The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – Sleepless City: A Nick Ryan Novel by Reed Farrel Coleman

Episode Date: June 21, 2023

Sleepless City: A Nick Ryan Novel by Reed Farrel Coleman https://amzn.to/449r4Bl “A tour-de-force! The pace is relentless, the plot smart, his new lead character, Nick Ryan, is a hero for the times…Reed is a brilliant storyteller.” --Louise Penny, #1 New York Times bestselling author When you're in trouble, you call 911. When cops are in trouble, they call Nick Ryan. Every cop in the city knows his name, but no one says it out loud. In fact, they don't talk about him at all. He doesn't wear a uniform, but he is the most powerful cop in New York. Nick Ryan can find a criminal who's vanished. Or he can make a key witness disappear. He has cars, safe houses, money, and weapons hidden all over the city. He's the mayor's private cop, the fixer, the first call when the men and women who protect and serve are in trouble and need protection themselves. With conflicted loyalties and a divided soul, he's a veteran cop still fighting his own private war. He's a soldier of the streets with his own personal code. But what happens when the man who knows all the city's secrets becomes a threat to both sides of the law? About the Author Called a hard-boiled poet by NPR’s Maureen Corrigan and the noir poet laureate in the Huffington Post, Reed Farrel Coleman is the New York Times-bestselling author of thirty-one novels—including six in Robert B. Parker’s Jesse Stone series—short stories, poetry, and essays. In addition to his acclaimed series characters, Moe Prager and Gus Murphy, he has written the stand-alone novel Gun Church and collaborated with decorated Irish crime writer Ken Bruen on the novel Tower. Reed is a four time Edgar Award nominee in three different categories: Best Novel, Best Paperback Original, and Best Short Story. He is a four-time recipient of the Shamus Award for Best PI Novel of the Year. He has also won the Audie, Macavity, Barry, and Anthony Awards.

You wanted the best. You've got the best podcast, the hottest podcast in the world. The Chris Voss Show, the preeminent podcast with guests so smart you may experience serious brain bleed. The CEOs, authors, thought leaders, visionaries, and motivators. Get ready, get ready, strap yourself in. Keep your hands, arms, and legs inside the vehicle at all times, because you're about to go on a monster education rollercoaster with your brain. Now, here's your host, Chris Voss. Hi, this is Voss here from thechrisvossshow.com, thechrisvossshow.com. Wow, my voice is cracking. What's going on there, man?

My voice is cracking. You know, I just can't hold it anymore. I'm going to have to give it my opera career, clearly, as it were. So there you go. Anyway, guys, thanks for tuning in. We certainly appreciate you guys being here. As always, we have the most brilliant minds,

the most amazing authors, and when you listen to this show, you get a feeling that washes over you of brilliance and intelligence and just it's like manna from heaven of education intelligence from the sky and of course i'm hitting the the button twice accidentally there as i was doing the whole manna from heaven if you're watching this on youtube people at home are listening on i go what the fuck is going on? So anyway, that's the most important reason you should listen to the show. And always, for the show, your family, friends, and relatives,

go to goodreads.com, 4chesschrisfast, youtube.com, 4chesschrisfast, linkedin.com, 4chesschrisfast, and TikTok. We're over there on TikTok trying to be cool as well. If you get a chance, go put a five-star review on iTunes. We certainly appreciate the people that do that. Today, we have an amazing gentleman and prolific author on the show. His newest book out of a whole mess of books that he's put out and he's got a huge following of people just love his stuff, but this one's new. So you're going to be able to catch the first launch of this new character in this new series that he is putting out. It's a new book coming out July 11th, 2023.

Reed Farrell Coleman is on the show with us today. His newest book series, Sleepless City, a Nick Ryan novel, is going to be coming out next month. And we're pretty excited to have him on the show. He's excited as well, from what I understand to have him on the show he's excited as well from what i understand to be on the show i had to tell him to tap down his energy a little bit because he is just motivated like nobody's business reed is called a hard-boiled poet by npr's marine corrigan and the noir poet but let me see if i can get this right noir poet laureate that's a tough words there uh big words in the huffington post uh he is the new york times best-selling author of 31 novels including six in robert b parker's jesse stone series short stories poetries and essays didn't you know

poetries is uh is plural it is now what do they call it poetic license i just took poetics license anyway whatever man i flunked second grade in addition to his acclaimed series characters mo prager and gus murphy has written a standalone novel gun church and collaborated with decorated irish crime writer ken bruin on the novel tower. Uh, he is a four time Edgar award nominee in three different categories, best novel, best paperback original and best short story. He's also a four time recipient of the Seamus award for the best pie novel of the year. PI novel.

Okay. There you go. I can't, I flunked second you go i can't i flunk second grade i can't spell he also won the out uh audie audie mcavity barry and anthony words this guy's won so many awards i can't even pronounce half of them that's how many awards he's got welcome to the show reed how are you um i'm good after a beginning like that you know how how should i be there you go well i hope you're good because you did it's all under your belt uh give us a dot com so people can find you on the interwebs please

read coleman.com very simply there you go now you've written a lot of books you've got a lot of different fingers and different book pies as it were is are do they have book pies i don't know that may that sound like something we should invent. And you've got a few different series of characters. What motivated you to want to start a new series, start a new character, and build on this new book you have, Sleepless City? Poverty. Poverty? Poverty.

How much is your agent charging you? Don't answer that. Under the threat of death, I'm not allowed to say there you go unprofit contract i just got an nda notification from your attorney uh so uh tell us about this new book this uh give us like a 30 000 overview if you would please well sure uh why don't i just read it to you go ahead let's do it we got time no time. No. You mentioned some of my previous characters, Moe Prager and Gus Murphy. I've written several series, and the characters I tended to have at the center of those series were stumblers, were people who were uniformed cops but were never detectives.

And when circumstance forced them to be detectives they didn't have the requisite skills so they stumbled around a lot they're good-hearted well-intentioned very determined guys but they were like me a stumbler stumblers that sounds like what i used to do when i used to drink. Well, I've done that as well. So I was kicking around an idea for a new character. Tumbling or kicking around? I stumbled after I kicked it around. Oh, in that order.

So I was kicking around an idea with my agent, whose name is Shane Salerno, who's a fairly famous screenwriter. And we were talking, you know, when the subject came up is, I'm tired of writing stumblers and, you know, characters I kick around. And we were discussing it and we came up with, wouldn't it be nice to write a character who's actually competent? Huh?

Actually more than competent. Really skilled, competent, confident. Nothing like me, in other words. And I thought, well, that's really attractive to somebody who spent most of his career writing characters who are in, you know, not incompetent, but they don't have the requisite skills to do what they're doing. And so I,

you know, isn't this offensive to your prior characters though? I mean, doesn't this hurt their feelings maybe? Well, since they only exist in my head, you know, that,

uh, they might be offended, but i really don't care unless they start paying me uh that's how i feel about my personalities so there you go so give us a rundown uh tell us you know who this new uh guy is give us a little more in depth what adventure is he on as a protagonist and uh what sort of dude is he? You know, what's his moxie, his character? Well, Nick has done two. He was a cop, and he did two tours in Afghanistan. And he's come back to New York City with a, let's just say,

a sharper notion of the difference between right and wrong. And his idea of right and wrong is a lot notion of the difference between right and wrong and his idea of right and wrong is a lot different than the uh average guy or a woman's idea of right and wrong and he sets out to uh take care of somebody who is a known uh child molester and a murderer, but who's gotten off on a technicality. And so he decided this just needs doing. That's the kind of guy Nick is. And when he hatches the plot to do it, let's just say the tables are turned on him,

and he's offered a job, an interesting job, to be the prince of the city but to work in the shadows oh that's sort of what nick's gig is wow is it kind of like an equalizer gig or uh something some of that vengeance or he's part equalizer part uh Ray Donovan, part James Bond, part Jack Reacher. There you go. So what drew you to start this new character? I mean, we kind of talked about the setup of it, but what was your fascination with building out this new character

and giving him the attributes that he had? Well, I know you've spoken to many authors, fascination with building out this new character and giving him the attributes that well i know you've spoken to many authors and one of the things that authors that i mean i know tons of authors and one of the things we all enjoy is world building ah yeah and uh the thing that i got to do with nick is to build a world in which here's this really competent guy in a very mumbled jumbled up world and he's a guy who's going to set things right um and it's a new york city it's it's it's a new york city i know sometimes uh you know there's a kind of kojak view of New York City or a television view of New York City. But if you know New York City at all, it is to know it's a thousand different places. Yeah.

And so Nick's world is both a world of the little guy and of the wealthy and everybody in between. So that was kind of the appeal of putting this type of character in that world. There you go. Now, you've written a series of a lot of different books, ones I think up to 13. Do you have a pretty good vision for turning this into an elongated series like some of your other books? Well, as long as they keep giving me contracts for them.

Oh, there you go. I will keep writing them. It's all about money. But on a, on a less practical point of view, uh, I could foresee this going on and on, but you know, I am not an outliner and I do not write big overarching story arcs.

Like, uh, my longest series is actually nine books from, from book to book. I didn't really know what was going to happen in the next book until I sat down and started writing the book. Ah, well, so this must've been fun though, because you're not stuck in, you know, some old model that you've built and you can kind of be like, Hey, let's build a new whole new world let's uh let's come up with some new things and you could kind of build that foundation out for what you're going to do in the future with this character well that's the thing about world building in a novel or a series is you you find out that sometimes the world you've built for your character can be self-limiting

this world that i've built with nick in it is not at all self-limiting in fact he has freedom to do almost anything wow previous characters i would have made some different choices if i had known when i started it what i knew at the end of it there you go there you go so uh you know there's a the byline from it when you're in trouble you call 9-1-1 when cops are in trouble they call nick ryan and uh what does that mean you want to expand on that a little or we don't want to give anything away i mean i you know like i said if you want i'll read the book we just want to tease it so we don't buy it you know as i kind of referred to before as nick is given the job of kind of being a prince of the city

he the things that get laid on his doorstep are not problems yet that the world knows about but only a very few people in the city know about and And it's his job to make sure that no one, but those few people ever knew that the problem existed. There you go. So it's kind of a fixer. Hi, Voxers. Voss here with a little station break. Hope you're enjoying the show so far.

We'll resume here in a second. I'd like to invite you to come to my coaching, speaking and training courses website. You can also see our new podcast over there at chrisvossleadershipinstitute.com. Over there, you can find all the different stuff that we do for speaking engagements if you'd like to hire me, training courses that we offer, and coaching for leadership, management, entrepreneurism, podcasting, corporate stuff. With over 35 years of experience in business and running companies as a CEO. And be sure to check out chrisfossleadershipinstitute.com.

Now back to the show. How did you make it so he could be like a legal fixer? Do you want to disclose that? How did I do that well one of the great things about fiction is you know i can make stuff up so uh no i i try actually to work within the framework of the law um uh but we all know that people get away with stuff all the time within even, we know that doesn't seem legal or that doesn't seem right, but they get away with it.

And I won't bring up names and I won't bring up politics, but, uh, you know, it does seem like, it does seem like rich people who can hire more lawyers than most people can. Yeah. They seem to get away with more stuff.

They do. I mean, just across the board. Wall Street, you know, everybody. Yeah. It's just the way things are. Yeah, it seems to be. But the people who are Nick's bosses, who, by the way, he doesn't know. No.

They're kind of faceless, nameless people to him. Oh. He has a handler, and even the handler's name isn't his real name. So it's trying to work within the framework of the law, but the people who he works for, they are kind of the law. So that's how Nick gets away with what he does. And he's got safe houses all over the city, and so it's kind of, does it have a grittiness of New York City,

would you say, to it? Oh, yeah. I mean, I don't think you can live even on Park Avenue and not realize New York City is a gritty place. Just by its very nature, New York is a gritty place. I'm sure you've been here. You walk down the street after 8 o'clock at night, and there's piles of garbage in front of the fanciest buildings in the city.

There are rats the size of taxi cabs. It smells great when all the garbage is out. It smells great. Yeah. So, I mean, there's a grittiness that just comes with New York City. Yeah. And Nick's world can get pretty gritty.

But one of the, I think, appealing aspects of the book, other appealing aspects of the book is Nick has an old flame who lives on Sutton Place who was from a very wealthy family. And so Nick operates, like I said before, in many different worlds. And when he's offered this job, they do say to him, you know, sometimes it will come in handy to have somebody who knows the difference between a salad fork and a dinner fork. Ah. Yes. knows the difference between a salad fork and a dinner fork ah so might be a little uh is there

any uh tuxedo james bond wearing me or is just uh maybe society not in book one nick does drive however nick does drive a very cool car ah there you go he drives a 69 gto, a black 69 GTO. There you go. That'll get you around. That'll get you places. And he also has a classic 70s Norton motorcycle. All right. Damn. So, I mean, did you grow up in New York? What was your history growing up?

I grew up in the Coney Island section of Brooklyn. There you go. And so, did you find that your experience and knowledge and growing up in the city really helped you paint a better picture and descriptions in the book? You know, obviously, wherever you grow up, leaves a kind of big impression on you negatively or positively. Where I grew, you know, and it's often mixed. And growing up in Brooklyn in the 60s and 70s definitely had an effect on me. Oh, yeah. I don't know if you know this, but when I was 15 years old, I watched somebody dive a gunshot wound right in front of me.

Holy crap. Yeah, it was an experience that i i will obviously will never forget and i think it kind of helped shape my views of of serious crime yeah we call that fridays around here uh but you know as a 15 year old kid it made a huge impression on me. Yeah, I can imagine someone going that young and stuff. You know what I miss about New York? What? The pizza. Oh, please.

Do you know, the next time you're in New York, I'll take you on a pizza tour. I will hit you up on that, seriously. No, I do. I take Ryder friends. Last summer, I took Lee Child on a pizza tour. Oh, yeah? Yeah, yeah. I take a whole, and and whenever writer friends come into the

city if they want i take them on a pizza tour but of a pizza tour of my local sort of old neighborhood pizzerias not not the ones that get press uh you know or or famous yeah you're the locals you know the good ones yeah yeah you know the good ones. Yeah. Yeah. You know, the good ones, you know, uh, we had John, uh, Katsumitides on the show for his book. And,

uh, he's got a couple of bucks. He promised that if I came out, he would, he would, uh, show me around. I don't,

I don't, I don't put any money in that, but you know what I mean? But we could, we could all bum around together and do a pizza tour. Oh, absolutely. I love it.

I mean, I, I, you know, I'm like, if people have asked me what my last meal would be, and it's a choice between a cowboy steak and a DeForest pizza. Yeah, there you go. So what do you think of Chicago pizza?

No, I'm just kidding. No, no, you can ask. I worked for Pizzeria Uno for 10 years. Oh, did you really? Yeah. And I was one of their restaurant openers. Oh, you can ask. I worked for Pizzeria Uno for 10 years. Oh, did you really? Yeah. And I was one of their restaurant openers. Oh, wow. Yeah.

So which one's better? Oh, please. Actually, the only pizza I found that competes with Brooklyn pizza or New York pizza in general is New Haven, Connecticut pizza. Really? Oh, it's amazing. Connecticut, wow. it's amazing. It's amazing. Does it really come down to the water?

They say that the bagels and stuff in New York are just better there because of the water. It has something to do with the water. Is that part of what it is? The only thing I'm an expert at is writing books. There you go. I thought you were an expert at eating pizza. Well, I'm prodigious at eating pizza. Well, I'm prodigious at eating pizza. Yeah, I think the bagels and pizza here are great, but it could be the water.

It could be proximity to me. I don't know. I know there's a bagel place there that they're opening in L.A., and they're literally shipping the New York water that they make the bagels with out to L.A. to make the same sort of thing. Well, I can tell you what, it'll taste better than the water. I mean, I like the desert Southwest a lot, but the water in the desert Southwest, unless you like the taste of sulfur, it's not wonderful. There you go well you know in i think in california you get that sandy water beach that beach sandy water salt i don't know what that is making stuff up anything more you

want to tease out in the book before we go well well hold on i mean you're gonna read it but there's the cover i promise not to read it but there's the cover of it uh no i i i you know i it's always interesting i mean 32 books in i've done this you know these sorts of things a lot and and what i'm always wary of is giving too much away yeah um i think i think if you like my other books you'll love this book because one of the challenges of a new series is how do you keep your authorial voice, even though you're writing a different character or the difference between writing a series and a standalone is one of the things I always am concerned about is does it still have my voice? Yeah. And I've been told that, yes, people who've read my work, they recognize my authorial voice in this. There you go. Well, people love your voice.

I mean, that's what your fan base really loves, right? They love your writing and how you put things and all that. Yeah, but I'm at a loss to explain why. People like what they like, and I've at a loss to explain why, you know, people like what they like. And I've given up trying to, you know, I know a lot of authors who they do like saber metrics on their books, you know, like baseball. They try to figure out what the audience wants, what they like in their book. I write for an audience of one. There you go me and i hope i hope if i like what's what

i'm writing that they'll like what i'm writing if i'm excited by what comes next i hope they'll be excited by what comes next there you go you don't know yeah well i mean you're 30 plus books in uh evidently something's working yes either that or people are desperate for you know a certain niche of books well they they seem to love it i mean novelists do really well we interview a lot of novels on the show and people love novels they love the suspension of reality i think because reality is kind of not that fun these days. And, you know, they love heroes, I think, too. Yeah, you know, what's funny is I'm not big on heroes. I'm big on Nick, as my description of him sounds very heroic, I think.

But what I think what readers will find when they read the book is that Nick has blind... What makes people interesting are their flaws. That's why I like you, Chris. I have a lot of flaws. You should see them. Ask any of my ex-girlfriends. Yeah. I mean, flaws are what make people interesting, right?

That's why I don't find superhero movies very interesting. I don't either. As pretty as they are to look at yeah i don't find them very interesting because their characters you know are either have only one flaw or no flaws at all nick has plenty and you know the cgi thing it tunes me out a little bit you know i mean i i get people who like the comic book Marvel series and all that stuff But to me I like grittiness What are some old good New York movies

Oh, The French Connection The French Connection My God, what a great I was so upset when Who was the Godfather of course Who was the great Gene Hackman He's still alive.

I was so upset when he retired. I think he lives in Santa Fe or Taos. Yeah. And he wrote mystery novels for a while, actually. Oh, did he really? You know, one of my favorite movies is the early one with

Robert De Niro. It's Martin Scorsese's early one. Mean Streets. Mean Streets. That's a real raw sort of New York movie. Scorsese. Talk about somebody who was very affected by where he grew up in New York. Oh, yeah.

Yeah. There's Martin Scorsese was deeply affected by where he grew up. And Taxi Driver, too. Yeah. I mean, they're gritty. When you think of gritty movies, you immediately think, you know, New York or London, actually, for gritty movies. Yeah.

Pretty movies, you think L.A. Yeah, that's true, huh? It's pretty, but, you know, there's something about the grit of a movie. There's something that gives it that, What's the word I'm looking for? The grit, basically. Yeah. The je ne sais quoi. The texture.

Je ne sais quoi. Yeah. I can't even say that. But yeah, the texture that makes it... It gives it that feel, especially on film or when you read about it. It just makes you... It livens. It's you, it livens, it's an accent that livens up the, the environment.

Well, the real test for a gritty movie or a gritty novel is the, the ability to transport the, the viewer or the reader. That's what I find amazing about reading is, you know, look, it's a book.

Is there anything more artificial than, you know, you're holding this in about reading is you know look it's a book is there anything more artificial than you know you're holding this in your hand you know at least when you're watching something on television or a movie it's washing over you you're you're not really participating but in a book you're holding this thing in your hand whether it's a kindle or a book or whatever and yet you're completely transported if the writing is good yeah you know what they should do is that smell a vision to books where uh you can smell the uh you get that beautiful spring summer uh urine garbage smell and the outside of it kind of feels like a trash can well now now manhattan smells of marijuana oh Oh, does it really? Oh, it's incredible. Better than urine, that's for sure.

Yeah, beats urine and auto fumes. You know, the smells of my youth, yes. You guys are legal there in New York now, aren't you? It is. Yeah, isn't it legal nationwide? Come on, man. There you go. Well, it's been wonderful to have you on, Reed.

Thank you very much for coming on. Well, Chris, thanks for having me. Thanks for coming. I thought this was just the warm-up, man. We're just warming up. I mean, we can sit here. We're eventually running around at things to do, and you will have to read the book, so there you go.

Yeah. Yeah, that's the one thing about novels. We can't get into the middle and the ending. I mean, you're welcome to tell me the ending if you want, but it might ruin things. Yeah, you know. Just quickly, I once did a new authors are very dangerous like first-time authors uh-huh uh because they when you you ask a question like give us a little sample of the book or give us a bill they want to tell you the

whole book yeah and and i once did an appearance with a guy who had his one was one novel out and i had to grab the microphone out of his hand and say you do want them to buy the book you want to buy the book or you gotta tease it out yeah you want to but you can't tell the ending and stuff like that and and of course i think in this the, he gets taken away by aliens, right? Is that the ending? Come on. You promised. That's not the ending folks. I made it up anyway.

Aliens. Uh, so there, cause we all know they live in New York too. I think they're in the Trump tower. Something. My neighbors. Your neighbors back in Brooklyn. Yeah. There you go.

There you go. Well, could you get success in this new book? Uh, give us a.com wherever you want people to find you on the interwebs. Okay. Well, I'm on Facebook. I'm on Twitter. But best place to find me is hiding in my bomb shelter in the back of my... No. ReedColeman.com.

R-E-E-D-C-O-L-E-M-A-N.com. There you go. Thanks for coming on, Reed. We really appreciate it. Well, thanks for having me. It was a lot of fun and hope I get to come back. I would love to have you come back. Come back for all your books.

We've had all the Jack Ryan people on and all the different variations. I mean, it's crazy. So we've got some of the people like the Tom Clancy people. They just come on every two months with whatever the different things are. Yeah, I know a lot. You know, I like know Mark Rainey. We've had Mark on a couple of times. Yeah, he's a good guy.

Yeah. And the pizza tour offer is real. I will hold you to that. This is a binding contract, according to the thing. And then what's his name? Katsaman Titus. He offered something similar. So we'll just call it a party.

We'll just get in a convertible and just get drunk and smash and eat and drive around. Stumble around New York City. Sounds like a great way to get mugged. So there you go, folks. Order up where refined books are sold, but remember, stay at those alleyway bookstores because you might get

bit by a rat and need some tetanus shots or rabies shots. Order up where refined books are sold. Sleepless City, a Nick Ryan novel, will be available for purchase July 11, 2023. And if you order it now, you'll be the first one on your block or your book club to see or read it. Also watch, we've got another great novelist come on the show. You may have heard of him. CNN's Jake Topper will be on the show with us in July or August. So check that out as well.

Also, be good to your friends, neighbors, relatives. Tell them to go to goodreads.com, youtube.com, LinkedIn.com, and TikTok. We're trying to be cool over there. Thanks for tuning in. Be good to each other. Stay safe. We'll see you guys next time. That should have us out.