When I sat down to write Dead Harvest, it was the darker aspects of free will I was most interested in exploring. I was raised in a Catholic family, and I've long been fascinated with the Church's teachings on the matter of free will. On the one hand, we're told God gave to humankind, his most beloved creation, the gift of free will, and on the other, that said gift resulted in the humankind's expulsion from paradise, and a taint that's passed to every one of us at birth. We're taught that three-quarters of everything we do – or even think – is sinful, and we should beg forgiveness at every turn lest we wind up burning for all eternity. We're taught that even good people can go to hell if they don't play by God's rules. And we're taught that if they do wind up in hell, it's all their fault.
I'm not trying to knock my family's faith. But being raised in such a faith can scare the ever-loving shit out of you. It puts no small amount of pressure on you to make good decisions, and no doubt has filled the pews for damn near two thousand years of Sundays with folks trying desperately to reconcile their decisions and their beliefs with a rulebook that's both dense and difficult to comprehend. Because by God, if they don't, they're gonna take a fall.
Truth is, the old pulps from which my series draws its tone aren't so far afield from the Church in that regard. I suppose it shouldn't surprise: after all, what were the early pulps if not lurid updates of classic morality plays? James Cain's tales of forbidden romance leading to violence, misery, and regret may as well have taken place in Eden. Chandler's cops and criminals were often cut from the same cloth, while Revelations and the Book of Enoch talk of angels and their fallen brethren. Genesis tells the tale of Sodom and Gomorrah; in Red Harvest (whose title I not-sosubtly twisted to suit my own nefarious purposes), Hammett writes of Poisonville. And speaking of Poisonville, while nearly every culture on the planet has their own flood myth of rising waters sent to wash away the wickedness from the world, Hammett's violent cleansing of that corrupt burg came courtesy of his nameless, unflagging Continental Op – but it was no less awesome for it. And what would any pulp tale be without a decent femme fatale? The Babylonian Talmud first introduced the world to a redheaded, acid-tongued temptress by the name of Lilith, who, in one form or another, has since wreaked havoc in darn near every religious or occult text penned. I'm pretty sure she popped up in The Maltese Falcon, too, only then she was known as Brigid O'Shaughnessy. Lord knows she shows up in my series. And believe me when I tell you, you ain't seen nothing yet.
To my mind, the Collector series affords me the opportunity to revisit the roots of these classic archetypes, in what I hope is both a fresh and exciting way. And to drop into their midst a man in Sam Thornton who's not so different from you or I – trying desperately to make his way through the moral minefield that is free will. Sam's neither a bad man nor a perfect one, but even in the direst of situations, his intentions, at least, are pure.
Of course, you know what they say about good intentions...
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An Angry Robot paperback original 2012.
Copyright © 2012 by Chris F. Holm
Cover art by Amazing 15
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
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ISBN 978-0-85766-221-7
eBook ISBN: 978-0-85766-222-4
Printed in the United States of America
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The Wrong Goodbye Page 29
