Secret Dead Guest Post: Jason Starr!

Secret Dead Blog was a rabid fan of Jason Starr's novels long we met him, starting with the brilliant, creepy and unputdownable Hard Feelings (2002); somehow, we remained rabid fans even after meeting him. (Ah, we kid Mr. Starr. He knows that.) Anyway, Jason's out with a new novel today, The Pack (Ace) which literally just arrived here at Secret Dead Blog HQ minutes ago. Jason will be appearing at the Mysterious Bookshop in New York City tomorrow night; in the meantime, listen to him spin some lies about us and hear more about The Pack, his first horror noir.


Me, Duane, Prom Dates, and The Pack
By Jason Starr

Many thanks to Duane for letting me sabotage his blog today. He gave me strict instructions before he left for the day:

No drinking

No drugs

No loud music

No sex in his bed

            Then with an ultra-serious expression he added:

                        And No Ken Bruen

Yeah, sure, Duane, yep, no problem (as Ken and I put on our Tom Cruise-in-Risky Business sunglasses).


Cheese steak

A Phillies cap

Pop Tarts

I think Duane was a little flustered meeting Ken for the first time and right after we toasted his first pint slipped out of his hand and spilled all over my lap. Then, a few minutes later, Duane's prom date strolls into the bar! Seriously, what were the odds? Of all the gin joints…Duane hadn't seen her in about fifteen years and they had a lot of catching up to do, so that was the end us for the rest of the night.

(Duane will claim that some of this didn't happen exactly the way I've described but, trust me, about 90 percent of this is true.)

Since that night, Duane went on to become one of the best crime writers in the business. I'm reading his new one right now, Fun and Games, and it's blowing me away, like John Ridley meets Elmore Leonard on acid. Seriously, it's the best thing Duane's done (and that's saying a lot) and I've been raving to everyone I know about it.

But enough about what I think of Duane, let's get on to what I think of myself.

Yeah, I'm talking about a little BSP. As Bret Easton Ellis would say, "Deal with it. Rock 'n' roll."

My new book, The Pack, is out today and it's different than anything I've done before. The first clue it's different—you'll probably find it in the general fiction or sci-fi section of your local bookstore. That said, there's a lot of crime in it too, and it also has a horror element. It's also a dark bromance story and a satire about New York and New Yorkers.

The idea for The Pack came about in when I was pitching ideas for movies and TV shows. I've done some screenwriting and I'm always looking to do more (as the old Yiddish saying goes, "Every singer wants to be a dancer"). When I pitched the basic story for The Pack, about a stay-at-home dad who bonds with a group of dads at a New York playground and discovers they have a very dark secret, the producer suggested that I write it as a novel. After The Chill (my 2010 graphic novel for Vertigo Crime), I had been thinking about writing a novel that pushed me into a new direction and my agent liked the idea so I was off and running.

Another departure for me with The Pack is it's the first book in a series. Aside from the books I've written with Ken Bruen, all my novels have been standalones (and many of my characters have ended up physically unable to go on to another book). So with The Pack I had to make sure that at least some of my characters survive, which I discovered is not an easy thing to do. It's just so tempting and fun to kill off my fictional characters. There were so many times I wanted to blow away my most likable characters in The Pack spectacularly gruesome ways and I had to say to myself, Easy now boy, let's rein it in.

If you want to catch Duane and me in action, we will be on a New York Public Library together next Wednesday, June 15. I guarantee we'll put on a better show than the last time we paneled together at Bouchercon in Madison a few years ago. It was hardboiled authors vs. cozy authors panel and Duane, Megan Abbott and I were massacred. Man, what a train wreck that was. Imagine 45 minutes of awkward pauses and us exchanging looks of, Why don't you take this one? The highlight, or lowlight, of the night was when we brought out our secret weapon—an actual cat.

Whoops, gotta go—Ken Bruen's calling me and we're gonna share a line on Duane's pillow.

Thanks for the time suck.

(SDB here again: The Pack is available right this very second. Order online, or visit your favorite indie bookshop or brick-and-mortar for your copy.)