Tag: Chasing the Pain

I posted about the eighth Marty Singer novel, Chasing the Pain earlier this morning, and now I have a Q&A with the author, Matthew Iden to share with you. I had a harder time than I’m used to coming up with spoiler-free questions for this book, but think I pulled it off. I enjoyed this, hope you do, too.

Help us get to know you a bit—could you sketch out your path to publication and where the Marty Singer series came from?

After several frustrating years scaling the walls of traditional publishing only to be pushed off the parapet, I turned to self-publishing when it was still just a gleam in Jeff Bezos’s eye, about 2010 or so. I was lucky enough to have some immediate success with sales, but more importantly I realized what the important stuff was: connecting with readers, getting feedback, telling my story. It was empowering to see people who were not my mother actually appreciate my writing—this is the core piece of advice I give writers on the fence about self-publishing: as corny as it sounds, reaching readers is its own reward.

After three or four years, I’d done well enough to catch the eye of Thomas & Mercer—Amazon Publishing’s mystery and thriller imprint. They picked up all of my Marty Singer books (six at the time) and contracted for two standalone thrillers, which became THE WINTER OVER and BIRTHDAY GIRL.

The blush eventually came off the romance, but we parted amicably. I regained the rights to my Marty Singer series and self-published them, then added two more to the pile (THE BITTER FIELDS and CHASING THE PAIN).

The idea for Marty as a character came from my desire to write about a “real” individual. I love the Jack Reachers of the literary world, but I have a very hard time writing about them. I identify much more with Henning Mankell’s Kurt Wallander: solid, unvarnished, relatable.

I imagine that bringing back a character from a previous novel (at least one not designed to be a recurring character) is a tricky proposition—what came first, the desire to write more about Karl and this storyline lent itself to that, or the idea to do something with the “rehab industry” and he was a convenient way into that?

I really wanted to return to Karl. I make a few passing comparisons to him in CHASING THE PAIN as a King Pellinore-type figure: an aging, knight-errant who can’t seem to catch up with his own reason for being. Presenting him as someone with a substance abuse problem helped me solidify that framework; showing him dealing with his vices and corresponding fallout gave his story more substance.

I like to ask about supporting characters, and have at least a dozen things I’d enjoy asking about Madame Cormier (starting with: when can we expect a spin-off?), but something tells me that we can’t do that without ruining something for the readers. So, let’s go with Don D’Amelio instead. Where did he come from? He has certain, shall we say, sanguinary impulse that a lot of writers wouldn’t have given him—was that a little fun to write?

Watching Don come to life was a hoot. He started out fictional life as a sad-sack wasting his golden years sipping espresso and reading the sports page. Originally, his only function was to give Marty some more info about the rehab industry—what we call a “spear carrier” in the writing biz. But when I realized I needed a side-kick for my side-kick, I just went all-in and couldn’t stop laughing at how, uh, sanguinary I could make him.

Regarding Madame: you’re like the fourth person who’s wanted more. I think I might take the hint! I had a great time watching him come to life.

You’ve written in a handful of genres—are there any you wouldn’t want to try? What is it about Crime Fiction that brings you back to it?

I don’t have an interest in writing romance. Not because it isn’t a “real” genre, because the romance writers I know are some of the sharpest, hardest-working writers in the business, but just from a simple interest perspective: the stories don’t click with me and I can’t write what I don’t read.

Actually, my first love is fantasy, then science fiction, then crime fiction, but the world-building required of F/SF can be quite intimidating; my first attempts were dismal. Now that I have some writing experience under my belt, I have plans to go back and try my hand at a trilogy or three, but I’ve also come to love what I can do with crime fiction and won’t be abandoning it.

Let’s play “Online Bookstore Algorithm” (a game I’ve recently invented). What are 3-5 books whose readers may like Chasing the Pain?

I’d be lying if I said I wouldn’t want CHASING THE PAIN sitting next to Elmore Leonard’s GOLD COAST on someone’s bookshelf. CTP is not as caper-ish as Gold Coast, but I think there’s a similar flavor and not just in the setting.

Robert B. Parker’s Spenser is really the ur-private investigator so many of us try to emulate, not just for the tough guy persona, but the humor. LOOKING FOR RACHEL WALLACE would probably please the same kind of reader.

And, as long as I’m getting too big for my writing britches, I might as well throw in James Lee Burke’s BLACK CHERRY BLUES and James Crumley’s THE LAST GOOD KISS.

What’s next for Matthew Iden?

I’m about two-thirds done with a standalone spy novel (working title: SCIMITAR) set in modern-day Paris that occurred to me during a vacation there. I’ve struggled with it for almost two years now while I’ve written other things, but it’s time to get this one done. I’m pretty excited to see how it wraps up…because then I’ll feel free to write Marty #9 or Madame #1.

Thanks to Matthew Iden for his time and these answers!

Chasing the Pain by Matthew Iden: A Missing Addict (or two), a Missing Friend, and the Ex-Cop Out to Find Them

By HCNewton

On February 18, 2021

In Fiction, Mystery/Detective Fiction/Crime Fiction/Thriller

Come back in the next hour for a Q&A with the author!

Chasing the Pain

by Matthew Iden
Series: Marty Singer, #8

eARC, 274 pg.
Life Sentence Publishing LLC, 2021

Read: February 3-4, 2021

The Set-Up

Once upon a time, it seemed like at least 40% of the P.I. novels/TV shows I read started out with an old friend (usually that the reader/viewer had never heard of) coming to the P.I. for help—or getting word to him that they were in trouble. It was a quick and effective way for the P.I. to get involved in the case without all the bother of interviewing a prospective client and worrying about money and whatnot. Obviously, it was better if it was someone the reader/viewer knew so we’d be invested, too.

And that’s what we have here, Marty Singer gets a visit from the ex-wife of a man he’d worked with not that long ago (Book 6, Once Was Lost, for the reader). He’s gone missing, leaving a note for his ex that reads:

If you’re reading this, then you haven’t heard from me in three weeks, maybe more. If that’s the case, call Marty Singer. He’ll know what to do.

Marty, a former DC Homicide detective, really has no choice (not that he wants one). He needs to find the retired US Marshall, Karl Schovasa, and bring him home—and helping Karl out however he needs to in order to get him able to come home.

The Protagonist

So, I’m coming into this series late (this is Book 8), but here’s what I picked up about Marty. He’s a retired detective and a cancer survivor. He now does favors for people, acting like a P.I. without a license (for undoubtedly a good reason). Think Matthew Scudder without the alcoholism.* He’s got a great girlfriend and there’s a young woman in their life that might as well be an adoptive daughter**. Drawing on his experience and contacts, he seems to be fairly successful at what he does.

* This is just my impression at this point, I could be way off.

** Think Spenser and Paul Giacomin.

I didn’t get to spend a lot of time with his girlfriend or daughter-figure, but they seemed like the kind of characters you’d want to spend more time with, and the interaction between the three of them served to make the reader like Marty.

The Victim

Karl Schovasa ran into Marty when they were on opposite sides of a case a couple of years back—but at some point, they realized they weren’t really on opposite sides and combined their efforts, forging a friendship. In the meantime, Karl’s addictions became worse—although Marty sees signs of him sobering up (and signs that the sobering didn’t last).

It looks like Karl befriended a young woman in a treatment group and decided she was in trouble. She’d ended up in a treatment center in Palm Beach, and it looks like Karl followed her there. Then he disappeared.

So, it’s off to Palm Beach for Marty to look for Karl—and probably the girl, too—and then the trouble really starts. And I’m going to leave it there.

A Refreshing Take on Violence

Like any good P.I. (or P.I. adjacent) novel, there’s a little violence—really 4 incidents of it. There’s nothing all that dramatic or over-the-top with them, they’re pretty straightforward. The biggest one—in terms of importance, and I think word count—is a fistfight. This is about as far as you can get from a Jack Reacher kind of fight. It’s nasty, brutish, and short.

Usually, in fiction—even among the more “realistic” works—a fistfight is something that the protagonist/their allies can shake off pretty quickly. Not this one. It really wasn’t that entertaining (the way that a Reacher or Spenser fistfight typically is), but it comes across as how things actually go down when someone is attacked from behind by someone swinging a piece of lumber against their head.

I loved that. I need to see more of that.

I Demand a Spin-Off!

Being a fish out of water as he is in Palm Beach, Marty needs to make some allies—and he does that with a little help from an old contact. I really liked all the allies we meet, Iden knows how to quickly get you to like a supporting character (he does it 3-4 times effortlessly). There are some characters that you encounter in various novels that basically steal every scene that they’re in. In this book, that character is Madame Cormier. I can’t say anything more than that without diminishing your experience in meeting Madame (but, boy howdy, I want to). All I can say is that I didn’t get enough, and I’m certain the character is worth a novel—if not a series—without Singer or the rest around.

Iden talks a little about this in the Q&A I had with him. (which will post a little later today)

The Real-Life Crime

Like so many Crime Writers do, Iden took the central idea for the crimes at the center of this novel from the news. I’d never heard of the way that these unscrupulous addiction treatment centers were gaming the system using the Internet and Insurance Payments to make a ridiculous kind of money. Iden provides links to his sources (at least some of them) at the end of the book—they made my blood boil and almost took away from the pleasant experience I had with the book.

I mention this just to say, while you read Chasing the Pain and you think, “this is preposterous, no one can get away with this…” Just know that it’s not. John Rogers would frequently say they had to tone down the crimes they based Leverage‘s crooks on because no one would believe what had actually happened. Something tells me Iden did something similar.

Also, I mention this all to say: if you’re someone who gets mad when they read news stories? Maybe skip the research at the end.

So, what did I think about Chasing the Pain?

First off, this book has a nostalgic feel for me—this feels like the Crime Fiction that I cut my teeth on back in Junior High/High School (both in books and on TV). Both the way Iden tells the story and the character of Marty Singer just takes me back to that time. So I like it for that alone.

But the story he’s telling isn’t really the kind of thing that anyone was telling in the 1980s (and not just because of the technology involved). And that is just as appealing to me, if not more so.

There’s something about this book that was just fun to read–I sat down to read about 10% on the first night, just to get the book started and get a feel for it. Before I knew what had happened, I was about one-third of the way in. I just didn’t want to stop reading—I could’ve easily finished it in that sitting, if I didn’t have a list of things to get to. It was still early in the book, so I hadn’t got hooked by the story or anything yet. It was just a pleasant read—I’m not sure I can put it into words, but everyone reading this knows what I’m talking about. A book like that gets me to come back to the series.

I liked this enough that I’ve purchased the first Marty Singer book, A Reason to Live, and am looking forward to catching up with this series. I bet I’m not the only one who reacts that way to this book.

This is a fast, easy read with characters you’ll like and believable conflicts for Marty to resolve. Marty himself has a strong, engaging voice that’s a pleasure to read. I recommend this novel and expect I’ll recommend the rest.

Disclaimer: I received this book from the author in exchange for this post and my honest opinion. I appreciate the opportunity, but, as always, my opinions are my own.

3.5 Stars