In Mackay’s Every Night I Dream of Hell (Mulholland, Apr.), criminals and crooked cops grapple for control of Glasgow.
This is your first novel using the first-person perspective. What was it about tough guy Nate Colgan that made you decide that it was his voice you wanted to bring forward?
Nate had been lurking in the background in my previous books, and I’d long had the urge to drag him into the spotlight. What really attracted me to writing from his perspective was the contrast between the idea of Nate I’d built, that of a violent, fearsome character, and the reality of him as an experienced employee of a criminal enterprise with a lot to lose. One of the ideas behind Every Night I Dream of Hell was showing how precarious Nate’s life could be, how even a supposedly strong man like him is one bad choice away from catastrophe, and having the opportunity to show him realize it for himself was especially appealing.
The plot of Hell revolves as much around power dynamics as it does around the actual crimes committed. What interests you about this constant push for control, both in and outside a criminal organization?
It’s always all about power. The chance to enrich yourself, to protect yourself from the consequences of your decisions, to reward friends and punish enemies, it all comes from grabbing the levers of power and holding on tight. The same motivation and strategies that inspire leaders in organized crime have obvious parallels elsewhere, motivations like the need to control the message while persuading others you’re a valid leader and then to silence dissent once you have control. One element I find fascinating is persuading people to believe their ears and not their eyes, to listen to the message you give them rather than analyze what’s happening right in front of them.
The city of Glasgow plays a big part in Hell, as it does in all your novels. How important is setting for you when you write?
The challenge of writing about organized crime in a city comes from showing the place through the people despite the fact that the people at the center of the story are actively trying to avoid the rest of the world. Some of my protagonists have been people seeking to hide their role, separating themselves from their city, and that’s occasionally pushed Glasgow further into the background, but any setting’s role in a book is less about bricks and mortar and more about personality. Glasgow provides an ideal setting for these sorts of books: a vibrant place with a strong sense of itself, both its past and future, that can intrude on the lives of anyone choosing to live within it.
