Interview with Crime Writer Tony Knighton – S. 5, Ep. 6

Debbi Mack interviews crime writer Tony Knighton on the Crime Cafe podcast. Check out the show notes below, or if you’re in a rush, download a copy! Debbi: [00:00:08] Hi, everyone. This is the Crime Cafe, your podcasting source of great crime, suspense, and thriller writing. I'm your host, Debbi Mack. Before I bring on my guest, I'll just remind you that the Crime Cafe has two e-books for sale. The nine-book box set and the short story anthology. You can find the buy links for both on my web site DebbiMack.com, under the Crime Cafe link. You can also get a free copy of either book if you become a Patreon supporter. You'll get that and much more if you support the podcast on Patreon, along with our eternal gratitude for doing so. Debbi: [00:00:59] Hi everyone. I'm very pleased to have with me today a crime writer who's also a working fireman or firefighter, if you will. He's a lieutenant with the Philadelphia Fire Department. If you'd like to enter a giveaway for a copy of his novel Three Hours Past Midnight, just go to my blog and look for his guest post. You can also find the guest post on my Patreon page. So, in any case, here he is, Tony Knighton. Hi, Tony. Tony: [00:01:34] Hi, Debbi. How are you doing? Debbi: [00:01:36] OK. How are you today? Tony: [00:01:38] Oh, swell. How about you? Debbi: [00:01:40] Not bad. Not bad at all. You know, it's Friday and the weekend's coming. Tony: [00:01:48] Yeah, yeah. Debbi: [00:01:48] Let's see. I am reading your novella, Happy Hour and Other Philadelphia Cruelties? I have to say, the first chapter left me breathless. Tony: [00:01:59] Oh, thank you. Debbi: [00:02:02] You write a very fast-paced story. Would you say that's part of your style? Tony: [00:02:09] Yeah. Yeah. That's fair enough. Debbi: [00:02:12] Yeah. How would you describe your writing generally? Do you consider yourself hardboiled or noir? Is there a difference? Tony: [00:02:22] Sort of both. I heard Duane Swierczynski, another Philadelphian, talking about the subject, and he says the difference all counts on the ending. If it's a positive ending, you just wrote hardboiled. If it's a negative ending, you write noir. I think that's at least an interesting explanation. My stories are a little bit of both, I think. Happy Hour is definitely noir. "If it's a positive ending, you just wrote hardboiled. If it's a negative ending, you write noir. I think that's at least an interesting explanation. My stories are a little bit of both, I think." Debbi: [00:03:16] So a little bit of both then. Tony: [00:03:19] Yeah. Debbi: [00:03:20] Do you focus more on mystery or kind of like thriller-type stuff, suspense. Tony: [00:03:26] Most of my stuff I guess falls into the category of crime fiction. My novel sort of ended up being a mystery, too. But I've always been a little bit more interested in will they get away? That just seems to be my preference or the kind of stuff I end up writing. Debbi: [00:03:58] Gotcha. So tell us about Three Hours Past Midnight. What is the book about? Tony: [00:04:09] That story ... it features a character that I wrote in a short story. And in that story ... Debbi: [00:04:20] You're trailing off a little bit, sometimes. Tony: [00:04:23] I'm sorry. Yeah. The novel features a character that I started in a short story, and by the end of the story, the guy was still alive. Then I realized I kind of liked him. And I'd had an idea for the novel. The crime involved in the novel and I just sort of have never been able to see who would do it. And I see this guy now. It's basically two guys who are burglarizing the home of a crooked politician who ended up in jail. They believe there's a wall safe and a lot of money in it. They indeed find the safe and get away with it. And, very shortly, one of them is killed and the safe [illegible]. The rest of the book is basically the other guy, main guy,