July 2018: Origins of the Travelers
Howdy, Michael here,
Hope you’re enjoying your summer. Some Travelers Group list members have asked how the Travelers series came to be. Well, part of it was planning and part was serendipity.
Initially, I wanted to create a crime fiction series that was fun to read and fun to write. I especially liked old school crime thrillers, like those by Hammet or Chandler, and I liked super realistic crime TV shows and movies, like The Wire or True Detective. And, as I’ve mentioned in lots of places, I’m fascinated by people’s tendency to want something for nothing. But how could these interests be combined?
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, Richard Stark, 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. I didn’t think I could add anything new there. And the idealistic do-gooder—well, that really wasn’t my thing. A con man, on the other hand, I thought maybe I could do something interesting with that. And so the Traveling Man was born, a seasoned con man, a manipulator who lives by a code to only rob 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, until I was writing not just about the Traveling Man, but about the two of them, 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. And so the Travelers were born.
If you haven’t yet read The Traveling Man: The Travelers Book 1, the eBook is free on Amazon today through Thursday July 12 so that new readers can find out about the series. Here’s the link: http://amzn.to/1Nnd373
Have a read and then drop a review to tell me what you think. A few words will do. Here’s the review link: http://amzn.to/2eS8rdW
Thanks for reading,
Michael