Walking the Tightrope with NZ Crime Writer Ben Sanders

[Editor/Author Note: With Ben Sanders’ new novel, The Stakes, set to be released in early 2018, let’s take a trip down memory lane with this interview originally published by cargoART Magazine.]

Though 26 year old New Zealand crime writer Ben Sanders always held vague hopes of one day turning his love of writing into a career, he could never really anticipate the level of success he would be greeted with.

Sanders’ latest work, American Blood has already garnered the attention of some Hollywood bigwigs, with rumours that award winning actor Bradley Cooper is committed to the project. “I started work on the book in February 2014 and when the manuscript was only 50 pages long, I sent it off to my editor in New York, just so he could get a gauge of what my progress was like and how things were coming along. He thought that maybe it was at the point where he could start showing it around to film studios,” Sanders says.

“It was really nothing I had any involvement with … but obviously it’s every writer’s dream to have a Hollywood dream come along because if a movie is made eventually, it’s such a powerful marketing angle and exposes your work to such a huge audience. That was very exciting for me.”

His fourth novel, American Blood is the first of Sanders’ books to be published internationally, and the process was a learning curve for both author and publisher, who signed him up for a US deal under the provision that he write an American novel. “That was exciting. It was obviously quite a drastic change to go from writing about Auckland, New Zealand to Santa Fe and Albuquerque and New Mexico. It was a really nice challenge,” he says. “The publishers had their work cut out for them trying to eliminate all the Kiwi-isms and New Zealand turns of phrase from my work.”

But it was a leap of faith that Sanders’ publishers felt justified in taking. Not only is he receiving critical acclaim from reviewers, he is also well regarded by his contemporaries. Australian crime writer Michael Robotham has praised Sanders’ work and his characters have garnered comparisons to those of crime writing heavyweights Lee Child and Robert Ludlum and his previous novels have topped the New Zealand Fiction Bestsellers List, however he remains humble about his success.

“In some ways it’s really nice to have the association with [such great writers] but ultimately I’d like to cut my own path through the genre and seen to be doing something new and fresh. It’s always a bit of a tightrope in this genre because it’s such a big field and there are so many talented writers. I hope that I can break a bit of new ground eventually.”

Sanders has always had an intense love of storytelling and from his teenage years honed his creative writing skills in his spare time. “I started when I was about 14 or 15. I just loved stories and I wanted to create my own. I’ve never really lost that feeling because I want to keep myself entertained and it’s something I love.”

However as graduation drew nearer, he was uncertain that making a career of his hobby was quite the way to go, instead choosing to study a Bachelor of Engineering while tinkering with his writing on the side. It was a gamble that paid off, with his first three novels being written while he was completing his studies. His first novel The Fallen was published in 2013 and was so well-received he wrote two other novels featuring his protagonist Sean Devereaux, By Any Means and Only The Dead before moving onto create the main character of this new series, ex-NYPD detective Marshall Grade.

“[I’ve always loved characters] who have to rely on themselves and through their own resourcefulness get themselves out of terrible situations,” Sanders says. “Marshall’s very hands on and is very capable of dealing with unpleasant people in that sense of the term. He’s got a great sense of humour and has his tongue in his cheek a lot of the time. He’s got funny quirks and opinions. Despite the fact that he’s got a capacity for violence, I think people will find him amusing enough that they want to keep coming back for the next installment hopefully.”