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Sebastian St. Cyr
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ebastian lived in my head for two to three years before I started writing about him. During that time I came to understand him the way you gradually get to know a friend. I learned about the events in his life that shaped the complex man he is and about his relationship with friends and family—and in the case of Sebastian’s family, things are pretty Byzantine. Each book in the series can be read as a standalone mystery. But there is a definite overarching story that runs through the series, and that’s the story of Sebastian’s personal life. His mother—whom he dearly loved—ran off and left the family when he was a little boy. For years he thought she was dead; then he discovers she’s not. That’s a pretty rough thing for anyone to learn, and the echoes of that hurt reverberate through the books. He has a half sister who actively wishes he were dead, and a tense, complicated relationship with the man he long believed to be his father. He also, not surprisingly, has a burning compulsion to discover the identity of his real father. And after six years as a cavalry officer in the Napoleonic Wars, he struggles with what we’d now recognize as PTSD. All of this helps the reader see Sebastian as vulnerable. Yes, he’s brave and clever and fiercely analytical, but he’s not superhuman. He desperately loves his wife, Hero, and their little boy, Simon, and he worries about them. He watches them sleep and is nearly overwhelmed by the fear of losing them. That’s a real human emotion we’ve all experienced, and we think, He’s just like us.
When I was a kid growing up watching the original Star Trek series, I admired Spock for both his intellect and his calm detachment. Yet the character I dearly loved was James T. Kirk. Like Spock, Kirk was smart. But he was also passionate, a bit cocky, empathetic, compassionate, and fiercely determined to come down on the side of justice. Until I started pondering the question of Sebastian’s relatability, it had never occurred to me that there is more than a hint of the original Captain Kirk in Sebastian. He’s brilliant and heroic, yes; but he’s also so very human.
A N I N T E R V I E W W I T H T H E AU T H O R
© Samantha Lutfi-Proctor
C. S. Harris COULD YOU TELL US A LITTLE BIT ABOUT YOURSELF AND HOW YOU GOT INTO WRITING? I started out in classical archaeology, then switched to become a professor of European history. I didn’t get serious about writing fiction until I was in my thirties and living in the Middle East. It took me a looong time to get published. WHEN DID YOU KNOW YOU WANTED TO BE A WRITER? I first tried writing a novel for kicks when I was twenty years old and waiting for an Australian residency permit to come through. The resulting manuscript was godawful, but I had so much fun that I tucked away in the back of my head the idea that I’d like to be a writer “someday.” HOW LONG DID IT TAKE TO FINISH YOUR BOOK? are The Man Who Loved Cat Dancing and Absolute HOW HAS IT CHANGED SINCE YOU FIRST BEGAN Power. The book that inspired the first had a horrible WRITING? ending. And in Absolute Power, the movie figured I spend about a year writing a book. This series re- out who the story’s main character should have been quires a lot of research. As for how it’s changed, I am and tightened up the book’s seriously meandering, a meticulous plotter. I write a very detailed, scene-by- slow plotline. scene outline before I ever start the first chapter. I’ll vary things if I get a better idea while I’m writing or WHICH THREE AUTHORS WOULD YOU INVITE TO A if something isn’t working, but I’m pretty disciplined. DINNER PARTY AND WHY? Do they have to be living? If not, I’d pick Mark Twain, My plots are so complex that I have to be. Alexander Dumas, and Robert Louis Stevenson. I DO YOU HAVE ANY SPECIFIC OR STRANGE WRITING adored their books as a child and they did so much RITUALS THAT GET YOU INTO A GROOVE? to inspire me to want to write my own stories. Plus I don’t really have any prewriting rituals. No coffee or they’d be fun to meet. chocolate, unfortunately—I’m battling ulcers! Sometimes I’ll play Tibetan singing bowls to relax. I write by DO YOU HAVE ANY ADVICE FOR YOUNG WRITERS? hand, and do require a specific kind of legal pad and a Here’s something I learned the hard way: If your certain kind of pen. After each scene or chapter, I’ll type first manuscript doesn’t sell, don’t keep rewriting it. up what I’ve written and edit it. I reread and edit con- Chances are the story idea is fatally flawed, which stantly as I progress through the manuscript, so that by means you’re just wasting your time. Come up with the time I write the last page I have very little to do in a new story with new characters, and move on. Keep the way of revisions. honing your craft, not the same book. IN YOUR OPINION, HAS THERE EVER BEEN A MOVIE ADAPTION BETTER THAN THE ORIGINAL BOOK? I’ve seen more than a few films I thought improved on the book they were based on. Two that come to mind
WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE THING THAT YOU HAVE RECEIVED IN THE MAIL? That’s easy: my first copy of my very first published book, Night in Eden. I floated on a cloud for weeks.
C. S. HARRIS’S
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5 Favorite Sleuths
ELLIS PETERS’S BROTHER CADFAEL A Welsh monk living in twelfth-century Shropshire, Cadfael is an ex-soldier turned herbalist. He’s inquisitive, determined, and a keen observer of life and human nature. And of course the medieval background is wonderfully done.
COLIN DEXTER’S INSPECTOR MORSE He’s brusque, snobbish, prickly, and brilliant. And the insights into life in Oxford are fascinating.
JAMES LEE BURKE’S DAVE ROBICHEAUX Robicheaux would make a terrible husband—he’s a backsliding alcoholic and his temper leads him to do Really Stupid Things. But his moral compass and basic goodness are inspiring—and Burke’s prose is beyond lyrical.
MARTIN CRUZ SMITH’S ARKADY RENKO Renko is a bleak, quixotic hero who always refuses to take the easy way out when butting up against the corruption of the elites of the Soviet Union, and then, as the series progresses, Russia. It has been fascinating to watch, along with Renko, the transformation of the Soviet Union into Putin’s Russia and all the changes that have taken place—or not—in the last four decades.
JOHN CONNOLLY’S CHARLIE PARKER Parker is an enigmatic, lethal character, and Connolly’s prose is always inspiring. But dark. So dark I have to be in the right frame of mid to read him.
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T H E S E B A S T I A N S T. C Y R M YS T E RY S E R I E S
Discussion Questions 1. When we first meet Sebastian St. Cyr, Viscount Devlin, he has only recently returned
from the Peninsula and is haunted by the things he has seen and the things he has done as a cavalry captain in the war. How have his experiences over the course of the series changed him? 2. When Sebastian first meets his wife, Hero, he knows her only as the daughter of his worst
enemy. How has their relationship altered over the years? 3. Sebastian has a rocky relationship with the Earl of Hendon, the man he believes to be his
father. What are the sources of tension between the two men? 4. For Sebastian, bringing justice to the victims of murder is in many ways an act of
penance. Why? 5. Sebastian and Bow Street magistrate Sir Henry Lovejoy both like and respect each other.
But the two men are very different in their backgrounds, belief systems, and approaches to solving murders. Discuss.
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