For Part 1 of this interview, click here. On part 2 we discussed:
- the psychology of gambling;
- how he ended up playing Mahjong with a group of triad members at the top of a casino in Macau;
- what unifies all great crime movies;
- the film American Beauty;
- why we’re in the golden age of TV;
- three books that changed his writing life;
- his new novel, Vanishing Games.
About our guest:
Roger Hobbs discovered his passion for writing when he was very young. He completed his first novel (a dreadful science fiction book) at just 13 years old. His first play was produced when he was 19. He had his first publication in The New York Times at 20. He signed his first movie deal at 21, graduated Reed College at 22, and signed a book deal with Alfred A. Knopf at 23. By 24 he was an international bestseller, and by 25 he had been nominated for nearly every major award in crime fiction.
He wrote Ghostman, his debut novel, during his senior year of college and sent off the manuscript on the day he graduated. Ghostman has since been published in more than twenty-five countries around the world and climbed numerous bestseller lists. In 2013 Roger became the youngest person ever to win a CWA Ian Fleming Steel Dagger. In 2014 he won the Strand Critics award and was nominated for the prestigious Edgar, Barry, and Anthony awards. Booklist called Ghostman “a triumph on every level.”
The sequel, Vanishing Games, will be out in July, 2015.
At Reed, Roger majored in English. He studied film noir, literary theory and ancient languages. He wrote his thesis on the early mystery stories of Edgar Allan Poe, in an attempt to create a theoretical model for understanding suspense. He loves to travel, gamble, and make snarky comments about bad movies.
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