By Jay Scott Kanes

HONG KONG – Mainly a writer, not a fists-flying fighter, Irish mystery-fiction author John Connolly gladly wages a war of words on behalf of war veterans.

“People can make their own judgments if wars, like the one in Iraq are justified,” said John, who recently visited Hong Kong for a literary dinner organized by Dymocks bookstores. “Regardless, they have a long-term duty to the people who fight wars in their names.”

Former soldiers frequently need help to cope with their injuries – physical or psychological. Typically, governments and societies neglect such needs and suffer the consequences.

The plot in John's new novel, The Whisperers (2010, Hodder and Stoughton, 410 pages), set in Maine, involves American war buddies home from Iraq who, one after another, commit suicide, presumably due to post-traumatic stress disorder. It's partly a detective novel and partly a supernatural thriller.

Slinging humorous references to rival authors, 42-year-old John enthralled his dinner audience at the Grappa's Cellar restaurant in Jardine House, Central District. His Hong Kong stay followed stops in New Zealand and Australia.

“We know more about the effects of combat stress than we did 60 years ago, yet we still do things that damage the people who fight,” John said. “During the Second World War, the British and Americans realized that three months in a combat situation are enough to break a man. After three months, they sent soldiers to the back of the line. Now the Americans put men in the field for 18 months. We can't be surprised when these damaged human beings go home and have problems. It's not enough to expect them to reintegrate into society.

“The Americans have sent out so many troops. They weren't in a position to bring people back for respite. And they had the stop-loss policy forcing people at their wit's end into second tours.”

In modern warfare, fewer soldiers die, but many more endure serious injuries. Yet the George W. Bush administration planned to close its main military hospital. “If that isn't an act of the most appalling hypocrisy, then I really don't know what is,” John said.

“It's very clear that until recently the United States military had no concept how to deal properly with post-traumatic stress disorder. A lot of publicity shone on why so many Iraq veterans were killing themselves. Now the number committing suicide exceeds those dying in the field.”

John chose to write about the impact of war on returned soldiers after talking with Tom Highland, a friend who fought in Vietnam. “Tom told me how post-Vietnam syndrome had affected not just him, but his family and other people around him.

“As a writer, I'm like a magpie, always looking for shiny things. But the worst thing I could do would be to pull up a soapbox and wave a finger at my readers,” John said. “What's interesting about genre fiction is that readers sign on for a good plot and interesting characters. Then you can slip other things under the wire.”

Irish-born, John has a colorful past. Earlier, he worked as a journalist, barman, waiter, mail-sorter and much more, but never a soldier. “I have no intention of ever being a soldier,” he said.

Sometimes John still writes for The Irish Times. “Having been a journalist, I look for stories that interest me,” he said. “Usually, I find a non-fiction underpinning.

“Journalism makes a good background. Experts on anything can be terrible at writing about it. Often they find it hard to pick out the essentials, and they get mired in details. In a story or newspaper piece, people don't want so many details. Instead, they want the essentials to be true and an essential truth to be revealed.

“That means getting to the point. I'm always ready to ask every dumb question. I'll amass a huge body of material and then throw away 90 per cent of it.”

Although based in Dublin, John spends much of his time in Portland, Maine. That's where he retreats to work in semi-seclusion away from his family and dogs. “It's a place to get away, especially when trying to finish a book and needing to work without interruptions. If I try to work at home in Ireland and the sink goes, then I'm on call. I can't just say, ‘I'm engaged in my great master-work.’ ”

So Maine, a place John knows well, makes a logical setting. “It hadn't been covered much by crime writing. In that sense, it was virgin territory.

“But no one in Maine regards me as a local. Even people with four generations buried there may be ‘from away’. I'm under no illusions about being part of the community there. I'm not, and I like that. I like having a distance from what I write.”

John’s 12 previous books include: Every Dead Thing (his first novel, 1999), The Killing Kind, Bad Men, The Black Angel, The Book of Lost Things, The Unquiet and The Reapers. Troubled private investigator Charlie Parker, his most regular character, appears in nine novels, including The Whisperers.

The first novel starred Charlie and took five years to write. “It began with the idea of a man returning home to find everything he cared about taken away,” John said. “It's a terrible liberation when the worst thing that can happen does. What's left to fear? So the books became about grief, loss and identity.”

Is Charlie a lot like the author behind him? “I've never had him say anything I don't believe,” John said. “He shares my views on war. He has plenty of me in him, but I'm not him.

“I have an ending in mind for Charlie and the series, but I don't know yet when I'll put that into place. I still enjoy writing about him. I'd hoped to let him grow old because that'd change the nature of the series.”

The most enjoyable part of writing novels is the solitary creation. When a book reaches stores, John worries. “It's not that I care what anyone says about it, but the better a book sells, the greater my freedom to do other things. Every writer worries about being dropped, like every actor worries about not getting another job.

“There's always the aspect that you're only as good as your next book. That thought never leaves – especially if you're trying to get better each time, and especially if you experiment. I enjoy having the freedom to experiment.”

John's confident he'll never exhaust his ideas or ambitions. “That's not the problem. The problem is running out of time. As writers age, they often publish more. They feel the Reaper on their backs and don't want to die with too many ideas still stuck in their heads.”

For more information: www.johnconnollybooks.com


Dining with John means a memorable meal.


The author bears a bumper sticker
from a real bar that graces his fiction.