Alex has kindly answered some questions I put to him and also written a wee piece about how lockdown has been for him. But before I share those, let's find out a bit about the book.
The Blurb:
You're woken early by the doorbell. It's a young girl, the daughter of the love of your life. She's scared, covered in blood, she says her mother is hurt.
You let her in, try to calm her down, tell her you're going to get help. You reach for your phone, but it lights up with a notification before you touch it.
It's an Amber alert - a child has been abducted by a dangerous suspect.
The child is the girl standing in front of you.
The suspect? You.
Hunted is published by Orion tomorrow and you can pre-order it at Hive, Waterstones and Amazon. Or why not check out your usual independent bookseller?
Q&A:
So my first question will come as no surprise - why publish this book under the name of Alex Knight rather than Mason Cross? Or MJ Cross?
It's a standalone, and has a slightly different feel from the Mason or MJ books, so my publisher thought it would be a good idea. And apparently gender-neutral names are good to have in today's market. I plan to publish more as Mason (and maybe even MJ).
Who chose the title Hunted? Did you have it in mind from the beginning? I love the red/orange title against the black and white picture on the cover - it really pops.
I was going to call it HUNTER/HUNTED because it's kind of a two-hander between Jake and Lark, but somewhere along the line it just became HUNTED and I can't remember whose decision that was. It does what it says on the tin. I'm not a fan of figures on covers, but I think the female figure on this one works quite well, it's supposed to be Agent Lark.
I'm interested where the idea for this book came from. Did you have a single image/moment in your mind?
The kernel of the idea came from my editor Francesca who had just come back from New York. She mentioned the presidential alert system that uses the phone alert technology, and suggested it might be a good idea for a story. I looked into it and decided an Amber alert would work better as a story device, as it focuses on one suspect rather than a terrorist attack or natural disaster. I wondered what would happen if an alert went out to millions of people targeting an innocent man. The opening chapter basically wrote itself after that.
I've asked you this before but humour me - why set your books in America?
I like reading American thrillers, so I guess that was what I naturally gravitated towards when writing a book. The USA gives you a lot more freedom in terms of geography, the availability of guns, the tradition of lone wolf characters.
Do you have a method/system for choosing character names?
I usually have temporary holding names for characters and come up with something better towards the end. A good tip for budding writers is to use the 'random article' feature on Wikipedia to find interesting names. 'Molly Donaldson' in this book was the name of a lady who lived next door to my gran and died in the 80s, and the name always stuck with me for some reason. I hope she wouldn't mind coming back as a 13-year-old Californian.
How do you go about your research? The stuff like what information goes on an Amber Alert, Boards of Supervisors, police workings, etc!
Local newspapers and Google. And making shit up. I also took a trip to San Francisco and drove the same route north from the city as Jake and Molly take in the book, just to pick up on the things you can't get from the internet.
Is Molly based on anyone?
No, but my oldest daughter is about that age, so I borrowed some of her interests and attitude.
Hunted is being made into a movie. Give me three songs or pieces of music that would be on the soundtrack.
San Francisco - Scott McKenzie
Vertigo - Bernard Herrmann
Landslide - Dixie Chicks
If you were being hunted, how successful do you think you'd be at evading capture?
I think I might be okay at it, particularly because I've just spent a year trying to think of all the things you would need to consider. It would be challenging without time to organise cash, a place to stay etc.
You're stranded in a desert island. You have one essential item, one luxury item and one book. What would they be?
A knife, a coffee machine, and the complete short stories of Ray Bradbury, which is about a thousand pages long and I'm working through at the moment.
And finally... what would your spirit animal be?
Is there a kind of sloth that's really active at the last minute?
😀😀😀😀😀
Lockdown with Alex Knight:
The good thing about lockdown for a writer is… it hasn’t really changed all that much.
We spend most of our time sitting alone in our homes staring at a screen anyway, so being formally required to do so by the government hasn’t been a big change. The biggest adjustment has been having the kids at home all day, but luckily they’re old enough that they don’t need constant attention. Like everyone else I found it quite hard to focus on writing (and reading) in the first few weeks, simply because the news was so distracting.
I managed to get back into writing by forcing myself to write a little every day, even if it was on a different project to the book I’m working on at the moment. That helped me get back into the groove. Normally, I write a lot on the move: in trains, in hotel rooms, in coffee shops, so that’s one aspect of normal I’m definitely missing. I usually book myself into a hotel for a couple of days in the spring to get time to really focus on finishing off the first draft, and that’s not been possible either.
But overall, we’re really lucky – I haven’t been laid off, and everyone at home is healthy and staying safe. I know not everyone is fortunate enough to be in this position, so any minor inconveniences I’ve experienced are achingly trivial in the scheme of things.
Even within the broader entertainment industry writers are lucky – movies and television can’t shoot, musicians can’t play concerts, theatre productions can’t go ahead, but we can still write (and publish) books. I guess there’s a responsibility there to make sure the books keep coming.
Hopefully, in a small way, we can make it a little easier to get through lockdown. I know I would have found it much more arduous without good books to read.
The Author:
Alex Knight is a British novelist who lives near Glasgow with his wife and three children. He also writes as Mason Cross and MJ Cross.
Huge thanks to Alex for visiting the blog, answering my questions and sharing his lockdown experience with us. If all of that has whetted your appetite (and if not, why not?), you can read the first chapter of Hunted on Alex's website. And be sure to check back here tomorrow for my publication day review!
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