Trey Stone is a Norwegian crime-thriller author. Ahead of the release of the latest entry in his The Columbus Archives series, A Form of Revenge, we here at What We Reading caught up with him to better understand the man behind the writing.
Thanks for speaking with us, Trey! First off, tell us a bit about yourself and what led you to the world of writing.
Hi, I’m Trey and I’m a Norwegian, metal-head, archaeologist, thriller writer. I’m in my thirties, living on the southwestern coast of Norway at the moment, and I’ve always enjoyed telling stories. I recently moved house and found a bunch of my old schoolwork from primary school. In that box were a bunch of “books” I’d made by folding and stapling pages of paper together and writing and drawing stories in between the pages. I remember doing that – barely – but in my mind I made one or two. Turns out, it was at least thirty.
Anyway, I guess my point is, I always enjoyed making up stories. In our teens, a friend and I used to email short stories to each other while we worked boring summer jobs, and in my early twenties, I made an attempt at a first novel. It was a horrible fantasy thing that never went anywhere, but it made me realize that this whole writing thing is… well, a thing you can do. A thing anyone can do. So, since my mid-twenties, I’ve been writing thrillers.
Give us a bit of an insight into A Form of Revenge and how it fits into your series, The Columbus Archives.
The Columbus Archives is my first series, a set of crime thrillers I planned when I first started writing, and A Form Of Revenge is the third and final book in the series (at least for now). The series focuses on three agents within a special unit in the FBI and each book follows one of them through various ordeals and troubles. It all comes to a final point in A Form Of Revenge, which focuses on Jordan Greer, our main protagonist.
Greer is a brilliant agent and colleague, but a flawed man who doesn’t always do well with authority and following rules, and at the start of A Form Of Revenge, Greer has lost everything: his career, his friends, his whole motivation to carry on with anything, really. His friends try to get him to care about stuff, but he won’t have it.
Then, a stranger from Greer’s past comes knocking. This stranger believes Greer is the only one who can help him solve a case from way back when, when the stranger was accused of murder. They kidnap Greer and string him along on a crazy and violent goose chase. Only problem is – Greer can’t remember who this person is, or how Greer is supposed to help them.
What is the number one goal you want readers to take away from reading the book?
I want them to be thrilled, excited, and surprised of course! You never know what’s
what until the end in my books, but I hope that it makes the reader think as well. That they see the deeper meanings in the relationship between Greer and his friends and former colleagues.
I hope that if the reader has read the two previous books, they look back and see how it all comes together in the end. (And if they haven’t, I hope the readers of A Form Of Revenge go back and get the two previous books. They can be read in any order, though they’re best enjoyed chronologically).
“I want readers to be thrilled, excited, and surprised”
What do you think makes you stand out as an author?
I write meaningful, real characters, and I don’t put too much in between. Maybe it has to do with being Norwegian, or maybe it’s just who I am, but I like to be direct and not use too many words when I don’t have to.
That’s not to say that I don’t like jerking the reader this way and that and try to confuse them as I string them along. But the story, at its core, is right there in front of you.
Also, I write fast-paced, cut-to-the-marrow stuff. My editor often tells me to stop and smell the roses, because I forget about that stuff myself when I’m writing a draft.
Talk to us about one of your biggest successes so far.
I mean, this is the third book in a series I planned out around 7 years ago and now it’s finally here. So, I think this is it. I even dedicated this book to myself because I’m proud of what I’ve achieved and that it’s finally real. I hope readers will enjoy it as much as I have, and I know there’s a handful of dedicated souls that already have.
There’s also my psychological thriller At The Gate which was published last year. I’m immensely proud of that book, it has beautiful interior artwork and an excellent cover, and I’ve got to say, the story is magnificent. There are also a couple of projects that are in the works, which – by the time they’re out there to talk about – I’ll be very excited about. One is a story in an anthology by the magnificent Lost Boys Press and another is an episode for a podcast by Inked In Gray.
But it all started with the series of books I’m finishing now with A Form Of Revenge, and I’m proud to see that all that effort has accumulated in something. One thing is saying or thinking or planning to do something, another thing is actually doing it.
If you could go back in time to one book you read for the first time, what would it be and why?
The Passage, by Justin Cronin for sure. It’s not a very old book, but it’s one of the first ones I read after going to University and basically spending five years reading nothing but course material. I always enjoyed reading and I read tons of books, cartoons, and graphic novels when I was younger. But then I moved to the UK to study archaeology and reading became kind of a chore. After a long day of studying at the library or writing papers, sitting down with a hefty book was kind of the last thing on my mind.
I remember it was one of my wife’s classmates who came around one day with the first handful of chapters of the Passage. He got them for free somewhere, from a website or bookshop or something, and he gave them to us, saying that he liked it well enough but wasn’t going to bother with the rest of the book.
Well, that reignited my love for reading. It’s strange – The Passage is about a post-apocalyptic, zombie-infested world, which is a premise that I never really enjoyed watching on TV or in movies, but as a book I loved it. If I could go back to reading that for the first time, not knowing anything about it or how it ends… That would be amazing.
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Actually, I’ve only read it that one time and that was years ago. I still have it upstairs on my bookshelf, maybe it’s about time I re-read it!
What do you think is the biggest obstacle facing aspiring authors these days?
It’s difficult to answer on behalf of all aspiring authors because you know… your mileage may vary, but for me, it’s definitely reaching the readers. I have no problem sitting down to write things, I never suffer from writer’s block and I don’t mind rewriting, revising, and editing.
But I struggle with putting myself out there. Just talking about myself often feels too much like bragging that I can practically feel the bile rise in the back of my throat. So, in today’s world where you’re expected to put yourself out there, everywhere, all the time, on a website, on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat, Reddit, LinkedIn, Tumblr… it’s all a bit much sometimes.
I’m happy to have been doing this for a while now that I have a steady bunch of followers in all the different places, but it’s still not easy, especially not when you don’t find that stuff easy. Sometimes I dream about teaming up with someone who could just be the outgoing, public face of our author team, and I’ll sit in the back, in the dark, pouring out stories. At the same time, I try to make myself better at the stuff I know I’m bad at – so here I am!
“I have no problem sitting down to write things, I never suffer from writer’s block and I don’t mind rewriting, revising, and editing.”
If you could go back in time and give your younger self one tip, what would it be?
Don’t stop. Follow those dreams. Don’t forget about them. I told you about how I used to write when I was younger. When I moved house I also found two paper clippings of things I’d written. It was two, weird short stories that I assume my mom had sent into the local paper. They weren’t good, but they were there, and I had written them and someone had put them out there.
And I’d forgotten all about them.
So, I would tell my younger self to keep doing those things. Tell stories, play the guitar, be creative, and create things. You never know where it will take you.
And finally, what do you hope the future holds for you and your writing?
I hope to do more of it and reach more people. I don’t mind having to work a day job (I’m an archaeologist after all, and that’s pretty cool), but I want to be able to keep creating. To put books out there, write short stories and podcast episodes, and have people read them and like them.
Who knows, maybe one day one of my stories will be someone else’s ‘The Passage’ by Justin Cronin, and what I do will inspire them to create something too.
That would be pretty cool.
Follow Trey on Twitter @TreyStoneAuthor or at Trey-Stone.com
Check out our interview with fellow author J.S. Clark
Part-time reader, part-time rambler, and full-time Horror enthusiast, James has been writing for What We Reading since 2022. His earliest reading memories involved Historical Fiction, Fantasy and Horror tales, which he has continued to take with him to this day. James’ favourite books include The Last (Hanna Jameson), The Troop (Nick Cutter) and Chasing The Boogeyman (Richard Chizmar).
