The Dark Fantastic Interview with author Robert J. Randisi (Author of The Rat Pack Mysteries and Curtains of Blood)

Robert J. Randisi is one of the most prolific writers in history, having authored hundreds of  published books and edited more than 30 anthologies of short stories. He co-founded and edited Mystery Scene magazine (with Ed Gorman) and co-founded the American Crime Writers League. He founded The Private Eye Writers of America in 1981 and created the Shamus Award.

In a 2011 Barnes & Noble interview he revealed that he writes under sixteen pseudonyms, and that he produces fifteen books a year, with 1984 being his most prolific year, with an output of twenty seven books!

He is most renowned for his mystery fiction (Dean Koontz and Michael Connelly are fans of his work), which includes The Rat Pack Mysteries, the Nick Delvecchio series, and the Joe Keough series.

Randisi has also written hundreds of western novels - including The Gunsmith series, The Tracker series, The Angel Eyes series, among others - and dozens of stand-alone novels in numerous genres.

Author Robert J. Randisi

I had a chance to interview him recently and ask him about his prodigious output, his style, and one of my all-time favorite novels, Curtains of Blood.

How early in your life did you discover that you wanted to be a writer?

I was 13 when I first put pen to paper—or fingers to a typewriter—but I was 15 when I decided I would do it full time for a living by the time I was 30—and I did. 

Early in your career, your worked for the NYPD. What was that experience like, and how did it influence your writing?

It was an eye opening experience, a peek into real life that I hadn’t seen before. At 23 I’d have to say it was life altering.  It did enable me to write more realistically about people, but except for a short story or two it didn’t actually influence my writing until I wrote ALONE WITH THE DEAD in 1995.

P.I. fiction has definitely stood the test of time and continues to be popular to this day. In your opinion, what makes P.I. fiction such a sturdy and timeless genre?

I think the loner standing against the masses is timeless.  We all like to think we could do it if we had to. It’s something that connect the Western and the Private Eye story, the lone gun who’s not on either side of the law, but sort of straddling the line in the middle. He’s heroic, and almost everybody would like to be a hero.

I think it's safe to say that you're one of the most prolific writers of all time, with hundreds of novels in countless genres under your belt. To what do you attribute your prodigious output, and what is your writing process like?

I can only attribute my output to my absolute love of writing. Most of my waking hours are spent writing. And I discovered at an early age that I had an unusual ability to write swiftly. I was advised by other writers early on NOT to write quickly, to slow down. But when I tried to follow that advice it affected everything—my output and the quality of my work. So I had to settle down into my natural pace, which is the advice I give to writers when they ask. Find your natural rhythm, and stick with it. And remember, I wanted to write for a living by the time I turned 30. That meant writing a lot of books, or becoming Stephen King—and I ain’t Stephen King.  

Do you have a favorite genre to write in?

For me it is and always has been the Private Eye genre—even  before it was accepted as a genre of its own, rather than the sub-genre of the mystery. It became part of my life’s work to make that happen.  

As the creator of the Shamus Award, and an expert in P.I. lore and methodology, did you ever think of becoming a P.I. yourself?

Early in my life, yes. Dealing with police detectives and meeting some private eyes along the way, I thought about it, but that would have interfered with the writing. I was a musician in my teens, and decided I’d have to either pursue music or writing to succeed at one of them. You know what I chose. But yeah, I think I could’ve been a good P.I.

Who are your favorite writers, the ones that inspire you the most?

I go cross genre with influences, from Chandler and Ross Macdonald to Roger Zelazney and Keith Laumer. I enjoyed them, and learned from them. And I was mentored by Warren Murphy, who gave me my first writing job.  These days I enjoy the work of Michael Connelly very much. He’s one of the few writers I think actually deserves his success status. 

Your style can arguably be called minimalist: You achieve so much with so few words, and your sentences are always lean and drive the story forward, which makes most of your books on the shorter side, yet wholly satisfying as novels. What attracts you to this spare style?

It’s not conscious, it simply comes naturally. I don’t rewrite, the story comes out of my head and flows through my fingers at a certain speed, and the “minimalist” style you refer to just fits.  I’m much more concerned with the action of the story, than I am with the kind of shoes characters are wearing, or what the weather’s like. I’m as much criticized for that as I am praised, but once again, you have to go with what comes naturally. 

Your mastery of almost all genres is mind-boggling. Is that the result of your interest in a wide-range of subjects? Or are you just a voracious reader?

Oh, I was a voracious reader from an early age, and kept looking for more and more to read, which meant bringing new genres into the fold. I have to say the only genre I’ve never read or written is the romance. The private eye is still my favorite genre to read, but some of my favorite books have come from Roiger Zelazney and Frank Herbert.

One of my favorite novels of yours is CURTAINS OF BLOOD, a terrific historical thriller in which Bram Stoker crosses paths with Jack The Ripper, a concept which has been used many times, with varying degrees of success. In my opinion, your take is the most effective, and for me, the most enjoyable. What attracted you to the subject matter, and how much research did you have to do for the novel?

I probably did more research for that novel than any other I’ve written. I just happened to come across the fact one day that Stoker was the manager of the Lyceum Theatre at the time of Jack the Ripper, and that the theater’s run of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde was closed down due to the fact that the police thought it might be “inciting” Jack. I just went from there . . . to me, it was a natural.

Do you ever consider going back to that Victorian world and writing something in the same vein as CURTAINS OF BLOOD?

There’s nothing on the planning board, but who knows. I always have time to write another book, right?

What advice would you give to aspiring writers who want to write in the mystery/crime genre, especially now that the paperback market has all but disappeared?

If you want to write this stuff, you just have to write it. You can’t worry about where or when or how it’s going to be published. If you’re a writer, then the writing is the important part. You’d write it even if you were the only one who was going to read it. So get it written, and don’t worry about anything else until it’s done.

What are you working on at the moment?

Several things—a traditional western for Berkley Books, who has started publishing westerns once again; the next Gunsmith book, continuing the output of one a month since January of 1982; and my next Rat Pack mystery, which will be the thirteenth book in the series.

Thank you for your time.

It’s been my pleasure.

Text © Ahmed Khalifa. 2020.

Ahmed Khalifa is a filmmaker and novelist. He is the writer/director of the feature film Wingrave, released on Netflix, and the author of a number of novels and short stories, including the YA horror novel, Beware The Stranger, available on Amazon. Find him on Twitter @AFKhalifa and on Facebook @Dark.Fantastic.AK·Writer