Last year we had the pleasure to publish Coy Hall’s A Séance for Wicked King Death which introduced us to the world of Royce Pembrook: a con man, an ex-con, a man pulled back into the world of scams and séances by an old colleague from his past. Push ahead 12 years, Coy Hall brings us back into Royce Pembrook’s world with The Switchblade Svengali which releases in just over a week on November 19th. So we thought we’d get to know the machinations of Royce Pembrook with a quick five questions with author Coy Hall. And afterwards, we get to see the cover for the latest Royce Pembrook thriller.
I’ve always liked crime fiction better from the point of view of criminals. I like it even more when the narrator feels and thinks one thing on the inside and projects something totally different on the outside. In a Lonely Place by Dorothy B. Hughes was influential to me in the development of Royce. A lot of charm and humor on the outside with Dix Steele, but he’s a vicious sociopath on the inside. Hughes plays with that contrast—Dix saying one thing while thinking the opposite. Royce Pembrook came from my desire to write a character in that vein. He’s a likeable man. He’s charming and funny, and he appears kind and selfless at times. But on the inside he’s bitter, resentful, jealous, cruel, selfish, and capable of great violence. You’d never know it talking to him. Say you met him on the bus. He’d talk to you about old movies, and he’d be enthusiastic. He’d make you feel like he was listening to you, caring about what you had to say. And yet he’s ice and iron on the inside. He feels nothing about you. But he pretends. He’s good at that. That’s how he’s gotten through life. That’s how he gets what he wants.
There are many Noir elements in the books: the downward spiral, darkness, and violence are always there. And Royce is a tragic man surrounded by tragic people. Nobody’s winning. Royce has an inescapable void inside of him, and little by little he’s disappearing into that void as life goes on. You’ll see his mental erosion in the twelve years that pass between Séance and The Switchblade Svengali. At their heart, these are crime novels that draw from Noir, mysteries, thrillers, and stories of human monsters. And they’re period pieces that make a character out of the era and setting. With Séance, the 1950s. With Svengali, the 1960s.
Royce’s tales have two levels. On the surface, the reader wants to like Royce, wants to enjoy his humor, wants him to succeed, wants everything to be okay. Deep within, though, the reader knows these aren’t tales of a downtrodden man fighting to free himself from the gutter. The reader comes to understand they’re getting a conman’s version of events. A killer’s version. Royce isn’t an unreliable narrator, but he’s a manipulative one. That comes out more strongly in The Switchblade Svengali.
Royce had nothing to lose in A Séance for Wicked King Death. I wanted Royce to have a lot to lose in The Switchblade Svengali. In twelve years, much has changed in his life for the better. He’s moved across the country to Phoenix. He’s with Dom. His con as a medium has flourished. He has a new con as a hypnotist. He’s financially supported. He’s not in a shithole apartment. He lives well, dresses well. In 1956, he was fresh out of prison and in the dumps. Trouble couldn’t sink him lower, so he took a chance. In 1968, he’s doing what he does best and getting what he thinks he deserves. When trouble enters his life again, it’s potentially disastrous. Ruinous. Mentally, can he handle that? Same character from 1956, but a different man in 1968.
I love worldbuilding in historical fiction. You can’t take anything for granted when you’re writing a story set in the past—and that goes for the material and mental worlds of the time. In that regard, it’s similar to fantasy or science fiction, except you’re recreating a world rather than constructing a new one. As a historian in my day job, I work from a knowledge base I’ve built over the years, but I also do deeper reading (especially everyday life books and cultural histories) when preparing for the writing process. I read 1968: The Year that Rocked the World by Mark Kurlansky, In Search of White Crows: Spiritualism, Parapsychology, and American Culture by R. Laurence Moore, and Dispatches by Michael Herr prior to writing The Switchblade Svengali.
Escapism is another draw. I live in this world every day. When I write a story, I don’t want to write about phones and Twitter. It’s much more enjoyable to write stories set in the past, be it the 1680s like my novel The Promise of Plague Wolves or the 1960s like The Switchblade Svengali.
I’ve been wrapped up in ghost stories lately (planning a ghost tale as my big novel writing project next year). I found an entirely new (to me) avenue in Japanese ghost stories. There’s a 1904 book called Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things by Lafcadio Hearn, and I stumbled onto it because of the film Kwaidan (1964). I was blown away by the book. Surreal and excellent. The tales are in the vein of folklore, set in feudal Japan, and they get under your skin in a different way. Incredibly macabre images are burned into my brain from that one. That book led me to a Penguin compendium of Hearn’s work called Japanese Ghost Stories. It collects tales from three of his books.
With movies, I’m all in for Noirvember. My latest watch was While the City Sleeps (1956), directed by Fritz Lang. What an incredible cast: Vincent Price, Dana Andrews, Ida Lupino, on and on. And I can’t let the month pass without watching one of my favorites, Key Largo (1948). That’s a Bogart classic I watch every year around this time.
Coy Hall lives in West Virginia, where he splits time as an author and professor of history. His books include Grimoire of the Four Impostors (2021), The Hangman Feeds the Jackal: A Gothic Western (2022), and The Promise of Plague Wolves (2023). Find him at www.coyhall.com.
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