Like the hero of The Cutting, James Hayman is a transplanted New Yorker. Born in Brooklyn and raised in Manhattan, he spent more than twenty years writing TV advertising for clients like The U.S. Army, Lincoln-Mercury and Procter & Gamble. He moved to Portland, Maine in 2001. Four years later he decided to scratch a lifelong itch to write fiction and began work on his first suspense thriller featuring homicide detective Mike McCabe. St. Martin’s/Minotaur bought rights to The Cutting and published it in July 2009. Hayman is currently at work on the second McCabe novel, due for release in July 2010 and tentatively titled The Chill of Night.
Q. Thank you for this interview, James. Can we begin by having you tell us why you chose to write thrillers?
I read thrillers. I’ve always enjoyed them. I am a fan of a number of favorite thriller writers including Michael Connelly, Dennis Lahane and Laura Lippman. It just seemed that the thriller was the natural genre for me.
Q. Did you outline before you wrote your book or did you just go with the flow?
Since this the first time I ever tried writing a novel, I tried to follow the so-called rules of the game which called for writing a detailed synopsis of the action. It seemed like a good idea at the time.
However, in practice, I found following an outline sucked the life out of the book. I veered away from it almost immediately and never looked back. I’m sure, for some writers, following an outline works well. But I find that if my characters have any life or depth to them they’ll take charge and lead the story in terrific and unexpected ways.
Not having an outline slows the writing process down because you often have no idea what’s coming next. But I believe it also makes a book like The Cutting more dynamic, more surprising, more fun.
Q. Who was your favorite character in The Cutting and why?
The bad guys are always fun to write. McCabe’s bitchy ex-wife Sandy. Both Philip and Harriet Spencer. Police Chief Tom Shockley. The nasty hit man/sniper Duane Pollock.
But I guess, in the end, the character I feel proudest of is the hero Michael McCabe. I think he’s a complex, intelligent and sensitive man with real human qualities readers can identify with. Based on some of the fan emails I’ve received since the book has been out, woman readers in particular really like McCabe. A couple claim to have fallen in love with him. No marriage proposals yet but who knows. Too bad he’s fictitious.
Q. Who was your least favorite character?
That’s hard. I guess I’d have to say some of the secondary cops in McCabe’s Crimes Against people unit. There just wasn’t enough time spent with them in the book to bring them as fully to life as I would have liked.
Q. Can you tell us about the setting and why you chose it?
Well before I began to dream up the characters or the plot, I knew I wanted to write a police series set in Portland, Maine.
I don’t think picking a setting first is particularly unusual. A sense of place is key to a lot of the best mystery writing. James Lee Burke’s Louisiana, Tony Hillerman’s New Mexico, and Dennis Lahane’s Boston to name just a few.
For me Portland was perfect. It offered a gritty urban setting. A vibrant street life. Great architecture. A rich history. A working waterfront. Good bars. Great restaurants. A lively art scene. And, not unimportantly, a police department with big-city skills and resources that was still small enough for most of the cops to know and care about each other. Portland even offered interesting and often extreme weather to set the scenes in.
