…to love this stuff, so much so that I sometimes wonder if the underlying substance of the story is coming through. But I can't complain; no writer cares why a reader likes his book. As long as they do… 

Crescent Blues: Once, when I was in Nashville, I was astounded to see a front page news article listing the johns picked up the night before in a prostitution sting. Someone told me, "Well, what can you expect; Nashville's really just a small town at heart." That sounds a lot like the Nashville of your books, but there also seem ominous signs of change -- what's your take? Is Harry Denton's Nashville disappearing? 

Steve Womack: Yes and no. The city has grown tremendously and horrifically. We're on our way to being, God help us, another Atlanta. Yet in many ways, this is still a small town. Small enough for people to be shocked that we have strip clubs, massage parlors, hookers, bondage clubs and the like. But not too shocked. 

Crescent Blues: How do you do the research on Harry's life as a private eye and part time repo man?  

Steve Womack: Research is fun, the most fun of all in many ways. The best skill a writer can develop is the art of shutting up. If you just shut up and listen, you'll learn an amazing amount of stuff. In the beginning I thought people like cops would be especially reluctant to talk to writers; truth is, they love it so much the problem is cutting them off. It's great fun. 

Crescent Blues: Has your research work ever been dangerous? 

Steve Womack: No, I dislike real danger. When I was researching Chain of Fools, which required going to strip clubs and places like that, I took a buddy along with me. 

Crescent Blues: Did you always want to write mysteries? 

Steve Womack: I never intended to write mysteries. My first published novel, Murphy's Fault, was a novel of corrupt Southern -- especially Louisiana -- politics. There's no mystery in it anywhere. And yet the publisher published it as a mystery, and then when I went back and offered them another book, their answer was: "yes, but could you make it more of a mystery this time." Because I wanted the chance to work with them again, I said of course. And there I was. Now I'm nine books in… That's okay; I'm glad it worked out this way. I love mystery and crime fiction. 

Crescent Blues: Tell us a little bit about your work methods -- for example, do you outline or plunge right in? Do you have a methodical work style, where you write at the same time and in the same place every day, or is your method more varied? 

Steve Womack: I think about a book a long time before I start writing, and then when I do start, I get downright crazy on it. A friend of mine coined the term "binge writer." I guess that's what I am. I work like a fiend on a book, and then when it's over I collapse for awhile, then go onto the next one. When I left corporate life just over a dozen years ago, I made myself one promise: no time clocks. I'm not much good in the morning, so I'm rarely in my office before 10 a.m., and even then I take care of email, phone calls, correspondence, business stuff. Then I write in the afternoon, eight to 10 pages a day, five or six days a week. It's like running a marathon, really. 

Crescent Blues: You mentioned teaching in a prison, which I understand was the Tennessee State Penitentiary. Could you tell us a little more about what that was like?  

Steve Womack: I used to teach writing at the old Tennessee State Penitentiary for four years, but I don't anymore. "Teach" isn't really the right word. I had a writing workshop, and I learned more from them than they ever learned from me. I made some good friends, several of whom I still talk to from time to time.  

One of my students finally got out of jail after 17 years. He was a good writer, and we'd become friends. He got a job in a factory, even sold an article or two. Then the week before Christmas -- his first Christmas as a free man in 17 years -- he was killed in a car accident. That was very sad, very hard for all of us that knew him. God has a rotten sense of humor sometimes. I wrote the obituary for the local alternative newspaper; the first and, I hope, only obituary I ever write. 

Crescent Blues: Has either the research you've done for your books or your experience teaching writing to inmates affected the way you look at crime and our justice system? 

Steve Womack: Absolutely. We have a madness at work in this country now. We attacked a crime problem by bringing back executions and locking people up for horrendous amounts of time. Both Amnesty International and the UN Human Rights Commission have listed the United States as a violator of human rights. We now imprison more people than any other civilized nation on earth, and we're barely behind Russia and China for the overall world lead. Here in my home state of Tennessee, we spend more on prisons than we do on schools.

It's madness. I think it's much more important for us to try and figure out why we live in a society where so many people choose to do wrong and break laws. What is it about us as Americans that has presented us with this situation?  

Our policy on drugs, for instance, is insane. Human beings have been getting a buzz since we crawled on all fours and discovered that if we let fruit juice get stinky, we get drunk on it. It's part of our nature. We have to treat drug addiction as a medical and not a legal problem. If we don't, we're going to pay very dearly in the future when the people we lock up today get back on the street. There has to be a better way. 

But don't get me wrong. I'm not soft on crime. I had a friend who was raped and murdered nine years ago, and none of us who loved and knew her have ever gotten over it. If people commit violent crimes, they deserve to be removed from society for a very long time. Perhaps forever. 

Crescent Blues: If you hadn't become a writer, what would do you think you would have done with your life instead -- or what would you like to have done? 

Steve Womack: I don't really know. I knew I wanted to write when I was 16. But I have two other great passions besides writing: flying and jazz. I'm a low-time private pilot who would love to fly every day, and I'm a struggling jazz clarinet student who'd like to be on a bandstand with a bunch of other guys in penguin suits. Yeah, if I wasn't writing, I'd definitely be either flying, or doubling on the clarinet and the sax. 

Crescent Blues: Where do you see your writing going in the future? 

Steve Womack: I'm going to take a brief break from the Denton series. I've started a different kind of book for me, more of a suspense thriller, with a female protagonist, multiple points of view -- all the marks of what most writers and editors think of as a "bigger" book, whatever the hell that means. But I hope it breaks me out into a larger audience and gets more readers for when I do go back to Harry.  

Donna Andrews 

Donna Andrews is the author of Murder with Peacocks, which won the St. Martin's Press/Malice Domestic Best First Traditional Mystery Award in May 1998.