Recently I caught up with Russell Blake, a good friend, bestselling author, and someone who has mentored me out of a corner or two in my illustrious writing career. He was preparing to put his first baby, Fatal Exchange, on sale, and I thought it would make an excellent segue into finding out a little more about the book itself and perhaps more importantly, Blake’s penchant for female heroines.

Post-election, people’s minds are riveted more on the health of the economy than ever. It’s good to see a sale on a bestseller read. What’s the price on Fatal Exchange and how long do you plan to run the deal?

RB: I lowered the price to .99 for a few days in synch with the election, down from $4.97, where it has been selling quite well. It remains to be seen how long I keep it there. Probably only a couple, but you never know – I could forget to change it. I’ve been known to have a cocktail occasionally, and when I do…

Fatal Exchange is another of your outstanding Thrillers with a female heroine. You clearly believe in the female action hero. Care to elaborate a bit on what makes your heroines tick?

RB: Good question. I think I find the idea of the female protagonist fascinating, primarily because most I’ve read are annoyingly stereotypical. Whether that’s because they are written to fulfill some idea about popular archetypes, or because authors have limited imaginations, I don’t know. But I want to pull my hair out when I read another character who finds the male leads arrogant, is secretly uncertain inside, and really just needs the love of a good strong man to save her. My protags tend to be more complex and three dimensional – strong, independent, flawed, filled with contradictions…more real. And they generally can serve up a big helping of whup-ass without any excuses or batting of eyes. I think I’ve always like stories with unconventional female protags – Silence of the Lambs, Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, SALT – so when I set out to write them, they break the mold. Tess Gideon in Fatal Exchange is very different. A female bike messenger in NY City, she’s an ex-software programmer who had a breakdown, quit her job, and took up something mindless while she embarked on a journey to find herself, or perhaps reclaim herself from everyone else’s expectations. She’s got a taste for rebellion and the wild side, and is surrounded by counter-culture characters from New York’s seamy underbelly. There’s abundant sex, drugs and rock and roll, which all frame the central stories of a serial killer targeting bike messengers, and a rogue nation’s hit team trying to reclaim a sample run of counterfeit $100 bills. Tess finds herself unwittingly involved in both situations, and it’s interesting to me how the disparate stories play out and ultimately tie together in an unexpected way. The book has gotten critical acclaim and received a ton of positive press, so I guess I managed to do something right with it.

You are a prolific artist with a true canon of excellent and bestselling work. If you could say anything to your loyal readers and, more importantly, to readers out there on the fence who’ve not yet had the pleasure of digging into a Russell Blake Thriller, what would you tell them?

RB: Thanks, Rob. Coming from a talented writer in his own right, that’s the highest form of compliment. I would say that if you haven’t sampled my work, you should, if you’re a fan of breakneck-paced, intelligently-written thrillers filled with suspense, intrigue and conspiracies. I write books I would read and enjoy, and I’m not a big fan of sophomoric stuff written at a fourth grade level, which describes a lot of what is out there. Nothing wrong with that – it just bores me quickly. My books have been described as cinematic, largely because that’s just how my mind works. I see the scenes unfold, and describe them as I see them. If Fatal Exchange is the first book of mine a reader chooses, I would say, be prepared for a novel that is unlike anything you’ve read to date. It’s unflinching and gritty, filled with sometimes uncomfortable realism, and blurs the line between fact and fiction. A good book comports the reader to a different world and immerses them into a new reality. I like to think Fatal Exchange does that. For a buck, I can’t see how any thriller reader is going to lose on it, and I invite your fans to take the plunge and live a little!

Action/Thrillers are clearly your wheelhouse and they happen to be my favorite genre. Nothing better than a fast-paced, barn-burning, page-turner. But you also always seem to sneak in a message that people need to hear. I like that. Talk briefly about your process for giving your heroes and heroines the means to help the world on a larger scale.

RB: I’ve always been of the opinion that the best fiction slips in something that makes the reader think after the last page is turned. I strive to imbue my novels with real-world issues as their backdrops because, frankly, the truth is so much stranger than any fiction and it saves me the trouble of having to invent elaborate conspiracies. Humanity is filled with nefarious plots and ugly schemes, so I have taken to using one or more in all my books, to introduce the reader to a reality that is something different than whatever bromides the mainstream media is pitching as truth. I read a ton of history, and the thing I’ve found is that what most people believe, because they’ve been fed a spin, isn’t actually what happened. But it becomes the popular account, a sort of collective fairy tale, usually created by powerful interests that have a vested interest in their spin becoming the popular wisdom. I try to sneak in alternative accounts of events that are more accurate, and couch them as fiction, in an effort to get people thinking, questioning their beliefs of reality – but not in some preachy, lecturing way. Apparently folks like that undercurrent to my work, because the overwhelming majority mention my knack for creating plausible conspiracies when they review my books. I always smile and think, “Yeah, they’re plausible for a reason…” As an example, I came up with this idea for Fatal Exchange about a rogue nation counterfeiting U.S. banknotes to fund its growth and destabilize the global monetary system and the dollar’s reign. When I started researching it, I quickly learned that numerous countries had done just that – North Korea, Iran, Russia, Germany, to name a few. But I had never been exposed to those true accounts, so as I read them, it was like the very best fiction. So I thought, hell, I don’t need to invent anything here. It’s already been done. And so, a book was born. I think it’s one of my best efforts, and I’m hopeful that your readers give it a try. But it’s not for the faint of heart – I’ll warn everyone right now. These are books for adults. They aren’t sanitized, saccharine morality tomes. They’re raw, gritty and jarring at times. Deliberately so.

Thanks for dropping by, Russell.

RB: Thank you, Rob. Nice to see your first one, Black Beast, is selling like lifeboats on the Titanic. I loved Blood Land, by the way. One of the best, if not the best, novels I’ve read this year.

Trust me, if you don’t read him yet, Russell Blake does not disappoint! <~You know how I feel about exclamation points, but this statement NEEDS ONE. Check out some of his other Thrillers, particularly his brand new JET series.

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