Looking over my Shoulder from James W. Ziskin

How has writing crime fiction changed the way you see ordinary people and everyday life—and has it made you more suspicious, more empathetic, or both? 

I don’t believe writing crime fiction has changed the way I act toward people, but I will say that it has made me think about what they’re capable of. As a reader and a writer, the stories that interest me are about regular people who find themselves in extraordinary circumstances. And it’s even more compelling when good people are pushed to do unthinkable things. I’m not interested in stories about evil people doing evil things. They’re dull. No internal conflict for them. It’s so much more satisfying, terrifying, conflicting when an average guy or gal loses control for a split second, crosses the line, and does something horrible.

Why is that? Why do I find that satisfying? Well, for one thing, because once that split second has passed, sanity returns. And with it, guilt. Or maybe regret, remorse. Denial? A marvelous spectrum of emotions and dilemmas presents itself to our malefactor. And for another thing, I wonder if I might not be capable of crossing the line. What if something drove me mad for a split second? Am I a murderer-in-waiting?Now there’s a story.

In general, I don’t trust people I don’t know. At least not implicitly. That’s why I don’t worship actors or politicians. I don’t know what they’re like when they go home to their private lives. Maybe they shrink heads in their basements, or commit unspeakable crimes against human dignity, or worse. All I can do is judge them for their talent or their public behavior. Think of someone like Cesar Chavez or Kevin Spacey. Publicly, one helped millions of oppressed, exploited people. The other was an incredibly talented performer. Privately, they did things that disappointed me. I don’t necessarily hate famous people for their personal shortcomings, but I can’t admire them unquestioningly for their public persona either. I often say that they’ll surely let me down eventually, so why take the chance and gush over them? Why invest emotionally in someone I can’t be sure won’t steal my wallet?

All this to say that my attitudes toward others haven’t changed due to my crime writing. I feel the same today as I did twenty years ago. In life, I give strangers a chance, the benefit of the doubt. But not carte blanche to my devotion. I reserve that for people I know. The ones who have proven themselves worthy of my trust and admiration.

So even if I’m wary of people I don’t know—careful not to put too much faith in them—I don’t walk down the street looking over my shoulder in fear. Rather, I watch them and wonder about their struggles and breaking points. Might they be doing the same with me? After all, they don’t know me. Yes, I wonder about them. About what they might be capable of. What horrible things I might be capable of. I think of that a lot. Then I make up stories about those people (and me).

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THE PRANK…enigmatic and unnerving. The pace never flags for a second. This is some masterly plotting. I loved it.”

—Liz Nugent, author of Strange Sally Diamond

 

“The Holdovers meets The Bad Seed,”

THE PRANK. A picture clipped from Playboy magazine, a missing Swiss Army Knife, and a prank gone terribly wrong conspire to make Christmas 1968 a deadly holiday to remember.

From two-time Edgar Award finalist, Anthony, Barry, and Macavity award-winner James W. Ziskin, THE PRANK releases July 2026.

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