Ed Duncan is the acclaimed author of Pigeon-Blood Red, a suspenseful and action-packed noir crime thriller. In it, readers are whisked from the streets of Chicago to the sunny shores of Honolulu following the complex enforcer, Rico, who soon finds himself caught in an impossible decision. What We Reading sat down with Ed to discuss everything from superb character development to his love for Carlos Ruiz Zafon!
Thanks for speaking with us, Ed! First off, tell us a bit about yourself and what led you to the world of writing.
I have enjoyed writing since my English composition days in high school. I always planned to write a novel when I got the chance, but I never found the time until after a career of practising law. Along the way, in 2008 I wrote a legal treatise entitled Ohio Insurance Coverage, which I updated annually through 2012, the year I retired.
Talk to us about Pigeon-Blood Red. What’s it about, and what was the main influence behind it?
Pigeon-Blood Red tells the story of an underworld enforcer who is in pursuit of a small-time businessman who has stolen a pigeon-blood red ruby necklace worth millions. (“Pigeon-blood red” refers to the hue of the most valuable rubies in the world and is said to mimic the color of the first few drops of blood that trickle from the nostrils of a freshly killed pigeon.) He trails the thief from Chicago to Honolulu, but the chase goes sideways after the hardened hitman develops a grudging respect for a couple of innocent bystanders who accidentally become embroiled in the crime: the thief’s unsuspecting wife and an old flame who steps in to help her as the enforcer closes in. The hitman must decide whether to follow orders and kill them or spare them and endanger the life of the woman he loves.
The novel was inspired by a trip I made to Honolulu years ago. I was attending a legal seminar when, during an evening stroll around the grounds of my hotel, the idea for the novel came to me. Although I didn’t make the connection then the main influence behind it was probably The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett. The plot of that novel is well known due to the iconic 1941 film noir of the same title based on it starring Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman. I came to see that the pigeon-blood red necklace in my novel is a stand-in for the diamond-encrusted Maltese Falcon that gave rise to passion, intrigue, and murder.
What struck us most about the book was how complex a character Rico felt. You never quite knew how to feel about him. Talk to us a bit about how you came up with him and the process of writing a protagonist like this.
I wanted to write a complex antihero to contrast with Paul, the character I had planned to be the hero and main character. That is how I came up with Rico. As I said, when I began the novel, Paul was meant to be the main character, but Rico wrested that title away from him. Both men have interesting backstories, but the more I developed Rico’s character, the more he fought to become the central focus of the narrative. The more I tried to rein him in, the more he resisted until he finally won. Once I surrendered, the character essentially wrote himself.
While this was not my thought process as I wrote the character, in retrospect, Rico is in many ways an amalgam of three of my favourite movie characters. Interestingly, two appeared in westerns that were based on eponymous novels, Shane, starring Alan Ladd and Hombre, starring Paul Newman. The third is Bullitt, starring Steve McQueen. What each main character has in common is that all are essentially loners, and all have codes of their own. Unlike Rico, though, all three are on the right side of the law.
Do you think your character writing is your most defining feature as an author?
Yes, I do. Multiple reviewers have said how taken they were with Rico. In addition, many have commented favourably on the character development in the three novels comprising my trilogy. I agree with them! I find it much easier and also more interesting to focus on character development than, for instance, on exposition. That said, I also like plot development and by design all my novels are fast-paced and, I hope, action-packed.
What would you say has been your biggest success so far?
I would say that my biggest success so far has been simply imagining a trilogy of crime novels consisting of three separate plots that bring together, in dramatic life-or-death situations, two main characters who outwardly have nothing in common but who, under the surface, are very much alike.
If you could go back in time to one book you read for the first time, what would it be and why?
The book I would go back to would be The Shadow of the Wind (La Sombra del Viento) by Carlos Ruiz Zafon written in 2001. The novel defies easy description, but it is simply magical. Seldom have I been so captivated by an author’s use of language and, mind you, I read the novel in its English translation. I read and write Spanish fairly well, but not fluently. Yet so taken was I with the novel that I bought a second copy in the original Spanish with the idea of re-reading it in Spanish. (I haven’t gotten around to it yet, but I will!)
If you could go back in time and give yourself one tip either for writing or publishing a book, what would it be?
The one tip I would give myself would be to take to heart the truth (and beauty) in the following quote that is attributable to several authors, including Hemmingway: “Writing is easy. All you have to do is sit down in front of a blank sheet of paper and open a vein.”
And finally, what do you hope the future holds for you and your writing?
I hope I have one more novel in my future. Dashiell Hammett only wrote four and I’ve written three. Although I’ll never write one as accomplished as The Maltese Falcon, to my knowledge Hammett never wrote a single screenplay and I’ve written three (all unproduced, of course). So, if I never get around to writing that fourth novel, maybe that makes us even.
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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).
