This week my guest is Erec Stebbins to talk about his debut novel from Seventh Street Books. The publisher’s description is:
An American bin Laden. An FBI agent. Connected by a terrible loss on 9/11, they now confront each other over acts of vengeance so horrific, the world is brought to the brink of war.
As Muslims around the world are being targeted in a series of devastating attacks, Agent John Savas is drawn into a web of international intrigue. He must put aside his personal pain and work with a man who symbolizes all he has come to hate. Both are drawn into a race against time to prevent a plot so terrible that it could shatter civilization itself.
In a thriller that spans the globe in an ever-widening arc of intrigue, violence, and personal conflict, the stability of the world hangs in the balance. Only by transcending his own devastating loss can Savas hope to prevent the ultimate calamity unleashed by the Ragnarök conspiracy.
And now here is Erec to talk about his Favorite Bit
EREC STEBBINS:
“Thriller Homage: The Hobo Hitman”
I’m a child of the 80’s. Literally, and literarily.
As a young man I grew up reading a wide variety of books. There were the obligatory classics in school, science fiction as a deep love for someone who would himself become a scientist, and my own personal obsession with Tolkien and his mad genius legendarium. But it wasn’t all deep past or far future for me. One of the genres I enjoyed the most was very contemporary: I devoured many a book from the golden age of global thrillers.
Robert Ludlum – the REAL Robert Ludlum and not this Ghost Industry they now having using his name – was for me the high point of the period’s thrillers. He brought together several narrative and stylistic approaches that resonated with me, not the least of which was a liberal leaning in a genre dominated by more politically conservative writers.
Second only to Jason Bourne, one of the most memorable characters from this thriller golden age was one created by Tom Clancy: Agent Clark from the Jack Ryan universe of novels. And nothing beat the 1993 Clark prequel “Without Remorse.” For me, some of the most enjoyable scenes in the novel involve the main character’s disguising himself as a drunken bum and wreaking havoc in that form on the bad guys. There was just something disturbingly satisfying about a drunk derelict springing to life and gutting a nasty criminal with a K-BAR knife, or unloading a shotgun from his tramp-coat and eviscerating cruel members of the underworld.
Fast-forward twenty years, and my first thriller, “The Ragnarök Conspiracy”, is published, complete with an homage to the (definitely) underused archetype of “killer hobo”. It’s a reference that only the most die-hard thriller fan is likely to pick up on. I’m not sure if this is my “favorite bit”, but no other favored-bit beats it for an idiosyncratic enjoyment while writing.
“Pants” is a character partly inspired by a local vagrant in my NYC neighborhood, but given a life in words as a tribute to the wonderful Wino-of-Death scenes in Clancy’s book. While writing “The Ragnarök Conspiracy”, I was planning a scene which leads to a major terrorist attack, the first of many devastating events that drive the narrative forward. Without giving away too much, there is a chapter foreshadowing the bombing that involves an unusual terrorist organization setting up the attack.
Enter the hitman hobo.
As his nefarious colleagues are planting explosives, he is one of several lookouts, stationed in a strategic location (a small New York City park). He has taken on the identity of a well-known local, “Pants Henry”, an alcoholic beggar who is distinguished by his unique choice of wardrobe: every day, without fail, he sports a different pair of pants with one pants leg missing. In the novel, this false Pants Henry lies on a bench, seemingly inebriated, but all the while watchful and in radio communications with the terrorists.
Unknowingly, members of a hardened gang blunder into the operation that is underway, and “Pants” must act to prevent them from interfering with their plans or drawing the attention of law enforcement. Mirroring some of the deadly interactions in Clancy’s novel, it was a blast (literally) to have my bum surprise the gang and kick some hoodlum ass, even as his actions set the stage for crimes far more horrible than any his victims could have imagined committing.
It’s a short scene, primarily setting the stage for what is to come and to give a sense of the ruthlessness of the antagonists in the story. It really could have been written in many different ways. But the disguise was apropos for the location. Before I knew it, my memory reached back two decades to a similar image of the most powerless, uncoordinated, and dependent citizens of our society – those broken souls that we at best ignore, but often scorn and abuse – suddenly transforming into the most deadly of assassins.
It’s no rival to Clancy’s epic imagery, but I did my best to give the “vengeful vagabond” a tribute with a bang!”
RELEVANT LINKS:
The Ragnarök Conspiracy amazon
BIO:
Erec Stebbins (New York, NY) is associate professor and head of the Laboratory of Structural Microbiology at the Rockefeller University in New York. The Ragnarök Conspiracy is his first novel. For more about the book and Erec Stebbins, visit www.ragnarokconspiracy.com andwww.erecstebbins.com.
