Byline: Diana Pinckney
When mystery writer Robert Crais was
a 14-year-old in Baton Rouge, he had
a three-week career as a barker for the ball-toss
concession in the carnival. "It
was a colorful midway with rides and attractions,
sort of seedy, like the kind of
thing you'd see on the 'X Files,' " he recalls.
He got fired when he blew the human
cannonball's cover in front of an audience.
More than 25 years later, when Crais
describes his current career, he reaches back
to the midway metaphor. "When you write books,
it's like owning your own circus,
and you're the ringmaster."
Crais, creator of detective Elvis Cole,
is indeed a master of the mystery. His and
Elvis' fifth adventure, "Voodoo River," is just
out and earning raves in all the right
places. "The Monkey's Raincoat," his previous
book, won both an Anthony and a
Macavity award. (Ed.: previous, sure, but
there were 3 books in between...)
"Voodoo River" is Crais' first book
to be set in his native state, taking place
primarily in Ville Platte, Eunice and Baton Rouge,
with a trip or two to New
Orleans thrown in.
"Growing up in Louisiana, I was familiar with
those towns and the areas of
Cajun country that I use in the book," he said.
"Although my other four books
are set in Los Angeles, I've always wanted to
write about Louisiana."
The plot of "Voodoo River" hinges on adoption,
specifically that of a
television star who hires Elvis to search for
her birth parents in Louisiana.
As he does research, Elvis encounters illegal
immigration, small-town
sheriff's department politics, a crawfish
farm that doubles as a money
laundry, and blackmail, pure and simple.
Crais himself is adopted. "When I decided
to tell the adoption story, I
knew I wanted to go home to tell it," he said.
Crais remembered most
of the settings from his childhood. "In the backwards
way I do things, I
structured the book, plotted it out and then
came to Louisiana to do research."
When he began the book, Crais was
trying to trace his own medical back-
ground. "I was discovered to have what is euphemistically
called an electro-
cardial anomaly," he said, "and I wanted to find
out if there was a birth family
history of heart disease. I wasn't seeking a
reunion or looking to invade anyone's
life."
Writing the book was an emotional process,
Crais said. "A lot of emotions
that I had never experienced and never dealt
with came up as I was writing,"
he said. "I have never been someone who
felt this big emptiness in my life
and I never had any interest in locating my birth
parents. As Jodi Taylor says
many times in the book, and she speaks in my
voice when she says it, my mom
and dad are my mom and dad, and they always will
be.
"But as I tried to find out if there were some
congenital problem that could
accelerate, I did have to start thinking about
what if I can't learn what I need
to learn in this anonymous fashion. What if there
has to be a personal approach?
What if I have a reunion with these people? How
am I going to address them?"
Crais created Jodi Taylor, the seeker, and
her lawyer Lucy Chenier, the
satisfied adoptee who has no interest in finding
her birth family, "as a way of
working out how I felt."
As his work on the book progressed, Crais
found the information he sought
on his medical background through "non-identifying
information" from state
records. It was reassuring, he said. "One thing
led to another and I was able to
find out I am fine."
Personal experiences tend to shape Crais' mysteries
consistently. "The
Monkey's Raincoat," for example, focuses on a
thirty-something Los
Angeles housewife whose agent-husband becomes
involved in seedy, shady
deals before he disappears. Ellen doesn't even
know how to write a check,
and Elvis gently teaches her, even as he's tracking
her missing mate.
Crais explains that the book is really about
"me helping my mom to indep-
endence. In 1985 my dad died. After the funeral,
I realized my mother wasn't
equipped to write checks and pay bills because
my dad did that for 35 years.
I taught her. Then I transmogrified all that
into a crime novel."
Crais began his career as a Hollywood screenwriter,
with scripts for "Hill
Street Blues," "Cagney & Lacey," "Miami Vice"
and "LA Law." He prefers the
freedom he has in books to the strictures of
television or movies, however.
"Books allow me a much broader canvas," he said.
"I get to meet these random
characters. Sometimes they're funny and sometimes
they're dangerous, and
sometimes they're just like the person next door.
Then I have a really good time
getting them into trouble and an even better
time watching them get out."
Don't look for Elvis Cole to come to the big or
small screen, though. Not ever.
Several networks have tried to buy Elvis and
develop him into a series, but Crais,
like his fellow former-screenwriter-turned-mystery-author
Sue Grafton, refuses to
sell.
"I used to think it was just fine to make Elvis
into a movie, but as the books have
progressed, I realized I just didn't want to
see him on TV or on the screen. I like
him too much. I know what would happen to the
project. It would change him. It
would be called Elvis Cole, but it wouldn't be
Elvis Cole. It wouldn't deliver
what the books do to the reader. And if something
like that were done to Elvis,
my fans would kill me." Elvis' next outing is
scheduled for publication a year
from now. It will be called "Wild Girl" and set
in Los Angeles. (Ed.: the title
was changed at some point to "Sunset Express".)
Crais himself, however, will keep coming
back to Louisiana, a trip he makes
about once a year. "I can't go too long without
crawfish," he said. "So my wife
says go home and have some.
"One of my favorite things to do is go to Louisiana
and gain weight."