Gregg Podolski
The Recruiter
DOSSIER: Your highly-anticipated debut book, THE RECRUITER, is about bad people doing bad things. Love that! You say that your protagonist, Rick Carter, is not a hero, and to give us all a hint, your book cover shows a person carrying a gun in each hand. Even better. So, is Rick Carter more like John Wick on a mission, Deadpool without any superpowers, or something else?
PODOLSKI: Rick only wishes he were as cool as John Wick and Deadpool. You know who Rick is? He’s a throwaway villain. In every thriller, there’s a bad guy who the hero discovers halfway through the story. The guy who is the middle man between some lower-level thug and the main boss pulling the strings. He’s in it for like one scene, just long enough to have the hero kick his ass to spill what he knows. Then you never see him again. I wanted to see if I could make THAT guy the hero of an action novel. Yeah, he has two guns on the cover, but that’s just for show. When the bullets start flying, he’s just scrambling to stay alive. That’s why it’s written in first person. I didn’t want to give myself the ability to cheat and switch to another POV during the action scenes. I wanted to keep the reader with the guy who was as scared as they would be in that situation.
DOSSIER: Your popular website, greggpodolski.com, has some of the best book reviews The Dossier’s ever read. Well done! We’re dying to know how you got your mom, your dad, your friend Brian, your son, and most surprising of all—your teenage daughter—to contribute something about your book? (We can’t say “positively review your book,” but at least there are comments.)
PODOLSKI: First of all, me and the 11 other people who visit my site on a regular basis would like to thank you for referring to it as “popular.” As for the quotes, I was going to replace them with quotes from actual authors and reviewers as they started to trickle in, but Brian and my family have threatened to review-bomb me on Goodreads if I do. Publishing is a vicious business, man.
DOSSIER: When and where do you write, and what kind of environment do you prefer? (Absolute silence/Springsteen playing/on the boardwalk at Wildwood?)
PODOLSKI: I wrote this during the early days of the pandemic, usually in my worn, leather La-Z-Boy, after 10:00 at night. The only sound was my dog snoring on the floor. She was a 14-year-old rescue mutt named Rosie, which is short for Rosalita, which is my favorite Springsteen song. So while The Boss wasn’t playing in the background, he was definitely there in spirit. Also, Ocean City > Wildwood.
DOSSIER: You created a Spotify soundtrack for THE RECRUITER that includes material ranging from Starship to Speedwagon. How many of the songs in the playlist are on CDs that you own? We want a number. More importantly, has the size of your CD collection become a domestic issue yet? The Dossier keeps getting random texts from an unknown number about “free CDs” like we’re a potential Columbia House customer. We think your wife got the Dossier’s helpline. Should we call Hoarders or just mail you a penny?
PODOLSKI: Don’t forget Wu-Tang Clan and Taylor Swift! Lest you think I was joking about the CD’s, I’ve included a photo of my ever-growing collection. At last count I had a little over 1,000, but that was several Christmases–and late-night Amazon shopping sprees–ago, so it’s probably closer to 1,200 by now. My wife doesn’t mind at all, however. I’m the chef in my house, and I play CD’s while I cook, so she actively encourages my addiction and nods her head in a Meg Ryan-worthy display of fake interest when I explain how CD’s sound better than streaming music. Fun fact: I recently learned that “Express Yourself” is the Madonna song that gets me dancing the most while I prepare a lasagna, yet had you asked me I would have probably said it would be “Like a Prayer.” It’s these moments of self-discovery that keep me young.
DOSSIER: You do a really cool thing on your website called Beyond Words where you’ve posted short interviews with publishing industry people. It has a lot of great info on agents, editors, and much more. People should definitely check it out. How and why did you get into doing that?
PODOLSKI: Beyond Words serves two different, yet equally vital purposes:
1. It allows me to give proper credit and respect to all the people who played a role in bringing my debut novel to the world. I knew a simple shout-out in the Acknowledgements page wouldn’t be enough.
2. I was told I should write a blog. Or a newsletter. That providing new content was crucial for my site. I did not want to write a newsletter, mainly because that sounded like an awful lot of work. I also had no idea what I could possibly say in a blog that would be of interest to anyone–besides those who share my financially-draining love of outdated physical media–so I thought this would be a nice alternative.
DOSSIER: Why’s THE RECRUITER full of so much humor? The Dossier attempts to use humor in its questions, but we sometimes fail to connect, mostly due to an epic misunderstanding readers have over petty things that normal people call context and appropriateness. You seem to have a similar approach to using humor in your writing, but we’re sure you’ve achieved a much higher success, right? It’s not like Jason Bourne or Jack Reacher are stand up comics or anything, so … why so funny, Jersey boy?
PODOLSKI: Part of me really wants to just send you a YouTube clip of the Joe Pesci, “What am I, a clown?” scene from Goodfellas as my only answer to this question. But the real answer is that being funny is fun, and I like having fun. Humor just naturally finds its way into my work. It’s what I gravitate towards as a fan, too. Shane Black–the genius who wrote Lethal Weapon, Monster Squad, and The Nice Guys, among other classics–was a huge influence on me. I’ve heard him referred to as the Elmore Leonard of action screenwriters. If anyone ever calls me the Shane Black of novelists, I’ll probably just retire right then and there.
DOSSIER: Some of your early work was published and wildly distributed in Highlights. Although the Pulitzer people are insufferable seven-year-old haters and neglected such obvious talent when your story came out, but The Dossier is curious, what did you blow your writers check on … Bazooka bubble gum or Topps baseball cards?
PODOLSKI: Garbage Pail Kids and He-Man action figures, baby. Disgusting, gratuitously violent, highly inappropriate Cabbage Patch Doll parodies on collectible cards, and roided-up space barbarian plastic dolls. In the 80’s, both of these were referred to as, “wholesome entertainment.”
Website: Author Page
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Jeff Circle 