Interview with Andrew Peters

Interview with Andrew Peters  

Author of Subtraction

Questions: R. Murry      

Hello, Roy...thanks for inviting me back. I see you've decorated since I was last here...hope you restocked the fridge. Ah....nice...no, no slice of lime.

Can you tell me a little about yourself?

Well, as you know, I’m a man of few words, most of them plagiarized. Since we last met, I've written another three novels, lost twenty pounds and bought two new suits. Sadly I then put on twenty-five pounds, so the suits don’t fit. I've become much less successful at writing and much less attractive to women. My cats still love me.

Can you tell us about your book?

This one is called “Subtraction” and its set in Las Vegas in the sixties. It features Mark Paris, who makes a living gambling small and assisting people who don’t know where else to go for help. He has quite an interesting back-story, but I’d prefer that people found that out for themselves. The book is as much about him as about the mystery.  story starts when he gets called up one morning by a vague acquaintance who’s woken up in bed next to a gorgeous blonde...who sadly appears to be dead.

I’ll leave the synopsis there, as I really do like readers to find out the story as it unfolds. .

Most authors complain about 1* reviews...me I just assume that that guy bought the wrong book, or is too stupid to appreciate my brilliance. The ones I dislike most are the 5* reviews that insist on telling the reader everything that happens in the first hundred pages.

What genre best fits for the book?
I think this one’s as near as I’m likely to get to a straight crime story. Wry rather than funny, gris foncé rather than noir.

Are you working on something new at the moment?

No, I wrote ten books and three Kindle-only novellas between June 2012 and August 2013, and I think I might be done now, In my opinion the last three were the best, and I’d hate to drop the standard. Maybe I’ll think about writing something else once Amazon sell out of the existing ones

Do you have any tips for aspiring writers?
You should really have listened in your English classes at school and read a lot of very good books from different centuries twenty years ago. It’s probably too late for you now. Find a different hobby.

If you decide to persist, discard all advice that quotes Stephen King, Elmore Leonard or Ernest Hemingway and especially ignore all advice from American “editors” about removing adverbs and only using “strong” verbs. If everyone did what they advised, every book would read the same - Bland.

Where can people go to read your work?
I have about ten things available now, short story collections, novellas and novels and they can all be found on my Amazon author page.

http://www.amazon.com/Andrew-Peters/e/B008PDVKBM/ref=ntt_athr_dp_pel_1

http://www.amazon.co.uk/AndrewPeters/e/B008PDVKBM/ref=ntt_athr_dp_pel_pop_1 

Do you have anything to add?
Merely to thank you once again for inviting me back...and to point out that my glass is empty.