{"id":22607,"date":"2025-07-11T13:19:43","date_gmt":"2025-07-11T17:19:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/?p=22607"},"modified":"2025-07-11T13:19:43","modified_gmt":"2025-07-11T17:19:43","slug":"nick-kolakowski","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/the-bull-interview\/nick-kolakowski\/","title":{"rendered":"Nick Kolakowski"},"content":{"rendered":"

Nick Kolakowski is the author of several crime novels, including Where the Bones Lie<\/em> and Payback is Forever<\/em>. His work has been nominated for the Anthony and Derringer awards, and his short story \u201cScorpions\u201d appeared in The Best Mystery and Suspense 2024<\/em>. His short fiction has appeared in numerous anthologies and magazines, including Mystery Weekly<\/em>, Shotgun Honey<\/em>, Rock and a Hard Place Press<\/em>, and more.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

FR: <\/strong>I’ve read a few of your books, and personally, I think WHERE THE BONES LIE, is your best one yet. I truly enjoyed the fast paced read. The setting is in Hollywood and you are a NYC\u00a0guy. What made you go with Hollywood with this story? What was the draw?<\/p>\n

NK:<\/strong> I was an entertainment journalist for many years, which sent me to L.A. frequently. I spent a lot of time hanging out with PR people, fixers, photographers, makeup artists, entertainment attorneys\u2014all the people who keep the magic machine running. And in the off hours, over a few drinks and a couple of tacos, those folks tell stories. I\u2019d always wanted to write a detective novel and I\u2019d always wanted to take the interesting, funny, cool, off-the-record tales I heard and turn them into something fictional; this book gave me a chance to tackle both of those things.<\/p>\n

Like many a crime author, I\u2019ve also spent my life obsessed with the contrast between Hollywood\u2019s glitz and its gritty underbelly. I see it as a microcosm of America itself: we\u2019re always selling an image of what we are, but that image is secured with blood and plunder. I didn\u2019t want to hammer that theme too hard, but I wanted my characters to live in a world where that dichotomy isn\u2019t quite holding anymore, and things are beginning to come apart: the wildfires and dried-up lakes and ancient skeletons and everything else spooky and dangerous in the book are all symptoms.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

FR: <\/strong>The main character, Dash,\u00a0is a wonderful, funny, and complex character. He is a clean-up man, crappy comic, and a P.I. that’s an interesting combo. Tell us about Dash. How do you imagine his past before the book, and where he is now in the book, and why is he doing the things he’s doing?<\/p>\n

NK:<\/strong> I always imagined Dash as the kind of questing soul who never quite found what he was looking for, which made him vulnerable to joining a very bad profession. The book digs quite a bit into his past as a fixer for the studios, cleaning up some nasty and deadly messes. If a Hollywood star accidentally kills a guest at 2 AM and needs the body tossed off a canyon road far away, Dash is the kind of guy who shows up with a handful of garbage bags, a car with a big trunk, and a shovel. And Dash was excellent at that, at least, but he\u2019s also not a total psychopath\u2014eventually, you soak up too much pain for keep going.<\/p>\n

So he quits. And when the book opens, he\u2019s trying his hand at becoming a standup comic, and it\u2019s not going well for a simple reason: he\u2019s not very funny. He\u2019s treating standup almost like psychotherapy, pouring his issues onto the audience. Fortunately, before he can humiliate himself too much onstage, his old boss approaches him with an offer to use his old, bad skills on a very sensitive job.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

FR: <\/strong>Without giving away the end, and even though it’s a fast-paced book, there are some loose ends the reader is wondering if will come together. You tie them up wonderfully. How was the process of doing that at the keys? Maddening? Fun?<\/p>\n

NK:<\/strong> It was maddening because I couldn\u2019t quite figure out the ending. During the outlining stage, I had a temporary finale in place that I intuitively sensed wouldn\u2019t work, but I decided to keep it for want of anything better. As I was writing, my moment of truth with this crap ending crept closer and closer\u2026 and once I was upon it, I was still out of ideas that really gripped me.<\/p>\n

My solution was to stop writing. I\u2019d done this before\u2014I have a habit of putting half-completed manuscripts down and coming back to them later. I shifted onto another project, trusting that my subconscious would puzzle it out if I left it alone long enough. I\u2019m a huge believer in Cormac McCarthy\u2019s theory of the unconscious, that it\u2019s a \u201cmachine for operating the animal,\u201d an invisible butler that does your cognitive work while you focus on other things. In this case, my unconscious began spitting up fragments, images: wildfire, a return to a haunted house, a way to wrap everything up. The images stitched together, became a new ending that really gripped me.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a little freaky to trust that beast inside, but it\u2019s always worked for me. You can\u2019t force these things; a reader can sense when your writing is passionless and synthetic.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

FR: <\/strong>In a world full of P.I. novels, and I\u2019ll admit, a lot of them I don\u2019t like because it\u2019s the same. However, you create a much different kind of character. I really enjoyed Dash. You avoided a lot of P.I. tropes, or if you used them you put a fresh spin on them. Tell us a little bit about avoiding those things because Dash is a complex guy, seems he\u2019d rather be doing something else, even if it\u2019s comedy.<\/p>\n

NK:<\/strong> The classic detective-fiction authors such as Hammett and Chandler were effectively inventing the genre as they went, and those tropes were relatively new for a little while; but I feel like modern detective novels follow those same beats and character tics because their authors assume that\u2019s what the audience wants and expects. And I\u2019ll admit, reading a detective novel and running into a well-worn trope can be like sliding beneath a warm blanket on a cold winter night: comforting and familiar.<\/p>\n

But that\u2019s not what I wanted. I didn\u2019t want to try some kind of postmodern deconstruction of the detective genre, because that\u2019s pedantic and I\u2019m probably not smart enough to pull that off in an engaging way, but I did want to make Dash interesting by having him subvert a lot of those tropes in a way that I hoped felt engaging and fresh. For example, Dash isn\u2019t a bare-knuckle brawler like so many detectives\u2014he\u2019d rather run or jabber his way out of a bad situation. He\u2019s also not seamlessly intuitive in the manner of, say, Sherlock Holmes: he struggles to put the pieces of the mystery together, which I think is something that anyone who\u2019s ever sweated over a puzzle can relate to.<\/p>\n

Aside from those detective tropes, I wanted Dash to evolve over the course of the book into something radically different, character-wise. A lot of series detectives, they\u2019re deliberately kept the same from book to book, because I think their authors are concerned about continuity or confusing their readership; I find that a bit dull, because people change. Dash wants to become better, and the book\u2019s central mystery helps him achieve that\u2014although maybe not quite in the way he expects. At least it compels him to abandon a disastrous career as a standup comic, which is where we find him in the beginning.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

FR: <\/strong>You are a huge supporter of crime fiction and noir. I imagine you spend a lot of time reading it. Give me five of your favorite dead crime and noir writers, and five of your favorite crime and noir writers writing today. The Nick Kolakowski essentials.<\/p>\n

NK:<\/strong> Let\u2019s tackle the dead first:<\/p>\n

Donald Westlake writing as Richard Stark:\u00a0<\/strong>The king, the O.G., the ultimate craftsman. I read and re-read the Parker novels over and over again, not only because they\u2019re entertaining as hell, but because he does such effective, mind-blowing character and plot work. (Interestingly, I\u2019m less passionate about the Westlake-as-Westlake novels.)<\/p>\n

Elmore Leonard:\u00a0<\/strong>Nobody does dialogue better. Some critics complain that Leonard\u2019s plots don\u2019t really move, but I disagree: he\u2019s smooth, he\u2019s quick, and he\u2019s not flashy about it. He makes it look easy.<\/p>\n

Patricia Highsmith:\u00a0<\/strong>Beautifully intense psychopathy.<\/p>\n

Jim Thompson:\u00a0<\/strong>I don\u2019t think anyone ever captured the grit and desperation of the criminal life better than Thompson. You don\u2019t write like that unless you\u2019ve lived it.<\/p>\n

Chandler\/Hammett:\u00a0<\/strong>These guys hammered it out for everyone else.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n

Now let\u2019s hit up some of the living:<\/p>\n

S.A. Cosby:\u00a0<\/strong>He\u2019s funny, he\u2019s visceral, he\u2019s\u00a0vicious\u00a0when he needs to be. With every book, he\u2019s taking a particular subgenre\u2014heist, serial killer, revenge drama\u2014and running it through the filter of rural noir in ways that are utterly distinctive.<\/p>\n

Ivy Pochoda:\u00a0<\/strong>Shit, I wish I wrote half this well.<\/p>\n

Steph Cha:\u00a0<\/strong>Your House Will Pay<\/em> remains one of my all-time favorite L.A. noirs, one of those intergenerational sagas that grip you by the guts.<\/p>\n

James Ellroy:\u00a0<\/strong>The devil dog is still going strong.<\/p>\n

Jordan Harper:\u00a0<\/strong>Sometimes you get artists or musicians who produce a straight-up masterpiece every time\u2014I\u2019m thinking Kubrick, Tom Waits, etc. Harper falls into that category: his every book is a masterclass in crime fiction.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n

FR: <\/strong>Madeline is a wonderful character. I like how she and Dash go back and forth. They are funny together, and the book is packed with humor, which I find refreshing because so many writers forget about humor like it never existed. You brought Madeline to life, tell us about her, the story inside of her, and what she brings to the book, and Dash’s story?<\/p>\n

NK:<\/strong> When the book starts out, Madeline is a lost soul\u2014more lost than Dash. When I was building her, I swiped elements from my own life in my early 20s: the Navy greatcoat, the sarcasm, the constant hunting for \u201cmeaning.\u201d But she\u2019s far more damaged than I was at that age, and I structured her damage to complement Dash: for example, she\u2019s impulsive while he\u2019s calculating, fun while he\u2019s reserved, and so on. I wanted her to serve as the yin to his yang, in a way where they make each other stronger at the broken places, to crib Hemingway.<\/p>\n

As I was writing this book, I realized I was developing a multi-novel pattern of having two protagonists who spend the story bantering with each other, probing and growing and (sometimes) going down in flames hand-in-hand. The married couple in \u201cLove & Bullets,\u201d the brother-and-sister team in \u201cBoise Longpig Hunting Club,\u201d etc. From a plot and thematic perspective, I think it\u2019s easier to have two characters interacting with each other, moving the plot forward, than to exist solely in one character\u2019s headspace; you have less of a chance of being bogged down.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

FR: <\/strong>Datura put together an excellent book. Beautiful cover, crips pages. I love paperbacks. I can bend the books, roll it, stick it\u00a0in my pocket, go for a walk, sit down, crack the spine and read. The book has great blurbs from the likes of Meg Gardiner. How was it working with Datura?<\/p>\n

NK:<\/strong> Datura has been fantastic. They\u2019re fully committed to somewhat older-school detective and crime fiction, which is refreshing\u2014for the past few years, I\u2019ve felt like the number of presses and imprints truly dedicated to the genre has been declining. They\u2019re also extremely author-friendly, and working with them on developmental edits was a breeze.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

FR: <\/strong>Often the best music is straightforward. If done well, often the best books are straightforward. Your story here is straightforward, at least in the barebones, then it goes off the rails, but in the best way, until it ties up at the end. Tell the readers about this process, and your overall approach with this great book of yours.<\/p>\n

NK:<\/strong> This was the first book that I\u2019ve ever outlined beforehand. For all of my previous novels and novellas, I was a pantser, which is a lot of fun in the moment but leads to tons of rewrites, and even the final result can have its meandering bits, weird cul-de-sacs, things that don\u2019t quite click together. With BONES, I think outlining it allowed me to keep it more focused as a narrative, even if the outline didn\u2019t stay consistent throughout the process\u2014as I mentioned, the ending changed, and there were a few other things lost because they were interesting but didn\u2019t quite work within the overall arc.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

FR: <\/strong>Dash has some struggles\u00a0with PTSD. Tell us about the importance of those struggles and how they shape the character and the book?<\/p>\n

NK:<\/strong> The struggles are critical. At his core, Dash is a character who\u2019s very good at doing bad things, and he\u2019s made a handsome living off it. But bad things have a way of cracking your soul, and Dash at the beginning of the book is crumbling to his foundations. He\u2019s having nightmares, waking flashbacks, and relying too much on alcohol to get through the day. The rest of the narrative asks the question: can people change who they are, and is that enough to close up those psychic fissures?<\/p>\n

Madeline doesn\u2019t suffer from PTSD to the same extent, and she hasn\u2019t done the same level of awful things, but she\u2019s also someone dealing with immense amounts of trauma, and who wants to change for the better. That\u2019s her starting point. Without her and Dash dealing with their respective issues, the book simply doesn\u2019t have a heart.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

FR: <\/strong>What’s next for you? Are you working on anything new? Doing readings with the book? Let the readers know where they can snag a copy of this wonderful novel.<\/p>\n

NK:<\/strong> The book is available everywhere! Supporting your local indie bookstore is important, so I\u2019d beg you to order from there. Depending on how BONES sells, I\u2019m hoping for the chance to do a sequel, which I\u2019ve already started outlining.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

BONUS:<\/p>\n

FR: <\/strong>I asked you in the interview your essential dead and living crime and noir authors. You invite Dash to your\u00a0NYC home. You two are having\u00a0a crime and noir movie marathon. Give us a list of your essential crime and noir films, five or six. And as you are having the movie marathon, what NYC foods are you ordering for you two, and what drinks are you pouring?<\/p>\n

NK:<\/strong> We\u2019re starting with Out of the Past<\/em>, the Mitchum film that I regard as probably the finest of the classic film noirs; it\u2019s a masterpiece, and while it\u2019s held with high regard, I\u2019m always disappointed that it doesn\u2019t get more love from crime aficionados.<\/p>\n

If we\u2019re staying in the classic vein, we\u2019d move onto Chinatown<\/em>, which I think I\u2019ve seen 30-40 times\u2014you don\u2019t need me to tell you why. No matter how many times I see it, that ending always hits me like a hammer.<\/p>\n

We\u2019d probably move from there onto Croupier<\/em>, with a very young Clive Owen, which is probably my favorite British noir after Get Carter<\/em>. Owen is so cool in it as a writer who tries to build a dual life and fails\u2014but also succeeds in some ways?<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t think any crime-film marathon is complete without Michael Mann, so we\u2019d likely start up Collateral<\/em> next. It\u2019s Tom Cruise\u2019s finest role, and probably Mann\u2019s most streamlined film, with a nihilistic beat at the end (\u201cGets on the subway\u2026 dies\u2026\u201d) that I just love.<\/p>\n

For the fifth, we might want a bit of a cleanser by watching something trashier. Den of Thieves<\/em> gets a lot of crap as the meathead version of Heat<\/em>, but there\u2019s something about it I find compelling\u2026 maybe in how it tries so very hard to be a great movie, and maybe misses the mark, but there are some genuinely solid heists and shootouts.<\/p>\n

Dash and I, we\u2019d order pizza. We\u2019d probably stick to seltzer water, or one of those non-alcoholic beers that are surprisingly decent\u2014Dash is trying to stay away from drinking.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019ve spent my life obsessed with the contrast between Hollywood\u2019s glitz and its gritty underbelly. I see it as a microcosm of America itself: we\u2019re always selling an image of what we are, but that image is secured with blood and plunder.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":182,"featured_media":22608,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[232],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22607","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-bull-interview","writer-frank-reardon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22607","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/182"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22607"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22607\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22609,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22607\/revisions\/22609"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22608"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22607"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22607"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22607"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}