New Book Spotlight

The Haul

A mini-interview with Gary Phillips

Tell us about your new book?

In the tradition of Donald Westlake’s much heralded Parker series, about a professional thief, The Haul is centered on a cat who goes by O’Conner. We first meet him in the book playing couples pickleball out in Hemet. Could he be more middle-class? But soon we realize this guy has a lot going on. The reader comes to understand O’Conner has over the years laundered his ill-gotten gains into legitimate business – including the chain of auto body repair shops his girlfriend owns. He has a comfortable life, rummaging as they say in his 40s. But the allure of a big-time score is calling to him like the sirens to Homer. Is it the excitement, pitting his smarts against a supposedly fool proof obstacle? Or the fact that this job, aided by insider information, is about ripping off a one percenter? The target is a tech bro’s swank survival bunker (hidden beneath the new arena the billionaire has built for his pro basketball team in Inglewood) loaded with cash and gold, a hedge against the possible coming collapse of the social order or is it the End Times?

Whatever.  O’Conner is in…way in.

What aspect of the book was the most fun to write?

In a heist novel it’s all about the intricacies of planning the takedown, pulling it off, and how the hell does it go south? What are the unexpected complications the mastermind hasn’t planned for. In this regard, The Haul is about that. Where it’s different than other novels in this sub-genre is the reader gets glimpses of O’Conner coming of age as an orphan in late ‘90s L.A., a young teen then known as OC.

If there is one emotion or theme that you would hope that the reader connects with, what would that be?

I suppose a theme of the novel is we are forged in the crucible of our pasts – and can’t escape such.

O’Conner’s previous outings here and here.