April 13, 2020: Origins of the Travelers
The Travelers series—how did it come to be? Well, part of it was planning and part was serendipity. But it all began with The Traveling Man…
I wanted to create a crime fiction series that was fun to read, a series of fast-paced books with can’t-figure-them-out plots—a series that combined the sensibility of old school crime thrillers, like those by Richard Stark or Raymond Chandler, with the sensibility of super realistic crime TV shows and movies, like The Wire or True Detective or Breaking Bad.
So I read, or reread, a lot of crime thrillers, focusing on the types of characters other writers were creating. I read John Sanford, Lawrence Block, Patricia Cornwall, Robert B. Parker, Patricia Highsmith, Jo Nesbo, Kate Atkinson, Robert Crais, Michael Connelly, Lee Child, Sue Grafton, just to name a few.
There seemed to be plenty of alcoholic, ne’er-do-well private eyes and cross-the-line cops. Nothing new to add there. And the idealistic do-gooder—well, that really wasn’t my thing.
A con artist, on the other hand, maybe I could do something fresh with that. And so the Traveling Man was born—a seasoned con man, a manipulator who lives by a code to rob only crooks, as he defines them, a grifter with only one weakness—his wife.
But as I began to write the story of the Seanboro land grab and explore the possibilities of the various criminals and criminal wannabes who were hoping to get rich, the wife became a more and more important character.
By the time the story was finished, it wasn’t just about the Traveling Man, but about the Traveling Man and his wife, and how the nature of their relationship affected their choices. The two of them pitted against a crime boss, a gang of thugs, and the cops. Double crosses loaded on top of double crosses in a high-octane, fast-paced chase. And so the Travelers were born.
If you haven’t read The Traveling Man, you can check it out here:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B019DGN21A
Happy reading!
