How much work does your title do to take readers into the story?Visit Adam Plantinga's website.
It's a pretty heavy lift. (The Heavy Lift would also be a good title for a thriller). Titles matter, and are hard to pick. Hard Town seemed a good fit to me because it's short and stark and consistent with the book's style and themes. I was going for a dirt-under-the-fingernails kind of vibe.
What's in a name?
Kurt Argento is a name I'm pleased with. His ancestry is half German, hence Kurt, and half Italian, which gives us Argento. Argento is a composite of several cops I've worked with over the years, but I was inspired to name him Kurt because that was the first name of a Milwaukee street cop I know who was a memorably tough piece of meat.
The last name was trickier. I cycled through...[read on]
My Book, The Movie: The Ascent.
Q&A with Adam Plantinga.
--Marshal Zeringue
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