Suckers - J.A. Konrath

Jeff: What about them? I’m not sure what you’re asking. Are you asking which one I’ve spoken
to most recently? That would be Jess. I didn’t give her your message, though, because it was
kind of creepy. I just did the panting and left it at that. Angelina is busy these days and we
mostly talk through Skype.
Jack: I like to ask the tough questions. So, if John’s son is my son’s father, what relationship am
I to John?
Jeff: You’re John’s prison bitch. Duh.
Jack: Can you do anything unusual or interesting? I can fit my pinky up my nose all the way to
the second knuckle, but I’m scared to go further because I’m touching something squishy that I
think is my brain.
Jeff: That’s not your brain. And it’s not your nose.
Jack: If you were stuck on a desert island and could only have one book, wouldn’t that suck?
Jeff: It would. Unless that book was Afraid, by Jack Kiborn. It comes out March 31, you know.
Jack: Really? March 31? I should write that down. Being serious for a moment, I loved your
novel Pressure, which is possibly the most intense horror novel I’ve ever read. It really gets
under your skin, and shows no mercy. Do you find it bizarre that this book, which is getting the
most publicity and the biggest print run of all of your books, is so unlike your other work?
Jeff: See, I introduced this interview by saying that Afraid was one of the most relentless horror
novels I’ve ever read, so now it just looks like we’re giving each other full-contact body rubs.
One of us has to withdraw our praise. I guess it’ll be me. I don’t find it bizarre—I worried that
my current fans would be disappointed by the decreased humor level (they weren’t) but even
while writing it, it was clearly my most mainstream book.
Jack: I just read Benjamin’s Parasite, which has all the elements of essential Strand: a luckless
hero in over his head, over-the-top gore, outrageous action scenes, funny as hell dialog, and
richly developed characters, all of them memorable, the majority of whom don’t survive. You
164