{"id":140330,"date":"2021-03-29T08:58:06","date_gmt":"2021-03-28T21:58:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/?p=140330"},"modified":"2021-03-31T10:21:25","modified_gmt":"2021-03-30T23:21:25","slug":"read-a-qa-with-candice-fox-the-chase","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/2021\/03\/29\/read-a-qa-with-candice-fox-the-chase\/","title":{"rendered":"Read a Q&A with Candice Fox! | The Chase"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"The<\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Candice Fox is a multi-award winning, New York Times best-selling crime fiction author who at times collaborates with some guy named James Patterson. Her latest novel is called The Chase, an electrifying cat-and-mouse thriller set in the Nevada desert.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today, Candice Fox is on the blog to answer a few of our questions about The Chase<\/a><\/strong>. Read on!<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n
\"Candice<\/a>

Candice Fox<\/p><\/div>\n

Tell us about your book, The Chase<\/em>!<\/strong><\/h4>\n

CF:<\/strong> The warden of Pronghorn Correctional Facility gets a call one morning telling her that a bus full of the families of key staff at the prison is being held at gunpoint. The driver is dead, and the warden has four minutes to empty the prison of inmates or else the gun will turn to the families. Celine Osbourne, death row supervisor, sees all her worst fears realised as every single one of her inmates goes running free, including John Kradle, her most loathed. Kradle is out to prove he didn\u2019t kill his family, but he can only do that if Celine doesn\u2019t catch him first.<\/p>\n\n\n

You\u2019ve tackled lots of brilliantly outrageous storylines before, but a prison breakout of 600 dangerous inmates is a whole new level of wild. Where did the inspiration for this book come from?<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

CF:<\/strong> I\u2019ve been fascinated by prisons my entire life. My dad was a parole officer at a local prison, and my mother was at one time writing to 20 different inmates at once. As an adult I\u2019ve visited San Quentin\u2019s death row and toured Lithgow Maximum Security prison. I\u2019ve written to inmates in numerous institutions to ask about life there and their dreams of release. A book like this was the natural culmination of all that \u2013 you could say The Chase<\/em> was a lifetime in the making!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What was the most exciting thing about writing a cat-and-mouse chase like the one between John Kradle and Celine Osbourne?<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

CF:<\/strong> I think it\u2019s always wonderful to force two characters that you like to reach for opposing goals, because you\u2019re always on their side. I both want Kradle to get away and for Celine to catch him. Their dynamic, based on her very personal reasons for hating his guts, is rich territory for banter and angst and can only grow and develop over the space of a book.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What appeals to you as a writer about using the Nevada Desert as the setting for a book like The Chase?<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

CF:<\/strong> I like hard environments. Wild and unpredictable places. As a writer it\u2019s your job to make things difficult for the protagonist, and dropping them in a hostile landscape is simply the easiest way to do that. There\u2019s crime that plays out in neat, beautiful cottage towns and there\u2019s an audience for that, but Fox fans like somebody to get bitten by a snake or a crocodile or fall off a cliff every now and then.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How do you create tension and suspense in your crime writing (and how do you maintain it)?<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

CF:<\/strong> A good friend of mine, Lee Child, likes to say that writing a good crime book is all about posing an interesting question on page one and not answering until the final page. I\u2019d add to that idea, that the whole book has to be about a compelling question or problem, with the notion that the reader has to care immediately about the characters and their circumstances. What you have really is a few main characters struggling to get what they want, and the reader has to want to see them get it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

‘Fox fans like somebody to get bitten by a snake or a crocodile or fall off a cliff every now and then.’<\/p><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

When beginning a new writing project, what typically comes first: plot, setting or character?<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

CF:<\/strong> It\u2019s not so much plot, for be, but the problem. What is the problem? In Crimson Lake<\/a><\/strong><\/em> the problem for Ted Conkaffey was that his entire world had been destroyed by his accusation, and solving it would mean confronting his demons. In The Chase<\/em>, Kradle\u2019s problem is his desire to clear his name, and Celine\u2019s problem is ostensibly to catch Kradle before he has a chance to do that \u2013 but really to come to terms with what happened to her family. The colour and texture of these characters is something I fill in as I go along. What did Kradle do for a living before he was arrested? Where does Celine live \u2013 in a house or an apartment? You can\u2019t start a good book with that sort of stuff. You sketch the outline and then you begin to paint it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What do you love so much about writing crime fiction?<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

CF:<\/strong> The stakes are high. It\u2019s life and death. That\u2019s not to say that I\u2019m not compelled when I\u2019m reading or writing by small problems in people\u2019s lives. Celine\u2019s cat doesn\u2019t like her, and she\u2019s kind of insulted by that. That\u2019s a small issue that I do honestly care about in the novel. But it\u2019s those big problems \u2013 who survives the shoot out in the diner? Will someone catch Old Axe before he gets away? \u2013 Those are the things that have me hammering the keys.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What\u2019s the last book you read and loved? What are you planning to read next?<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

CF:<\/strong> I just finished The Andromeda Strain<\/a><\/em><\/strong> by Michael Crichton for the second time. A beautiful detailed, tense and contained thriller. Loved it. I don\u2019t know what I\u2019ll read next \u2013 it\u2019s not something I ever have to really think about because every second day there\u2019s an endorsement request coming in, so I\u2019m kind of spoiled for choice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What do you hope readers will discover in The Chase<\/em>?<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

CF:<\/strong> I hope they\u2019ll push their own capacity to be tugged across various perspectives. It\u2019s a big book with multiple narration points, and lots of little vignettes. For those people who are accustomed to a single perspective and a single chronological plotline, I hope they enjoy the challenge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And finally, what\u2019s up next for you?<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

CF:<\/strong> I\u2019m writing another book with James Patterson, and I\u2019ve just finished a fictional podcast about a kidnapping with Audible. They\u2019re due to start filming the television series of Crimson Lake<\/em> in June starring Thomas Jane. So it never really stops here in Candiceland.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thanks Candice!<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

\u2014The Chase<\/a><\/em> by Candice Fox (Penguin Books Australia) is out on the 30th of March.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

‘It never really stops here in Candiceland.’<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":139914,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":""},"categories":[6676],"tags":[715,721,723,7795,9480,4383,5383],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/TheChase-Social.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140330"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=140330"}],"version-history":[{"count":19,"href":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140330\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":140710,"href":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140330\/revisions\/140710"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/139914"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=140330"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=140330"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.booktopia.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=140330"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}