Written in Stone

By TOM MAXWELL

BLACK magic, the occult, murder -- anyone who read his thrilling debut novel, Mr Clarinet, will know that Nick Stone has a certain fascination with the darker side of life.

But what do you expect from someone who was born on Halloween, who had to pack heat in Haiti for fear of kidnap and whose great aunt was the personal assistant to a savage dictator?

And if that isn’t enough to whet your appetite to buy his new book, KING OF SWORDS -- a prequel to his best-selling, Mr Clarinet -- the former amateur boxer may just give you an uppercut to chew on.

“In Mr Clarinet, you had a ringside seat. King of Swords actually moves that seat soulside, so readers will find themselves right there with the characters, listening to their thoughts, homing in on the damage,” says the winner of the CWA Ian Fleming Steel Dagger for Best Thriller of 2006.

“It’s set in cocaine-era Miami (1980-82), and details Max Mingus’s -- now/then a cop -- first and near-fatal encounter with his nemesis, the Haitian gang leader, Solomon Boukman.

“It’s a wild dark ride, which begins with a routine -- if slightly bizarre -- discovery of a body in a monkey zoo, and then mushrooms out in a very dark and wild ride that’s a cross between Macbeth and Miami Vice (the series, not the film)."

So, delving into deeper, darker territory then?

“It’s a lot darker than Mr Clarinet.  For a start, the body count is way higher, because the novel’s set in Scarface-era Miami, when the place was Murder Capital USA for about five years running, with murders averaging over 600 a year,” says Stone.

“Secondly, the Miami PD at the time was very corrupt. Thirdly, racial tension was running at an all-time high, because the city was recovering from the McDuffie riots in Liberty City in 1980, and also because of the new influx of Cubans from the Mariel boatlift.  Like Mr Clarinet, the city’s anguish is mirrored in the characters’ anguish."

Plenty of room to develop characters, as Stone confirms.

“You find out how and why Max Mingus went down the vigilante road.  You find out about his relationship with his former boxing trainer-turned police boss, Eldon Burns.  Max belongs to an elite sub-unit of the Miami PD, which basically operates like a paramilitary death squad and tilts the scales of justice to suit it.  And then there’s Joe Liston, Max’s partner, who’s struggling to keep his dignity and do the right thing in this morass of corruption and sedition.

“And those are just the good guys.  Unlike Mr Clarinet, King of Swords is a parallel narrative, also focusing on Solomon Boukman and his voodooesque gang, The SNBC -- Saturday Night Barons Club -- so named because of a human sacrificial ritual they perform on Saturday nights.

“Shadowing Max’s role in his organisation, is a member of Solomon’s -- a Haitian pimp called Carmine Desamours.  Carmine, although a grown man, is trapped in an abusive relationship with his tarot-reading voodoo priestess mother, Eva. 

“Eva is, quite possibly, the nastiest character I’ve written to date.  Although Carmine seems quite repulsive on the outside, you find out why he turned the way he did.  Evil isn’t born.  It’s taught.”

But the facts surrounding Stone’s interest in the world of crime and corruption are almost

stranger than fiction.

“My great aunt Therese Thebaud, was Francois ‘Papa Doc’ Duvalier’s PA in Haiti,” he says. 

“She was terrified of him.  Towards the end of his reign, she used to carry a Bible, a bottle

of holy water and a Derringer two-shot pistol on her handbag.  The Bible and holy water were

 to ward off the evil spirits she felt all around the National Palace, where she worked.  The

Derringer was for her, in case the religion failed.

“One day, in 1969, the American Ambassador called with an urgent message about a potential coup plot against Papa Doc.  She went to find Papa Doc, but she couldn’t.  He wasn’t in his study, or in his bedroom, or in the dining room.  She was eventually sent to a room she’d never been to, but had heard about.  It had no windows and was painted all red.

“She went in and saw Papa Doc sitting at the head of a long table, flanked by the most senior members of his secret police -- the Tonton Macoutes.  They were all wearing their trademark dark glasses.  None of them looked at her as she went in.  They were all frozen, in a kind of trance.  As she got closer, she saw something in the middle of the table.  It was the head of one of Papa Doc’s political opponents.

“Being a consummate professional, she went over to Papa Doc and delivered the message. ‘Tell him I have the head of the plot with me now,’ he replied.”

Frightening stuff. But even Stone has managed to find himself in the wrong place at the wrong time.

“There’s a chapter in Mr Clarinet where Max is attacked by a bunch of feral kids,” he explains.  

“That actually happened to me in Haiti. There were about a dozen or so kids, with the ringleader in a grubby white suit. My life was saved by a US Marine called Al Diaz.  I’d been drinking with him for a few hours before and every half-hour he’d be urging me to ‘Get yourself a gun’.  Having never owned one, I told him it wasn’t necessary.

“Luckily for me, Al came out of the bar when the kids had picked up rocks to brain me.  He fired a few shots in the air and scattered my would-be assailants.

“The next morning he drove by my house and gave me two Glocks.  I never went anywhere in Haiti without a handgun.  Thankfully, I never had cause to use it.  One time I did get surrounded by people in traffic.  This was usually a prelude to carjacking -- very common in Haiti -- and a possible kidnapping.  So I took my gun out from under the dashboard and waved it at them.  They split. 

“Nowadays, in Haiti, they would probably have taken out THEIR guns -- mostly ex-US army ordnance -- and said ‘What?’

“I’d love to set another book in Haiti -- modern Haiti -- but I can’t go there right now, because kidnapping’s a national industry. 

Stone's future, however, after picking up yet more plaudits -- a listing in Waterstone's 25 authors of the future and the International Thriller Writers Association award for best first novel -- seems destined for the more sedate territory of the best-sellers' lists.

“The next book is the sequel to Mr Clarinet.  I was actually going to close out Max’s story with King of Swords -- but there was some unfinished business to take care of.”

KING OF SWORDS is published by Penguin Books, priced £12.99