Simon Gervais
The Last Guardian
DOSSIER: How did moving from writing your Pierce Hunt Series to writing the Clayton White Series make you feel about Pierce Hunt? Or your earlier Mike Walton series for that matter. Do you miss them? Do they miss you? Is there a chance for a revival or at least a character mashup in the future?
GERVAIS: As a writer, I spend a lot of time with my characters, guiding them through various plot twists and challenges. I guess you could say that there’s a certain intimacy to that. Pierce Hunt, like all my other characters, was born out of my imagination and he developed, over the course of his three-book series, his own personality and quirks. Saying goodbye to him was bittersweet. I’m still very fond him, but I’m not sure if the feeling is mutual. He did get shot a few times because of me.… Truth is, I owe Pierce a lot. As you might already know, HUNT THEM DOWN was my breakthrough novel, so Pierce Hunt played a pivotal role in shaping the narrative of my creative identity.
When Liz Pearsons, my fabulous editor at Thomas and Mercer, suggested I started a new series, I was nervous. The Pierce Hunt series was selling well, and a new series requires the creation of fresh characters and a new universe. It’s a lot of work and I wasn’t entirely convinced it was the right move, but I trusted Liz and the rest my team at T&M and decided to follow their advice. I wrote THE LAST PROTECTOR, the first Clayton White book. And I’m so glad I did! Liz was right, and my Clayton White series became a major hit. Earlier this year, CBS Studios—with Jerry Bruckheimer TV attached to produce—acquired the rights to the entire series.
I don’t think you’ll ever see my characters in a mashup. Each series has its own universe. It would make no commercial sense to mix them up. Although I’m not closing the doors on bringing back Pierce Hunt or Clayton White in the future, my focus is now set on Caspian Anderson, the protagonist of my new series. The first book, THE ELIAS NETWORK, will come out in September 2024.
DOSSIER: When we met in San Diego this year, we spoke about our shared experiences SCUBA diving in the Virgin Islands, and you talked about it with great passion. Do you see more SCUBA scenarios coming up in your writing like Ian Fleming? Those early Bond films are what got me into diving for sure.
GERVAIS: Absolutely! SCUBA diving is fast becoming one of my favorite hobbies and I anticipate incorporating more SCUBA scenarios in my future books. I think the underwater realm is a fantastic backdrop in which to write suspenseful scenes since it makes it easy to introduce unexpected challenges for characters. It also creates opportunities for a protagonist to showcase a unique skill set.
In the last 18 months, I’ve had the opportunity to dive in the U.S. Virgin Islands, Mexico, the Dominican Republic, and the Bahamas. I’m planning on spending a few weeks in Mallorca next summer, and you can bet I’ll log in a few dives while I’m there. I always do my best to infuse authenticity into the pages of my novels, so whether the scene I’ll write will be an action-packed underwater chase or about some type of discovery that will hold the key to the plot, I honestly believe that my diving experience will contribute to the realism of the scene.
DOSSIER: When and where do you write, and what kind of environment do you prefer? (Music/silence/scenic view?)
GERVAIS: I can write anywhere, but my most productive writing sessions often occur nestled in front of the fireplace at our ski cottage in Mont-Tremblant. The setting is truly enchanting, exceptionally so during the winter months when the snow-covered landscape can be seen from pretty much anywhere inside the residence. I don’t know if it is the soft flickering of the flames, the crackling or the scent of the burning firewood—or maybe it’s their combined effect— but there is something about sitting in front of a roaring fire that always seems to stimulate my imagination.
Sometimes, though, I need to share the space. As much as my wife and I love having guests over at the cottage, I do find it difficult to concentrate on my work when people are talking next to me. Of course, this situation only gets problematic when I’m getting close to a deadline and if my book isn’t as far along as I want it to be. Buying a quality set of noise-cancelling Bose headphones kind of fixed the issue, especially when I have some Hans Zimmer playing in my ears.
DOSSIER: You’re notorious for posting pictures of the places you travel to, supposedly in support of gaining an understanding of certain scenic locations you use as novel settings. How much harder do you think it would be to set some of your scenes if you had not traveled there first?
GERVAIS: My family and I are very fortunate to be able to travel the world like we do. Travelling has had a big impact on me and my writing. However, I think there is a lot a novelist can do even if he or she is unable to travel physically to a specific location. They can do so by relying on other resources like books, documentaries, and online research. Good storytellers will find a way to write compelling books even if they don’t step out of their home.
DOSSIER: You have a strong military and federal law enforcement background in your home country of Canada, but your books are very popular in the US. Do you ever find yourself writing for a particular national audience or a specific segment of a population when you’re putting Clayton White’s counterterrorism skills to the test? (Thanks for leaving out all the metric conversions for us to calculate!)
GERVAIS: That’s a very good question. I write mostly for the American market. Here’s why:
The Thin Black Line (March 2015), my debut novel and the first book in my Mike Walton series, was originally set in Canada and had Canadian protagonists. My literary agent pitched it to several American publishing houses. Many acquiring editors praised the writing style but ended up passing on it because they felt the book was too Canadian. They feared it wouldn’t do well in the United States. The US is the biggest thriller market in the world, and I knew that if I wanted to play there, I needed to make some important changes to the book. It took me a few months to do it—I was still working full-time as a RCMP officer at the time—but I edited the book in a way that would allow it (and me as a writer) to enter the American market. It was the right call. A publishing house acquired it shortly after, and although the series wasn’t a runaway hit, the trilogy still sold more than 75,000 copies. The last book in that series, A Thick Crimson Line, was published in 2018.
In 2018, I switched publishers. That’s when everything changed for me. Hunt Them Down, the first book in my Pierce Hunt series, was published in 2019 and became an instant bestseller.
Publishing is a business. Acquiring editors are looking for books they know—or at least hope—will do well in their market. There’s NOTHING wrong with that. It’s up to us writers to come up with something that will appeal to a mass audience.
*Photo credits: Simon Gervais & Jeff Circle
Website: Simon Gervais | Amazon author page
Jeff Circle 