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And there lies a key difference between Elvis and Joe. I suspect Joe Pike thinks about this stuff. I also suspect that Elvis Cole doesn’t-he just lives it, as natural to him as breathing or saying fu
Their example is the example of choices made. Cole doggedly embracing the “normal” and aggressively cultivating those parts of himself that consciously resist the darkness of his own experience-the Disney icons, the science-fiction films he enjoyed as a boy, the relaxed and comfortable attire (Hawaiian shirts and sneakers), the quippy, self-effacing sense of humor. These are the proud standards telling you this man is living life on his own terms. His very job-private investigator-tells you he holds himself apart. Cole is, at the end of the day, the product of these lifestyle choices. He would be a great guy to have a beer or catch a Dodgers game with.
Joe Pike is a conscious representative of our righteous rage at injustice. He is what happens when society fails.
The product of abusive childhood violence, Pike learned early that if you want justice, you must look to yourself. Pike was an only child living with his mother and a violent, alcoholic father at the edge of a small town. He and his mother suffered regular beatings from his father. Society did not save him-not the police, friends, or neighbors. No Eastwood-like hero rode into town to save Mrs. Pike and her young son. Joe learned his father’s lesson well. No one will save you, so you had better save yourself. You don’t wring your hands or try to “handle” a bully. You deal with a bully by employing an overwhelming physical response. Presented with a threat, you confront it head-on. Pike’s philosophy (and his rage) was boiled to its primal base: dominate or be dominated. So Pike set about preparing himself to control his environment, and does.
The seeds of this was the rage he felt at his own helplessness, I think, but Pike’s rage is not mindless. He knows that some part of himself was lost (probably in childhood), and he has spent much of his adult life, I think, learning to deal with his “otherness” and maybe even trying to give life to that dead part of himself. To think he is mindless-floating in the dark waters like his namesake fish, all cortical activity and no forebrain-would be a mistake.
Though I know many things about Pike, he is still a mystery obscured by the deep water. When Pike is within himself and seemingly disco
Pike would probably tell you, if he thought it was worth spending the breath, that he has accepted the responsibility for his own security. Pike doesn’t give a lot of due to what we call “black-letter law.” Pike has a very strict moral and ethical code, but it is a code independent of written statutes.
When Larkin Co
“No.”
And he doesn’t. He has accepted a certain matter-of-factness about these things. If a man threatens you, you put him down. It is the natural order. No sense worrying about it, so he doesn’t. These are not feelings or thoughts that Pike would share, so I’m not sure even Elvis knows how far away Pike goes when he goes to that green world. It’s as if Pike has settled into a temporary moment of transcendental calm like a Zen warrior, divorced from the chaos around him but at peace with it. We can’t see his thoughts in that deep water, and might not understand them even if we could.
The space between us and how Pike sees the world is part of his mystery. His lack of emotion suggests an i
This is the stuff of heroes. These books are heroic fiction with liberal doses of myth and adventure, but I hope they are more than escapist fantasy. Though these are crime novels, the “crime novel” is simply the canvas upon which I have chosen to paint, and my subject matter, I believe, is larger than guns, gunfighting, macho posturing, and the relative thrills of wing chun arm traps and high-velocity action sequences, though these things are certainly part of these books, and I hope you enjoy them. I do!
I write about people. My thrill of accomplishment doesn’t come from the blind-side plot twist, but from that nuance of character that touches you, moves you, involves you, and, I hope, surprises you-not with the “aha!” of an unexpected plot reveal, but with the resonance of human understanding.
People always ask me where Joe and Elvis came from. Here’s the answer:
You are Joe Pike.
You are Elvis Cole.
Meaning that some part of you identifies with some part of them, so much so that in that instant of identification, you are them and can understand them. Pike’s loneliness. Cole’s longing. And in that moment what I am writing about isn’t just action and clues, but fully realized human beings.
JEFFERY DEAVER
Born outside Chicago in 1950, Jeffery Deaver received a journalism degree from the University of Missouri and became a journalist, then got a law degree from Fordham University and practiced for several years. A poet, he also wrote songs and performed them around the country.
The author of twenty-five novels and two short-story collections, Deaver has been translated into twenty-five languages and is a pere
In addition to his popular and critically acclaimed series about the brilliant quadriplegic detective Lincoln Rhyme, he has written more than a dozen nonseries suspense novels.
His first Lincoln Rhyme novel, The Bone Collector, was filmed by Universal in 1999 and starred Denzel Washington and Angelina Jolie. A nonseries novel, A Maiden’s Grave, was an HBO movie retitled Dead Silence that starred James Garner and Marlee Matlin.
Deaver lives in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.