Thriller set in small town America (where all is not as it seems…) plus Q&A with the author, Rod Reynolds

14th September 2015

The Dark Inside by Rod Reynolds, thriller set in small town America (Texarkana, seeing you ask…).

It must be fate… The Dark Inside is the third US based debut novel by a British writer that I have read in the past few months. Why the fascination? The other two were the excellent The Killing of Bobbi Lomax by Cal Moriarty and the equally excellent The Last Pilot by Benjamin Johncock. If the standard were to be kept up I would be in for a treat – and I was.

‘I arrived in town four days after the latest killings. Tall pines lined the road in. They only petered out the last mile, where the Texas-Pacific line ran parallel to the blacktop, gunmetal rails running off into the distance. A sign at the town limits read TEXARKANA, USA IS TWICE AS NICE. A dog cocked its leg and took a piss against it as I passed’. The words of disgraced New York journalist Charlie Yates as he drives into town to investigate the horrific murders of courting couples – each in  a car on a Saturday night in a secluded ‘lovers’ lane’. Charlie does not remotely wish to be in Texarkana on the Texas / Arkansas border (almost anywhere else on earth would be preferable), the assignment is punishment for falling out with his editor. He works out of the local newspaper offices where he is not exactly made welcome by the local editor and staff. Texarkana is a strange place where the paper prints what it is told to print by the local police department, and where corruption and hidden influence is rife. Not the place for an essentially honest reporter – and Charlie soon makes enemies. He works with the sister of a girl who just survived the first attack (but is now traumatised in hospital) to try and get to the bottom of what is happening – and to prevent more murders. The Dark Inside is a real page-turner with thrills a plenty as the story progresses. I patted myself on the back for spotting the murderer about 100 pages from the end but the final denouement was far more complex and clever than I had expected it to be. A really well thought through and well constructed plot…

The copy of The Dark Inside that I read had a flash on the cover telling me that the book was ‘For Fans of True Detective’. This really drew me in… (as indeed did the excellent cover itself). True Detective (especially Series 1 with Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson set in Louisiana)  is quite brilliant television. But a lot depends on the relationships, at times somewhat complex, and on the crisp dialogue between the two sets of detectives. That is hard to reproduce in a novel – and I don’t think Reynolds actually tries that hard at characterisation. He is content with the pace and excitement of the book. [Incidentally Nic Pizzolatto, who created True Detective originally saw the work as a novel before it developed into a television series]. This is not meant as a serious criticism, and I can absolutely see The Dark Inside as a major film in the True Detective genre…

The book is, incidentally, loosely based on fact. 1946 saw the Texarkana Moonlight Murders in which a killer nicknamed the ‘Phantom Slayer’ killed courting couple as three weekly intervals on a Saturday night. He was never caught…

The Dark Inside is a truly impressive first US based novel from a new British writer. I am sure we will hear more of Rod Reynolds.

Tony for the TripFiction team

Over to our Q&A with Rod Reynolds:

TF:  You gave up a successful career as a Media Buyer at Maxus to become a writer. What was it made you move from the (presumably not particularly creative) world of media buying to the highly creative world of writing? Was writing something that had always beckoned you?

RR:  Like a lot of people I know, I fell into media. I enjoyed my time in that industry, and worked with some fantastic and incredibly smart people, but as a consequence of it not being a conscious career choice, I always had an itch to do something else – I was just never sure what. I’ve always loved books and reading, but I never thought about being a writer when I was younger because it seemed like something that was totally out of reach – like wanting to be a rockstar or footballer. I grew up on a council estate in Camden and was the first person from my immediate family to go to university – so my ambition just didn’t stretch that far back then.

The first time I decided to write was in my mid-twenties when, in a fit of hubris, I decided I could do better than some of the books I was reading. I sat down at the computer and was very quickly disabused of that notion. I wrote a couple of pages of drivel, and that was it. However, the seed was planted and, after a few years of saving, I took a year out to write properly. I signed up for a distance learning course so I could learn the fundamentals, wrote and edited a novel in two months, and sent it out to every agent I could find. It was rejected universally, but there was a theme in the feedback that although that story didn’t work, I could write and should stick at it. More to the point, I found that even though I was working longer hours and for no money, I absolutely loved writing. It was a great feeling because, for the first time and at age thirty, I knew what I wanted to do with my life.

I made a couple of false-starts over the next few months, and then stumbled across the idea that would eventually become The Dark Inside – just before I had to go back to work. Everything went on hold for a couple of years as real life got in the way, but once I could afford it, I signed up for a masters at City, and threw myself into writing the manuscript.

TF:  You attended a full time two year Masters Course in Crime and Thriller Creative Writing at City University. This was quite an investment in both time and money. But it has clearly paid off for you… Were there any times during the course when you doubted the decision you had taken?

RR:  None. I did have some doubts before I signed up for the course, precisely because of the reasons you mention (and also when I found out, a couple of months before the first term, that my wife and I were expecting our first child.) But as soon as the course started, I knew I’d made the right decision; the calibre of the tutors was so high, and the writing being produced by the other students so good, it really inspired me.

I think, also, it’s a function of expectation. Having gained an understanding of the process in trying to get my first novel published, I didn’t sign up for the course expecting to come out with a publishing deal. I just wanted to feel like I was improving as a writer, and at least on the path to producing publishable work – and pretty much from day one, I was confident I was in the right environment to give me a chance to do those things.

TF:  You are English, and yet The Dark Inside (your first novel) is authentically set in small town America. You write with authority and about both Texarkana and its people. Is the area somewhere you have spent time or, if not, what drew you to use the town and some comparatively obscure murders of almost 70 years ago as the background for the book? What sort of research did you do?

RR:  I’ve spent a good deal of time in America, but had never been to that part prior to writing the book. It was the real-life case that I was initially drawn to, as it had so many of the elements of great crime fiction (a brutal killer that was never caught, inexplicable motivations, rumours of cover-ups and conspiracies, an entire town locked down in fear). I also liked the fact that the case was quite obscure, as it meant I wasn’t treading in the footsteps of any other authors. So as soon as I decided to use that case for the basis of the novel, I knew I couldn’t to set it anywhere else as I wanted to maintain that sense of authenticity.

Then when I delved deeper, I found Texarkana to be an intriguing setting in itself. It straddles the borderline of Texas and Arkansas, and is actually two cities – one in each state – with dual police forces, city governments etc. I thought that was an interesting dynamic to play with. Furthermore, it’s was a major railroad junction and, at the time of the novel, was overrun with GIs making their way home from WW2. Again, that seemed like an interesting backdrop for a crime story.

In terms of research, at first there wasn’t too much material available to me about the murders – so I hoovered up everything I did find, including old newspaper articles, entries in books, websites and even the 70s B-movie based on the murders. I also spent a lot of time looking around the city on Google maps, to familiarise myself with its geography (most of the iconic buildings mentioned in the book are still standing, so it was a great help in getting a feel for how the town would have looked). Then, once I had an early draft almost ready, I travelled to Texarkana so I could get a first hand feel for the place. That was invaluable in many ways, even if it only resulted in a handful of extra details that made it into the finished book.

TF:  Location is important to TripFiction. How does the geography of Texarkana as described in The Dark Inside compare with its geography in real life?

RR:  Although it’s based on a real-life case, The Dark Inside is a fictional re-imagining of the murders. However, to balance that, I really wanted the setting to be as authentic and true-to life as possible, so as to ground the book in reality. As such, everything is based on Texarkana as it is/was.

All of the major settings – such as the Texarkana Chronicle offices, or the Hotel Mason – are based on their real life counterparts, and the descriptions reflect that. Similarly, with a few small exceptions, the location and layout of different places and buildings reflects that of the actual town. I made a point of visiting every location that’s mentioned, including those outside of town, such as Red River Arsenal, the gigantic military base just to the west. Even in cases where I’ve created a setting – such as Winfield Callaway’s house – I made sure to visit the locale it’s set in, to make it as accurate as possible. Lastly, I also made as many of the drives Charlie makes in the book – both in the name of accuracy, and to try to see things as he would have, coming to the town for the first time.

TF:  I am interested in how you constructed The Dark Inside. The plot is very precise with a number of clues which (in retrospect of course) lead to the very exciting denouement. Did you plan out a precise synopsis for the book before you started writing and, if so, did much change as you wrote or were you ‘merely’ fleshing out the plot and adding detail?

RR: Even though I didn’t start out as a planner, I’m a little bit of a convert. I’ve done a greater amount of planning for each successive book I’ve written, as I find a degree of forethought pays dividends later on. A short synopsis is a must (even though I always end up deviating from it), and I’ll have an idea of beginning, middle and end and the major plot points in between. I tend not to write the latter down, beyond a few key notes, as I find it easier to keep things fluid if I have it all in my head (rather than on paper).

I used to be more averse to planning as I worried it would stifle creativity – ‘letting the characters come to life’ – but I’ve found that’s not the case, and hence I’m more relaxed about doing some work before I start writing. However, when it comes to the specific intricacies of the plot, a lot of that comes from the characters – and I won’t ‘see’ that until I’m in the scene. Once they start doing things you don’t expect, it forces you to explain those actions and deal with the consequences – and a that’s when I find plot flows best and feels most organic. That does mean things change a lot as I write, so then it’s a case of drafting – re-writing to make sure their actions are justified by their own motivations, and going back to ensure everything makes sense. I also spend a lot of time thinking about what characters ‘off the page’ are doing and thinking, and then re-writing to show how that impacts the story. That usually means more changes too, but I find it helps make everything more rounded and believable.

TF:  Charlie Yates is a very sympathetic character, and I hope this is not the last we see of him. At the end of The Dark Inside he moves, with Lizzie, to California. I believe you have a two book deal with Faber. Is the second book a sequel and will Charlie (and Lizzie) feature in it?

RR:  Charlie and Lizzie will be back. The second book is a direct sequel to The Dark Inside, set in a town called Hot Springs which is not far from Texarkana, but with a mind-blowing real-life history (and intriguing geography) of its own. Some of the other characters from the first book also make an appearance.

Book two is set six months after the events of The Dark Inside and sees Charlie compelled to go back to Arkansas, even though he wants to stay as far away from Texarkana as possible. On arrival in Hot Springs, he immediately finds himself plunged into a nightmarish labyrinth of murder, conspiracy and corruption, and as he fights to escape, he discovers the past he wanted to forget might not be done with him yet…

TF:  There are some pretty unsavoury characters in The Dark Inside. Do they all come from your imagination, or are any based on real life people you have encountered? I am thinking especially of Winfield Callaway and Sheriff Bailey.

RR:  Like most authors, I did draw on elements of people I know in real life for certain character traits, but no-one in the book is inspired by, or based on, any single individual from the real world.

In the case of Bailey and Sherman, they are both products of my imagination – I’ve thankfully never met anyone like them. But sometimes I find the best way to make a character credible is to take a certain element from someone I’ve met, and magnify it – and that is the case with some parts of their makeup. Bailey, for example, sees himself as something of a tragic figure, who made a mistake years ago and has been paying for it ever since. He doesn’t see that he’s the architect of his own troubles and could have taken a different path at any point. I think we can all relate to people like that in the real world.

TF: The publicists say that The Dark Inside is ‘for fans of True Detective’. This is praise indeed. How does it feel to be likened to one of the most iconic TV series of recent times? What do you think are the similarities between your book and the series?

RR:  It’s an incredibly flattering comparison and one I was delighted by as I am such a fan of the series – although it is slightly nerve-racking as True Detective was so critically acclaimed.

I think there are similarities between the book and (the first) series on several levels. Superficially, they are both set in the same rough geographical area (Texarkana is only forty miles from the Louisiana border, where TD was set). There is the fact that both feature the tragic murder of a young woman or women, and hints of conspiracy and cover-up by powerful men are brought to light by the subsequent investigation. In addition, the atmosphere of dread and deceit that characterised the TV show was very similar to the one I had tried to create.

However, I think the strongest similarity is in the protagonists. Rust, Marty and Charlie are all deeply-flawed men who recognise their own failings and, to some degree, hate themselves for them. In both cases, though, even when they’ve lost everything they hold dear, when confronted with great injustice they find an inner resolve that spurs them on – a sense that they can and must be better men than they’ve been in the past, because if they won’t make things right, no one else will. I guess you could say they’re both stories about men who wouldn’t consider themselves to be heroes, discovering an inner heroism in the face of grave injustice.

A big TripFiction thank you to Rod for sharing his thoughts with us!

You can follow Rod on Twitter and come and connect with us at TripFiction on Social Media: Twitter, Facebook and Pinterest and when we have some interesting photos we can sometimes be found over on Instagram too.

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