Recently I was interviewed by Maine mystery writer Barb Ross, author of The Death of an Ambitious Woman.  Here’s the complete text of the interview.

A Conversation with James Hayman

Thriller fans have gotten to know Portland Police Department Detectives Michael McCabe and Magie Savage in James Hayman’s edge of the seat thrillers The Cutting and The Chill of Night.  Here’s a closer look at Hayman himself.

Barb Ross:  In 2001, you left New York City and the advertising industry behind to write thrillers in Portland, Maine.  What inspired such a radical change? Was the adjustment difficult?  How do you feel about it now?

Jim Hayman:  I was in the ad business for more than twenty five years and always wanted to write a thriller. By 2001 I was getting to an age where I had to ask myself Rabbi Hillel’s famous question, “If not now, when?”

I have to say transitioning from writing and producing TV commercials to writing thrillers was a lot easier than I thought it would be. Advertising’s a great training ground for thriller writing. Which is probably why so many ex-admen do it, including some pretty famous ones like James Patterson, Ted Bell, Stuart Woods, Chris Grabenstein and Marcus Sakey.

In a TV commercial you have to tell your whole story in thirty or sixty seconds so you have to learn to write tight. No wasted words allowed. You also develop a good ear for dialogue.  Anyone who’s read either of my books, The Cutting or The Chill of Night knows they’re both dialogue heavy. I use dialogue to move the story along.

To answer the final part of your question, while I miss the twice monthly paycheck the agency business afforded me, I thoroughly enjoy what I do now.

Barb:  Which brings us to setting.  What makes Portland, Maine a good setting for a series?  Are there any things about it that inhibit or confine you?

Jim:  For me, Portland is an almost perfect location. It offers everything I could want for a series of suspense novels.  Great architecture. An almost endless array of good bars and restaurants in which my hero, Mike McCabe, can enjoy his favorite single malt scotch and a New York strip steak. A gritty urban setting in which my corpses can be found..

I also like Maine’s often extreme weather which I use to advantage in both books. “Fog can be a sudden thing on the Maine coast” is the opening line of Chapter 1 in The Cutting.  For its part, The Chill of Night takes place in the middle of one of the coldest winters Maine has experienced in many years and the body of attorney Lainie Goff’s is found frozen solid in the trunk of her BMW convertible which is illegally parked at the end of the Portland Fish Pier.

Barb:  Your protagonist, Detective Sgt. Michael McCabe works for the Portland Police Department’s Crime Against People Unit.  Is there such a thing? If not, why did you invent it and what does it do?

Jim:  Crimes Against People is the real thing.  In Portland, police detectives work either in Crimes Against People which handles things like murder, rape and assault, or they work in Crimes Against Property which includes burglary and theft.

My key source who told me all about this is retired Portland Detective Sergeant Tom Joyce who once held McCabe’s job as the lead guy in Crimes Against People.  Whenever I’ve had a question about how things are really done Tom has been very generous in providing me with answers.

Barb:  Both of your books, The Cutting and The Chill of the Night were both very well reviewed.  Do you get nervous about reviews?  Do you read them?  Take them to heart?

Jim:  I’m not sure nervous is the right word, but I certainly look forward to the reviews and always read them when they come out. Frankly, I can’t imagine why any writer wouldn’t.  Who could resist reading praise for what they’ve done? And who wouldn’t at least glance at the vitriol?

Happily, with one notable exception, all of the reviews of both my books have been good, some very good and more than a few I can only call fabulous.

I have all the positive ones downloaded on my computer and when the going gets tough and I start thinking that I don’t know what the hell I’m doing trying to write a book, I open them up and re-read them to help convince myself I really can do it. My wife has actually printed a large blow-up of Lloyd Ferriiss’s review of The Chill of  Night and hung it from the wall of the room at home I use for writing.

The one lousy review I mentioned earlier was the first review of my first book, The Cutting, and to call it a stinker is an understatement. I occasionally look at that one as well. Not to cheer myself up or to find humility but just to quietly snarl at the reviewer.

Barb:  What’s coming next?  What are you working on now?

Jim:  I’m about two thirds of the way through my third thriller. The title (at least for now) is Darkness First. Unlike the first two, most of the action in number three takes place outside of Portland, in Washington County, Maine. Also the main protagonist isn’t Mike McCabe but his partner Detective Maggie Savage.  Aside from the fact that I think it’s a good story, I wanted to see if I could write an entire book almost exclusively from a female POV.

This entry was posted on Sunday, October 9th, 2011 at 11:47 am and is filed under From The Author. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.