Hunting the Red Fox is part historical adventure, part crime caper, and part love story about a man who eventually discovers that growing up may require something harder than escaping danger.  Did Perry begin as a single idea, or did his many identities as a soldier, golfer, thief, and storyteller develop gradually? 

I decided early on that I wanted the story to revolve around a fictional character during the 1950’s who was first and foremost a gentleman in the traditional, grandest manner in which that term used to exist.  I also wanted him at his core to be one of the “strong, silent types” as they used to be called.  I wanted a guy who was recognized by others as a “man’s man” and “ladies’ man,” in a non-piggish sort of way, without a hint of ego or self-promotion.  Above all, Perry had to be likeable.

Also, I wanted in the character of Perry someone who was very good or above average at virtually everything he did without being the best at anything.  At the same time, I didn’t want everything he did to necessarily be good.  I wanted him fundamentally to be principled and seek to do the good and right thing even if that was not technically the legal course of action.  In other words, I wanted the internal struggle between the moral or right thing to do and the legal thing to do.  The last thing I wanted Perry to be was someone who was flawless.  Quite the contrary as it turns out.

Lastly, I wanted a character who seemed by circumstances mostly out of his control to plausibly meet the most bewildering array of real folks or pop up in the oddest of places throughout the 1940’s and 1950’s.

That is the broad concept I had of Perry Barnes the man in my mind before I wrote a word.  The rest of what Perry was to become was a mystery to me at the onset and yet to be determined.  It was my feeling that if I just started to type my imagination would take over my fingers and Perry was going to naturally develop, change and morph as he aged and matured, just like the rest of us.

There was never a grand storyline sketched out in advance before I began writing.  My brain doesn’t really work that way.  The characters, story, relationships, timeline, etc. just pop into my head as I type.  It’s not really a conscious thing with me.  The process is really quite simple.  I sit down at a computer and merely attempt to type as fast as I can in an attempt to describe the movie that is playing in my mind.  My fingers often have a difficult time keeping up with what I see in my head in picture form. 

Perry often tries to justify his thefts by telling himself he is helping people. What does that reveal about his moral compass?

I would proffer that his moral compass is not any different than most of us.  It’s just a matter of degrees as to how far each of us is willing to go before we cross a line too far.  For example, I would posit that virtually all of us have, at one time or more in our lives lied to someone (which occurs on a daily basis even if it’s only “a little white lie”), took something of value that wasn’t ours, drank when we were underage, exceeded the speed limit (frequently for some), taken an illicit drug, moved a resting golf ball against the rules, participated in the illegal sex trade, beat, bludgeon, shoot, knife or worse someone who is attacking a loved one, watched pornography, committed adultery or worst of all, became a politician. 

I would further say that some seemingly good folks are guilty of doing more than one of the things listed above at the same time.  In the case of the politician the numbers can get a little staggering.

I’m not condoning Perry robbing a few folks’ ala Robinhood style of jewelry so he could justifiably (as he saw it) provide compensation to someone else’s employees who he reasoned had been very wronged.  I leave it up to the reader to draw their own conclusions based on their own moral compass.

What attracted you to setting Perry’s adventures across so many different periods of twentieth-century history?

Perspective is an interesting phenomenon.  Your question suggests that there are a lot of different time periods in Hunting the Red Fox and I would suggest there were just enough, as there would be for any 82 year who has led an eventful life.  

Aside from that I think the answer is fairly simple.  The story demanded it.  The four relevant time periods in the novel and the reasons for each are as follows:

1. Current day – 82-year-old Perry is recalling his life with would be writer Roger Mace.
   
2. 1930’s and early 1940’s mostly – This was entirely to disclose information about Perry’s childhood and to provide background information and explain how Perry was forced to grow up so fast
   
3. The 1940’s and World War II – I wanted Perry to be a minor jewel thief for the reasons already stated.  The only place I could think of where someone could be taught a variety of unusual, disagreeable and downright illegal skills in abundance such as sabotage, espionage, silent killing, safe cracking, lock picking and, because it was useful, how to steal anything was to put Perry back into a WWII Special Operations Unit.
   
4. The 1950’s – Most of the story takes place in this decade.  The reason for the 1950’s was simple and threefold.  First, the 1950’s is generally thought by many to this day as a “Golden Age” of post-war economic boom, family values, simpler times, great cars and the birth of rock and roll.

Second, Perry needed to acquire a vast number of high level and diverse skills mentioned above in order to become a uniquely capable jewel thief.  The best place I could think of to place him in order to obtain those skills was as a trained World War II clandestine saboteur.  The 1950’s was close enough to WWII to be a plausible training ground.

Perry became a touring golf professional during the 50’s which still has a nostalgic patina associated with it.  This is not a book about golf, per se.  Golf, touring professional golf in this case, is the vehicle which makes most of the events and chance meetings between Perry and all the other characters, real and/or fictional, plausible.  Most of the people Perry meets and exotic parties and places he attends happen because he is a touring professional.  There is only a smattering of detail with respect to the actual golf played by Perry.

After all the war stories, diamonds, famous names, and close calls, what do you see as the real heart of Hunting the Red Fox?

At the core, Hunting the Red Fox is a feel-good novel that the book reviewers have noted for its masterful storytelling along with vibrant dialogue, clever, witty, often irreverent humor, and pacing of the narrative, which provide marvelous vignettes of redemption, situational intrigue, steamy romance, and honest decency throughout.  

After conversations with many people who have read the novel, I have come to find that once someone sits down with a copy it not long before the reader is put in a frame of mind to grab a cocktail, sit a spell in a favorite over-sized armchair and eagerly anticipate turning the next page with a hopeful delight as to what may be coming while slightly regretting the page they just left behind.

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