Kind and Savage Place by Richard Helms #blogtour #interview #giveaway #historical #mystery #rabtbooktours @RABTBookTours @rickhelmsauthor

 



Historical Mystery

Date Published: 03-01-2022

Publisher: New Arc Books / Level Best Books



It's 1954. The place is Prosperity, North Carolina, a small farming community in Bliss County. Three teenagers, the 1953 championship-winning offensive backfield for Prosperity High, are unwilling participants in a horrific event that results in a young man’s death.

One of the friends harbors a tragic secret that could have prevented the crime. Divulging it would ruin his life, so he stays quiet, fully aware he will carry a stain of guilt for the rest of his life.

The three buddies go their separate ways for almost a decade, before another tragedy brings them back to Prosperity in 1968. Now in their thirties, it is a time of civil and racial unrest in America.

They discover the man who committed murder back in ’54 is now the mayor, and rules the town with an autocratic iron fist. He’s backed by his own private force of sheriff's deputies and forcibly intimidates and silences any malcontents.

Worse, now he's set his sights on Congress.

A Kind and Savage Place spans half a century from 1942 to 1989 and examines the dramatic racial and societal turmoil of that period through the microcosmic lens of a flyspeck North Carolina agricultural community.






Interview

Is There a Message in Your Novel That You Want Readers to Grasp?

 

Sam Goldwyn is famous for saying “If you want to send a message, write a telegram.”

 

I think he was wrong.

 

I believe—as did Steinbeck and James Lee Burke and dozens of other magnificent writers—that fiction should take a point of view, and that the underlying theme of a work should drive its characters actions.  The problem is wrapping a ripping yarn around a message so that the message itself becomes almost subliminal.

 

In A Kind and Savage Place (New Arc Books, March 2022), I channeled a great deal of my own experience growing up in the south during the halcyon years of the civil rights movement. I lived in Charlotte, Charleston, and Atlanta in the late 1950s and 1960s, and witnessed the struggle with a child’s natural curiosity and intense interest. I saw “whites only” bathrooms and water fountains and restaurants and swimming pools, and they confused me. I witnessed a Ku Klux Klan march in a small Georgia town around 1964, with throngs of flag-waving, cheering white people lining the sidewalks, and I included it in the novel.

 

I tried to show that people are capable of growth and change over time, regardless of the prejudices they might have encountered in their youth, and that people who are oppressed will invariably rise up and forcefully take their place at the table if denied any other way to achieve equality. All of that is thematic, though. My true intent was to tell the story of my own civil rights coming-of-age as a Son of the South with roots three hundred years deep in Carolina soil.

 

 

Is there anything you find particularly challenging in your writing?

 

Writing first drafts. Hate ‘em. It’s a real chore to glue my glutes to the chair and pound out a thousand or fifteen hundred words a day for three or four months.

 

One of my early mentors was Jeremiah Healy. We met at Sleuthfest in Florida around 2001, and I became one of his many semi-acolytes. Jerry gave me a great deal of assistance in my early publishing days, and his suicide was a great shock for me.

 

Jerry used to say this: “Sit in your chair. Write one thousand words. Repeat for ninety days, and you will have a novel. It won’t be a good novel, but don’t worry. All first drafts stink. The real writing begins after you write the words The End.”

 

Pounding out that first draft, though, is a real chore for me. I force myself into my desk chair every day, and don’t stop until it’s finished. Then the fun starts.

 

How many books have you written and which is your favorite?

 

I’m about halfway finished with the first draft of my twenty-fifth novel. A Kind and Savage Place, which will debut on March 1st, is my twenty-second.

 

I know it sounds like PR, but A Kind and Savage Place is my favorite so far, followed closely by a novel nobody has ever read called Bobby J. (2001).

 

Both were intensely personal novels derived from my own experiences. When I completed A Kind and Savage Place, I was very careful submitting it to potential publishers, because I wanted it to find the right home. I think it did with Level Best Books’ New Arc imprint.

 

 

 

If You had the chance to cast your main character from Hollywood today, who would you pick and why?

 

Great question!

 

The only character in A Kind and Savage Place for whom I had a clear image while I was writing was the antagonist, Klansman and later mayor and congressman Rennie Poole. He was strongly influenced by Kevin Spacey’s performance as Frank Underwood in House of Cards. Life takes strange turns, though, and it’s unlikely Spacey has a future in films, so it’s back to the drawing board. Richard Jaeckel in his prime would have been perfect. Scott Caan (Hawaii Five-0) might be a good fit. I saw Richard Thomas on an episode of Ozark the other night, and I think he might be a good candidate as well. I’ve been watching a lot of films and TV lately looking for people who might resemble the protagonist, Jude Pressley. I think Steven Strait (The Expanse) is very close. He has the right look and build.

 

I have definitely cast the protagonists in my genre mystery series in my head.

 

Stranger Things and Hellboy star David Harbour is my current Thriller Award-winning Pat Gallegher (Joker Poker; Voodoo That You Do; Juicy Watusi; Wet Debt; Paid in Spades).

 

Catastrophe’s Rob Delaney would be perfect for my Shamus Award-winning San Francisco private eye Eamon Gold (Grass Sandal; Cordite Wine; Brittle Karma; Doctor Hate).

 

For quite a long time, I saw Josh Brolin as small-town police chief Judd Wheeler (Six Mile Creek; Thunder Moon; Older Than Goodbye), but I’ve been completely bowled over by country singer Tim McGraw’s performance in 1883, and I think he will become the image when I write the next book in that series sometime next year.

 

 

When did you begin writing?

 

I think I chiseled my first story on a rock.

 

Seriously, my first published story appeared in my school newspaper when I was eight years old, almost six decades ago. I wrote and directed plays throughout high school and college, but only switched over to novels and short stories after I graduated. I started writing my first published novel, Geary’s Year, when I was twenty five. It was about kart racing, and was serialized in World Karting Magazine, along with its sequel, Geary’s Gold. That was about 1980—forty-two years ago.

 

 

How long did it take to complete your first book?

 

About four months. I was a psychology major in college, and I used the book as a semester-long class project to demonstrate behavioral control over a long period of time, charting my words-per-day and cumulative writing as a form of self-reinforcement. To this day, I still give myself a reward of a couple of Dove’s Dark Chocolates every time I grind out 1000 words.

 

After I retired in 2016, I went into something of a writing frenzy, pounding out 2500-3500 words a day. I’ve throttled back of late, averaging 1000-1500 words a day, but I write religiously. I treat it like my job—I write five days a week, at least a thousand words a day, and take weekends and holidays off. I don’t write on vacation. On average, it takes me between three or four months to punch out a first draft. I might spend two hundred hours or more on rewrites.

 

 

Did you have an author who inspired you to become a writer?

 

When I was seven years old, an older teen neighbor gave me an already worn copy of Groff Conklin’s Big Book of Science Fiction. I was a precocious reader already. My mother taught me to read almost before I was out of diapers, and I read everything I could get my hands on, including stuff written primarily for adults.

 

At seven, I didn’t completely understand every one of the stories, but I read them nonetheless, over and over. Stories by John D. McDonald, Murray Leinster, Ray Bradbury, Fredric Brown, Theodore Sturgeon, Fletcher Pratt, Clifford D. Simak, and many more. As I read it for the tenth or twelfth time, a light went on over my head and I realized the names attached to the stories meant someone created them! It was my first inkling that books and television shows didn’t just materialize out of the ether. I think it was that moment that I determined to become one of them. I might have been eight years old.

 

I still own my slowly disintegrating copy of Groff Conklin’s Big Book of Science Fiction. The spine is held together by thirty-year-old masking tape, and I keep it in a baggie to prevent pages from falling out. It is my most prized physical possession, and if the house ever catches fire it will be the first thing I grab to save after making sure everyone is outside.

 

What is your favorite part of the writing process?

 

In addition to other stuff, I’m a master woodworker. One of my favorite sayings is, “Writing is like woodworking. Once you bang the boards together, the hard work starts.”

 

The writing only becomes a source of joy for me when I’ve finished the first draft and can then begin the process of honing and refining a few hundred pages of garbage into something someone would actually want to read. I dearly love rewriting and editing my works, killing my darlings, and whittling away fat and excess to reveal the core of a ripping yarn.

 

 

 

Describe your latest book in 4 words.

 

Intensely disturbing; relentlessly hopeful.

 

 

Can you share a little bit about your current work or what is in the future for your writing?

 

It's 1954. The place is Prosperity, North Carolina, a small farming community in mostly rural Bliss County. Three teenagers, the 1953 championship-winning offensive backfield for Prosperity High, and lifelong friends, are unwilling participants in a horrific event that results in a young man’s death.

One of the friends harbors a tragic secret that could have prevented the crime. Divulging it would ruin his life, so he stays quiet, fully aware he will carry a stain of guilt for the rest of his life.

The three buddies go their separate ways for almost a decade, before another tragedy brings them back to Prosperity in 1968. Now in their thirties, it is a time of civil and racial unrest in America.

They discover the man who committed murder back in ’54 is now the mayor and rules the town with an autocratic iron fist. He’s backed by his own private force of sheriff's deputies and forcibly intimidates and silences any malcontents.

Worse, now he's set his sights on Congress.

A Kind and Savage Place spans half a century from 1942 to 1989 and examines the dramatic racial and societal turmoil of that period through the microcosmic lens of a flyspeck North Carolina agricultural community.

 

I’m completely stoked about this new novel, mostly because it reflects my own experiences growing up in the center of the civil rights movement in the late 1950s and the 1960s (and which, many would argue, continues to this day). I witnessed the struggle for civil rights in America firsthand and wanted to channel my experiences into a compelling story. I’m extremely proud of A Kind and Savage Place as a ripping yarn and a reflection of the events in my childhood that affected the course of my life.

 

But wait! There’s more!

 

In one of my most masochistic acts, I agreed with Level Best Books’ decision to publish two of my novels within weeks of each other. A Kind and Savage Place comes out on March 1 from LBB’s New Arc imprint, but in May they will publish my novel Vicar Brekonridge, based on my 2020 Derringer Award-nominated short story in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, “The Cripplegate Apprehension”.

 

Vicar Brekonridge is set in London and Glasgow in 1843, and follows the adventures of—as I describe him—“…Victorian London’s most notorious thief-taker.” Before the introduction of the London Metropolitan Police by future Prime Minister Robert Peel, law enforcement in London was handled on a fairly hit or miss basis, and scofflaws were frequently apprehended by a sort of cross between a private detective and a bounty hunter—thief takers.

 

In real life, in 1843, Daniel M’Naghten gunned down Robert Peel’s personal secretary in the streets of Whitehall, believing him to be the Prime Minister himself. Quickly apprehended, he made a brief statement at arraignment blaming the Tories in Glasgow for making him insane and forcing him to commit his crime, and he never said a word about the murder again. His attorney, Queen’s Counsel Alexander Cockburn, wanted the court to find M’Naghten insane to save him from the gallows. In my reimagining of the famous M’Naghten trial, Cockburn hires legendary but disfigured thief-taker Vicar Brekonridge to travel to M’Naghten’s hometown of Glasgow to gather evidence to support the insanity plea, with the help of nineteen-year-old law clerk and budding genius Simon Daughtrey. What they discover in Glasgow, however, suggests a much more sinister motive for M’Naghten’s crime.

 

Thanks for hosting me today! It was a pleasure chatting with your readers!

 

 



About the Author


Richard Helms is a retired college professor and forensic psychologist. He has been nominated eight times for the SMFS Derringer Award, winning it twice; seven times for the Private Eye Writers of America Shamus Award, with a win in 2021; twice for the ITW Thriller Award, with one win; four times for the Killer Nashville Silver Falchion Award with one win: and once for the Mystery Readers International Macavity Award. He is a frequent contributor to Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, along with other periodicals and short story anthologies. His story “See Humble and Die” was included in Houghton-Mifflin-Harcourt’s Best American Mystery Stories 2020. A Kind and Savage Place is his twenty-second novel. Mr. Helms is a former member of the Board of Directors of Mystery Writers of America, and the former president of the Southeast Regional Chapter of MWA. When not writing, Mr. Helms enjoys travel, gourmet cooking, simracing, rooting for his beloved Carolina Tar Heels and Carolina Panthers, and playing with his grandsons. Richard Helms and his wife Elaine live in Charlotte, North Carolina.


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