Interview with James Vance Elliott, Author of True Crime Widow
19 Mar 2025
What’s the story behind the story? What inspired you to write True Crime Widow?
As an Irish-American from a Boston suburb with a desire to write what I know, I wanted to set my crime novel in the kind of environment I grew up in, avoiding the mean streets of inner city Boston, which had become something of a cliché. I also wanted to explore how sociopathy might present itself among my characters and what forms it might take, where some “bad” people might appear more mischievous than evil, while other, supposedly respectable characters had a dark side darker than anyone else’s.
If you had to pick theme songs for the main characters of True Crime Widow, what would they be?
I’d like to say “Bad to the Bone”.
What’s your favorite genre to read? Is it the same as your favorite genre to write?
I generally alternate between literary fiction and crime fiction, although I confess to a penchant for science fiction in my younger days.
What books are on your TBR pile right now?
Radium Girls by Kate Moore, James Salter: Pilot, Screenwriter, Novelist by Jeffrey Meyers, Prince of Thieves by Chuck Hogan, and America Fantastica by Tim O’Brien.
What scene in your book was your favorite to write?
The decline and fall of the boorish millionaire, Buckminster Albright.
Do you have any quirky writing habits? (lucky mugs, cats on laps, etc.)
True to my contrary nature, I like to set the text to white characters on a black background when I read through my stuff during the editing phase. That, plus I like to wear my lucky hat.
Do you have a motto, quote, or philosophy you live by?
If you overestimate someone, the worst you’re likely to be is disappointed. But if you underestimate them, and they get wind of that, you’ll have created an enemy for life. (That is why I always prefer to see the best in people.)
If you could choose one thing for readers to remember after reading your book, what would it be?
The voice, the pacing, the psychological acuity, and the inexorable outrageousness of the events that transpire.
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