Episode 51: Steve Goble

Destination Mystery

Spider John Rush resigned himself to the hard truth--he was returning to a world of cut and thrust, hide and pounce, blood and smoke, pitch and tar. He had been foolish to think of leaving that world; Spider John belonged in no other. -- Steve Goble, The Bloody Black Flag Debut author Steve Goble takes on murder, mayhem -- and pirates! The Bloody Black Flag is a swashbuckling adventure with mystery at its heart. Criminal Element gives it a crackerjack review right here, and you can keep tabs on Steve as he writes the second -- and third! -- Spider John adventures by checking out his blog. You can also follow him on Facebook. Steve and I chat about mysteries, but also about pirates and the great books out there for those of us who love nautical adventures. The gold standard is, of course, Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson, with Patrick O'Brian's work a close second. In nonfiction, Steve also gives a shout-out to David Cordingly and his book, Under the Black Flag; Nathaniel Philbrick's In the Heart of the Sea; and Captain Bligh's Portable Nightmare by John Toohey. And the term "Pirate Noir"? He credits that to mystery writer Craig McDonald, who used it in a review of The Bloody Black Flag. Well said, matey! As always, if you'd rather read than listen, a transcript is below. Enjoy! -- Laura ************************************************************************ Transcript of interview with Steve Goble Laura Brennan: Steve Goble may be a journalist and a mystery writer, but at heart, I suspect he may be a pirate. His debut novel, The Bloody Black Flag, has been dubbed “pirate noir,” and the swashbuckling is only matched by the multiple mysteries that surround the pirates and our hero. Steve, thank you for joining me. Steve Goble: Thank you for having me. I really appreciate this. LB: Okay, "pirate noir." I have to ask, did that come to you in a dream? How did you come up with pirate noir? SG: Honestly, the phrase belongs to Craig McDonald, one of the authors who blurbed my book. I generally described it as Robert Louis Stevenson meets Arthur Conan Doyle. But he came up with pirate noir and, you know what? I kind of like it. I guess the inspiration for the book came from my own love of seafaring fiction, pirate stories, Patrick O'Brian, Robert Louis Stevenson, all that kind of stuff. But I also grew up reading Sherlock Holmes and Nero Wolfe, Travis McGee and tons of mystery fiction, too. I don't know exactly where the idea hit me to combine these two loves into one great mashup book, but once the idea hit me, I couldn't stop myself. I had to write it. LB: Fantastic. Well, let's talk a little bit about you. So you always did want to write fiction? SG: Oh, yes. I fell in love with books at a very young age and always had that in the back of my mind. I was a kid in school who wrote his own comic books -- I couldn't draw them, but I could write them. I just always had that in the back of my mind. LB: So how did you then end up as a journalist? SG: You know, I think part of that is the same thing that draws me to mystery fiction. One of the things I like about mystery fiction in crime fiction is that I think there's a sense of justice in those books that doesn't always play out in the real world. You know what I mean? The bad guy tends to get caught, people tend to get what they deserve. And I see journalism as my way of helping to make those things happen in the real world more often. Expose corruption, tell the truth, get the news out there. So I think those are intertwined a little bit. LB: And you were writing short stories all the while? SG: Yes, I wrote short stories for a number of small-market magazines that the majority of which no longer exist. And I wrote a lot of different kinds of things. I tried to write some science fiction, and I wrote some what you would call sword and sorcery stuff. Action-oriented things along the lines of, say,