{"id":223840,"date":"2025-09-13T15:06:12","date_gmt":"2025-09-13T15:06:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/223840\/"},"modified":"2025-09-13T15:06:12","modified_gmt":"2025-09-13T15:06:12","slug":"this-book-proves-a-crime-book-is-only-as-good-as-the-characters-that-make-it-rip","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/223840\/","title":{"rendered":"This book proves a crime book is only as good as the characters that make it rip"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Like all great crime writers, Lou Berney knows that a ripping story is only as good as the characters that make it rip. With his new novel \u201cCrooks<\/a>,\u201d Berney has created a family saga about a small-time operator named Buddy Mercurio, his pickpocket wife Lillian and their five children. <\/p>\n

As Buddy\u2019s brood leave the nest and stake their claim in the world, his patriarchal shadow looms large, and the sins of the father are hard to kick. I chatted with Berney about his sixth novel, crime and why smartphones are his worst enemy.<\/p>\n

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\u270d\ufe0f Author Chat \"Lou <\/p>\n

Lou Berney, author of \u201cCrooks: A Novel About Crime and Family.\u201d<\/p>\n

(Lou Berney)<\/p>\n

How did you come to crime novels? <\/b><\/p>\n

The writers I love tend to be crime writers. I really got turned on my freshman year of college to Flannery O\u2019Connor\u2029and that just kind of blew my mind. To me, she\u2019s the greatest crime writer ever. \u201cWise Blood<\/a>,\u201d \u201cA Good Man is Hard to Find<\/a>,\u201d \u201cEverything that Rises Must Converge<\/a>.\u201d Every one of her books has elements of a crime novel in them that she does really interesting things with. \u2029<\/p>\n

But you started as a more traditional literary writer.<\/b><\/p>\n

My first story was in \u201cThe New Yorker\u201d when I was in grad school. I was writing straight literary fiction. Then I started writing screenplays and learning more about plot and storytelling. I just kind of settled into this idea of crime, which to me is the one genre where you can do almost anything you want. It\u2019s such a big tent. And so it was a great way for me to embrace the limitless, essentially.<\/p>\n

What about traditional crime writers?<\/b> Who moves you?<\/b><\/p>\n

A big influence was Elmore Leonard. Also Jim Thompson, who was a fellow Oklahoma writer. Those are two guys that really, really affected me. But the current state of crime fiction is just awesome. I love so many contemporary crime writers right now. Sara Gran,\u2029Kate Atkinson, Megan Abbott, S.A. Cosby. This is a golden age in some ways for weird, interesting crime fiction that takes you to different places. \u2029Everybody\u2019s kind of doing their own thing, which I really love.<\/p>\n

Are you a Walter Mosley fan? <\/b><\/p>\n

A huge fan. I got to work with Walter this year. I wrote for a TV show called \u201cThe Lowdown\u201d which was created by Sterlin Harjo, who created \u201cReservation Dogs.\u201d Walter and I were the two novelists in the writers room, six hours a day for 20 weeks, and I just got to hear Walter Mosley talk. The guy is a genius. His thoughts on writing are just mind-blowingly good. So I got paid for an education.<\/p>\n

I love the Mercurios. I feel like part of the appeal of a family like this is that they are everything most of us are not: <\/b>T<\/b>hey are bold risk<\/b>–<\/b>takers who dive into things without fear. <\/b><\/p>\n

In writing about the Mercurios, I was getting to vicariously live these lives that were enormously appealing to me. You know, I don\u2019t want to be a criminal and I would probably make a bad criminal, but it\u2019s sure fun to sort of live without rules and live without fear and be reckless and do whatever you want.<\/p>\n

\u201cCrooks\u201d is set in the pre-camera phone era, when life had an entirely different texture, and information travel<\/b>ed slowly. <\/b><\/p>\n

I was walking through the airport yesterday, and it was so demoralizing to see every single person on their phone, with literally no exceptions. Everyone walking, sitting and standing were on their phones, and I thought, \u201cMan, I\u2019m glad I\u2019m old enough to remember when none of that existed,\u201d because that was way, way more interesting to me as a writer.<\/p>\n

I love the chapters that are set in <\/b>\u2019<\/b>80s Los Angeles. How did you conjure all of that up?<\/b><\/p>\n

I read a lot of old magazines. Los Angeles magazine was great. I got all the old issues on EBay. And I have a friend who grew up in the \u201880s in L.A., so I ran some stuff by him. I just love research. I wasn\u2019t into homework as a kid at all, but now I\u2019ve discovered that if it\u2019s homework I need to do for a book, I\u2019m all about it.<\/p>\n

The novel is divided into six parts, and every section is so deftly plotted. How difficult is the plot for you?<\/b><\/p>\n

I do extensive outlining so I can get a sense of plot. But I end up probably changing 75% of it as I go. With this book, the Jeremy chapter worked perfectly, whereas Alice took me like three times as long as any of the other chapters, because I had to keep figuring out how she was going to outsmart this guy, and nothing was working or wasn\u2019t fitting right. It really depends on the particular kind of plotline.<\/p>\n

\ud83d\udcf0 The Week(s) in Books \"Lin-Manuel <\/p>\n

(Jay L. Clendenin \/ Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n

Julia M. Klein<\/a> thinks Daniel Pollack-Pelzner\u2019s biography of Lin-Manuel Miranda<\/a> does a fine job of probing the inner artist, a \u201cjoyous, charismatic, well-meaning, occasionally imperfect man.\u201d<\/p>\n

Samantha Fink<\/a> sat down with Elizabeth Gilbert to discuss her new memoir \u201cAll The Way to The River<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

With Oasis and Pulp on the road, Dave Rowntree<\/a> makes sure his group Blur gets a hand in the Britpop Revival with a book of band photographs.<\/p>\n

And finally, our reviewers<\/a> pick 30 Fall books that everyone must read.<\/p>\n

\ud83d\udcd6 Bookstore Faves \"A <\/p>\n

A book-loving cat wanders through the aisles of Small World Books located on the Venice Boardwalk.<\/p>\n

(Adam Lipman)<\/p>\n

Small World Books is the grandaddy of indie book stores in L.A. Established in 1969 on the Venice Boardwalk, the store has always been well-curated and loaded with a diverse array of titles. We spoke with manager Adam Lipman about what customers are snatching up.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s selling right now? <\/b><\/p>\n

The new RF Kuang, \u201cKatabasis<\/a>,\u201d is selling really well, as is the new Taylor Jenkins Reid, \u201cAtmosphere<\/a>,\u201d and it\u2019s been hard to keep in stock \u201cDaughter Mother Grandmother and Whore<\/a>\u201d by Gabriela Leite.<\/p>\n

What are some popular genres that your customers like?<\/b><\/p>\n

Romantasy, horror and architecture are getting snatched up right quick these days.<\/p>\n

And those that love poetry are always impressed with our poetry section. But we are selling all types of books right now! From bestsellers to books about lo-fi cassette culture, sextrology, and Charles Oakley. Anything important or interesting to us we try to get in store and keep in stock.<\/p>\n

Why are books still necessary in a wired world? <\/b><\/p>\n

Susan Orleans wrote in \u201cThe Orchid Thief<\/a>\u201d: \u201cThere are too many ideas and things and people, too many directions to go. I was starting to believe that the reason it matters to care passionately about something is that it whittles the world down to a more manageable size.\u201d <\/p>\n

Part of why we are called Small World Books is because we believe books are an excellent way to \u201cwhittle the world down to a more manageable size,\u201d small enough to not seem so overwhelmingly exhausting, and hopefully, then making it easier to expand our circle of empathy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Like all great crime writers, Lou Berney knows that a ripping story is only as good as the…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":223841,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[3601,3602,3604,1022,3596,3606,3603,3605,171,3607,2323,3599,3600,2252,3597,3598,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-223840","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-books","8":"tag-author","9":"tag-bestselling-novelist-silvia-moreno","10":"tag-book-exploder","11":"tag-books","12":"tag-chef","13":"tag-conversation","14":"tag-daughter","15":"tag-doctor-moreau","16":"tag-entertainment","17":"tag-fiction","18":"tag-garcia","19":"tag-keith-corbin","20":"tag-l-a-times-book-club-newsletter","21":"tag-life","22":"tag-memoir","23":"tag-thrills","24":"tag-united-states","25":"tag-unitedstates","26":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115197613532230672","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223840","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=223840"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223840\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/223841"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=223840"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=223840"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=223840"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}