Q. At first it seems as if the book is going to be about a serial murders case. Then it turns into something else. Was this your original plan?
A. Oh, yes! I decided to take that route because I was getting very tired of reading serial murder novels. Thomas Harris did a really superb job with his, and I didn’t see any point in re-working that much over-worked territory. So I took an opposite approach, even indulging in a little light mockery of the famous FBI criminal profiling methodology...which, I should add, I respect. In Wallflower, Janek and Aaron go to FBI headquarters for a briefing on what the FBI is calling “The Happy Families Murders.” While there they get a briefing which Janek quickly recognizes is a self-aggrandizing snow-job. Plus he picks up on things about the so-called happy families case that signal that it could be something quite different than the FBI believes. I thought it would be really interesting to have two NYPD guys take on the whole FBI apparatus, and have it turn out that they’re right. In fact, it’s not “happy families” murders, it’s “wallflower” murders. To my mind, you see, something as unique as the wallflower killer is a lot more interesting than another inscrutable serial murderer.
Q. Do you consider your character, Dr. Beverly Archer, the most evil shrink in crime fiction?
A. Not at all! That crown surely belongs on the head of Harris’ brilliant cannibalistic Dr. Hannibal Lecter. I’m not even sure I consider Bev Archer evil in the pure sense of the word. She’s certainly psychotic, but I tried to make her understandable by delving into her background. Her murders, remember, are committed by her murderer-by-proxy, Diana Proctor, to avenge past humiliations. Diana is Beverly’s “tool,” her creature. Bev makes a plan, waits for years for the right criminal psychopath to come along, finds Diana at the mental hospital where she works, treats her, dominates her, and turns her into her avenging angel...or devil. Beverly conceives of the murders, she has her motives, and then she compels Diana to carry them out and to bring her back a trophy each time. And of course it’s those trophies that prove to be her undoing.
Q. There’s another shrink in the novel. What is this thing you have for weird shrinks?
A. Actually there are two other shrinks: Dr. Monika Daskai, whom Janek meets in Venice, falls in love with, and who plays a major role helping him recover the memory of the very brief glimpse he had of Bev’s trophies just before Diana stabbed him. And also Dr. David Chun, the forensic psychiatrist Janek meets at FBI headquarters, whom he subsequently visits at Harvard, and who offers a nihilistic vision of the killings. Even though Dr. Chun plays a relatively small role, I think he’s an interesting and quite healthy character. But the real contrast is between the deeply insane Dr. Archer and the very healthy Dr. Daskai. They are opposite in every respect. So, you see, not all my shrinks are weird!
Q. Was it frightening to enter into Dr. Archer’s mind, as you do in the chapter titled “Wallflower?”
A. When I wrote that chapter I definitely felt the insanity. The chapters that deal with Archer’s craziness, the opening, the “mama” chapters and “wallflower” are where I deviate from Janek’s story. These are many things in these chapters he couldn’t possibly know, and thus can only infer. As such they constitute a second level of narration which hopefully enriches the main story line -- Janek’s investigation. I found these chapters frightening to write, and even now find them frightening to reread.
Q. Are the humiliations that Archer avenges really so horrible?
A. Not at face value, no, but in her deranged mind they were horrible indeed, the subject of obsession. With an ego is fragile as hers, distorted by her very selfish and glamorous mother, she takes humiliating experiences which you or I might consider just part of the unpleasantness one faces as one grows up and come to know the world, as wounds which can only be healed by the violent death and mutilation of the perpetrators. This is her sickness which Janek must uncover, and which he must understand in depth in order to force a resolution to his case.
Q. Why do so many of your killers seem to come from Cleveland?
A. I’m always amused by this question because it seems premised on the notion that Cleveland played a traumatic role in my life. Look, I grew up there, enjoyed a relatively happy childhood there, I know the area, and I know how to describe it. Many actual streets and buildings appear in my books. For example, The Ashley-Burnett School for girls is based on a high-end private girls’ school in one of the up-scale suburbs. In Switch, the killer comes from Cleveland, and in Wallflower, so does Bev Archer. In Blind Side the totally evil Grace Arnos lives in Cleveland, and in The Dream Of The Broken Horses the city I call Calista is a stand-in for Cleveland. But I don’t use Cleveland as the birthplace of crazed characters because I think it’s a hateful place. Quite the contrary, there is much to admire there: a magnificent symphony orchestra, a magnificent art museum, and The Cleveland Clinic, perhaps the most important medical center in the country. But because it played a role in my early life, I enjoy using it as a reference point, a way of trademarking my books with something from my past.
Q. Still from what you’ve said, it sounds as if there may be personal elements in Wallflower?
A. There are, but, hopefully, they’re well encoded. I think to one degree or another all novelists write out of their obsessions. I recognize certain themes in my books: the recurrence of Cleveland as a place where criminal madness is forged; deeply troubled and, in some cases, deranged shrinks; lots of references to art; and, most particularly, the role of family, especially parents, in distorting the psychology of their offspring. I certainly draw upon these and other interests to construct my stories, but it’s very important to me that the stories stand on their own and not come across as the outpourings of an author trying to resolve his neurosis through his novels. There’s a place for that kind of fiction, but when I write crime novels I want to entertain and compel belief. So I try hard not to let personal elements intrude. However, this being said, I believe I came fairly close to that kind of self-indulgence in Wallflower.
Q. Why the opening in Venice?
A. I wanted to do two things: have Janek fall in love, and also pull him out of New York for a while and set him loose in a new environment. So what does he do when he spots an attractive woman while vacationing in Venice? He shadows her as if she were the subject of an investigation. Venice is not only a romantic city, it’s also a great place to shadow someone. I guess the message is that you can take the detective out of NYC but wherever he goes he still thinks and acts like a detective.
Q. What did you think of the TV movie, The Forget Me Not Murders that was based on Wallflower?
A. I thought it was okay. Tyne Daly was good and so was Richard Crenna, but the first two Janek movies, both four hour miniseries, were the best of the seven. For one thing the extended length allowed room for character development. Also those first two were actually shot in New York, while the other five were filmed in Toronto-simulating-New- York. But I don’t want to sound like a complainer. I’m grateful that seven movies were made, and that each one was shown twice on CBS. That’s thirty-six hours of major network prime time devoted to a character I created. Few fictional characters get that much exposure.
Q. Of the three Janek novels, how do you rank Wallflower?
A. That’s like asking which of your kids you love the most. If forced to answer, I’d have to say that I personally feel that Switch and Mirror Maze hold up the best of the three. And yet I think there are scenes and concepts in Wallflower that are as good as any I’ve ever written. And going back to the first question about working with a series character, I’m proud of the fact that the books are so different, that they all contain unexpected elements, and that in each of them Janek is probed ever more deeply so that, hopefully, after reading the three books, the reader obtains a full portrait of a brilliant, complex and often quite conflicted detective character.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
WILLIAM BAYER is the author of the New York Times best-sellers Switch and Pattern Crimes, and
the Edgar Award winner Peregrine. His novels which have been published in numerous foreign languages are now being republished in e-book form by Crossroad Press.
He and his wife, food writer Paula Wolfert, live in the wine country of Northern California. You may find out more about him and his work at his website: www.williambayer.com. You may contact him at [email protected].
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