1. I am confused by your reference to Pope John XX111 in The Black Angel. It is my understanding that John XX111 was the pope who in 1962 convened the 2nd Vatican Council. Can you clear up this confusion? At the time in which the book is set, there were actually three popes claiming the papacy, one of whom called himself Pope John XXIII, although he was not universally recognised as such, mainly because in his lifetime he was accused of sodomy, theft, the defiling of nuns, and the murder of his predecessor. To distinguish him from the later, and far more acceptable, John XXIII, the first one is generally known as the Antipope John XXIII. Hope this helps!
2. I loved The Black Angel. Just wondering about the Juarez killings. Did the real killing inspire (horrible word for it but you know what I mean) the book or just a part of it? As you say, not sure "inspire" was the right word. I was aware of them, but it was more the Santa Muerte stuff that interested me, and I guess I pulled the two together. I feel a bit uneasy, though, about using actual crimes in that way. I'm not sure if it's a good idea, as there is a danger of exploiting or even trivialising real suffering. Still, it's done now, for better or worse...
3. Just finished Black Angel and thoroughly enjoyed it: the story, locations, the character development and all round texture of the novel took the Parker series to a new level in my opinion. At what point did you decide to change the nature of the posthumous reltionship between Bird and his dead wife (I had previously thought of them as benevolent spirits)?One of the things that has surprised me about some of the criticism of The Black Angel (and I mean formal criticism, in newspapers and magazines) was how reluctant some critics were to countenance ambiguity in the books. The Parker novels have always been open to two readings: an explicitly (or implicitly) supernatural one, in which Parker is truly haunted by connections between worlds; and a psychological one in which we are witnessing a man desperately trying to hold on to his sanity and humanity while being crushed under a weight of grief and trauma. It's in that latter sense that the transformation of the presences of his lost wife and child from neutral/ benevolent to actively hostile comes into being.
I think both readings of the books are equally valid. In fact, it's possible to make an argument that the books accommodate both simultaneously, and that the two strands cross over and intermingle. In that sense, The Black Angel is the most ambiguous novel yet. Even its last six words scream it: they're easily the most ambiguous words in the entire sequence of novels...
4. I loved The Black Angel: however, I was surprised and dismayed to read of you as the "first British writer to win the US Shamus award". I do hope you are Irish?!That made two of us who were dismayed. It has since been corrected!
