Enough is never enough. This statement rings true when it comes to the power hungry bad guys in Keith Rosson’s new novel, Fever House. But what about when that power they crave comes from a severed hand, and they’ll do anything to get it? Read on to see what all the hand, and novel, entails.
KEITH ROSSON:
My new horror/crime novel, Fever House, opens with a pair of legbreakers – Hutch Holtz and Tim Reed – doing what they do best: terrifying people that are in debt to their boss. Hutch in particular was a holdover from a number of unpublished earlier projects that I just couldn’t get off the ground.
He was, initially, a main character in a crime novel, and a number of short stories, and none of them quite worked. I then realized that I seem constitutionally incapable of writing something of length without putting a ghost or robot or reincarnated medieval executioner in it.) But as a character, Hutch just haunted me. This huge enforcer with a caved-in head, a gunman who once mouthed off to the wrong guys and got his head shut in the door of a Ford passenger van a few times for his trouble. Powerful, but far from impervious.
Most importantly, Hutch, doing what he does, is a character keenly aware of the dynamics of power. He keeps his head down; the thing with the Crooked Wheel Club, the gang that dented his forehead in for him, it’s made him more cautious. He understands that people – like his boss, Peach – ache for power, and will be forever convinced they need more and more of it. Powerful people rarely hit a plateau where it’s enough and all’s good. That’s not how it works…
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Read on at: The Big Idea: Keith Rosson
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