John Knoerle, author of The Proxy Assassin: Book Three of the American Spy Trilogy, is my guest today! Welcome John!
Ten Things About The Proxy Assassin: Book Three of the American Spy Trilogy You May Not Know
By John Knoerle
1.) With the exception of Ian Fleming’s James Bond books I do believe that my American Spy Trilogy is the only series of espionage novels to exhibit a sense of humor!
2.) The wisecracking cop or private investigator who uses gallows humor as a coping mechanism is a staple of mystery fiction, from Raymond Chandler’s Phillip Marlowe on down. For some reason this has not translated to the espionage genre. Spies, from John le Carre’s George Smiley on down, take themselves far too seriously.
3.) Genre fiction – mysteries and spy novels – are all plot and no character. The hero is the unmoveable center around which all events orbit. I get that. No one wants to watch Sherlock Holmes go through a mid-life crisis. But I chose to write a character-driven story where a young WWII spy, Hal Schroeder, grows to maturity as he deals with the hard choices that war and peace present him.
4.) I think the accepted story is that he first decade of the Cold War, with the exception of the bloody Hungarian uprising against the Soviets in 1956, was largely non-violent. Not so. The CIA sponsored ex-pat anti-Communist infiltrations in Balkan countries that resulted in hundreds of deaths at the hands of the Communists.
5.) Why does almost all genre fiction treat the act of eating as an afterthought? “I ate a quick lunch and hit the bricks” is all you are likely to get. What is more central to life than the act of consuming food? Is it because most authors are miserable human beings incapable of appreciating life’s rich bounty?
6.) I’m a novelist with an unlikely background. My forebears are all conservative business people. I was expected to hitch up my pants and go start a business. Which I did. It was a creative business, writing and producing radio commercials, but a business nonetheless. Still, I yearned for a creative outlet that was longer than sixty seconds.
7.) My last name, Knoerle, is German for “small onion.” Or so they tell me.
8.) I read Norman Mailer’s “Harlot’s Ghost” from cover to cover. So what? It’s over 1100 pages, that’s what! Brilliant writing, fascinating detail, and an inexplicable structure wherin Mailer gives away the sad ending of the central love relationship at the beginning of the book!
9.) I got inspired to write The American Spy Trilogy by watching an obscure film from the 1940s, “T-Men.” Specifically a scene where the Treasury agent, posing as a mobster, is greeted by a young lady, who knew him when, when he is leaving a bar in the company of his new mob ‘pals’. The pulsing tension of that scene, as our hero tries to convince the young lady that he isn’t who she knows him to be, really struck a chord with me. Who hasn’t had that experience in some way? ‘I am not the person you perceive me to be!’
10.) And to close the circle, I grew up in a large multi-generational family that was riven with conflicting interests. I understood the power, and peril, of intrigue.
About the Author:
Knoerle wrote the screenplay Quiet Fire, which starred Karen Black, and the stage play The He-Man Woman Hater’s Club, an LA Time’s Critic’s Choice. He also worked as a staff writer for Garrison Keillor’s A Prairie Home Companion.
Knoerle moved to Chicago in 1996 with his wife Judie. His first novel, “Crystal Meth Cowboys,” was optioned by Fox TV. His second novel, “The Violin Player,” won the Mayhaven Award for Fiction.
John Knoerle’s novel, A Pure Double Cross, was the first volume of a late 40s spy trilogy featuring former OSS agent Hal Schroeder. The second volume, A Despicable Profession, was published in 2010. Knoerle’s latest book, The Proxy Assassin, Book Three of the American Spy Trilogy, has just been released.
Visit his website at www.johnknoerle.com.
