Today's guest blog is by author Charles Belfoure. An architect, he practices historic
preservation as both an architect and a consultant. His first novel was The Paris Architect.
I have always been attracted to
villains.
In fact I admire them. In the movies, I
always root for them to win out but in an American society based on strict
Puritan-Calvinist morality, they always get their comeuppance and get caught or
killed off. My admiration is probably because I secretly want to do something
evil or criminal but don’t have the guts to actually try it.
In my novel House of Thieves, a society architect in 1886 New York is forced to
join a criminal gang in order to pay off his son’s massive gambling debts or
the son will be killed. As the story goes on, the architect discovers he likes
being a criminal.
I based the character on a real
historical figure named George L. Leslie who came from a wealthy Midwestern
family and supposedly practiced architecture in New York City in the 1870s. He
gave up being an architect because he preferred being a criminal who planned
bank robberies. The career change was probably much more lucrative.
The closest I’ve ever been to the
criminal world is when as a young architect I inadvertently got a job designing
a house addition for the head of the New England Mafia (the New England Mafia
extends from Connecticut to the Canadian border) in the early 1990s. It was
just a small addition to a nondescript suburban house (and yes, I got paid in
cash). I didn’t find out who he was under the project was well underway. I knew
something was amiss when I told the contractor, an elderly Italian fellow, that
the steel beam he’d gotten was way bigger than it needed to be. He replied not
to worry, someone had given it to us for free.
I was scared but couldn’t do anything
but see the job out. The Mafia is its own separate nation-state within America
which has its own laws and doesn’t answer to anyone. Who would have I complained
to? But I really got along well with my client. He was always on the
construction site during the day telling me he worked nights.
Whenever he called me to come over and
look at something, I never said I was busy. I knew I had to come right away. He
had a hair-trigger temper but never yelled at me. My client yelled so much at
the contractor that he had a nervous breakdown. The old man asked me to step in
and help with the construction management, giving me a dubious compliment – “Billy really likes you.”
About two weeks after the job was
finished, I was passing a newspaper vending machine and saw my client’s face on
the front page. It was his mug shot from the time he spent at the federal
penitentiary in Atlanta. The article said his naked body had been found in the
river with a bullet in the base of his skull. A combined sense of shock, relief,
and regret swept over me. I actually came to like the guy. Later, it turned out
that his own crew murdered him because they couldn’t stand working for him
anymore. From displays of his temper, I could tell he had poor people skills.
In the same article were accounts of
what happened to people that had crossed him. In front of bar he owned was a
landscaped area where one day he saw a man trample newly planted flowers. He
chastised the man who cursed at him. Two days later, the flower hater was
slumped over the wheel of car with a bullet in his head.
When I was watching the Sopranos series, something a character
said about Tony Soprano
After that experience, I had no desire
to be in the criminal world but I still root for villains.
The House of Thieves by Charles Belfoure is published on 17 September (Allison & Busby, £12.99)
In 1886 New York, a respectable architect
shouldn't have any connection to the notorious gang of thieves and killers that
rules the underbelly of the city. But when John Cross's son racks up an
unfathomable gambling debt to Kent's Gent's, Cross must pay it back himself.
All he has to do is use his inside knowledge of high society mansions and
museums to craft a robbery even the smartest detectives won't solve. The take
better include some cash too: the bigger the payout, the faster this will be
over. With a newfound talent for sniffing out vulnerable and lucrative targets,
Cross becomes invaluable to the gang. But Cross's entire life has become a
balancing act, and it will only take one mistake for it all to come crashing
down and for his family to go down too.
More information about his work can be found on his website. You can also follow him on Twitter @charlesblefoure and find him on FaceBook.
