Killing Trail by Charles Allen Gramlich, 2010

Review & Interview

Under a false dawn they dumped the girl in my yard.

Killing Trail by Charles Allen Gramlich, writer and professor from Louisiana, United States, is a collection of western short stories including a flash fiction piece, and much more. Each of the four stories is a traditional western about cowboys and desperadoes, vengeance and gunfights, courage and honour, land grab and pretty women.

If Lane Holland pursues the man who nearly raped and killed the woman he loved in ‘Killing Trail,’ the flagship story, Josh Allen Boone overcomes betrayal by a woman and fights back to clear his name of a murder he did not commit in ‘Showdown at Wild Briar.’ And if Davy Bonner narrowly escapes ambush and helps the lovely Megan Cross defend her ranch in ‘Powder Burn,’ a gang of fearless and dangerous outlaws take bullets but make the villagers bite the dust in ‘Once Upon a Time with the Dead,’ the flash fiction piece.

In the telling of these action-packed stories, Charles acknowledges the influence of Louis L’Amour, one of his favourite authors, whose characters—“alone and a bit lonely” and “who did what was right”—are reflected in his own. There is little description of the characters but you can picture what Holland, Boone, and Bonner would be like, through their brave deeds and moral soundness. And so quick is the narrative pace that you'd think Charles wrote the stories sitting in the saddle and riding on the trail to Wyoming.

Killing Trail comes in a package of goodies that has more than just these stories. For example, there is a first-person vignette ‘Quint Gives ‘em Hell’ from an unpublished novel that I liked very much, particularly how it ends. The character is influenced by L’Amour and tells about a showdown between two parties of cowboys on the range. It is a tale of great integrity. In the interview I have asked Charles why he did not include it in the main collection.

The surprise package also includes an appreciation of Louis L’Amour and an essay titled A Wild West of Your Own’ in which we are told about the fascinating history behind Fort Smith, Arkansas, and the eighty-six men who were hanged there, thanks to a particularly notorious judge known as the ‘Hanging Judge.’

Killing Trail is a western at its lucid and entertaining best. My only complain is that there are only three stories and the flash fiction piece. This collection deserved a few more. A Kindle edition of the book is available at Amazon. You can also read about the author’s other published works here.

Now, without further ado, I hand over this space to Charles…

‘The soul of the writing experience
for me is to tell myself stories’

Charles Allen Gramlich spoke to the 3Cs in an email interaction which is split into three parts: the book, the characters, and the author.

Photograph provided bv the author.

THE BOOK

Prashant C. Trikannad: Charles, you have dedicated Killing Trail to Louis L’Amour who made you love the west and inspired you to write westerns. Can you talk about L’Amour’s influence in your reading and writing of westerns and other fiction? 

Charles Allen Gramlich: I suspect there is always a certain amount of luck involved with how one writer becomes an influence on another. I was a voracious reader from early on, but because we lived out in the country I wasn’t able to get to the library very often. Fortunately, my brother-in-law, Roger James, was also a big reader. He lived within walking distance so I often went to his house to borrow books. He was a big L’Amour fan and had lots of his works. I read them and loved them. I wonder sometimes, though, about what would have happened if Roger had more Zane Grey or Max Brand books. Would I now be a bigger fan of those writers? For whatever reason, L’Amour was there when I needed him and his work resonated strongly with me—first as a reader, and later as a writer myself.

What are some of the L’Amour highpoints in this collection of short stories?

L’Amour wrote most often about characters who were alone and a little bit lonely. He wrote about characters who did what was right even when faced with heavy odds. Growing up on a farm located six miles from the nearest town, I could appreciate those feelings. The heroes in L’Amour’s novels are also hard workers, courageous, and respectful of others, but they aren’t willing to be pushed around. These are the same kind of values I was taught by my parents. L’Amour’s heroic characters also have a reverence for the land and its beauty, and this was something I felt as well. These are the kinds of things I tried to put into the stories in Killing Trail.

Which are your favourite novels by Louis L’Amour? Do you think he is popular among the new and younger generation of readers of westerns?

My favourite novel by L’Amour is To Tame a Land, about a young boy named Ryan Tyler growing to manhood in the west and becoming a lawman. I reread this book every couple of years. Some other favourites are The Man Called Noon, about a man who loses his memory, Flint, about a gunfighter who only has a few months to live, and The First Fast Draw, which is about the invention of the “fast draw” and the real life figure of Cullen Baker.

I don’t know how popular L’Amour is among younger folks. I’m sure he’s not as popular as he was to my generation, but L’Amour deals with timeless topics so I doubt he’ll ever disappear entirely.

While I read Killing Trail in two sittings and enjoyed it immensely, I wanted to read more adventures. Why did you stop at only four short stories? Can we expect a second edition with more number of stories?

I tend to be a slow writer, and there aren't a lot of markets for western short stories. I don’t typically write more than about ten to twelve stories a year, and most of those are intended for the much more numerous fantasy or horror markets. I love westerns, though, and over the years had accumulated a few stories. I decided to publish them now because if I waited to write a full book’s worth of tales it might be several more years before those were done. I’m currently working on a trilogy of western tales about a gunfighter named Gabriel. When those are done I’ll probably publish them first as an ebook, like with Killing Trail, but then will combine those stories and the Killing Trail tales into a print edition.

You have compared the fourth story, Once Upon a Time with the Dead, a flash fiction piece, to the Desperado movies. I also found shades of Clint Eastwood’s High Plains Drifter, albeit with a twist in the tale. Did that occur to you as well?

I actually didn’t think about the High Plains Drifter connection, but I can certainly see a similarity in setting, and even in the revelation of who the ‘Drifter’ really is. It hadn't occurred to me before but I have seen High Plains Drifter many times so I bet there is some influence there. Good observation on your part.

Charles, I liked all the stories but I liked the first-person vignette ‘Quint Gives ‘em Hell’ from your unpublished novel even more. Did you think of expanding it and including it in the collection?

As you mentioned, that’s a piece from an unpublished novel. It’s from the first book I ever wrote. Several years back I sat down to reread that old novel and see if I could polish it up for publication. Unfortunately, there were so many things wrong with the book that I realised it would be easier just to write a new novel than to fix the old one. That doesn’t mean I might not turn sections of it into stories. That’s what I did with the title piece from the collection. The story ‘Killing Trail’ is a revised scene from that novel with a new beginning and an ending added to it. The same could happen for ‘Quint Gives ‘em Hell.’ In fact, now you've got me thinking!

How and when did you think of adding the historical essay titled ‘A Wild West of Your Own’ about Fort Smith, Arkansas, and the eighty-six hangings that took place within its walls in the second-half of the 19th century? 

Even though I grew up about thirty miles from Fort Smith, I never knew until my late teens that it had been as wild and wooly as the boomtowns of the west I’d read about in L’Amour’s books. My first introduction was when Roger James started telling me about Isaac Parker, the ‘Hanging Judge.’ Roger loaned me a book called Winding Stair, which was set in the Fort Smith area and was written by Douglas C. Jones, who grew up in Arkansas. I never thought to write up any of my impressions of Fort Smith, though, until Richard Prosch (http://archive.is/qiZfE) asked me to do so for a feature on his blog called ‘My Personal West.’ I thought the piece fit nicely in the Killing Trail collection.

THE CHARACTERS

The initial three stories are essentially about revenge, as three young men set out to avenge the wrong done to them and to those they loved. As a leitmotif in westerns, do you think it’ll ever lose its relevance?

I think revenge is a motive/emotion that everyone understands. It’s as old as “An Eye for an Eye.” Also, at their heart the best revenge stories are really about justice. Someone has been wronged and there is no one but the hero to make it right. I value a “fair” world but the real world is seldom fair. At least in fiction we can see that justice is done. I personally tend to enjoy revenge stories, although I don’t want the person taking revenge to become as bad as those he or she is seeking to punish. That takes us into anti-hero territory. Revenge is certainly a very old trope, and one that has been featured in many other genres besides westerns. I don’t think it’ll die out as a theme anytime soon.

Were there any outside influences to the three characters of Lane Holland, Josh Allen Boone, and Davy Bonner?

There were. The character of Lane Holland is probably closest to my own personality, although I was never so tough or competent. The original version of that story was written when I was barely eighteen so I put a lot of myself into it. My son, Josh Allen Gramlich, is actually the model for Josh Allen Boone, although as far as I know my Josh has never had quite such an adventure. The story came about from imagining my son in those circumstances. Davy is different. I certainly wasn’t much like him when I was young. Davy is much more extraverted and socially adept. I always admired people like that so I imagine there’s some “wish fulfillment” going on in that story.

Who are some of your favourite characters in western novels?

Wow, there are so many. I loved the whole ‘Sackett’ thing that L'Amour did, where he wrote stories about a bunch of different members of his fictional Sackett family. He sort of told the grand story of the west through their eyes. Ed Gorman has a series of books about a great character named Guild. Guild is an older man, more mature than most of L’Amour’s heroes or the characters in Killing Trail. As I've gotten older myself I've come to appreciate those types. Will Henry created a great character named John Clayton, who appeared in his very fine book called No Survivors. Clayton was a Confederate soldier who was later adopted into an Indian tribe. He was present at the battle of Little Big Horn. Robert B. Parker created two great western characters named Virgil Cole and Everett Hitch for his excellent trilogy, Appaloosa, Resolution and Brimstone. Another favourite character is Judge Earl Stark (Stark’s Justice, The Hawthorne Legacy, etc.), created by James Reasoner (www.jamesreasoner.net). My favourite historical western character would have to be Cole Younger, with Doc Holliday a close second.

THE AUTHOR

Charles, what does writing mean to you? How would you describe the experience of writing?

As long as I can remember I've relied on my imagination to entertain me. I’m never bored because I can always disappear into daydreams of adventure. Long before I started writing I simply “told” myself stories. As I got older and the stories got more complex, I found that I needed to record elements of them in order to keep them straight. Before I ever wrote an actual short story, I printed up lists of characters and the names of cities and planets that I invented. I first began putting stories on paper to capture them for myself, so that I could enjoy them again and again. It eventually occurred to me that others might enjoy such stories as well, and I began writing more for publication.

The soul of the writing experience for me, though, is to tell myself stories. The greatest experience in that process is “discovery.”  Every day when I’m writing I discover new characters, new settings, new creatures, and new adventures. It’s the closest thing to pure creativity that humans can experience, and I sure do enjoy it.

Can you take us through your fiction and nonfiction books? Can we expect more westerns from you?

I love to write in all different kinds of genres. My first novel was a thriller with horror and SF elements called Cold in the Light. It’s still the most complicated book I've ever written, plot-wise. Then I wrote the Talera fantasy Trilogy, Swords of Talera, Wings Over Talera, and Witch of Talera. These would fall into a category called Sword & Planet fiction, which was first established by Edgar Rice Burroughs with his John Carter of Mars tales. A fourth book in that series, Wraith of Talera, is planned for publication this year, and there will be at least one more in the series, to be called Gods of Talera. I’m about a third of the way through that one. I've also written a Space Opera novella in the tradition of C.L. Moore and Leigh Brackett, which is called Under the Ember Star. I had a lot of fun with that one.

Besides the novels, I have three collections of short stories out from Borgo Press, now an imprint of Wildside. These are Bitter Steel, which is a collection of heroic fantasy stories in the tradition of Robert E. Howard. Then there’s Midnight in Rosary, a collection of vampire and werewolf tales, with a ghost story thrown in. I always warn readers that there is a lot of sex in that anthology. Finally, there’s In the Language of Scorpions, which is a collection of horror stories, ranging from the super gory to Twilight Zone type twist-ending tales. Some of the stories in ‘Scorpions’ were written during the Splatter Punk movement of the late 1980s and early 1990s. Those tales are very graphic, which was an element of that movement. I consider the primary splatter punk stories in that collection to be, ‘Razor White,’ ‘Splatter of Black,’ and ‘Wall of Love.’ They are brutal and not for the faint of heart.

As for nonfiction, I have Write With Fire, which collects most of my pieces on writing up until about 2009. I did a number of articles over the years for various writing magazines, and produced a regular column on writing for several years for an online newsletter called The Illuminata. A lot of these are ‘how to’ articles. I also collaborated on a textbook called Writing in Psychology with a couple of colleagues. We use it in our departmental writing course.

For the future, I'm working on the fifth Talera novel now, which will close out the original series. One way or another, I'll be writing a novel length western in the next year or so. I've got a lot of ideas and titles percolating in my head right now and am itching to get started.

How different is writing a western from your other interests like horror, science fiction, and fantasy? Which of these do you enjoy writing the most?

I’ve realised in the past five years or so that I’m first and foremost an “adventure” writer. Adventure is at the core of all my westerns, science fiction, and fantasy. They have many elements in common. Readers have told me that you can certainly see “western” elements in my Talera series, and I think they are present in Under the Ember Star as well. My horror fiction is a bit different. Cold in the Light is adventure horror, but many of my short horror stories are not. Much of the material from In the Language of Scorpions might be called “existential horror,” which is horror that arises out of the human experience of a hostile universe. In adventure fiction, good usually triumphs over evil. In existential horror, good usually loses because it is simply overwhelmed by forces that no human could possibly defeat. The “enemy” in existential horror is often not even evil in the usual human sense. It is simply indifferent to humanity. Lovecraft is often described as writing existential horror, but the category as a whole is far broader than that.

Can you briefly take us through your writing process for both short stories and novels? Which of the two is more satisfying?

Short stories start with me from several different places. A title or scene may pop into my head—or even a single evocative phrase. For example, the following sentence occurred to me years ago on my commute: “She had the lips that Satan dreamed of in his long fall to hell.” That phrase then turned into a story called ‘Thief of Eyes.’ Once an idea takes hold, I usually type out a quick rough draft of the piece, which then goes through multiple revisions until I’m finally satisfied with it. The first ending I come up with is usually discarded in favor of something that twists the tale more dramatically.

While stories often come to me by accident, novels start with intent. I decide I’m going to write a novel and then spend quite a bit of pre-writing work figuring out the main characters, settings, and opening scenes. By the time I’m ready to go I know the beginning and have a good idea of the general ending. Then I write my way toward that ending. Often, the ending does get modified as I move along through the book.

For me, short stories are generally a lot more fun. Because I’m a relatively slow writer, I can finish a short story in a reasonable amount of time and see the fruits of my labour. Novels are not only longer, but much more complicated. The process of putting words on paper isn’t harder for novels, but they take a lot more planning. Except for Swords of Talera, I've never written a novel where I didn’t get the feeling somewhere in the middle that it just wasn’t going to work. Most other writers say they experience the same thing and you just have to push on through. That’s certainly what I've found.

To summarise it, when I finish a short story I’m usually exhilarated; when I finish a novel I’m usually exhausted.

Despite that, there are some tales that just can't be told as short stories. I do like writing novels because of the greater scope they allow you. I know I'm going to suffer for that scope, though.

What kind of books do you read, in what categories, and who are some of your favourite writers?

I read just about everything, although westerns, fantasy, and horror make up the greatest part of what I consume for pleasure. I also read a lot of nonfiction, mostly science related. I try to read about 100 books a year and there is always so much more I miss out on. Over my entire lifetime, my favourite fiction writers would have to be Louis L’Amour, Ray Bradbury, Robert E. Howard, Edgar Rice Burroughs, and John D. MacDonald. Closely behind these would be C.L. Moore, Leigh Brackett, and Kenneth Bulmer. In the last fifteen years, I've been reading a lot of Joe Lansdale, James Reasoner, O’Neil De Noux, David Gemmell, Dean Koontz and C.S. Harris. If I look up on my shelves, I also see a lot of books by David C. Smith, Sidney Williams, Will Henry, Andre Norton, and E.C. Tubb. I’m sure there are many more I’m forgetting. In the last two years I've been reading quite a bit of stuff by Bernard Lee DeLeo, and by the Beat to a Pulp writers.

Thank you, Charles.

The Big Fix by Vikas Singh, 2013

Review & Interview

“There’s twenty lakhs in there,” said the conduit. “As a gesture of goodwill, I’m going to let you keep it. There will be more later, if you do what I tell you. Fail me, and I’ll send another bag to your family, this time with your head in it.”

No other sport captures the imagination of an entire nation as cricket does in India. Football enjoys that distinction on a global scale. More than half of the 1.60-odd billion cricket fans worldwide are in the subcontinent and the bulk of these are in India, where cricket is a religion and cricketers are worshipped like gods. Curiously, while cricket has been the subject of academic and biographical books, it has never had a formal run in fiction, until Vikas Singh decided to score one. He may have set a precedent.

The Big Fix by the Delhi-based journalist is a fast-paced thriller that plays out both on and off the field, inside and outside the stadium. There is cricket, the game itself, played with familiar passion and intensity, a betting syndicate run by the mafia, unscrupulous businessmen, tainted players, a high-profile murder, and a police investigation.

The story is narrated in first person by its two principal characters, Shaurya Chauhan, the skipper of Capital Cavaliers, and Mitakshara, a dauntless crime reporter, in the backdrop of an explosive cricket championship called T20 and spot- and match-fixing scandals that threaten to derail the Cavaliers’ chances of winning the trophy.

In a Twenty20, the official term, each side with 11 players bowls a maximum of 20 overs of six balls each. The team that scores the highest wins the match although even scores can lead to a tiebreaker. The high scoring and electrifying nature of the game has endeared it to millions of cricket fans. T20 teams consist of players from around the world. It is the fastest and most advanced form of the game as opposed to the equally fast scoring 50-over ODI (one-day international) and the traditional five-day Test match that purists insist is the only way to play the game. The Indian Premier League is the official T20 championship in India. Held annually, the nearly dozen teams are sponsored by corporate houses and film stars with the tacit support of political bigwigs on one hand and punters and bookies on the other. The game is a money-spinner.

A T20 cricket match is a batsman’s dream and a bowler’s nightmare. A batsman doesn't just hit the ball, he bludgeons it, like in baseball or Quidditch. Shaurya, a top-order batsman, is struggling with his form and is easy target for opposition bowlers which puts his captaincy under a cloud. An in-form teammate is waiting to step into his shoes and lead the Capital Cavaliers. The explosive batsman almost gets his wish as Howard Jensen, the popular South African coach of the team, tells Shaurya to step down and let his teammate captain the remaining matches.

The next day Jensen is found unconscious in his hotel room with an injury to his head and the last person he met was Shaurya. The finger of suspicion points at the captain of the Cavaliers and the Delhi Police Crime Branch comes sniffing like a bloodhound. Matters get worse for Shaurya when his comatose coach eventually dies.

Who killed Howard Jensen and why? Was it Shaurya Chauhan? Was it one or more of the players with links to bookies and the mafia? Or was it someone influential with a sinister plan of his or her own?

Final word
The Big Fix is a finely crafted whodunit that keeps you guessing about the identity of the suspect and his or her motive until the end. In the midst of it all Vikas Singh entertains you with a ball-by-ball account of some exciting cricket, which is central to the mystery, even as Shaurya regains more than just his form with the bat. He also finds Mitakshara, the beautiful reporter with a hidden agenda of her own.

I know next to nothing about baseball but if a baseball fan had written this novel, I’d have enjoyed it, just as someone unfamiliar with cricket will find The Big Fix a racy story with a little humour.

The author
Vikas Singh, Resident Editor of The Times of India, Delhi, loves cricket and reading. The “self-confessed word addict” is already working on his second novel, “a Woody Allenesque romance” as he told this blog in an engaging interview (see below). He has also co-authored a brief history of knowledge titled The Know of Things. Vikas lives in Delhi with his wife and daughter.

The author spoke to the 3Cs in an email interaction organised by his publisher, Westland Ltd, Chennai, which sent me a review copy of The Big Fix. A Kindle edition of the book is available at Amazon for readers abroad. I have split the interview into three parts: the book, the characters, and the author. Over to Vikas Singh...

‘Hardly any fiction is written about a game
packed with drama and thrills as cricket’

THE BOOK

Prashant C. Trikannad: How do you relate to cricket? Did you play the game or are you a fan like millions of Indians?
Vikas Singh: Like most Indians, I passionately love cricket. I've played the game a lot for fun, though not at any serious competitive level. However, luckily for me, my job (I’m Resident Editor of The Times of India, Delhi) allows me to interact a fair bit with cricketers and support staff. I've also had the opportunity to cover some of the most memorable moments of Indian cricket, including India’s victory in the World Cup, Sachin Tendulkar’s double century in an ODI and, most recently, his very emotional 200th Test and retirement (India-born Tendulkar is a cricket legend and the highest run-getter in the history of the game).

You have written the cricketing aspect of The Big Fix like a professional cricketer right down to the last ball and the last run. How well do you know the game?
Over the years, I've had the opportunity to spend some time talking about the technical and mental side of cricket with players like Sir Viv Richards, Rahul Dravid, Anil Kumble, Krishnamachari Srikkanth, and Yuvraj Singh, and I also get to interact regularly with sports journalists. Plus, there have been tons of autobiographies and other books by cricketers, all of which I’ve devoured. All those insights came in very handy while writing The Big Fix.

Author and journalist Vikas Singh 
Photo: www.thedesijourney.blogspot.in

What prompted you to ground your debut novel on cricket?
I had always found it strange that hardly any fiction is written about a game that is so inherently packed with drama and thrills as cricket. There have been many outstanding non-fiction works, but good novels based on cricket have been few and far between. The honourable exceptions include Chinaman and The Zoya Factor, but even they didn’t really provide the cricketer’s perspective. As a reader, you don’t get to inhabit the players’ minds during those tense last-ball finishes. Why do some players thrive under pressure, while others crack? To me, that’s one of the most fascinating mysteries of cricket.

Simultaneously, there have been lots of real-life controversies. There was Bob Woolmer’s dramatic death in the 2007 World Cup, and the conviction of three Pakistani cricketers for spot-fixing in 2010. Last year, India TV did a sting operation which seemed to show some little-known players openly discussing fixing. And, of course, this year there were allegations concerning S. Sreesanth and other players from Rajasthan Royals. I thought if I could combine the on-field action with an off-field whodunit, it would make for an interesting book. So that’s what I set out to do. How far I succeeded is for readers to judge.

Did you meet with current or former cricketers, senior police and cricket board officials, and sports journalists to research for your book?
Yes, though for obvious reasons, they prefer to stay off the record. The one police officer I've mentioned in the acknowledgements is Satyendra Garg, who’s now IG, Law & Order, in Arunachal Pradesh, but was in Delhi while I was writing the book. He spent a lot of time explaining investigation procedures and techniques to me, though we didn’t specifically discuss the fixing case since he wasn't involved in those investigations. Incidentally, I’m part of a panel discussion on December 7 at the Times Literary Carnival with Neeraj Kumar, the former Commissioner of Delhi who actually led the investigations. It’s a session that I’m really looking forward to.

How much of the events in the story are based on real betting incidents in the cricketing world?
I’d say about 50 per cent is based on stuff that actually happened, or was rumoured to have taken place, while the remaining 50 per cent is pure imagination. It’s up to readers to figure out which is which!

The novel is told in the present tense and Shaurya Chauhan and Mitakshara, the two main protagonists, narrate their individual stories in the first person. Do you think readers would be comfortable with this approach?
I certainly hope so. The way I visualised the book, there would be two parallel storylines–one, the cricketing action, and two, the investigations and finally, they would converge at the climax. I was keen on Shaurya’s perspective because I wanted to make sure that the cricket part of the story didn’t get relegated to the periphery. But there was no way Shaurya could have known about all the stuff going on in the investigations, so you needed another point of view. It could, of course, have been the chief investigator’s perspective but having Mitakshara allowed me to bring in a romantic angle.

Have any cricketers read The Big Fix? If yes, what did they think of it?
Former India player Deep Dasgupta tweeted that he loved the book. Another former India player, Aakash Chopra, tweeted that if you’re into cricket, The Big Fix is a must-read. I really like reading Aakash’s columns, and I think he explains the technical nuances of the game better than anybody else, so I was quite thrilled that he enjoyed the book. Leading cricket websites like cricbuzz and cricketcountry have praised the book, as has Wisden India. And yes, some players who are currently playing have told me that they enjoyed reading the book, but are reluctant to say so publicly since some rather powerful individuals are being probed right now.

Do you think your novel will be of interest to readers in the non-cricketing nations?
Well, the South Asian diaspora is present in virtually every part of the world, so I’m sure the book will find readers even in countries which aren't usually associated with cricket. Of course, even if everybody who likes cricket reads the book, that’s a fairly large audience by itself!

THE CHARACTERS

I cannot help this question: is the character of Howard Jensen based on the English-born cricketer and international coach Bob Woolmer who died in 2007 under mysterious circumstances in a hotel room in Jamaica?
Well, the circumstances in which Bob Woolmer died certainly acted as a catalyst for my imagination. Of course, it was finally concluded officially that he died of natural causes, but conspiracy theorists remain unconvinced. Bob’s death was a terrible tragedy for his family and the world of cricket, and I have absolutely no desire to trivialise it. But it did act as a starting point for the book, though I have to say that the personality of Howard Jensen, and the final explanation in the book for his death, bears no resemblance whatsoever to Bob Woolmer and his life.

Can you put a real name or face on Shaurya Chauhan or is he an imaginary character who resembles one or more Indian cricketers?
About 50 per cent of Shaurya’s characteristics are a mixture of some of my favourite cricketers. The balance 50 per cent comes from my imagination. I can name the players but I think it would be a lot more fun for readers if they figured it out for themselves. It’s not particularly hard, really.

In the book Shaurya Chauhan comes across as a perfect specimen of a human being. Is his flawless character meant to send a message to a game tainted by match fixing scandals as well as to its many practitioners?
I don’t think he’s flawless. He’s stubborn and argumentative, and often loses his cool, much to his regret. As a captain, he tends to be authoritarian and takes some rather risky decisions, like plucking a teenager literally out of nowhere and throwing him straight into a big match. But yes, he’s clean and untainted by fixing. When I was writing the book, I met many people who told me they had lost interest in cricket because of the numerous fixing scandals. In a sense, the book reflected my angst as a cricket lover, particularly because I know that there are still some players who’re fiercely devoted to the game and will never stoop to unethical practices. I wanted Shaurya to symbolically represent these players.

Incidentally, I was very tempted to throw in one line at the end, where Shaurya looks at a bookie kingpin seated in the audience and winks at him. That would have given the book a real O’Henry-kind of twist in the tail. But it would also have been a betrayal of the character of Shaurya Chauhan and everything he stands for. So finally, I went with the present ending.

Mitakshara, the second major character in your novel, has the scoop of a lifetime but her feelings for Shaurya prevent her from writing her story and although she is around until nearly the end, I thought her role ended abruptly. Can you talk about her characterisation?
Well, you will get to see a lot more of Mitakshara in my next book, in which she really comes into her own. Obviously, I’m biased, but I do think that she’s one of the feistiest female characters you’ll encounter. She’s smart, sassy, loyal, and affectionate. And she has a strong sense of fair play, which is why she doesn’t break the scoop to begin with, because she doesn’t want Shaurya to be condemned even before he’s had a chance to prove his innocence.

THE AUTHOR

Vikas, how long did you take to write The Big Fix? Can you briefly take me through your writing process? For instance, how many words did you write everyday?
From the time I wrote the first line of The Big Fix to the time I wrote the last line, it took me exactly 43 days. I guess the story must have been bubbling away at the back of my mind for a while, because once I actually sat down to write it, it just flowed. I have a slightly weird work day, in the sense that I go into office in the afternoon and stay till well past midnight, so I had kept the mornings to write. I gave myself a target of writing about 500 words every day. But on most days, I found myself doing about 1,500 words. For me, the hard part was not the writing but forcing myself to stop!

I assume your next book is a suspense thriller called Another Time, Another Place. Would you like to tell me more about it?
My working title for the book was Love And Other Terrors, though I think we’ll finally publish it as Another Time, Another Place. It’s a Woody Allenesque romance that suddenly transforms into a thriller, with a terror plot thrown in. Yogi Mehta, who gets a one-line reference in The Big Fix (on Page 207), is one of the major characters. And, of course, so is Mitakshara. It’s not exactly a sequel to The Big Fix, because there’s no cricket involved, but it takes Mitakshara’s story forward and some other characters from The Big Fix also pop in and out of the book.

What kind of books do you read, in what genres, and who are some of your favourite writers?
It’s a long, eclectic list and includes John Steinbeck, Cormac McCarthy, Haruki Murakami, Alice Munro (I was delighted she won the Nobel this year, though I was hoping that Murakami would get it), Ernest Hemingway, Leo Tolstoy, Conn Iggulden, Rick Riordan, George RR Martin (please God, don’t let him die before he completes the Game of Thrones series), JRR Tolkien, J.K. Rowling, P.G. Wodehouse, Larry Gonick, Neil Gaiman, and Lee Child (Jack Reacher is one of my favourite literary characters, though having Tom Cruise play him is a mistake IMHO. I’d like to see Cruise and Hugh Jackman switch roles, with Cruise playing Wolverine and Jackman Reacher. That would be a much closer match to the original physical descriptions of the characters).

According to your profile, your house in Delhi has more books than furniture. What is your private library like?
It tends to change quite a bit, because every few months, when it becomes hard to find seating space for guests, I give away lots of books to friends, colleagues, libraries, and NGOs. I try to make sure that I match the books to the tastes of the people who are getting them–I want the books I give away to find loving homes. Though, some old favourites stay with me–mostly books written by the authors mentioned above.

Finally, what do you think of current Indian writing in English?
There’s obviously a very strong literary tradition of Indian writing in English. Among the authors who’re currently active, I have a lot of admiration for Salman Rushdie, Vikram Seth, and Amitav Ghosh. But I'm also delighted to see the emergence of a new generation of very interesting, commercially successful Indian popular writers. Amish Tripathi and Ashwin Sanghi top the list, of course. But people like Piyush Jha, Madhulika Liddle, Anuja Chauhan, and Ravi Subramanian are pretty readable too.