Critical Mick

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Reviews by the Clown that All Other Critics Want to Strangle with a Black Turtleneck

What the Butler Never Saw

The Cat Trap author K.T. McCaffrey has seen things that even the butler never saw. K.T. tells Critical Mick secrets about a woman trapped within police tape, about why writing each installment of a series does not get easier, about fear of Tarantino and a story he will never write. Unruly email interview, March 2008.

Critical Mick: So! Ever trapped a cat?

K.T. McCaffrey: When my wife's cat population in the house grew to five I decided enough was enough. So, I said to her, 'either the cats go or I go – you have one day to think about it. A week later there were seven cats in the house. They stayed ... and, yeah, I stayed too. Cats versus men – no contest.

Critical Mick's review of K.T. McCaffrey's The Cat Trap

CM: Seriously: in a previous career, you used to publish Business & Finance magazine. Have you had any contact with the privileged superrich set described in The Cat Trap? (The closest I come is driving past Co. Kildare and Meath stud farms on the way to work.) KT: Back in the late 60s, early 70s when I was studying art (among other things) in the NCAD I lived with an uncle and aunt who owned The Silver Tassie in Loughlinstown. To earn a few bob I worked as a barman and a wine waiter. Back then, the Tassie was regarded as one of the better steak houses in the Dublin area and attracted a fair smattering of toffee-nosed customers. I must have been ok at my job because from time to time I was invited to some of their big houses to serve as a cocktail waiter at their private home functions. To these sort of people, I was invisible, so they simply behaved as though I wasn't there. I saw things even the butler never saw; it was quite an education for a young lad not long up from the country. CM: The prologue of The Cat Trap is absolutely brilliant. In intricate detail, it plants questions in big, bold, evil letters, and it plants 'em deep.

KT: Thanks, I'm so pleased you saw it that way because that was exactly what I set out to try to achieve. I think it's good to give the reader an idea from the get-go of where the story is about to take them.

CM: Go on, give us the pitch: what happens next? What question or conflict compelled you to write The Cat Trap?

KT: Truthfully, I don't know exactly where the ideas come from. I get several half-baked thoughts in my head and link them together until some sort of theme emerges. Some of the incidents are taken from real life, like, for example, the episode where one of the women is rating her sex partners' prowess – yep, I based that on something I heard back as a cocktail waiter. I hate to admit it, but yes, I know several of the women who feature in my writing – of course they'd never recognise themselves.

CM: What scene/person/event in The Cat Trap will readers be surprised to hear is actually real life and not fiction?

KT: Well, now, there's one episode in particular that's pretty close to the bone. It concerns a swimming coach who is caught sexually molesting his young charges.

CM: The Cat Trap in your sixth novel. Do they get easier? What have you learned in one through five?

KT: They don't get easier. They don't get harder. On the plus side: you get to know what the characters will and won't do. Negative side: it can be a bit tricky getting the main traits of the recurring characters across to the reader without falling back on stuff used in the earlier stories.

CM: DI Jim Connolly is the name of one of the characters who runs around in this book. Is the name a reference to James Connolly of 1916 fame?

KT: Nope! Never made that connection. I have a friend named Jim Connolly and I thought his moniker fitted my main detective.

CM: I was glad to see that the main character of The Cat Trap was not a bog-standard policeman, but an investigative reporter.

KT: In another life, I got to know a few investigative journalists and liked the way they operated. I could never compete with the likes of Bruen's DS Brant or Michael Connelly's Harry Bosch so I opted for something I felt better equipped to handle.

CM: Why did you choose to rename The Silver Granite pub in Palmerstown? (from the directions to Cloverhill prison given by the bartender, The Granite is the only place it could be.)

KT: In The Cat Trap, the young bar man is a little out of order so I thought is best not to have the owners come after me with a writ.

CM: Series versus Stand Alones. Discuss.

KT: Each time I finish an Emma Boylan story I decide that the next one will be a stand alone story. But then, when my ideas start to come together, I hear Emma in the background saying – I can do that, I can do that. Also, Emma has built up quite a following so, for as long as she remains interesting, I'd be foolish to let her go.

CM: Same question I put to Laura Lippman: Was there a fear before letting the nine-to-fiver with its steady income go? Was there fear after, or have you never looked back?

KT: Giving up the nine-to-five job was like jumping out of a plane without a parachute, hoping for a soft landing. And by God, it was scary for a while but the leap of faith paid off in the end. I earn less now, for sure, but I have no regrets and feel happier and more content than I've ever been in my life.

CM: How old were you when you wrote your first novel?

KT: I was 47 when I wrote my first book.

CM: What did you do for an outlet before then?

KT: Before being infected by the writing bug I suffered from an equally addictive affliction: theatre. I travelled to just about every drama festival on the island with the Leixlip Theatre Group, sometimes acting (badly), sometimes directing and sometimes just going along for the ride. For me, there is quite a similarity in how one blocks out and conducts the pace of a play with how a book is constructed.

KT: My other great vice is music. I couldn't live in this world without Emmylou Harris, Lucinda Williams, Guy Clarke, John Prine, and Haggard & Jones.

KT: Guess that makes me a shit-kicker.

CM: What was wrong about the first story you ever wrote?

KT: Huh! Do we have to go there? The first one I wrote was a fantasy – Harry Potter before Harry Potter sort of thing. Thankfully, it was never published. After I'd finished it I realised that fantasy wasn't for me. I was far more interested in reading crime fiction and realised that that was the genre for me. The fantasy story had one positive result though: it let me know I had the stamina to write a full length novel.

CM: What was right about it?

KT: Sweet FA.

CM: Tell me about a story that you will never write (a notion, character, situation etc from your discard pile).

KT: There is one, yeah. A few years ago I had a notion to write a story about the graphic design industry and all the back stabbing and double-crossing that goes hand-in-hand with it. Dealing with mad marketing managers who think they rule the world, delusianal, PR heads who get you to crawl through shit for them then kick you in the teeth – and then there are the unpleasant ones. Yes, that's the book I'll never write because brother, I was that soldier.

CM: What's the last thing that you read that was so good that despair made you snap all your pencils and shatter all your pens?

KT: I read the odd lousy book but a huge amount of good books. The bad ones piss me off but the good ones make me want to get on to the keyboard straight away. The last book that got me all fired up and excited was Thomas H. Cook's Places In The Dark. I just wished I'd written it – got me going, though.

CM: Nice plug for Ken Bruen's The Guards in The Cat Trap!

KT: Perhaps readers are a wee bit jaded with the American and British format of crime fiction and see the Hiberno-noir as fresh, original, different, and quirky.

CM: Have we read any of the same shtuff? (Critical Mick Full alphabetic index) Was my review way off about them?

KT: I've read quite a few of the books you've reviewed including two of the titles on your bog-roll selection which, unfortunately, I felt similarily disposed to. I loved your review of Tana French's In The Woods.

KT: It's a review Jim, but not as we know it.

KT: Tana is a true wordsmith. Her descriptive prose sets her apart from many of her contemporaries which to some people is a good thing, and to others, who like their crime fiction fast-paced, a pain in the ass. Me, I think there's room for both approaches. I like to feel I fit somewhere in the middle of the two extremes.

CM: Have you wrapped up that seventh Emma B book? What project are you working on now?

KT: I'm just about there with the 7th Emma Boylan outing. The working title is 'Who's Afraid Of Tarantino?' but my publisher – or Tarantino himself – might have something to say about that. We'll see! Tarantino features – in a good way – and it represents something of a change of direction for me, though Emma is still riding shotgun.

Editorial Note: If Critical Mick has never been kneecapped over that stupid Zombentio thing, K.T. McCaffrey is probably safe.

Editorial Note II: A secret link to Zombentino (starring Quentin Tarantino, Dustin Hoffman, Jim Kelly, Natalie Portman and Richard Kiel) is hidden somewhere on this page.

CM: What's on your nightstand at the moment?

KT: I'm half way through Cormac McCarthy's The Road. I enjoyed the movie No Country for Old Men and decided to find out a bit more about its author.

CM: Many thanks, Kevin!

KT: My thanks to you, Mick.

CM: Bonus question! Anal bleaching-?! WTF?!

KT: I swear to God, I heard two women talking about it recently and just had to look it up on the Internet. It was too good not to work it into The Cat Trap.

KT: Hmmm, maybe I should get out a bit more often, what ya think?

Note to readers: he does not trap cats. No animals were harmed during the reading of this novel.

Visit www.ktmccaffrey.com for details on novels and artwork by K.T. McCaffrey.

Yo! This interview transcript and all content on the DFA Guide site are copyright 2008 Mick Halpin. All links to other sites and documents are copyright to whatever source wrote something cool enough for Mick to give it a referral. Try to claim them as your own work and bad karma will catch up with you, baby. Believe it.

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This Page Was Last Updated On 30 March, 2008.