PageOneLit.com Interviews Peter James Quirk

Peter James Quirk is an adventurer at heart who has traveled the world. He was born and educated in England in the aftermath of World War II. At various times he has taught English in France, taught skiing in both France and Austria, and spent several years at sea as a fisherman and with the British Merchant Marine. When he settled in the U.S. he became a building contractor, a profession that gave him the opportunity to spend his winters skiing and snowboarding. He owns a ski chalet in the Catskill Mountains and has taught skiing at Windham Mountain for more than twenty years.

Peter took to writing after selling his business several years ago-his most interesting assignment to date was writing for a French Chef on a Chinese cable television channel. He won a literary award for short story writing in January 2005. Trail of Vengeance is his first novel. Peter James Quirk is a member of the prestigious organization "Mystery Writers of America".

Pageonelit.com: "TRAIL OF VENGEANCE" is action packed and takes the reader on a tremendous journey from New York to Europe. Discuss what you enjoy about writing action scenes and where did you inherit this writing skill?" Talk a little about your settings and research.

Peter James Quirk: First I'd like to say that I am a realist by nature who would have difficulty writing something that could not possibly happen. That is to say, I couldn't dream about winning the lottery if I didn't have a current lottery ticket in my pocket. In other words, my characters need a reason for everything they do, even if it's just the fact they are inherently evil, like the minor characters Fritz and Hans in the rape scene, for example.

In the case of Emile, however, I portrayed him as a blue-collar guy with minimal education who was familiar with the seamy side of life, and, from his experiences as a ski instructor, also the more sophisticated and upscale side. I then allowed his dreams of becoming rich to pull him into a life of crime.

Most of the minor characters were, as I said previously, invented to serve the story. Then their personalities expanded during the rewriting process depending on how important they became. The fun foving side of Rita Carmelli, for instance, came from a woman I once knew who actually told me the story of the man who pulled out a portable TV and watched a Yankee game during a dinner date, and how she dealt with that particular humiliation.

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