That just provokes greater alienation.  I don't set out to ask any big questions when I write my books, but in retrospect the question Andy asks me is: Where does his violence come from?  Is it that alienation?  Heredity?  Or is it innate? Honestly, I don't know.

Now in addition to your novels you also write a comic book? Can you talk about that? How does writing for comics differ from writing novels?

Comics are a visual medium, so the trick for a novelist is to learn how to let the pictures carry most of the story.  I lay out what I want the pictures to look like, but an artist still has to interpret that.  So you need to be flexible that way.  For someone like me who uses a great deal of dialogue, you need to try and reign in that tendency.  Dialogue in a comic book takes up physical space on the page. The more dialogue, the less room you have for pictures. It's a real technical challenge, not just the exercise in imagination and craziness that it maybe looks like from the outside.  A lot of fun, but definitely work.

Some novelists are opposed to having their stories optioned for movies. What's your take on this?

My take is that a movie version, in the off chance that an option actually ever gets exercised and a movie manifests, doesn't change the fact of the novel.  To me, a movie option is a great way to make a little extra money on work I've already done and been paid for.  At that point, I don't much care what happens. In an ideal world you'd like any movies made from your work to be good movies.  The reason for that is that you want your name and your work associated with things that are not crappy.  But a movie is not the final step in the life cycle of a novel. A novel is a novel.  Good movie, bad movie — that doesn't change the work I've already done. 

What are you working on next? 

The next book to publish will be the third in my Joe Pitt series: Half The Blood of Brooklyn (Dec. 26, 2007). A terribly bloody vampire book written in hardboiled noir style. Just perfect for the holidays.

I've got a crime book set in Los Angeles that's all wrapped up.  It'll be the first in a proposed open-ended series about a former elementary school teacher who gets involved in trauma scene cleaning.  Despite his profession, the book is actually quite a bit lighter and less violent than my other books.  That should be out in early 2009. 

And I'm completing the fourth Joe Pitt book so it will be ready for Fall 2008. 

I'm going to take a brief pause from novels and do some comic book work before starting another stand-alone in about a month.

Thanks again to Mr. Huston for the interview.