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.
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
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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