Bookwild - Class, Race, Jazz and Crime: Andre Hardy's Fresh Take on Noir Fiction

Episode Date: September 1, 2026

This week, I talk with Andre Hardy about his fresh take on noir in his debut novel Tear the City Down! Listen to hear about: How Andre Hardy’s debut novel, Tear the City Down, grew from his lifelong love of noir—particularly Walter Mosley’s Devil in a Blue Dress, which showed him a fully realized Black protagonist in a genre he already loved.  The ways Hardy uses San Diego’s stark dualities—tourist paradise versus underserved neighborhoods, enormous wealth versus systemic oppression—as the foundation for Coltrane's story and the novel’s larger questions about social mobility, morality, and what happens when you actually reach the top.  Why Hardy shied away from a traditional stoic noir hero, and created Coltrane to be masculine, dangerous, and deeply vulnerable.  How the mystery expands from one missing girl into something far larger, illustrating Hardy’s belief that seemingly isolated injustices often lead back to systems of power and exploitation.  How Hardy drew on his own NFL experience, love of jazz, reading, and upbringing in San Diego to give the novel its texture. All the Bookwild Links:Check Out the Bookwild SubstackSubscribe to Bookwild on YouTubeGet Bookwild MerchFollow @imbookwild on InstagramCheck Out Author Social Media Packages Follow Co-hosts On Instagram:Gare Billings @gareindeedreadsSteph Lauer @books.in.badgerlandHalley Sutton @halleysutton25Brian Watson @readingwithbrianMacKenzie Green @missusa2mbaErin Ashley @bellametaphor

This week I got to talk with Andre Hardy about his book, Tear the City Down. If you are a noir fan, you have to go read this immediately. You will love it. He is such a fun addition to the genre. And in our conversation, we actually talk about what he wanted to bring uniquely to the genre. So this is what it's about. Coltrane Davis has built a life of wealth and power as the fixer for a corrupt San Diego kingmaker. But he's desperate to leave the hustle behind and become the father, his teenage daughter,

needs. When a star NFL player disappears and the investigation connects to his daughter's missing best friend, Coltrane is pulled deep into a dangerous underworld that could destroy everything he's trying to protect. If you are an SA Cosby fan, if you're a Walter Mosley fan, if you just love noir, you are going to love this one. And I love the conversation I got to have with him about why he chose to place Coltrane in the city that he did and the unique things that he really brings. to noir as a new voice in noir. So that being said, let's hear from Andre. Well, I am super excited to talk about tear the city down. I do always want to get to know a little bit about you as a person and an author first, though. I know you also played in the NFL, and that's a big part of this

book. But what was your journey to writing like? Did you kind of always know you wanted to write a novel? Did you just have an idea and wrote this novel? What was that like for you? I've always been a reader. You know, even when sports took over my life, I always had a book. Somewhere around there was a book close. And one day I get a hold of this book called Devil in the Blue Dress. And I thought to myself, wait a second.

what is going on here because I've always been a noir fan. I mean, I've always, I've always dug like the, you know, the fedora, the detective, the femme fatale, the cigars and jazz. And then I get a hold of devil in a blue dress and suddenly it's like, whoa, here is this, you know, fully realized black character that I'd never seen in print before. And that was the first time that I thought, man, I'd like to do something like that one day. And I didn't start writing, you know, right away. But slowly the, you know, as I continued to read, it's just like, you know, maybe you should try this.

And so I just started tinkering. That's cool. Yeah. Did Coltrane come to you first? Or did you have like a story idea? Or were you just kind of like even writing, I know not everything. I know not every first book that's published is the first book you write. Right.

Interestingly enough, we can actually circle back to that, but this is the first book that I wrote. Wow. Good for you. Yeah, the first book that I wrote. But, and it took me quite a while where other writers might have had that novel in the drawer. Mm-hmm. And they move on to another one. I just never gave up on it.

I just kept. I just kept working it and working it and working it. And ultimately, yeah, it is the first book that I ever wrote. Wow. That's awesome. How did your like process develop then with this? It sounds like it kind of took some time. Did you, was there any plotting at any point? Are you a pancer? Was it a blend of the two? I've always been a pancer and sort of the genesis of the book. You know that that scene that happened. where no spoiler alert, the Coltrane goes into the pit of Bathamette. I saw that.

That was the first name that I saw. And I just started to write around it. And I've never been a plotter. I'm working on book two now, and I've never been a plotter. I'm the kind of writer that when it comes to character decisions, I just think like, okay, what is the most honest decision here at this moment?

And then if you have a logical, I mean, if you have an honest decision, then there is some logic about what comes next. And I just built all that, you know, this choice after choice. And then sometimes, you know, I may be further along in the book and realize, oh, I need to go back and put something in that informs this choice. so it doesn't feel like a cheat to the reader. But all of my writing is centered around the things that I enjoy in books. Yeah.

Where the author leaves room for the reader to breathe. He doesn't, don't tell me everything. Just give me some room to figure it out. Give me some clues. Make the clues good. But I want to figure it out. Yeah, totally. That makes sense because, like,

you do there's a lot of texture both with your pros your prose your prose is incredible i'm still shocked this is your first one um but also there's like the jazz element there's like the NFL adjacent element um and so it sounds like since you were already interested or enjoy those things then it was kind of like a fluid way to write it into a story as well yeah it was it was essentially just channeling, you know, those, those moments. Yeah. The other day, you know, every time I hear John Coltrane's horn, it's like a siren. I just stop and I, and whatever I'm doing, it doesn't matter what it is.

I pause and I, and I breathe with that sound. And so it's like when I began to write the novel, I wanted the reader to be able to experience it's that thing that I feel when I hear his horn. Yeah. That's what I was trying to do. Yeah, there's so much music involved in it in multiple moments. Like even like his daughter's name is inspired for music that he really loves. And it was cool like feeling how much, I mean, it ends up like the character, the music

matters to the character so much too. But I think like the other, the other thing that's so interesting or whatever about music as a medium is music sometimes convey so much even without the lyrics like the lyrics matter but it can communicate so much more than words can sometimes too um so it's kind of cool like having a character experience that because i've had moments like that too yeah so if you if you think about um think about that song that you hear that immediately takes you back to this tactile moment of taste and feel. Yeah.

You know, you remember where you were the first time you heard the song. I was really interested in having that happened in the novel. And so now what I hope the end result is is when people think of these moments in the novel, they'll think of John Coltsman. Right? They'll think of, they'll make that connection. Yeah, totally. well since we're talking about kind of like pros and the way you can communicate things the first author that I interviewed was an author named Ashley Winstead about five years ago now and she talks about

a craft book that she really loves called Story Genius and so I ended up reading it too because I was intrigued and one of Lisa Cron is the author one of her like big mainstays or like things that she really teaches is like any time that you can distill the entire novel into the first one to three sentences, you need to do it. And when I started your book, I was like, oh my God. It's very much written from a black man's voice, but I am going to quote it back to you. It may sound weird from me. But your first opening sentences are upward mobility. needs a surgeon general's warning label. Something to the effect of

brothers beware, or best beware, social climbing is dangerous, known to infect us with greed, leading to the adoption of the lifted classes, behaviors and prejudices, resulting in delusion, moral dilemmas, neglect, identity, crisis, self-hatred, and an extreme case is death.

I opened the book, I read that. I had to send this to a couple of my friends. I was like, this is how this book is coming out swinging. And it does. I feel like this, you're like, this is what I'm going to explore with this story. So what drew you to writing about all of this? You know, the book is obviously set in San Diego. And San Diego has this very interesting duality.

My mom worked at the Hilton Hotel on Mission Bay for years. And so I spent a lot of time. in Mission Bay and then very early on realized that Mission Bay was not like where I lived. And you grow up and older and you tell people you're from San Diego and they go, oh, I love that place, but I realized they weren't talking about where I grew up. They were talking about Mission Bay. And so when I thought about writing, there was that duality of what life is like in Mission Bay and what life is like in southeast San Diego or East Diego where I'm from. And then the effects of life in Mission Bay actually in many ways are oppressive

to what happened in my neighborhood. And so what do we do? We want to get out. We want to, we want to go to Mission Bay. We want to live in Mission Bay. We want to live in Philadelphia. And what are those pathways? And oftentimes, those pathways are not what we would call by legal means because there's all sorts of stuff around for you to very

easily put your hand on and get involved with. And so the novel is about, well, what happens if you actually get it all? What if it works out? What if you work your way from the streets all the way up to where you're sitting next to the town's apex predator? Then what? Now what do you do?

You've done all the social climbing. You are at the top of the pile. But now what? Because you're essentially morally bankrupt. And I think ultimately that's the biggest question that the novel asked. yeah they're like I had just actually right here I had just interviewed uh Kayla Hardy she has a book called the quarter queen everybody who loves like historical dark fantasy it's fantastic but it's loosely based off of Marie LeVoe um well no not even loosely um and she and I were talking about is a similar

thing where she's kind of a morally gray character and she had just brought up like uh especially in the 1800s, but it's true today. Like, black people did not create the system that they, they were just living within it. And trying to do what they can to survive. And maybe everyone has different approaches to that even. So it's so crazy starting this one, like right after that one where we were kind of having like a similar conversation where like, I think that's why these characters are so compelling um is like if that's kind of the only way for you to achieve within that system how do you figure out your morals essentially and like kind of like whose fault is it that that's the option that you have as well um so i thought that was really like you said duality a really fascinating

duality to have in this because I also just I am a sucker for stories about fixers. They're very intriguing to me. And like I think as a I think as a reader too, it's so alluring because you totally understand the thrill of like being someone who can go in and like quote unquote fix any situation. Was he always a fixer to you? Like when you kind of like had that image of him going into the pit. Was he, was he a fixer there? Or did that kind of, uh, develop? Okay. Yeah, he was, he was always a fixer. Because I thought it was important that he not be ex-military, that he not be ex-law enforcement, that he not carry any of that weight. And I thought it might give him even more resonance and authenticity of just being like a,

you know, a guy who is obviously clever and well read and a master of language, right? He really uses language as a tool. But I thought, you know, it would be more compelling if he was just, he was just a guy, a smart guy, but not have any, any relationship to law enforcement. Yeah. Yeah, that makes sense. When you talk about language, too, one of, some of my other. notes and I was mentioning like I just I loved to the prose but you you had moments where I didn't pull all of them but like one was like a like a chorus of laments like rises up in him there there are

very like there's very musical words as well as the very like gritty words being used as well is that something that you kind of go back in and add to fit it or is it one of those where like that's just how you're writing as well. Yeah, that's just a stylistic thing for me. Yeah. Wanting to, you know, wanting to accomplish a few things. So when I thought, okay, I'm going to, I'm going to, I want to, there was no question I was going to write noir.

Yeah. And then the next question was, okay, well, what will be my contribution to the canon as opposed to just writing another noir book and getting into the line? could I potentially do anything to elevate the genre, to take it to the next step? And so when I started to ask myself those kinds of questions, then it went, okay, let me take all of these genre conceits

and subvert every single one of them. Let me just take them and just turn them on their head. And so as you noted earlier, it's a completely black male facing world. Right. Or white male. I did like that term too.

Yeah, right. When you walk into a room, you see black art by fame and black artists and someone, someone may never even know. And so it was just to like turn, you know, turn the genre inside out. Yeah. Yeah, that makes sense. The other, there really is duality kind of all over his story as well. But I think also one of his, one of his bigger conflicts is that he does have a daughter.

And he has, they're not, yeah, he has a girlfriend that he really cares about. And so that's like a big struggle for him as well. It's like he does want to not do this anymore. And some of it is because of these people in his life who kind of like almost like know who he truly is outside of that. So did you kind of always want him to also have this like complicated, not even complicated, just it's adding conflict to his life with his daughter and his girlfriend as well. Yes.

So in a, in addition to the story conflict, I learned this very early on from a really good friend of mine. I don't know if you know the name Tim Cring. Tim Crane was the showrunner for Heroes for years. And I had Tim's a friend and we would have dinner and I would get these PhD lessons from him and story. One of the stories that he told me about Heroes was Heroes was the hottest show on television. It was huge. Gigantic.

And then I can't remember what season it was, but around episode 10, the rating. fell off a cliff. Wow. And so when they went back to do some forensics on what happened, what Tim said to me is that people don't like characters who are not in existential crisis. So you have to keep your characters in existential crisis. So story-wise, there were always the problems for Coltrane. But I needed to make sure.

sure that he was in existential crisis. And his existential crisis was coming to, coming to grips with his karma, right? Which was revealed not only in a, in a major way by his new love interest. Right. She is the mirror for. Yeah. Yeah, she is the mirror. And then the other piece of that is his daughter as their relationship is now he's wrecked the existence he's in crisis and now he begins to recognize oh man this is where my relationship with my daughter begin to fray i missed it it's been happening i was so caught up in what i was doing that i missed it and so now his crisis is about how do i how am i going to fix it? this. How do I fix it? How do I fix it with my daughter? Woman I love. How do I, how do I do I do

how do I do it? That is his existential crisis in addition to the story crisis. Yes. And I think I don't have, I didn't pull the exact quote, but I remember highlighting something about it when he does kind of like like meditate and like sit more with himself and his feelings it's it's also it uh kind of like both um both like in a patriarchal sense men are not supposed to like cry or be upset or have big feelings and then there's also the racial element of it like black men really don't right culturally have like representation of that to feel like it's okay to be that too. So is that something you wanted to use the genre for as well to kind of talk about that a little bit? Thank you for actually noticing that. Yeah. I hope that it didn't come off as preachy,

but definitely. That was that was like, that was like, you know, because I believe that vulnerability is a superpower and not a deficit. Right. Right. The ability to be vulnerable and cry and show up and be honest is actually a superpower. And we have been fooled into thinking the opposite. Yes. So it was important that when I brought this character into the world, that he was

wasn't the old stoic detective who soldiers on no matter you know the he's gonna he's hurting he's in pain and he's soldiering on i i thought it was important that he feel his pain yeah and and and if i'm at my absolute writer's best that the reader also feels his pain yeah yeah and it is so it's so conflicting because part of what he's done work-wise is what allows him to, like, provide for his daughter in a way that, like, her mom chose not to do. And a lot of people can't. But it's also like, okay, but what else do I do? Like, what are the other options that are available for me at this point? And so at that point, he is basically retired at the, at the beginning. but we're like right into the opening scene he's getting kind of dragged back into it i think there are multiple reasons it's kind of like can he really say no to saul who's like you know like you said like top apex predator could he ever actually say no um and then it gets personal for him because there's a part of it that i think this is all in the synopsis and not a spoiler it does happen in the first chapter

um part of it is uh it like the case he's taking a is adjacent to girls who are being mistreated in many ways. And his daughter's best friend disappeared. And so now the case feels really personal for him too. The case also gets really large. It's also kind of a very large conspiracy that has like many levels to it the further he gets into it. And so is that another purposeful duality?

We have like this personal and the like. large conspiracy level of it or did it just kind of come out that way? No, I believe that that is what conspiracy is. That on the ground, when our feet are on the ground, we get just a trickle of it in that, oh, this girl is, this young girl is missing. But I believe that if you pull on that thread, and keep pulling, she isn't just missing.

There's something else going on, right? And you pull on that thread and you go, oh, wow, this is happening. And if you keep pulling on that threads, I think you ultimately end up inside of these systems of power that actually oppress people. Yeah. Right. And they exist. They, they look at, we are widgets. We are widgets to be exploited. Yeah. Whether it's for our, you know, time, talent, and attention, our bodies.

These systems exist to actually exploit us. And so conspiracies or these things that appear small in front of us, I often think they're much larger. And so that that's one of the things that the novel attempts to do. Because as you as you note it, it starts out pretty simple. And then as he starts pulling on these threads, he goes, well, wait a minute. Yeah. Hold on. Wait a minute. What?

Wait a minute. This is actually, and he ends up in a very large, you know, conspiracy that ultimately he can do nothing about. Right. all the it's it's way too big he can do nothing about his only solace is I can save one

right that's all that he can do yeah the the title I always love when you find the title in the book and the title happens relatively soon where he kind of says like if something happened to his daughter he would tear the city down

to to find her or to to save her either way there. But it's another thing that kind of functions on like a simple level and a larger level. So I was just seeing, I can't remember where the discourse necessarily came from on TikTok. But I was hearing some people talk about the concept that racism is still so rampant that, like, worshipping money, that type of capitalistic. society is so rampant because we did not punish the South enough at the end of the Civil War. And someone was like, let's just let's change that a little bit and say we didn't punish like the

slave owners enough and not just the South as a whole because I think that's a very complicated element, especially for black people in the South who you guys did. a lot of the things that we love about the South really come from you guys um but there's obviously a really bad legacy there there as well and i felt like that that's part of the title to a bit like he does love his city for the things that he loves but also you can't look past the fact that the power structures are very corrupt so what was it like writing about that that dichotomy as well Yeah, that was great that you mentioned that because I think that is the dichotomy that exists for black and brown people. You know, only in America, me being the son of a maid, I get to play professional football and write a novel that's going out into the public.

Yeah. Right. this place that is also this incredible, you know, sort of oppressive system and environment that doesn't actually make it easy for me to self-actualized. Right. And inside of that, what they want to say is, well, you've done well. Look at you. You're the proof. What do you have to complain about? But I'm such a believer and we are all one and we're collective. And so when I look and see anyone's suffering, black, brown, white, queer, trans, whatever,

when I see these suffering, their suffering is my suffering. And so, yes, you want, there's opportunity, but. If it's not for everyone, then I want everyone to be happy. Right. Yeah. I'm with you there. The other part is the professional sports element is some of this was reminding me. Did you see him, the movie that came out last year?

Yes, I did. I did. Right? Yes. Yeah, I will forever remember that, like the scene when they're in the sauna and he says something about like not someone says something about like well why wouldn't you just leave and he's like if you've been in jail for 20 years and you're starving and someone offers you food or to leave what are you going to really choose in that moment so I kept thinking of that moment um and professional

sports like a lot of things that are kind of born in a capitalist society there's there's so much wealth, there's so much media, there's so much attention, there's so much going on there. There's also a decent amount of exploitation happening, even what you were saying, like, with black bodies, especially in both football and basketball. So did you kind of want to write in that arena because it was good for those conversations, too, or is it just kind of a byproduct that, of course, these conversations show up in really like successful areas. It was another, it was another duality that I thought was important to the book because on the one hand, you have this incredibly successful professional football player

who, until you see behind the scenes, you would not know the other side and the dark side and the duality. And I thought, I'll always write about football. My next novel is also as a football element. And I'll always write about that. Because I think at the, it is such a beautiful and immediate way for people to see the dualities. because you would think, wait a minute, pro athlete, he's got all the money in the world.

Right. And then you peel back the curtain and you go, well, wait a minute, he's got head injuries and his agent is stealing from him. And he still, he doesn't even know what to do and he still has to play. And so I think that is the same thing that workers at Amazon in the warehouse are facing. Right. You know, it's the same thing that that farm workers are facing. We need the fruit. You go to Whole Foods and you see the big beautiful peaches.

Well, where did they come from? Who put their hands on those, right? Who made sure that they came off the tree and they ended up so that you can actually enjoy them? And oftentimes, we enjoy them without ever thinking about where they came. Totally. Yeah. I mean, I know I do. Yeah. Right. I mean, you watch a football game, not even thinking. Yeah. What's going on behind the scenes in this, in this man's life. So I think there is, there is an immediate sort of poignant example of this idea of what corporate structures actually do to us, who I will call again, to them or just, Right. Totally. Yeah. So for people who are watching, you can see your shirt, but San Diego or Daigo, as the natives maybe call it, also feels like a character. This is one where the setting

very much feels like a character. Was there a reason you specifically wanted to write it there? And yeah, just like what was it like getting to include all of those things? When I thought, when I started to write the novel, I was actually living in L.A. And, you know, L.A. is obviously historically sort of the ground zero of crime fiction. And I thought, you know, what I know about San Diego from growing up, you know, on the, the dark side is that San Diego was a much more interesting crime town than LA for for a number of reasons. And I say that San Diego does four things really well. It has the best weather in the country. Yeah. It has the best Mexican food in the country. It produces more Heisman trophy winners than any other city in the

country. And it does crime better. And one of the reasons that crime is so, so, so, such a part of San Diego's culture is that contiguous border with Mexico. That contiguous border with Mexico, you bring in the military presence where you have all of these young testosterone-filled men come in the town. You add in tourism year-round because of the weather. Yeah. And all of a sudden, you have the potential stew for a lot of things. that could happen. And so when I was thinking about, you know, constructing the novel, I'm like,

yeah, this is the drugs that make it to Los Angeles. Right. Border in San Diego, right? So San Diego is really, is really ground zero. And the other day, there was an article in the, in the paper about a tunnel that started in Mexico and went, I don't know, maybe a half a mile into San Diego and it ended up inside of a store. Whoa. If you grew up in San Diego in the neighborhoods that I grew up in, well, you know what that tunnel's about and you know that that isn't the only one because that's how things move back and forth.

And when you're out and you're in and around, you know, adjacent to that much, emotion and that action, you know that. Now, outsiders don't know because San Diego's Chamber of Commerce, they're brilliant. They sell sunshine and palm trees and the world famous zoo. I mean, they are good at their job. They are so good at it. What's fascinating is that people come to San Diego go and they go to the gas lamp not knowing that a half a mile that way is the bar right there right right it's right there and they never know yeah just don't even conceptualize it don't even conceptualize it all they know is gas lamp beaches palm trees that's all they that's all they yeah yeah it does make it very perfect for noir.

And kind of surprising that there hasn't been more, but you're right. L.A. is, I feel like, there are plenty of them in L.A., basically. The other thing that was compelling about it, too, is we have a fixer who, as you actually mentioned a little bit, the further he pulls the thread, the more he realizes, like, he can't fix this. And so that's like a very, like, conflicting character arc for him as well. Was that kind of where you were headed with it when you started? Or was it like, as you wrote it, you were like, oh, we're kind of headed into something bigger than he can fix.

Yeah, that happened as I began to write the story and then think about the series. Yeah. So, yeah. So what Okay, this is I think of this story as, you know, Coltrane begins.

This is his introduction to the world. Yeah. And wanted a character that was as limitless as possible. So what we know about Coltrane is that he's a world traveler.

He's got money. he's smart he's well read he cooks and so this gives me an opportunity to essentially place him anywhere I want and the readers won't go what's he doing there yeah well that was that was a part of it and then when I began to get closer to the end of book one I started to think okay how do I open this up? How do I do two things at once? How do I land book one? So leave enough room for the expansiveness of the series. Yeah, that totally makes sense. And you've answered my question of whether it could be a series. So we knocked that one out. Did you have fun picking the books to include in there? Because you reference like the Art of War,

plenty of other ones. Was it kind of fun, like, picking the books that you thought you wouldn't have read? That was so much fun. And honestly, these are the books that the men that I wrote about are reading. Right. They're reading Art of War, 48 laws of power. I mean, this is almost a right of passage in the hood. Right.

If you're not reading those books, you're missing out on. something. It's a ride of passage. And then, you know, adding into that mix books about Dharma was also intentional. Yeah, definitely. The it really, we've talked about how like there's kind of like a conspiracy element to it. And so there's also like almost for lack of a better term. Some of it like also feels like being in a video game. Like there's some of it that feels slightly adjacent to maybe playing something like Grand Theft Auto, where you're meeting these side characters as he's having to like follow the trail of clues. And then we'll kind of get little peeks into his backstory

to learn like how he's connected to this person who could get him information. And so I thought it was cool. Like all the different characters we get to meet as he's trying to unravel what's happening. Were those like characters that you kind of had in mind? or did they kind of develop as the like unraveling the crime developed? Yeah, they were they developed as he began to unravel the crime. But all of them are archetypes, right? Yeah, yeah.

I really created them as, okay, this is what is needed in the moment. And then what is that character? What is that character? Yeah. Yeah. Right. Did you have to, because I know you said you didn't plot it, but there are like so many connections between different people happening. Did you have to like visual, did you have something that like was showing you everything that you had created?

Or were you just kind of like, I created it. I mostly remember this. I created it and I mostly remembered it. And I, you know, again, because they are, they are, they served a very specific purpose. purpose. So I was able to, you know, track their movement and how they, their moment rippled out across the page. Yeah. That makes sense. And some of them didn't stay very long, right? They were in it. They served their purpose. And then the story moved on, which, which is the way that life works. Totally. Yeah. Right. Yes, it is.

Was there any character that doesn't spoil anything that surprised you or kind of like did something you weren't expecting? Yeah, I really love that moment where Coltrane gives, gives he hands Capone, the Ticknotton book. He says to him, God, you're different. What's going on with you? Is that that meditation stuff you're doing? Yeah. Show me that, right? Show me that, which is, and you have this,

he's essentially a mercenary. Mm-hmm. He has this moment where he's got, man, my friend is much softer and he's changing. Yeah. I want that. Yes. I want that.

Yeah. I do love that it's giving a book that was like that cool moment, basically. That one also reminded me. There's a series by one of my friends named Rob Hart. And he wrote a series. It's called Assassins Anonymous. And so it's all about assassins who basically do have this moment where they're like, what am I doing? And they decide to not. kill anymore but they still end up in situations where they're having to like be creative in with their violence to essentially not kill yeah but it's such a fun another one like a really fun duality where you have these like really tough badass people but they're also like we need to meet with each other and we're going to talk about like our our spirituality or or meditating like whatever is helping us stay stay the way that we're we're going to talk about. We're going to we feel is like best for us right now. So I do think those moments are so fun with characters that seem really contradictory because we do all actually have our own contradictions,

whether we're aware of them or not. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Was there anything about Coltrane that surprised you as you were writing him? Yeah. How, how ultimately sad he was. I never, I never, like, really expected that. And what really, that connection to is his dad or misconnection and how he had essentially written that off. But ultimately, it's sort of the linchpin to his healing.

Yeah. Right? As he looks as his dad and thinks, yeah, my dad's a loser. This guy can't. And then he has this moment where he goes, oh, I get it now. Yeah. I think a lot of people also have that happen once they have their own children, too. Like, you're like, oh, I wasn't that hard to love or it, how did, how did you not feel like you wanted to show up for me, basically?

And I am someone, when I was in therapy, we were talking about how a lot of people have. have a default feeling. Like, you kind of have a feeling that, like, you go too quickly in certain situations. And I love how empowering and activating anger feels and have had my own moments like you're talking about where all of a sudden I'm like, damn it, I was sad. And I just wanted to feel, I just wanted to feel the empowering, activating feeling. Not this sad one. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's just, you know, which is very interesting of how many of these people

or these individuals inside of urban communities that we might mistake as being angry or violence when in fact they're really sad. Yes. Yeah. And when it feels like no one cares that you're sad or what you're sad about, that also is going to be.

going to push you even more to anger because now now you kind of are angry that's like people don't care yeah the the other thing i was noticing too is so so their football is kind of the or the NFL's kind of the way into like the the wealthy wealthier systems here but then there's also there are like politicians that are kind of then wrapped up into the or into some of this they're basically lots of different wealthy people from different systems are kind of still all corrupt in some ways the systems are. So what it's always interesting to me kind of remembering in terms of like we say class warfare, which sounds, I mean it is class warfare, but kind of like how the wealthy just protect the wealthy kind of no matter where they come from when they're,

when they're kind of corrupt, was that kind of like interesting to explore as well? Certainly. Because I think, you know, there is a, there is certainly race matters. Right. I think a very close second is class. Very, very close second is class. And so I wanted to make sure that that wasn't. missed.

Right? Because we oftentimes spend our energy pointing at race as the sole catalyst for our ills. Right. And I think it's, that's certainly a part of it, but I also think that it's much bigger than that. Yeah. I think a lot of it has to do with class. and affluent.

And, you know, it's like me using myself as an example. There are places that I can walk into with ease. Yeah. That the guys that I grew up with cannot. It is because of the presumption of class, the way that I look and my ability to wield language has always, even when I was a kid, even when I was a kid, we'd get pulled over by the police, you know, 13, 14 year olds out making mischief. The second they heard me talk,

yeah, they'd go after somebody else. Literally, the second they heard my use of language, right. He can't be a problem. If he is a problem, he's not as big a problem as this guy over here who can articulate himself. Yeah. What you're talking about, too, it was reminding me when 50 Cent put out his Diddy, Doc, I thought that was actually a really good example

of how, so first, it is race first that tends to make most of the decisions, especially legally. And then like you're saying, wealth or class is next. But I thought it was such a good example of it because it still took forever to even get him to jail. And eventually he was, but I think it took so long. And I think

there's maybe some privileges he even has there because of his wealth. Yes. And meanwhile, our president is a convicted predator. Yes. And he is still not. getting touched. And I was like, I thought those two were such a good example of it where it's like, if you are wealthy enough, you can still kind of escape certain consequences. But then if you're white and wealthy, like our president, somehow you just can keep evading it. Right. Right. You've, you've got the trifecta then. I mean, you're white, wealthy. Yeah. The other thing you were bringing up with language is I thought again even when I was like reading your quotes I don't want to sound like I'm someone trying to speak in African American vernacular English essentially but you do

have some of that still in there so like the voice and the tone does feel it has that vibe to it, but you also have, not that that doesn't have beautiful turns of phrase as well, but you also have turns of phrases that wouldn't necessarily fall into that. And so is it important for you to have both of those? Because even like without calling it code switching, both of those can be a part of someone's lived experience. Yes. I thought it was important to, for lack of better terms, legitimize the novel as a piece of literature using, let's, standard English or prose or whatever. I thought it would, it would give the novel resonance that using urban vernacular alone would not. And so I needed to find a way to blend the two worlds without it being pretentious.

And to make to make to make Coltrane's movement in and out of those those situations and uses of language feel seamless. Like it's just, that's just what he does. That's just part of how he moves through the world. Yeah. That's really makes sense. it did it like it does just like it adds like the character feels more real for lack of a better term too like the voice and the tone very much were like almost as important as like the setting as well too um so i i did really enjoy that was getting i mean you can't talk totally about

the ending but did you know where you were was there a point where you're like okay now i know where this is going to come together or did you kind of surprise yourself too as you were kind of unraveling at yourself as well. Yeah, it ended up actually being a surprise. I thought, I thought the ending would be the scene at, the final scene at the shipyard. I thought that was going to be it. I thought I would end the book.

I would end the book there. Yeah. And then I realized, oh, my God, that's not the, end. Yeah. There, there, there, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's not done because I have not dealt with Saul. Yes. I have, have, I have to deal with him in. That makes sense. Yeah. And then it became, okay, well, well, what do we, what do we do? And not the spoiler alerts, but there are people who have chastised me for the way that I dealt with them. Well, they can go ahead and do that. Yeah, right. Maybe not every book's for everyone. Maybe not.

every ending is for everyone. Like, why did you do that? But, you know, yeah. I thought it was a, I thought it was also an unpredictable way to end a crime novel. Right, which is typically the route to go as long as it doesn't feel like unearned. Yes. So you are writing it as a series. And it sounds like you were trying to kind of think of that from the beginning.

Is there something about kind of sticking with, his character that is especially fun for you. Yeah, he's, he's, I mean, he's such an interesting character in the way that he is dealing with his wounds. Mm-hmm. Right. And the way that he is trying to process grief and trauma, which ultimately is a metaphor, for those young men in the hood who are who walk out of the door and are trying to process grief

and trauma that is all around them yeah right they live in situational yeah yeah they live in a stew of grief and trauma right and don't have and don't know oftentimes don't know it and if they do know it don't understand what their options are. Yep. So Coltrane is a light is I think he could be a light to say, hey, maybe I can try this. Yeah. But and and to say, I am hurting.

Yes. This hurts. My life hurts. I'm bad, right? This is painful. Yeah, things, bad things have happened. and okay great what do I what do I do I do with them what do I how do I metabolize it yeah I think that's another when you were talking about like adding your contribution to noir that um it's not that

I've never read a noir that has some character good character development I will say it tends to be noir written by women when that's the case but it does it feels like that kind of like emotional depth is a part of kind of your contribution to the genre as well. Yes, 100, 1,000 percent. Yeah. To have a, a character who was at once masculine. Yeah. And if you make, if you go there with him, you're going to have a problem.

Because he will go there. Yeah. But he also has this very, very tender side. And he is, he's a guardian. He's concerned about his neighborhood, his community, the immigrant population that he intersects with. He's, you know, his next door neighbor who he's known. So he is, he is, you know, at once, I think, incredibly masculine,

and all of the things that make a good noir lead character but at the same but you know simultaneously he has a very soft side that we don't often see in men right that it was also reminding me because he he he is masculine and he he is developing his divine feminine as well as kind of what's happening and i what you said just reminded me my dog is upside down with his legs up in the air. That was why I giggled for a second. I interviewed an author. She wrote The Cost of Healing in Silence, navigating racial trauma and the call for culturally responsive care. She's a therapist herself. Her name's Ashley McGirt Adair. But when I interviewed her, she talked about matriarchal societies. And some of them do exist. And that the main

indifference is that matriarchal societies ask, how are the children doing? And like, it has stuck with me forever because it's such a powerful thing in general. But then it also fits Coltrane's story so well because he does actually care about how the children are doing. So I would I would almost argue he is a matriarchal. Well, if you're talking about me, I grew up. in a house with all women. There you go. There you go.

I was the youngest of four. You know, I was around the women. Women is all I know, right? Women have always been my best friends. Yeah. I've always been incredibly comfortable around women. When my friends would go, why are you always women?

I'm like, yeah, because we're not trying to compete. Right. They don't want to arm wrestle. You know what I mean? They want to talk. You know what I mean? It's just like what I guess it, you know what you said makes sense from someone who grew up in a household of women.

That's cool. That's cool. I love that. Well, I love this book. Anyone who loves noir or crime fiction in general, I think you're going to love it too. I was lucky enough to listen to it. And the audiobook is a fantastic version of it for anyone. Oh, I haven't heard it.

Oh, it's so good. It's fantastic. Oh, awesome. Yes. Yeah, I loved it. I became a really big audiobook fan in the last, like, year and a half. And it's just so nice. So I was listening while I was walking the dogs and cleaning and you can fit more in it and fit more books in, which is nice. So, yeah, I highly recommend the audio as well. Where can people follow you to stay up to date, especially since this is a series? Yeah, Siri. So I have Andre Hardy Books is my Instagram profile, which I do, you know, all of my, my algorithmic hunting. What do you call it? Yeah. What is he calls it? Engagement farming. Oh, yeah. Yes. And then I have a website with a newsletter.

Andrehartdy.com. Perfect. I will put those in the show notes. And thank you. you for coming and I can't read so. I can't wait to read the next one. Same, same. It's been great. Thank you so much for your insightful questions and allowing me to expound about my book. Yes. I mean, I prefer to read a book where there's lots to talk about. So thank you for writing one.