CHARLES ARDAI is an entrepreneur, writer, editor, and television producer, best known as the founder and CEO of the pioneering Internet service Juno and founder and editor of Hard Case Crime, a line of pulp-style crime novels by authors ranging from Stephen King and Michael Crichton to James M. Cain and Gore Vidal (not to mention Lawrence Block, Ed McBain, Donald E. Westlake, Erle Stanley Gardner, and Mickey Spillane). His own writing includes fiction and non-fiction published in dozens of magazines and anthologies, as well as five novels, among them the Shamus Award-winning SONGS OF INNOCENCE, which the Washington Post called “an instant classic.” In addition to the Shamus, Ardai has received the Edgar Allan Poe and Ellery Queen Awards. He was a writer and producer for six years on the TV series HAVEN, and in 2016 produced the acclaimed all-female production in Central Park of William Shakespeare’s THE TEMPEST. A summa cum laude graduate of Columbia University, Ardai lives in New York. Charles and I spoke recently about new Hard Case Crime books, the current book by a legendary filmmaker and prominent writer, and his favorite cinematic moment.
You can visit Hard Case Crime's site here.
Dave Watson: What's new at Hard Case Crime?
Charles Ardai: We just published the first novel by film director Brian de Palma, co-authored with former New York Times editor Susan Lehman. It’s called Are Snakes Necessary? and it’s a terrific read. Of course, people are largely stuck at home because of the pandemic, so I don’t think too many people will be dropping by their local bookstore to pick up a copy. But the silver lining is that people may have more time on their hands to read, and the book can be delivered to you in hardcopy or ebook form. All our books can, and a stack of Hard Case Crime novels definitely make a good distraction from the headlines.
Our books can be ordered in ebook form from Amazon or any other site from which you buy ebooks. For Amazon, order here, it's handy.
You can also have our physical books delivered by mail from Amazon! Or if you’d prefer to order from a local bookseller you can look up any of our titles at indiebound.org.
DW: With Are Snakes Necessary?, you've taken a legendary filmmaker and prominent writer. What's unique about this union? What did each writer bring to this work?
CA: Brian is a brilliant filmmaker, very visual, gifted at devising suspense scenes and ingenious plots; Susan took that framework and developed the characters and their motivations, why they do the things they do, their personal history, their interior landscape. It works not just because they’re both such talented writers but also because they’re partners – it was clearly a fun thing for them to work on as a couple, and the resulting book was stronger than I think either of them would have made it on their own.
DW: Hard Case Crime has been going strong for almost two decades now. What's the continued draw?
Great entertainment never gets old. Disney has been making movies for almost a century and people keep buying tickets. Marvel has been publishing comics since 1939. People love great stories about interesting characters, stylishly presented, and that’s what Hard Case Crime offers. And our books have a lot of variety – it’s not like they’re all detective stories, or all heist stories, or all suspense stories. We offer the full range of hardboiled crime fiction, so someone could read through our entire catalogue and never get bored. I know, because I’ve done it!
DW: Are you still taking manuscripts?
CA: We’re still happy to look at submissions from any author, any time. But we don’t take very many manuscripts. We get more than 1,000 submissions each year and only ever have one or at the very most two open slots to fill, meaning we have to say no well over 99% of the time. More like 99.9%, in fact. So we’re a very hard market to crack. But as long as people know that going in, they’re welcome to give it a try.
DW: Are TV/streaming/film adaptations on the way? Haven appeared to be a departure for you as well.
CA: We’ll see! In addition to Haven, which was based on Stephen King’s first book for us, The Colorado Kid, there was a Quarry miniseries on Cinemax, based on Max Allan Collins’ series of books about a Vietnam War-era hitman. We’re always in discussions with Hollywood about other books it might be fun to adapt, and we’d love to see it happen. But these are multi-million-dollar productions and it’s not easy to get them off the ground. We do have a few irons in the fire, though, so you might see some more Hard Case Crime material filmed in the coming years.
DW: What's next?
CA: In August it’s the great Ray Bradbury’s centennial – he would have turned 100 this year – and to celebrate that occasion, we’re very excited and proud to be publishing Killer, Come Back To Me, a brand new, definitive collection of Bradbury’s crime fiction. It’s a collection of his 20 greatest crime stories, including some rare gems and some flat-out classics, and we’re making it a gorgeous package for collectors, with interior art and handsome endpapers and really nice, heavy paper and a ribbon marker – or if you just want to read the stories and that’s all, you can grab it in ebook and enjoy that way.
And in November we will be publishing the first new novel Max Allan Collins has written in more than 30 years about Nolan, his master thief, who starred in 8 previous novels in the 1970s and 80s but hasn’t been heard from since. It’s very exciting to have Nolan back. We know his fans will be glad to see him again, and for anyone who hasn’t read the original Nolan novels we’ll also be bringing those back in 4 new editions, two novels in each volume. The new book is Skim Deep, and the volumes that follow will be Two for the Money, Double Down, Tough Tender, and Mad Money.
DW: What's your favorite cinematic moment?
CA: Oh, there are so many! Too hard to pick one. The giant boulder in Raiders of the Lost Ark, Gene Kelly with the umbrella in Singin' in the Rain, the kiss reel at the end of Cinema Paradiso – so many. But a friend recently reminded me of one scene I’ve always loved but hadn’t watched recently, so in her honor I’ll choose that one: Dorothy Malone as the sly, confident bookstore proprietor, flirting with Bogart in The Big Sleep. Nothing sexier than a girl who reads. Especially if she reads Hard Case Crime.
Clip: The Big Sleep
Dave Watson, founder and editor of Movies Matter, is a writer and educator in Madison, WI.
You can visit Hard Case Crime's site here.
Dave Watson: What's new at Hard Case Crime?
Charles Ardai: We just published the first novel by film director Brian de Palma, co-authored with former New York Times editor Susan Lehman. It’s called Are Snakes Necessary? and it’s a terrific read. Of course, people are largely stuck at home because of the pandemic, so I don’t think too many people will be dropping by their local bookstore to pick up a copy. But the silver lining is that people may have more time on their hands to read, and the book can be delivered to you in hardcopy or ebook form. All our books can, and a stack of Hard Case Crime novels definitely make a good distraction from the headlines.
Our books can be ordered in ebook form from Amazon or any other site from which you buy ebooks. For Amazon, order here, it's handy.
You can also have our physical books delivered by mail from Amazon! Or if you’d prefer to order from a local bookseller you can look up any of our titles at indiebound.org.
DW: With Are Snakes Necessary?, you've taken a legendary filmmaker and prominent writer. What's unique about this union? What did each writer bring to this work?
CA: Brian is a brilliant filmmaker, very visual, gifted at devising suspense scenes and ingenious plots; Susan took that framework and developed the characters and their motivations, why they do the things they do, their personal history, their interior landscape. It works not just because they’re both such talented writers but also because they’re partners – it was clearly a fun thing for them to work on as a couple, and the resulting book was stronger than I think either of them would have made it on their own.
DW: Hard Case Crime has been going strong for almost two decades now. What's the continued draw?
Great entertainment never gets old. Disney has been making movies for almost a century and people keep buying tickets. Marvel has been publishing comics since 1939. People love great stories about interesting characters, stylishly presented, and that’s what Hard Case Crime offers. And our books have a lot of variety – it’s not like they’re all detective stories, or all heist stories, or all suspense stories. We offer the full range of hardboiled crime fiction, so someone could read through our entire catalogue and never get bored. I know, because I’ve done it!
DW: Are you still taking manuscripts?
CA: We’re still happy to look at submissions from any author, any time. But we don’t take very many manuscripts. We get more than 1,000 submissions each year and only ever have one or at the very most two open slots to fill, meaning we have to say no well over 99% of the time. More like 99.9%, in fact. So we’re a very hard market to crack. But as long as people know that going in, they’re welcome to give it a try.
DW: Are TV/streaming/film adaptations on the way? Haven appeared to be a departure for you as well.
CA: We’ll see! In addition to Haven, which was based on Stephen King’s first book for us, The Colorado Kid, there was a Quarry miniseries on Cinemax, based on Max Allan Collins’ series of books about a Vietnam War-era hitman. We’re always in discussions with Hollywood about other books it might be fun to adapt, and we’d love to see it happen. But these are multi-million-dollar productions and it’s not easy to get them off the ground. We do have a few irons in the fire, though, so you might see some more Hard Case Crime material filmed in the coming years.
DW: What's next?
CA: In August it’s the great Ray Bradbury’s centennial – he would have turned 100 this year – and to celebrate that occasion, we’re very excited and proud to be publishing Killer, Come Back To Me, a brand new, definitive collection of Bradbury’s crime fiction. It’s a collection of his 20 greatest crime stories, including some rare gems and some flat-out classics, and we’re making it a gorgeous package for collectors, with interior art and handsome endpapers and really nice, heavy paper and a ribbon marker – or if you just want to read the stories and that’s all, you can grab it in ebook and enjoy that way.
And in November we will be publishing the first new novel Max Allan Collins has written in more than 30 years about Nolan, his master thief, who starred in 8 previous novels in the 1970s and 80s but hasn’t been heard from since. It’s very exciting to have Nolan back. We know his fans will be glad to see him again, and for anyone who hasn’t read the original Nolan novels we’ll also be bringing those back in 4 new editions, two novels in each volume. The new book is Skim Deep, and the volumes that follow will be Two for the Money, Double Down, Tough Tender, and Mad Money.
DW: What's your favorite cinematic moment?
CA: Oh, there are so many! Too hard to pick one. The giant boulder in Raiders of the Lost Ark, Gene Kelly with the umbrella in Singin' in the Rain, the kiss reel at the end of Cinema Paradiso – so many. But a friend recently reminded me of one scene I’ve always loved but hadn’t watched recently, so in her honor I’ll choose that one: Dorothy Malone as the sly, confident bookstore proprietor, flirting with Bogart in The Big Sleep. Nothing sexier than a girl who reads. Especially if she reads Hard Case Crime.
Clip: The Big Sleep
Dave Watson, founder and editor of Movies Matter, is a writer and educator in Madison, WI.
