The Genesis of Mrs. Plansky's Revenge by Spencer Quinn

LUCY BURDETTE: Peter Abrahams aka Spencer Quinn can write dark, as with his novels of suspense, and he can write light, as in his Spencer Quinn Chet and Bernie mysteries--we love them all! So I was delighted to hear about his new book, MRS. PLANSKY'S REVENGE--it's such a clever premise-- and very happy when he agreed to write a blog for us. Welcome Peter and Spencer!

PETER ABRAHAMS/SPENCER QUINN: Six or seven years ago, my dad got a phone call. At the time he was in his early nineties. He died two weeks short of his 97th birthday and was in excellent mental shape and very good physical shape until the end. I want to emphasize that mental part. He was a very smart guy: quick, sharp, clear-headed. Back to the call.

Caller: Hey, Grandpa!

My dad: Jake?

Caller: Yeah, Grandpa, it’s me, Jake.

Cut To: My dad’s wife, noticing he’s putting on his jacket.

Wife: Ed? Where are you going?

My dad: To the bank. Jake’s in trouble and he needs some money.

At that point it was decided to call Jake (living in another city), and he had not called my dad and wasn’t in any trouble. “Jake” never got a penny. But I was amazed that my dad – whom I could never fool when I was a kid! – could be fooled so easily.

But I soon forgot all about that and went back to writing Chet and Bernie. Then one day while I was riding my bike, the whole story of Mrs. Plansky’s Revenge came to me in one fell swoop! She’s a seventy-one year old retired widow in Florida who late one night gets a call from her grandson Will in Colorado, who’s in DUI trouble and needs help. Following his precise instructions, she sends $9726.18. She can afford it. Her grandson is in trouble. Case closed.

But it wasn’t Will. And because Mrs. Plansky—unlike you, I’m sure—uses the same password for everything, the scammers have cleaned out not just her checking account but her retirement accounts as well, everything. The FBI tells her the scammers are probably in Romania, but identifying them would be almost impossible and the chances of getting her money back are nil. Mrs. P is humiliated. She goes to Romania to recover her self-respect and her money.

So: that all dropped into my mind on the bike path but at first I didn’t connect it to my dad! Then I started wondering why I’d chosen the name Plansky. Bingo! Tony Plansky was a legendary track coach at Williams College, where the Navy had sent my dad in WW2 as part of their program to get officers (my dad commanded a sub chaser hunting Nazi U-boats in the Atlantic). My dad had run cross country at Williams and he had some funny stories about Tony Plansky. And when I went to Williams in the 1960’s he was still there! Therefore Mrs. Plansky’s name was the bridge to where my story had come from, even if I was too blockheaded to put it together myself.

And then, on the current book tour for Mrs. Plansky’s Revenge, came the bonus! I’d just finished telling the above story about the Plansky bridge at one of the stops when two audience members rose and introduced themselves: Mary Plansky and Lisa Plansky O’Neill, great nieces of Tony. They’d been intrigued by the title and come to find out more.

You can imagine the ensuing emotion. There are spiritual rewards in this business.

Peter Abrahams (aka Spencer Quinn) is the Edgar-award winning author of 46 novels, including The Right Side, The Fan, Oblivion, and the Echo Falls series for younger readers. Under his pen name, Spencer Quinn, he writes the New York Times bestselling Chet and Bernie series – of which the next is Up on the Woof Top, coming October 2023. Mrs. Plansky’s Revenge came out last month. Abrahams was born in Boston, graduated from Williams College, and lives on Cape Cod. “My favorite American suspense novelist.” – Stephen King. “The best writer of psychological suspense around.” – Laura Miller, NPR. Online -peterabrahams.com, Facebook.com/ChetTheDog.

This Just In: Jungle Reds Swoon over Spencer Quinn

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: We are swooning at Jungle Red today!  You may know our guest as Peter Abrahams, the internationally acclaimed and bestselling thriller writer. (Seriously, one of the best in the world.) Or as Spencer Quinn, the internationally acclaimed and bestseller author of the adorable Chet and Bernie mysteries. And many other terrific books.  (“The Edgar-winning author of 36 novels” as his bio says.)

Yes, I am absolutely unabashedly gushing. He is one of my favorite authors ever.  

And now he (as Spencer Quinn) has a new book out in two days, THE RIGHT SIDE.  It’s a different incredible...well, now I am gushing again.  

HANK:  I'm in the midst of your wonderful book right now (oops, still gushing)--so don't tell me the ending. But I'm fascinated by what you said on your website--how  sometimes a character grabs you and won’t let go. you said: "This character – a figment of your own imagination but not wholly under your power – demands to be brought to life."  So that's what happened with your main character in THE RIGHT SIDE, LeAnne? Tell us about that. who is she, and where did she come from?  

SPENCER QUINN: Publishing - what a crazy business! On the outlet end, it's more and more data and numbers driven all the time, as though the product was sheet steel. We workers back at the inlet end deal in feelings, dreams, emotions, zeitgeist. Strange things go on in that pipeline. LeAnne Hogan came to me suddenly, out of the blue. The Chet and Bernie mysteries - and Bowser and Birdie for kids - which have been occupying me for almost the past 10 years are probably essentially comic in tone. And I love writing them! But what I think happened is that things going on in the world that are not comic came barging in and couldn't be ignored.

 LeAnne lives in this dangerous, baffling, violent world which I must have been grappling with subconsciously and when she popped up in my imagination I knew had to write about her. I'm not saying she's humorless - far from it, I hope - but she's been in terrible situations that brand you forever. In THE RIGHT SIDE, she is forced to solve two mysteries, one macro, one micro.

LeAnne's highly capable of doing that, or at least she was. She's a soldier and a warrior, beloved and respected by her comrades; but then her patrol wanders into a mysterious set-up in an Afghan village, and it all comes undone.

I've explored the idea of a highly capable person forced to carry on with suddenly diminished abilities once before in OBLIVION, but this turned out quite differently. And one of the reasons for the difference is the strange dog who enters LeAnne's life when she really needs her, even if LeAnne doesn't know it at the time.

HANK: But even though you’ve written riveting standalone thrillers, and the smart and (okay, adorable) Chet and Bernie mysteries, and the Bowser and Birdie YAs (and more--I adore your Echo Falls books) --but this book is so different. It has a different tone, and a different...aura. Did it feel different to write it? 

SPENCER QUINN: Good question. That aura thing came up in a conversation with my editor. He said reading the book reminded him of the feeling of getting swept along in a piece of music by Philip Glass. I'm no expert on Philip Glass, but chose to take it as a compliment. There were a lot of technical challenges in the writing - it's part war novel, part mystery, part road book, and moves back and forth in time - but I wasn't really aware of them until I was done. Thank God! Those challenges can be intimidating. Better not to know.

 As for the feeling of writing it - well, I'm not sure. There are always surprises. For example, when I made LeAnne a high-school pole vaulting champion, I had no idea there'd be that scene in Afghanistan where she tries to teach the schoolgirls in their burqas how to pole vault. And how, much later, she tries desperately to remember their names. One thing I do know is that the writing process never gets easier. That seems unfair. After a dentist has filled 1000 cavities or so, autopilot must set in. Why can't we have that?

HANK: Well, it’s good, really, isn’t it? Because to have the joy of a new idea, or a new insight. People have said to me—“After 40 years as a reporter, don’t all stories seem the same? Like how many ways are there to cover a fire?” And that’s so—wrong. Every situation is astonishingly different. In fiction, there are even more possibilities. And having a good idea is the best thing that could ever happen.

Speaking of good ideas...this sense you have about dogs, and their place in the world, and in people’s lives. There’s a dog on the cover of THE RIGHT SIDE—did the dog appear to you when LeAnn did?  (And we won’t tell the dog’s name.)

SQ: Well, I knew from the start that I wanted a dog in the story - but not a narrating dog! THE RIGHT SIDE is all third-person close. And this dog had to have been through something bad - although we never know exactly what - and like LeAnne, bears the scar. And like her, the dog is not in a cuddly mood, at least in the present. As for the future, I hope readers see the ending as an up note.

  

HANK: there’s such a layer of melancholy and sorrow and loss at the beginning of the book. Was that difficult—more difficult than writing always is anyway—to write?

SQ: The truth is the parts of a story with heightened emotions, like the beginning of THE RIGHT SIDE, and heightened action, are easier to write, at least for me. It's the getting to them that's hard, often a slog. In this book, I tried to simply jettison most of that slogging.

HANK: Jettison the slogging! Ah. My new mantra.  Talk about that title—so multi-layered! Did the story come first, or the title?

SQ: The moment I picked the side of LeAnne's face that would be damaged, I had the title; and all the metaphoric ripples got set in motion. 

HANK: And not to bury the lede, but you have reached blurb nirvana. Stephen King said “Brilliant. Deeply felt, but totally under control. I loved it.” Not to be sappy, but okay. How did you feel when you read that? The totally under control part is so fabulous. And, yeah, brilliant is good.

SQ: I was very glad to see this blurb. The implication is so right: simply having the deep feeling is not enough. Someone (and of course it's the same dude!) who's almost stern has to be at the controls. 

HANK:  That’s such a terrific image—flying high, but under control. Have a great time with the new book! So exciting.

 So, Reds and readers, who’s your favorite dog in fiction?  

And a copy of THE RIGHT SIDE to one lucky commenter!      

  

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Peter Abrahams is the Edgar award winning author of thirty-six novels.  Among his acclaimed crime thrillers are Oblivion and The Fan (filmed starring Robert De Niro). Under the name Spencer Quinn, he writes the New York Times bestselling Chet and Bernie mysteries and the middle-grade Bowser and Birdie series. The Right Side – the story of a wounded female vet – comes out June 27, 2017.

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Bow WOW!

Peter Abrahams/Spencer Quinn and friend

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN:  I once read a book review in the NYTimes, which said something like “I’m afraid I won’t be able to convey how good this is.” That is how I feel about the books by Peter Abrahams. (Who also, as you’ll see, goes by Spencer Quinn.)  Maybe this’ll work:  Stephen King referred to him as "my favorite American suspense novelist". Yeah. Me and you, Stephen.

You might have read his intense original stand-alone thrillers, like The Fan, or Nerve Damage, or the Edgar-nominated Lights Out.

You might know him from his brilliant Echo Falls YA mysteries. (Yes, I am gushing, but sometimes one simply must gush.)

After those riveting and compelling thrillers, and then his smart and perceptive (and adorable) YAs, Peter Abrahams secretly turned onto someone else. With great mystery and skullduggery, he wrote, as Spencer Quinn, the first Chet and Bernie mystery, titled DOG ON IT. 

And remember when no one knew the real identity of the author? It was such a hoot when Peter was revealed as Spencer—and also as the acclaimed voice of Chet. Chet, a dog who (somehow) narrates the best-selling novels.

And now—there’s more. I am in awe. And in delight. And so happy to introduce you to Peter Abrahams/Spencer Quinn’s new voice. It’s Bowser, a goofy, engaging, determined (and bacon-loving) crime-fighting canine—who’s in league with his new girl Birdie. 

His first adventure is WOOF.  (And I say: bow WOW.)

HANK:  Sometimes, if you look at a crime fiction author's body of work, it gets darker and darker, as the writer delves into their most insidious and terrifying depths. Or something like that. Anyway, it seems like you've gone exactly the opposite direction.

PETER:That is odd, now that you mention it. What the hell is right with me? No question about the darkness, which really got going with Lights Out, my seventh book, where Eddie Nye ends up breaking back into prison. Then there’s Oblivion, where it’s pretty clear that Nick will not survive, and End of Story with that last line – “Ivy got stuck on page 109”. An entendre of the darkly double type. But humor kept bubbling up – especially noticeable in Their Wildest Dreams, I think, where I discovered how much I liked writing about the southwest.

And that led to Chet and Bernie, where this whole other side of me all of a sudden had free reign. I’d had enough of darkness!

Having said that, now that some time has passed, a somewhat darkish idea has occurred to me, and will form the basis of a new project, when I can get to it. (As for Chet and Bernie, Scents and Sensibility comes out in July.)

HANK: So WOOF is the first of we hope many books about Bowser and Birdie, dog and girl, crimefighters of the Louisiana swamp. What was the first nugget of the book? When did you think--hey! And why?

PETER: I thought – hey! – when I got a call asking if I had any interest in writing a dog-narrated mystery for middle-schoolers. Why? Because it’s so nice to be asked, in this business. But the idea of a kid and dog pair exploring together the strange and dangerous world of adult humans seemed right. Then came the bayou setting, followed by Birdie and her grandmother. Some characters do write themselves, and Grammy is one of them. She’d have taken over the whole book if I’d let her.

HANK:  And really, just cut and paste a tiny synopsis of WOOF in the next slot. You don't have to make up a brand new one, since someone probably worked pretty hard on the one you have.

PETER: There is trouble brewing in the Louisiana swamp -- Bowser can smell it. Bowser is a very handsome and only slightly slobbery dog, and he can smell lots of things. Like bacon. And rawhide chews! And the sweat on humans when they're lying.

Birdie Gaux, the girl Bowser lives with, also knows something is wrong. It's not just that her grammy's stuffed prize marlin has been stolen. It's the weird rumor that the marlin is linked to a missing treasure. It's the truck that seems to be following Birdie and the bad feeling on the back of her neck.

When Birdie and Bowser start digging into the mystery, not even Bowser's powerful sniffer can smell just how menacing the threat is. And when the danger comes straight for Birdie, Bowser knows it up to him to sic 'em.

HANK: Love it! People must ask you this all the time, and I know the answer is "imagination." But still. How do you put yourself in the mind of a dog? Bowser thinks and  narrates just like a dog. (Funny that he can type. How does he do that?)

PETER: And I can’t type. Or just barely. Two fingers, three on a good day. I’ve always been interested in the limited narrator, or limited POV (if we’re dealing with 3^rd person close). In Pressure Drop, one of my very early novels (and soon to be re-released by Open Road), there are scenes from the POV of someone with locked-in syndrome.

 In fairness to Bowser, his limitations are matched by some special gifts, especially when it comes to the senses of smell and hearing; and he has some emotional gifts as well. The emotional bond – call it love – between Bowser and Birdie is the heart of the story. I prefer stories with a heart, or spirit, or something of the kind. Often absent in fiction, and not just of the crime variety.

HANK: This is a YA book--but I laughed all the way through it. Who are you writing these for? And why?

PETER: Birdie and Bowser are for kids. But also, well, why not everybody? There’s no dumbing down. True, no sex and very little seen violence, but that’s not dumb.

HANK: Your webpage that's labeled "About the book" is a letter to kids who are looking for you to write a book report. Peter/Spencer, it is hilarious. (And respectful, and helpful.) I have to think you've gotten requests to write book reports.

PETER: Oh, yes. How many times have I been asked to quickly supply the theme of Down the Rabbit Hole? I don’t have a clue! Grade F. But sometimes you get heartbreaking stuff. I believe somewhere in the Echo Falls series Ingrid’s older brother hits her. One girl emailed me about how she knew that scene very well.

HANK: Oh, gosh. That is—heart-stopping. It makes you see a whole world, you know? (And yeah, I always wondered if her brother had a steroid problem.  Hmm.) 

But at the end of that wonderful letter you say: a dog’s mindset is looking forward. But looking back a tiny bit, since part of you, at least, is human, what do you think about your writer’s journey?  Where you came from--and where you are? And sure, what's ahead?

PETER: I’m really not ready to think about this, Hank. All I know is that I’m on some sort of journey and I don’t want it to end.

HANK:  Aw. We don’t, either. Congratulations. WOOF is irresistible, and we are so happy you’re here today. So happy that we’re giving away a copy of WOOF to one lucky commenter! (US only please). Tell us your dog’s name! Or the dog you had as a kid.  Or your favorite dog. Or any doggie thing!

And Bowser will pick a winner at random. (Bacon is very effective.)