The Steen Machine

Pulp Pusher readers will already be familiar with Dutch writer Jochem Vandersteen and his street smart protagonist Noah Milano, now in the second Pushed for Answers session Mr Vandersteen reveals the gritty character's genesis and just what the hell Xena has to do wid any a'this!!

By Jochem Vandersteen

SOME of you might know me as the webmaster of Sons of Spade, the site / blog that spotlights the fictional private eye. Others might know me as the author of the Noah Milano crime stories. Noah is of course a Son of Spade, but maybe even more so a son of Kenzie. Yes, I mean Patrick Kenzie, the PI in Dennis Lehane’s great PI novels.

When I discovered Lehane’s novels I already was a pretty big fan of Spenser, Elvis Cole and Myron Bolitar. At that time I was cranking out supernatural stories featuring tabloid reporter Harvey Banks and thinking about trying my hand at a PI story. Reading Gone Baby Gone kicked my creativity into overdrive.

Here was a PI that was still pretty young (like me), had a cool car, liked rock music. Different from the type of PI I was slowly becoming tired of (divorced, boozing ex-cop that liked jazz) I decided this was the way to go for the new millennium’s private eye fiction.

After thinking up several backgrounds that would make Noah a

credible investigator I was reminded how much I liked Xena’s

(yep, really folks, the warrior princess of the sometimes cheesy

fantasy show) quest for redemption.

I decided being an ex-criminal would make a pretty interesting

backstory. Because I wanted the character to be still heroic I

made him a criminal more or less against his will, forced by

his gangster dad.

After his debut on the Thrilling Detective website I wrote his first full-length novel “White Knight Syndrome” and kept him busy in several short stories appearing all over the web.

In all or most stories we see him struggle with right and wrong, trying to be a good person while becoming entangled in violent situations. Helping out people without becoming a criminal. Sometimes he manages to, sometimes he fails.

On my site www.sonsofspade.tk I am constantly looking for the next big influence for me and other PI-writers while trying to keep the genre alive. Helping me are several books I can review and very much so the interviews with other creators.

So, if you like the PI genre and want it to stay alive, visit the site or read one of my stories and books. Who knows, you might get inspired as well.

:: Jochem is currently busy writing the second Noah Milano novel called 'A Star is Gone' and will be putting out a collection of Milano short stories as well. Both will probably be out somewhere in 2008.

:: Pulp Pusher runs Mr Vandersteen's short story, featuring Noah Milano, Silence is Deadly, here