An Introduction to Cold Desert Sky by Rod Reynolds

There's a theory I see espoused by authors, from time to time, that we all have a eureka moment at some point during the writing of a story, where it finally becomes clear what the book is truly about. Cold Desert Sky is the first time I can say I experienced that feeling.

Of course, I knew what the plot was - at least in outline - before I started writing: it picks up from where my second novel, Black Night Falling left off, with reporter Charlie Yates returning to Los Angeles and living in fear of legendary mob boss Bugsy Siegel. Charlie becomes obsessed with the disappearance of two aspiring starlets, and his investigations lead to him getting caught up in a murderous blackmail racket, targeting Hollywood bigwigs. 

The action moves to Las Vegas, right around the time Siegel was completing his dream: The Flamingo Hotel, the building which laid the foundation for the city we know today. Yates finds himself caught between Sigel's outfit and a rogue FBI agent, and as his chances of getting out alive dwindle, his only care is to find the missing girls while he still can.

The inspiration for the book came from several places. I've been visiting Las Vegas, periodically, for twenty years now, and I've always been interested in the history of the place. It also tied in with the historical events I based Black Night Falling on - in that Siegel travelled frequently to Hot Springs, where that book is set, and used it as a template for his vision of Las Vegas. With this connection in mind, it was too tempting a historical confluence to ignore.

I also started out wanting to write about the seedy side of Hollywood's golden era. The book was completed before the Weinstein revelations came out, and the subsequent #MeToo movement, and it's striking to be able to look at it now and think about how little has changed in the decades that followed.

But what about that eureka moment? That's to do with the missing girls. Anyone who follows me on social media will know I often post about some of the crazy things my two young daughters say or do. Becoming a father five years ago has changed me in ways I couldn't have imagined; in many ways it's made me more positive and optimistic, but also more fearful. And I realised these two missing girls - much older than my own, but perhaps more vulnerable for it - were the product of my parental worst fears. Those horrible moments where we allow our mind to imagine what it would feel like if something terrible happened. As unpleasant as it is, the emotion provoked is visceral and potent - and that's what I was trying to bring to this book. To have Charlie experience the same sense of terror, and being forced to confront just how far he's willing to go to protect two innocents.

Of course, when he discovers the truth, it isn't so straightforward...

But if I've managed to capture those emotions on the page - or readers can relate to them or have experienced similar, as I'm sure they have - then you'll understand why this is my most personal book yet. I hope you'll enjoy it.

Cold Desert Sky by Rod Reynolds is published by Faber & Faber in July (£12.99)

A Question of Choice: Sean Penn, El Chapo and Fever City’s gangsters By Tim Baker

Tim Baker’s highly-anticipated debut thriller, FEVER CITY, has several real-life gangsters

as characters. Here Tim reflects on the challenge of portraying mobsters without glorifying them.

The recent debate over Sean Penn’s interview with Public Enemy Número Uno, Joaquín Guzmán Loera - ‘El Chapo’, raises once again a familiar but uncomfortable question: why is the general public so fascinated with murderous criminals?

It was a question I posed to myself on numerous occasions when I was writing my thriller, FEVER CITY.

Whether they’re real life killers like Pablo Escobar, Al Capone, or the Kray Twins, or fictional ones, like Don Corleone, Hannibal Lecter and Tony Soprano, everyone loves a murderer. Our collective imagination seems to enjoy dwelling on that bloody borderland between murder and majesty – where real-life criminal power lies.

Criminality and power are at the heart of my novel, which mixes fictitious characters with ones inspired by historical figures, including gangsters Johnny Roselli and his boss, Sam ‘Momo’ Giancana.

This sinister duo controlled organised crime in the 1950s and 1960s in Chicago, Las Vegas and LA. Giancana had come to power on the wave of vicious racial attacks in Chicago’s South Side, and both men were behind various contract killings, robberies and outrageous casino rackets.

Their reputation as hard men caught the attention of CIA, who specially recruited them into a plan to assassinate Fidel Castro (Perhaps that detail puts into perspective Sean Penn’s little dalliance with El Chapo).

It was because of the CIA connection that both Roselli and Giancana found their way into my novel. I knew their presence in the narrative was not gratuitous, but still it felt uncomfortable having them on board.

How do you write about vicious criminals without glorifying them, even inadvertently?  Because many people seek to do exactly that, by comparing cold-blooded criminals to rebels persecuted by an unjust state. It’s the Sheriff of Nottingham defence – no matter how bad the outlaw may appear, the Law is ten times worse.

Even an intelligent film-maker like Sean Penn had fallen for this, going so far as to compare ‘El Chapo’ to Robin Hood in his article for Rolling Stone.

Strangely enough, I had decided to go this route myself, only in FEVER CITY, it is Roselli who compares himself to Robin Hood. And in the context of what is about to happen – a murder – it’s absurd.

That became my weapon to keep any latent admiration for the criminal characters at bay – absurdity. I decided to show the criminals for who they really were: brutal, vain and very, very stupid.

Just like El Chapo.

Gangsters, like dictators, can withstand almost any form of attack – except for ridicule. For savage, mocking humour.

This tends to destroy them because their vision of themselves is so preposterously self-inflated, that there is never any room for reflection, let alone introspection.  The pen is mightier than the sword… If it’s dipped in satire.

Which brings us back to the question: why did Sean Penn agree to interview the most wanted fugitive in the world, however brutal, vain and stupid El Chapo might be?

The answer could be surprisingly simple: Penn didn’t see a subject for an article, he saw a potential role.

After all, Penn was nominated for an Oscar for playing another real-life murderer in Dead Man Walking. He won an Oscar by playing a victim of crime: murdered Gay activist, Harvey Milk. He won his first Oscar for his greatest role – that of Boston gangster Jimmy Markum in Mystic River. Crime’s been good to him.

Even his worst performance, as real life gangster Mickey Cohen, was so extreme, so Grand-Guignol, that it has entered into legend for its outré excess. There are no puny failures. Only grand failures.

So it should come as no surprise that Penn gravitated to a criminal monster. Monsters are always more interesting than monks. Unless you’re playing a criminal monk like Rasputin.

Luckily for writers, we have far greater choices when we’re searching for characters; we’re not looking for roles, we’re looking for universes...

FEVER CITY: A Thriller (Faber & Faber) is out 21 January, £12.99. @TimBakerWrites

Nick Alston, a Los Angeles private investigator, is hired to find the kidnapped son of America's richest and most hated man. Hastings, a mob hit man in search of redemption, is also on the trail. But a sinister cabal that spreads from the White House all the way to Dealey Plaza soon ensnares both men. Decades later in Dallas, Alston's son stumbles across evidence from JFK conspiracy buffs that just might link his father to the shot heard round the world.