Adam Plantinga
Hard Town
From the author of the USA Today bestseller The Ascent, a retired Detroit cop must unravel the mystery of a small desert town.
The Ascent was named a Dossier Book of the Year for 2024
The Writer’s Dossier 4/8/2025 – The Adam Plantinga update
DOSSIER: Your hit debut, THE ASCENT, had Kurt Argento escaping the claustrophobic and violent confines of a high security prison. When you heard or read people’s comments about the physicality of your book, what were some of the things that kept coming up? Did your story make people want to avoid prison even more?
PLANTINGA: There’s an act of violence in The Ascent involving a canoe. Readers bring that up quite a bit. It’s not the kind of thing that would show up in any pro-prison brochures.
DOSSIER: In HARD TOWN, Argento is off dealing with a missing person‘s case in a small town in Arizona. What kind of thought process led to you doing such a different setting this time?
PLANTINGA: I’ve always been fascinated by the desert, ever since I was a boy and read Deathwatch by Robb White, which is a gripping desert survival tale. There’s just something about the hard, clean look of the desert and the pressing silence that drew me to it as a setting for the second novel.
DOSSIER: You lived in Milwaukee, and now you’re a police officer in San Francisco. What made you choose Argento to be an ex-cop from Detroit? We’re hoping it had something to do with the movie Beverly Hills Cop, but it’s OK if you didn’t.
PLANTINGA: I grew up in Michigan so I’ve been a Detroit sports fan since I was a kid. I wanted to give a shout-out to the motherland. Plus, it was important to me that Argento had experience policing a tough city, and when I think of tough cities, Detroit is near the top of the list. That’s why he isn’t an ex-cop from Lake Winnipesaukee.
DOSSIER: Winni-what?
The Writer’s Dossier 7/9/2024 – The Adam Plantinga interview
Big blurbs
DOSSIER: Books today can get some great endorsements from established writers, but short of pulling over a bestselling author and tossing their car at night, what is it about THE ASCENT that got the attention of James Rollins, Harlen Coben, Robert Crais (and several others) that was enough for them to give you such glowing reviews?
PLANTINGA: I like to think part of it was I wrote a halfway decent book but it’s also busy people being generous with their time. Maybe they remember when they were first starting out & more established writers blurbed them. Whatever the case, I’m exceedingly grateful. I’ve been reading those folks for years. They’re at the top of the game.
Put him in jail
DOSSIER: Your novel, THE ASCENT, goes next-level deep in a maximum-security prison where several visitors and staff members become trapped and surrounded by violent criminals. How uncomfortable did you hope to make readers about the specter of being trapped in a prison? (One of the things I found most unpleasant about being a cop was having to go inside jails.)
PLANTINGA: I’ve always been fascinated by prisons, the metal and noise, the atmosphere of boredom mixed with the imminent prospect of violence, even on a good day. I wanted the reader to feel that. Then I decided to jack it up a notch by making the security system go haywire in a poorly run prison with awful staffing. Basically my goal was to toss the characters in a meat grinder. There are wolves at the door. And there are a lot of doors.
Adam needs help. Any ideas?
DOSSIER: When and where do you write, and what kind of environment do you prefer? (Thrilling music/deadly silence/on the ferry boat to Alcatraz?)
PLANTINGA: I wish I had a cool answer for you here, like I start writing at midnight in the basement of an old Chinatown tea house using an overturned coffin as a desk, but I have no set process. It’s where and whenever I can, often dictated by my daughters’ club volleyball schedule. I could use a more defined process. Do you have a good one? Maybe I could just borrow yours.
The tough Dossier questions
DOSSIER: You were with the Milwaukee PD for eight years before spending the last fifteen with San Francisco. Both are rich in fodder from which to harvest great cop stories for your writing, but the Dossier is interested in knowing which city’s PD drinks better? Does that Wisconsin beer crowd outpace the SF wine country? We know you eat better in SF! (? Blink twice if you miss cheese curds.)
PLANTINGA: The Dossier asks the questions others are too afraid to, and that’s why I respect it. I think, overall, Milwaukee outpaces SF in the realm of booze, but SF has the culinary edge. The other day I had a BLT at a joint close to my work and told the cashier that the existence of that magnificent sandwich, in and of itself, enhanced my belief in a just and benevolent God.
Criminals say interesting things
DOSSIER: Despite that police work can go sideways in the heat of the moment and you’re focused at the task at hand, have you had book inspiration come in the middle of a situation where you told yourself, “This is a great story for a book,” or does it hit you later that what you just saw would make for some good material.
PLANTINGA: I usually think of it afterwards, when the dust has settled. I want to avoid a situation where I’m right in the middle of arresting an armed, resisting felon and I try to call timeout because I want to record in real time the specific mechanics of our tussle. I will say that being a working cop is advantageous as a writer, because I’m around criminals a lot and they do and say interesting things that I just drop directly in a book. Maybe that’s the lazy way out, but hey, it’s a perk of the job.
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