Artful Interview: Joseph Finder & the Art of the Thrill

Artful Hatter: You worked for the CIA for a short time before becoming a published novelist and, in fact, your novel “The Zero Hour” was written with the cooperation of the CIA and FBI.  How did that happen and how has your CIA experience helped in your writing?

Joseph Finder: More accurately, I was recruited to the CIA.  But it wasn’t the job for me. I’ve never been good at office politics.  I had and have friends there, though, people I trust and respect and stay in touch with.   And it’s an agency I have great respect for.  They do terribly hard work, and most of their successes go unknown, while their failures everyone knows about.  From my very first book on I’ve been able to call upon my friends in the CIA for expert help.  They’re not always happy with what I come up with – but they know they can always trust me never to reveal something they’ve asked me not to.  I know how to keep my mouth shut. . .

Artful Hatter:You set a lot of your books in a business environment – which led to your nickname as the “CEO of Suspense.”  What’s your attraction with businesses and corporations?

Joseph Finder

Joseph Finder: I understand the appeal of the courtroom or trial thriller for sure, but I’ve never understood why a law firm should be any more appealing a setting for a suspense novel than a corporation.  After all, most of us spend the vast majority of our time, intellect, energy and emotion at the office. It’s where we live.  And what better setting for a thriller than our own home?  And there’s another appeal to setting a thriller in the world of the corporation: we thriller writers go where the crimes are. Crimes happen when people want things without restraint. Where, in our society, does that happen without police intervention? In the world of business and high finance. In the world of big money.  Think of the violent language we often use to refer to success in business: we say that someone made a killing, or takes no prisoners.  Business is war! “Killer Instinct,” in particular, jumped off from the idea of taking the “business as war” metaphor a little too literally.

Artful Hatter: You have recently started a series character named Nick Heller.  After nine stand-alone books, why the decision to try a serial character?

Joseph Finder: My publishers made me.  Seriously, my publisher had been asking me for years to create a continuing character, because readers bond primarily with characters, more than they do with any particular author. I saw that.  I kept getting emails from readers asking when I was going to bring back Jason from “Killer Instinct” or Adam from “Paranoia.”  But for a long time I resisted writing a series character because I didn’t want to do the same old private eye or FBI agent or CIA agent or homicide cop.  They’ve all been done, and in some cases really well.  I wanted to create a character that would be unique — and also who could bridge the worlds of corporate corruption and international intrigue, both of which I’ve written thrillers about.  When I learned that people were leaving the CIA to go private — to work as “private spies” — I knew I had something very exciting.  And that turned into Nick Heller.

Artful Hatter: Can you tell us about Nick Heller?  What’s your inspiration for him and what’s in store for him in “Buried Secrets”?

Joseph Finder: A few years ago I had dinner in London with an old friend who worked in the CIA.  He told me that he’d gone private, that he was doing pretty much the same sort of operations that he’d done while working for the government, but for a lot more money and with a lot more freedom.  So that gave me the idea for Nick Heller, a guy who was raised in a world of privilege, as the son of a Wall Street titan now in prison.  But Nick, having seen the dark side of money, dropped out and joined the Special Forces to do something that mattered.  Because of his rare combination of skills in the field and his ease in the business world and in circles of great wealth, he was recruited to a private-intelligence firm in D.C.  Eventually he started his own firm, since he prefers being his own boss.  Which is something that I, as a writer, identify with.

Artful Hatter: You have embraced the use of social media – and are very active on Twitter.  What do you like best about using channels like Facebook and Twitter?

Joseph Finder: For better or worse, it’s instant feedback. Writing is a pretty solitary occupation. You sit alone at your desk for a year or more to write a book. Maybe you do a few weeks of book tour, and meet readers there, and maybe you go to a few meetings, like Bouchercon or Thrillerfest or Harrogate. But otherwise, you don’t have a lot of direct contact with readers. Twitter and Facebook are ways to engage with readers directly, off the printed page, and can be tremendously energizing.

Artful Hatter: Publishing has changed dramatically since you started writing. There are book trailers, ebooks, iPads, etc… Do you worry that books and reading have lost their appeal and that audience want dynamic content instead?

Joseph Finder: Not at all!  We all crave stories – always have, always will.  We may have shorter attention spans, it’s true, which is the result of movies and TV and now the Internet.  Readers may no longer be as willing to let a story take its time. I read the thrillers of the 1930s now, and think that John Buchan, for example, would never be allowed to spend the kind of time he did describing what his characters ate and wore.