This book proves a crime book is only as good as the characters that make it rip

Like all great crime writers, Lou Berney knows that a ripping story is only as good as the characters that make it rip. With his new novel “Crooks,” Berney has created a family saga about a small-time operator named Buddy Mercurio, his pickpocket wife Lillian and their five children.

As Buddy’s brood leave the nest and stake their claim in the world, his patriarchal shadow looms large, and the sins of the father are hard to kick. I chatted with Berney about his sixth novel, crime and why smartphones are his worst enemy.

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✍️ Author Chat

How did you come to crime novels?

The writers I love tend to be crime writers. I really got turned on my freshman year of college to Flannery O’Connor
and that just kind of blew my mind. To me, she’s the greatest crime writer ever. “Wise Blood,” “A Good Man is Hard to Find,” “Everything that Rises Must Converge.” Every one of her books has elements of a crime novel in them that she does really interesting things with. 


But you started as a more traditional literary writer.

My first story was in “The New Yorker” when I was in grad school. I was writing straight literary fiction. Then I started writing screenplays and learning more about plot and storytelling. I just kind of settled into this idea of crime, which to me is the one genre where you can do almost anything you want. It’s such a big tent. And so it was a great way for me to embrace the limitless, essentially.

What about traditional crime writers? Who moves you?

A big influence was Elmore Leonard. Also Jim Thompson, who was a fellow Oklahoma writer. Those are two guys that really, really affected me. But the current state of crime fiction is just awesome. I love so many contemporary crime writers right now. Sara Gran,
Kate Atkinson, Megan Abbott, S.A. Cosby. This is a golden age in some ways for weird, interesting crime fiction that takes you to different places. 
Everybody’s kind of doing their own thing, which I really love.

Are you a Walter Mosley fan?

A huge fan. I got to work with Walter this year. I wrote for a TV show called “The Lowdown” which was created by Sterlin Harjo, who created “Reservation Dogs.” Walter and I were the two novelists in the writers room, six hours a day for 20 weeks, and I just got to hear Walter Mosley talk. The guy is a genius. His thoughts on writing are just mind-blowingly good. So I got paid for an education.

I love the Mercurios. I feel like part of the appeal of a family like this is that they are everything most of us are not: They are bold risk–takers who dive into things without fear.

In writing about the Mercurios, I was getting to vicariously live these lives that were enormously appealing to me. You know, I don’t want to be a criminal and I would probably make a bad criminal, but it’s sure fun to sort of live without rules and live without fear and be reckless and do whatever you want.

“Crooks” is set in the pre-camera phone era, when life had an entirely different texture, and information traveled slowly.

I was walking through the airport yesterday, and it was so demoralizing to see every single person on their phone, with literally no exceptions. Everyone walking, sitting and standing were on their phones, and I thought, “Man, I’m glad I’m old enough to remember when none of that existed,” because that was way, way more interesting to me as a writer.

I love the chapters that are set in ’80s Los Angeles. How did you conjure all of that up?

I read a lot of old magazines. Los Angeles magazine was great. I got all the old issues on EBay. And I have a friend who grew up in the ‘80s in L.A., so I ran some stuff by him. I just love research. I wasn’t into homework as a kid at all, but now I’ve discovered that if it’s homework I need to do for a book, I’m all about it.

The novel is divided into six parts, and every section is so deftly plotted. How difficult is the plot for you?

I do extensive outlining so I can get a sense of plot. But I end up probably changing 75% of it as I go. With this book, the Jeremy chapter worked perfectly, whereas Alice took me like three times as long as any of the other chapters, because I had to keep figuring out how she was going to outsmart this guy, and nothing was working or wasn’t fitting right. It really depends on the particular kind of plotline.

📰 The Week(s) in Books

Julia M. Klein thinks Daniel Pollack-Pelzner’s biography of Lin-Manuel Miranda does a fine job of probing the inner artist, a “joyous, charismatic, well-meaning, occasionally imperfect man.”

Samantha Fink sat down with Elizabeth Gilbert to discuss her new memoir “All The Way to The River.”

With Oasis and Pulp on the road, Dave Rowntree makes sure his group Blur gets a hand in the Britpop Revival with a book of band photographs.

And finally, our reviewers pick 30 Fall books that everyone must read.

📖 Bookstore Faves

Small World Books is the grandaddy of indie book stores in L.A. Established in 1969 on the Venice Boardwalk, the store has always been well-curated and loaded with a diverse array of titles. We spoke with manager Adam Lipman about what customers are snatching up.

What’s selling right now?

The new RF Kuang, “Katabasis,” is selling really well, as is the new Taylor Jenkins Reid, “Atmosphere,” and it’s been hard to keep in stock “Daughter Mother Grandmother and Whore” by Gabriela Leite.

What are some popular genres that your customers like?

Romantasy, horror and architecture are getting snatched up right quick these days.

And those that love poetry are always impressed with our poetry section. But we are selling all types of books right now! From bestsellers to books about lo-fi cassette culture, sextrology, and Charles Oakley. Anything important or interesting to us we try to get in store and keep in stock.

Why are books still necessary in a wired world?

Susan Orleans wrote in “The Orchid Thief”: “There are too many ideas and things and people, too many directions to go. I was starting to believe that the reason it matters to care passionately about something is that it whittles the world down to a more manageable size.”

Part of why we are called Small World Books is because we believe books are an excellent way to “whittle the world down to a more manageable size,” small enough to not seem so overwhelmingly exhausting, and hopefully, then making it easier to expand our circle of empathy.