Every day, from his home in the Laurel neighborhood of Montpelier, Dana King sits at his computer, looks out at the wooded lot behind him, and then delves into grittier worlds: the dark underbelly of urban crime, filled with murder, drugs, and corrupt public servants. An accomplished crime fiction novelist, King recently released his 15th book and has no plans to stop producing his action-packed stories anytime soon.
King has accumulated a devoted following of readers caught up in his two main book series: the Nick Forte detective books set in Chicago, and the Penns River series, a police procedural set in a fictitious suburb of Pittsburgh and centering on second-generation police detective Ben “Doc” Dougherty. Off the Books, released in April, is the sixth Nick Forte installation, and King has already started on the seventh. He had focused on the Penns River books for a few years, but says that it feels good to be back in Chicago with Nick Forte. “I missed him,” he laughs.
The settings King writes about are familiar to him. He grew up in Lower Burrel, PA, about 20 miles north of Pittsburgh, and based the town of Penns River on that general area. This first-hand familiarity results in richly detailed descriptions of the area, its people, their lifestyles, and the issues they face. King adds similar depth to the Nick Forte series by drawing on his experiences while living in Chicago for a few years. But fans would be surprised to learn that King, who has been lauded as one of the best police procedural writers in the business, has no personal experience in law enforcement. While he researches Pennsylvania and Illinois state laws to ensure accuracy, he doesn’t have relatives or connections on the force. “I’ve had cops tell me that I really get it right, which feels good. They’re always surprised to hear that I never even went on a ride-along.” King says that being a lifelong fan of crime stories—both fictional and real—rubbed off on him in terms of being able to accurately describe procedures and to use “police language.” He specifically cites the late author Evan Hunter, who wrote crime fiction under the pen name of Ed McBain, as a big influence on his approach. McBain’s “87th Precinct” novels were set in Isola, a fictionalized version of New York City. “I try to follow his example of having my plots stay outside of politics, and just focus on the policing aspects,” King notes.
But King’s novels are about more than just crime and justice. His characters are three-dimensional and relatable, resulting in sub-plots and side stories that are just as riveting as the central investigation. “The cops I write about are working-class people,” he says. “They take a practical approach to their job: they look at a task, break it down, and take care of it. They have lives outside their job, and sometimes family life and police life overlap. That’s how I approach my characters, by writing them as people who happen to be cops.” Over the course of both the Penns River and Nick Forte series, readers come to know the protagonists’ family members and coworkers pretty well, with many recurring characters and callbacks to events in previous books. “My goal is that anyone can pick up any book in a series and not be lost as to what’s happening,” King says, “but I also like to throw in some ‘Easter eggs’ for longtime readers.”
King didn’t originally set out to be a writer; he calls writing his “third career.” He majored in Music Education at the Indiana University of Pennsylvania, taught music for a year, and then joined the U.S. Army, playing trumpet in one of its bands. He enjoyed going on tour with the band, playing in many U.S. cities and the Virgin Islands. He got married, went to graduate school, worked as a freelance musician, and then took a music director position at Northwestern High School in Hyattsville. Following a divorce, he moved to Chicago for a while. It was there that a friend encouraged him to turn a hypothetical “what if” scenario they were discussing into a short story about a rigged trumpet audition. While that story did not get published, King used the premise in one of the Nick Forte novels—the character of Forte has a music background, which sometimes relates to a plot point and gives insight into his personality.
Life brought King back to the East Coast in 1997, when he moved to Virginia and took on his second career, in Information Technology. He moved to Maryland in 2003, met his wife, Corky, in 2004, and they married in 2009. Corky is his biggest fan and he refers to her as “The Beloved Spouse” in his social media posts. He kept writing, mostly short stories, during his 15-year career as a government contractor but wasn’t able to devote fully to being an author until he retired in 2021. Now, he is all-in on his “third career” of being a full-time crime fiction author: he writes daily, does book readings and book signings, attends book festivals and conferences, and often participates in author panels. Those events are outside his comfort zone, as a self-identified introvert who “gets exhausted from being sociable.” Two of King’s Nick Forte books were nominated for the Private Eye Writers of America’s annual Shamus Awards, and his shorter works have appeared in numerous anthologies and web-based publications. Although he writes for his readers and for his peers, not seeking awards, King says that, nonetheless, receiving praise from fellow authors is validating. “Acceptance makes me feel good.”
King writes daily, taking a systematic approach to his trade—probably not surprising, given his music and computer backgrounds. He sets specific, consistent word-count goals for each writing or editing session. He starts with an opening scene of a crime being discovered, and a general sense of the story arc, but he says that he “is not a slave to the outline method.” Working chapter by chapter, he lets the storyline and characters unfold as they see fit. He will do some rewrites as he goes along, but after finishing a draft he “lets it marinate” for a short time before switching to full-on edit mode, for which he takes an unusual approach. “I actually have [Microsoft] Word read my draft to me,” he says, explaining that he is more likely to discover little things that need to be tweaked from listening to, rather than reading, the draft.
His next book will be somewhat of a departure for King, as it’s a Western. He currently is putting finishing touches on the draft and hopes to publish it later this year. He also would like to try his hand at writing a comedic novel, in the style of Donald Westlake or Carl Hiaasen, although he recognizes the challenges within that genre. “Being funny in small bits is easy. Being continuously funny throughout a novel is hard.”
As for the future of his two main characters, King says he has a few more installments planned for both of his primary series. “I think there will be at least two more Fortes, and I have a three-book arc in mind to conclude the Penns River series,” he reveals. Handling the end of these series with care is important to him, as he has grown close to both the hard-nosed, cynical Nick Forte and the more laid-back, family-oriented Doc Dougherty. Citing a quote from prolific crime writer James Elroy, King notes that “Nick is the person I’m afraid of becoming, while Doc is the person I’d like to be.”
Dana King’s books can be purchased on Amazon. A listing of his works, and his writer’s blog, can be found at danakingauthor.com
ความคิดเห็น