He is modest. He looks more like a sporting hero, not one who’s adept at using the word-processor, or computer, to writing books for a living. As for those who have heard him speak, his perfect diction is what every broadcaster would always dream and be proud of. Too far-fetched, by way of comparison, for the terse, hard-boiled men in his work? Maybe; but, why not?
For someone who started writing a great deal of poetry, and off-beat fiction, Andrew Klavan is, doubtless, a realist. He obviously knew only too well that he’d not keep the financial wolf from the door — as a poet. He had, from his formative years, always loved thrillers and mysteries. When Klavan was once reading Wilkie Collins’ The Woman in White, a revelation dawned on him, like what the falling apple was to Sir Isaac Newton. He decided, pronto, that he’d write a thriller — one, that was just as good.
Klavan’s transformation was exactly what the good literary doctor had ordered, albeit he had written three novels before he wrote his first thriller. He is sentimental. He still thinks that his first novel, Face of the Earth, published by Viking, when he was 25 — he’s now 66 — is one of his best books, in spite of the stunning success of his fourth novel, True Crime, published exactly 25 years ago, where he gives us a photo-finish to end all photo-finishes akin to a humdinger of a T20 cricket match.
Klavan is not a great literary writer, but he’s something special in his approach to writing itself. He’s come up the hard way. And, before the doors of literary stardom were thrown ajar, Klavan had published some mysteries, under the pseudonym of Keith Peterson, besides adapting other peoples’ novels for films. Klavan won two Edgar Awards for his spellbinding novels. His stylistic range, juxtaposed by thoroughly compelling plots, earned him a loyal readership too. His third career was as a journalist — it’s analogous to the narrator Steven Everett, in True Crime, a breath-taking, furiously paced, thriller. First published simultaneously by Little, Brown, UK, and Crown, US, True Crime is all about the last day in the life of a convicted murderer, Frank Beachum, who is facing the death penalty.
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