Classic hardboiled: 3Qs for Michael Harvey, author of The Third Rail

Yesterday, I waxed fangirlish about Michael Harvey's terrific novel, The Third Rail. Today, the author stops by to answer three quick questions.

Michael, welcome. The Third Rail is our third fix of Kelly (not to mention your third starred review from PW.) Avoiding spoilers, of course, can you talk about how the character has evolved? How important is it for readers to start with The Chicago Way, then move on to read The Fifth Floor and The Third Rail in the order they were written?
The first three can be read in any order. Probably better if you start with the first, but not critical. My next book will be a sequel to The Third Rail, so those two have be read in the proper order.

Kelly is getting darker. As I dig into his character....and especially his childhood...I find more things from his past that are following him around. Along with the usual assortment of bad guys, shady clients and dead bodies!

I'm a Chandler/Hammett devotee, and your Michael Kelly books -- first person POV, tight sentence structure, turns of phrase like "a soft frat boy and his softer girlfriend" -- give me that same great hardboiled kick. Were you writing like this before you moved to Chicago or did something about the city bring about that voice?
Raymond Chandler once said (and I paraphrase here) a classical education is a perfect background for writing novels in the hardboiled-vernacular, because it knocks all the pretense out of your writing...which is exactly what most modern fiction is too full of. I agree with Chandler and his overall premise. Why not? It’s a good camp to be in.

What Chandler is getting at (I think) is that Latin and Greek are beautiful, elegant and, most importantly, economical languages. Aeschylus can say in a sentence what it takes us a page and a half to say in English And he says it a whole lot better.

I have a background in classical languages (B.A. from Holy Cross, ten years total of Latin and six of Greek) and find it to be invaluable. Maybe we are all just trying to justify all those years of sweating out Homer, but I think it’s helped me to be a tougher, more physical and more concise writer.

Well, then I have to cut right to the chase and ask, what are you reading?
A Cormac McCarthy marathon....No Country For Old Men, Blood Meridian, The Road. Yikes... seriously good. Night Soldiers by Alan Furst. Rereads...Great Gatsby, The Sun Also Rises, The Plague. Speed the Plow (Wonderful play by David Mamet).

Buy This Book: The Third Rail by Michael Harvey

Here's a trailer that tells you exactly nothing and everything about Michael Harvey's The Third Rail:



Michael Connelly calls Michael Harvey "a major new voice," but it's his old school style that keeps me coming back for more Mike Kelly. A while back, I read Harvey's debut novel, The Chicago Way, after The Big Sleep launched me into a major hardboiled binge. I wanted more. Harvey gave it to me. Made me want to slump into a seat on the el train, light up a cigarette, and change my name to Stella.

From the flap:

A woman is shot as she waits for her train to work. An hour later, a second woman is gunned down as she rides an elevated train through the Loop. Two hours after that, a church becomes the target of a chemical weapons attack. The city of Chicago is under siege, and Michael Kelly, cynical cop turned private investigator, just happens to be on the scene when all hell breaks loose.

Kelly is initially drawn into the case by the killers themselves, then tasked by Chicago’s mayor and the FBI to hunt down the bad guys and, all things being equal, put a bullet in them. Kelly, of course, has other ideas. As he gets closer to the truth, his instincts lead him to a retired cop, a shady train company, and an unnerving link to his own past. Meanwhile, Kelly’s girlfriend, Rachel Swenson, becomes a pawn in a much larger game, while a weapon that could kill millions ticks away quietly in the very belly of the city.

The Third Rail is Mike Kelly's third outing, and it's darker than the first two, but it doesn't feel like Harvey is pushing the envelope or trying to give us something we haven't seen on Law & Order. It's more about intensity, atmospherics, and the depth of this evolving character.

Tune in tomorrow. Michael Harvey stops by to answer 3Qs. And the answers will surprise you.

Click here to buy from IndieBound.