Hello fellow adventurers! It’s officially winter here in Alaska with cold mornings and fluffy snow. The cold’s creeping inward, too, so I’ve been having lots of apple cider, warm soup, and even sitting under chunky blankets during work. It’s cozy! I hope your winter is equally as snug. We have another interview for A Second Glance, this one with editorial director and crime fiction author Rick Treon. As always, my comments will be in {italics.} Enjoy!
Tell me a little bit about yourself!
In addition to being a novelist with four works published by small presses, I am the editorial director of yet another small press, Blue Handle Publishing. So much of my days now are taken up by reading submissions and editing the books we’re going to publish that my pleasure reading has really dropped off. I need to start stepping it up over the holidays!
What got you into writing?
I’ve loved stringing words together since middle school, and in high school I was encouraged by some great teachers. I went to journalism school because it used to be a way to write every day and get paid a decent wage. (I graduated from UT-Austin in 2008, so … yeah, haha.) But after I got my debut book deal I decided that I’d rather do that and work other jobs to help pay the bills, so I took the leap and left journalism for fiction!
What genres do you write in?
I write under the umbrella of crime fiction. The awards committees label most of my work as suspense. But my favorite subgenre that others have used, and that I now use too, is Rural Texas Noir. {love it!}
Do you write standalones or series?
I wrote one sequel, and that experience told me that I should probably stick to standalones for the most part. I realized that my characters are great for one story, but they’re usually not traditional heroes, and an anti-hero series, while totally a viable option, is something I may not be suited for. But we’ll see!
How many books do you have out right now? Tell me about them!
I have four out there now. My debut, DEEP BACKGROUND, is about a reporter (surprise, surprise) who returns to his small Texas hometown after a scandal (his fault) and reconnects with an old, married flame to help investigate a murdered teen from his old high school. It won the PenCraft Award for Literary Excellence in Suspense.
My second novel, LET THE GUILTY PAY, is the one that I love the most. They’re not actual children, so I can say it! Haha. It was published during the worst of the pandemic in 2020 and couldn’t have the kind of launch/in-person publicity it deserved. But it’s the one I point out to folks who ask which of my books they should start with.
LET THE GUILTY PAY is also the reason I am so grateful for this interview. It’s the one I really wanted to highlight! The novel follows Bartholomew Beck, a failed true crime writer now working on a Texas oil pipeline to make ends meet. He finds a body on the jobsite, and it’s staged to look like the case he first wrote about — the murder of his neighbor, who he watched die and about whom later testified about in court. But he lied about major parts of that book to cover up a secret.
But someone has discovered the decades-old secret and wants to expose Beck’s lies.
It was nominated for the Silver Falchion Award for Best Suspense Novel and the PenCraft Award for Literary Excellence in Suspense.
The sequel to LET THE GUILTY PAY is THE PRICE OF SILENCE. It was written during the middle of the pandemic and released last fall. It picks up a year or so after LTGP, when Beck has finished his newest true crime book, based on the climactic events of LTGP, and is atop the bestseller lists. As you can imagine, Beck isn’t on top for long, haha.
Then my latest novel is DIVIDED STATES. It’s in a different genre: speculative political action thriller. But it still reads like me and has explosive character reveals in addition to literal explosions, haha.
The novel follows Lori Young, a drug/alcohol-addicted former homicide detective who was forced to retire just before the U.S. was broken apart by a series of secessions. Then a group of former CIA officers kidnaps Lori. They want to use her as ransom to force her ex-husband into delivering an active warhead from the nuclear plant where the former member of SEAL Team Six leads a team of ex Tier One military operators who transport nukes across the new international borders.
But they didn’t do enough research and have no idea what Lori is capable of when pushed to the edge.
DIVIDED STATES actually just won the PenCraft Award for Literary Excellence in Thrillers! It was previously nominated for the Silver Falchion Award for Best Thriller and the Best Thriller Book Awards in the political thriller category. So it’s now the most honored novel I’ve written. {HUGE congrats on the awards for your books, so awesome! LET THE GUILTY PAY sounds like a really fun read!}
Which book did you have the hardest time trying to write? The best time?
By far the hardest was THE PRICE OF SILENCE. Not only was it my first attempt at a sequel, but it was written during the very worst of the pandemic, so I was not in the right headspace to write anything. I’ll never be able to apologize enough to my editors and publisher for how much work they had to put into the novel to make it publishable.
The best time was probably DIVIDED STATES. Though I feel like LET THE GUILTY PAY is my best work from a literary standpoint, writing an action thriller was so much fun! I’ll probably write another one just for that fun feeling. Maybe even a sequel to DIVIDED STATES, but we’ll see, haha. {It’s important to follow write what you love, that fun feeling!}
Why do you keep writing?
I enjoy the novel more than any other form of writing. I also enjoyed writing personal essays for Gannet Media syndication, but those aren’t as natural for me. And I’ve started dabbling in screenwriting, but that’s a whole different universe than prose, haha. But the point is I’m always actively working on something, and I tend to always drift back to writing longform fiction!
Which character of yours is your favorite?
It’ll probably be the one from my current WIP, but it’s way to early to start talking about that, haha. Of the books that are out there, I think Lori from DIVIDED STATES. That’s not surprising to me since she’s the latest protagonist I created. My guess is that my favorite will always be the last one, since I’m always striving to make the newest novel the best! {I understand that feeling, my most recent MC is also normally my favorite. Ha!}
What are your favorite tropes? Hated tropes?
My favorite is a character with a secret identity that gets revealed during or just before the climax! If it’s not obvious too early, that’s one of my favorites to read and write.
I hate a narrator who’s unreliable because they were drunk/high or had amnesia. But I love well-written unreliable narrators, and I’ve used one to pretty moderate success. The book didn’t sell to a bigger publisher because, while they loved the book, they didn’t think they could sell an unreliable narrator who didn’t follow that trope.
What kind of hobbies do you have outside of writing?
I golf, though not very well, haha. I also enjoy going to the movies. Not just watching them (though I do stream way too many), but actually going to the theater. I’m so happy that they’ve opened back up down here in Texas. I go watch my most anticipated films safely and with much more enjoyment now!
What is your writing process like?
Right now it’s chaotic, which I know is bad and why I’ll go about two years without having a novel published. But I got my job last year that’s work-from-home. And it’s editing, which I really enjoy and am good at. But now it’s hard to turn that off and write without my internal editor over my shoulder. But a new coffee shop just opened in walking distance, so I think I’m going to make that my “writing office” for the mornings and see how that goes! {Chaos is hard to wrangle, but I hope the coffee shop writing goes well!}
Have you ever traveled as research for your writing?
Yes! My main research for the Bartholomew Beck books was working on pipelines with my best friend, Jesus Ramirez, in various locations across Texas and Oklahoma. We lived in a pull-behind camper for about eight months total. One of the things people often say about LET THE GUILTY PAY is that the setting felt so real. Then they ask how I did that, and the answer is that I lived it! {That sounds like an awesome experience!}
Last question, what’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever gotten?
That your first draft is just you telling yourself the story. It’s not revelatory, but most people frame it as “Your first draft is supposed to be bad!” But I really like the other way much better! Because you’re always going to have to revise your first draft. But if you take the negative connotations away, I think it really helps set you up for a better experience with both the first draft and going into your first round of revisions! {Great advice!}
Find Rick online!
ricktreon.com
TikTok.com/@ricktreon
Facebook.com/RickTreonAuthor
Instagram.com/ricktreon
Twitter.com/RDT4
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Thanks so much to Rick for the lovely interview! I hope you all enjoyed this interview as much as I did.
Until next time!
Warm regards,
Kellie
P.S. If you want to be interviewed on my Second Glance series, fill out this form! I’m always looking for more authors to boost!!
Have Pen, Will Pen 