Crime novelist Steve Hamilton returns to AADL for his second Nick Mason novel

INTERVIEW PREVIEW WRITTEN WORD

Steve Hamilton

Exit Strategy is U-M grad and Michigan native Steve Hamilton's second Nick Mason novel.

Last year Steve Hamilton took a u-turn.

The award-winning author of the popular Alex McKnight detective series introduced a new series with a very different main character in The Second Life of Nick Mason, a New York Times bestseller and multi-award winner that is being developed as a major motion picture.

McKnight was a straight arrow ex-Detroit cop, who left Detroit after his partner was killed and he was seriously wounded in a confrontation with a mentally ill man with an Uzi. McKnight escaped to rent cabins in tiny, isolated Paradise on the shores of Lake Superior in the U.P. But soon he was reluctantly being drawn into one case after another as a private detective.

By contrast, Mason is a tough kid from the south side of Chicago, a career criminal. He and two of his buddies began stealing cars as teenagers and then moved on to a series of minor crimes. Mason tried to give it up for his wife and daughter, but he and his pals became involved in a dock heist that went seriously bad, leaving one friend and a policeman dead. Mason took the rap and refused to rat on his associates, one his best friend. He was given 25 years without parole.

In prison, he came to the attention of a Chicago gangster, Darius Cole, in for the long haul but with the power to pull strings inside and outside the prison walls. Mason makes a deal with Cole that will get him out of jail after only five years if he does what he’s told without questions once he gets out.

Mason is shocked when he finds out he’s been groomed to be Cole’s new hit man. He feels compelled to honor his agreement but more importantly to protect his now ex-wife and his nine-year-old daughter from the threats by Cole’s outside man.

On Wednesday, May 17, Hamilton will return to the Ann Arbor District Library as part of a national book tour to launch Exit Strategy, the second novel in the critically acclaimed Nick Mason series. The book starts off fast and never flags as Nick meticulously and imaginatively carries out his assignments to infiltrate the inner-workings of the Witness Program to eliminate witnesses who might keep Cole from getting released from prison. At the same time, Mason is desperately seeking an exit strategy to escape from his Faustian deal and protect his estranged family.

Hamilton grew up in Michigan, attended the University of Michigan and now lives in Cottekill, N.Y. with his wife and two children. He discussed Nick Mason, Alex McKnight, and his writing in an email interview with Pulp.

Q: You’ve had a lot of success with the Alex McKnight series; why did you feel the need to create a new series? Was the first Nick Mason book meant to launch a new series or was it originally meant as a stand-alone?
A: Nick Mason was definitely a series from the beginning. In fact, I already had seven books laid out before I even started the first one. Very different from the way I wrote the Alex McKnight series -- but I think that’s just a function of how you learn to write, how you go about finding a better way to build a story.

Q: Nick Mason is a very different kind of protagonist than Alex McKnight. Mason is complicated. He’s a tough guy from the south side of Chicago who reluctantly becomes a hitman because of a promise given to a gangster but he keeps a list of dos and don’ts, lives by a code and tries to avoid doing more harm than necessary. How did you develop this character and were the differences between Mason and McKnight meant to mark a sharp break from the other series?
A: I did 12 books with Alex McKnight before ever trying to write about a character who lives on the other side of the law. That was Michael in The Lock Artist, but even in his case, becoming a criminal was never really something he wanted to do. He was just cursed with this unforgivable talent for opening locks and safes. For Nick Mason, it’s the first time I ever wrote a character who has clearly made that choice. He’s already a career criminal when you meet him, but I hope you can still relate to him -- because he takes this deal to get out of prison, not so he can go back to being a criminal on the streets, but so he can see his family again. That’s the most interesting thing about him, I think, that you can find yourself rooting for him. And ultimately, I don’t even think he’s that different from Alex McKnight. These are two men who are completely dedicated to what they do, who remain loyal to their friends even when it costs them. (Mason never gave up his best friend and was willing to draw a longer sentence to protect him.) I think if Alex McKnight and Nick Mason ever meet, they’d find a lot of common ground, like the scene in the diner between Vincent Hanna (Al Pacino) and Neil McCauley (Robert De Niro) in Michael Mann’s great crime film, Heat.

Q: The setting is also very different. Mason is sprung from prison and goes back to Chicago, a big, rough city. McKnight flees Detroit when his partner is killed and he’s wounded, to live in remote Paradise in the U.P., where he can’t quite escape his past or his willingness to help. You have a good feel for these different places, what kind of research do you do? Did the Michigan locations for McKnight come from your time attending the University of Michigan?
A: For the Michigan locations, it was more than just going to U-M -- it’s where I grew up, and like most Michiganders, going “up north” was a big part of my life, every single summer. That’s how I got to know the U.P., and what a different world it is. For Chicago, the different worlds live side by side in the same city -- South Side, North Side, West Side – which is what makes the city so unique. I spent a lot of time in Chicago, talking to cops, and for this second book, talking to an assistant U.S. attorney. Research is everything in books like this, and you have to go live in your character’s world if you’re going to get it right.

Q: The setting in Chicago seems timely with the outrageous murder rates and general gang violence in the city and the attention being given to it by President Trump. What are your impressions of the city, at once very vibrant but also very dangerous?
A: It’s true that Chicago has some gut-wrenching problems to deal with, but I see the city through the perspective of the people I know who live there, who love the place, who work hard every day to solve the city’s problems. As long as they’re doing that, there has to be hope that things will get better.

Q: The Nick Mason novels do have an honest cop as a character, Frank Sandoval, who wants to use Mason to go after some crooked cops who work with the mob? But Nick doesn’t trust the police and, in some ways, neither does Sandoval. Both Mason books seem to suggest that the mistrust that many innercity people have with police may be justified but can also be a help?
A: I tried to walk a tightrope on that issue -- because many people in certain neighborhoods do have an active distrust of the police, and I’d never try to tell them they shouldn’t. Not when you have something like the Laquan McDonald shooting and all of the efforts to suppress the evidence. On the other hand, the cops I know in Chicago are just as appalled by this case as anyone else. It’s just bad policing that reflects badly on all 12,000 cops in the city. Remember, these 12,000 cops get up every morning and try to keep order in a city with over 100,000 gang members. The vast majority of those cops are still just trying to do their job, no matter how hard that job has become.

Q: You acknowledge the help of law enforcement professionals; what kind of feedback have you received from professionals in the field on your McKnight and Mason novels?
A: It’s been very positive, I’m happy to say. Aside from all of the emails, there was this group of nine or 10 former Detroit police officers who’d have breakfast every day in a little town up north, and I had the pleasure of spending time with them. You want some great stories, just get a bunch of retired cops to start talking. As for Nick Mason, I’ve definitely heard from police officers and other members of the justice system in Chicago. And again, I’m just trying to get it right, and I’m glad when I do!

Q: The new Nick Mason starts off in high gear with Nick sent on one of his hits. In both Mason books the action sequences are intricate, fast-paced, and always reveal something about Nick’s character. Can you give me a sense of how you create these scenes?
A: It’s really like shooting a movie in my head, building the scene one move at a time. And then just getting out of the way and letting the scene work on its own momentum.

Q: The Mason books have a villain in Darius Cole, who is both Nick’s benefactor and his evil master. Is it fun creating a villain like Cole?
A: Sure, but you always have to be careful when you have a so-called villain character -- because nobody ever thinks of themselves as a villain. We all have our reasons and rationalizations for everything we do. Aside from a few very disturbed individuals, nobody wakes up and decides that they’re going to be evil that day.

Q: You attended the University of Michigan and won a Hopwood Award. Was detective fiction something you always wanted to do? Did particular writers inspire you?
A: I’ve always loved reading mysteries, and I always knew I’d be a writer someday. So it was a natural place to find myself. There are some great American crime writers, from Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett to the more modern masters like James Crumley and Lawrence Block. These are the writers who inspired me.

Q: Without revealing too much, where does Nick Mason go from here after one shocking surprise after another in the new book?
A: There’s a moment I love, not just in crime fiction but in any kind of story, when a character thinks he’s reached the end of the road -- but instead finds himself in a whole new world, bigger than anything he could have imagined. That’s the moment that happens at the end of Exit Strategy.

Q: Will there be more Alex McKnight novels?
A: Yes! I’ve actually already turned in the next McKnight book. I’m not sure when it will come out, but I do know it will take Alex down a darker, more harrowing road than he’s ever seen before, with some big surprises for readers who’ve been with this character ever since that first book!


Hugh Gallagher has written theater and film reviews over a 40-year newspaper career and was most recently managing editor of the Observer & Eccentric Newspapers in suburban Detroit.


Steve Hamilton will return to the Ann Arbor District Library on May 17 as part of a national book tour to launch the second novel in the critically acclaimed Nick Mason series, Exit Strategy. The event is 7-8:30 p.m. in the multi-purpose room at the library’s downtown branch. The event will include a book signing and books will be available courtesy of Aunt Agatha’s Bookstore.