St. Louisan John Lutz describes his new book, Mister X, as “suspense with velocity.” But his past novels include “political suspense, private eye novels, urban suspense, occult, crime caper, police procedural, espionage, historical, futuristic, amateur detective…” He’s not worried about categories, in other words; he just wants to scare us silly. As fellow mystery writer Harlan Coben once said, “Lutz knows how to make you shiver.”
How do you make people afraid?
It’s one of the hardest things to do in writing. It’s technique. It’s getting the reader to identify with the victim, and then zeroing in on the things that make people afraid: darkness, falling, loneliness…
And we enjoy this experience?
Well, as my editor would say, people like a good, safe scare. It’s controllable. Everybody knows there’s a light at the end of the tunnel, and you’re just showing the reader what’s in the tunnel.
Is that cathartic?
I don’t know that it’s so much cathartic as escapist. I don’t know that my readers would like to kill someone and this relieves the pressure! Although that’s been said…
No, no, I meant it might be a way to release other fears.
Well, you are trying to give the reader an alternative world, one the reader can visit or leave. The comfort is the underlying knowledge that you can turn off your fear at your whim.
How do you know when to pull back, when something might be too scary?
It’s where I would want to stop reading if I were the reader. And of course you don’t kill children or animals.
That’s a little too easy.
Yes. Fear is instilled in ways that involve subtly stimulating the unconscious. Over the top gets you in the stomach; it’s more like horror. What I write is a creepy kind of fear.
First, you have to make the reader identify with the character who’s in peril. How do you do that?
You make the character likeable. You create a person who’s like someone the reader has known. Then you choose a distinguishing characteristic to focus on, and put the character in an easily identifiable situation.
You’re especially good at writing women—either when they’re vulnerable, as in Single White Female, which was made into a movie, or when they’re feisty, like your detective Pearl. How’d you develop the knack?
It’s the other half of the human race! And I observe them. In some ways, a man can observe women better than they can observe themselves. Although, there are things a man can never know…
In Mr. X, Jerry peeping into his neighbor’s window reminded me of the South Side rapist, who described his experience to me in exactly the same way. Later, your murderer is relieved to be “safely back within the ritual.” How much research have you done on psychopaths?
Some. But I think fictional serial killers are more interesting than real-life serial killers. Being an unnoticeable, average guy who would not attract attention—that’s their coloration—which is not terribly interesting—and we still don’t really know their motivation. The one thing they do seem to have in common is a horrible childhood, so I used that. But solid motivation is not applied, because it’s not applied in real life.
Is it disturbing to climb inside a killer’s head?
No, because I’m concentrating too much on technique. Writers feel what they are writing, but in a very subdued way, in the background. When you write, you are not in the throes of emotion.
Pearl’s mother is a hoot—bossy, loving, guilt-inducing, and wickedly sarcastic. Who inspired her?
Oh, Pearl’s mother is kind of a composite. End the quote there.
Your dialogue is really fun, especially the teasing between the detectives.
Well, I like banter. People who are thrown together by their job or circumstance, they learn how to live with each other, and that kind of banter and mild insult is a way to relieve pressure, I think.
You once worked for the St. Louis Police Department?
Oh, that was a long time ago. I was a switchboard operator for the fourth, third and central districts. The beat cops would call in from those red call boxes and tell me where they were, and I would track it. In the back of my mind, I always knew I was going to use this stuff for something. The switchboards were right by the booking desks and interrogation rooms, so I got to see the suspects brought in, and eavesdrop on conversations.
They say everything is autobiographical—are you Quinn, the tough, charismatic former cop?
I’m probably more like Nudger, my shlemiel detective.
He loves donuts. What is the deal with cops and donuts?
Well, you can stay in your car to get one. It travels easily. And it dunks well in coffee.
Far more comforting than a scary book…
Women tell me all the time that I disturb their sleep.
Why does death intrigue us?
Oh, I think it figures in with loneliness. It’s the cessation of self. And it’s a mystery in itself.
