Benjamin Percy is a busy man. Whether he’s writing bestselling novels like his Comet Cycle series, acclaimed runs on iconic comic book series like Wolverine, Ghost Rider, and X-Force, or writing for podcasts and the screen, Percy packs an emotional punch – with a sharp eye for plot twists that build off long-simmering character arcs. He’s a pro, and one of the nicest guys I’ve had the pleasure of knowing in comics or publishing in general.
His latest novella, American Criminal, is a slight departure – though, if you asked me, one that’s a bit overdue. It marks Percy’s first foray into crime fiction. Percy’s style and tone feel perfectly suited for the genre, which makes the fact that this is his first longform crime story all the more surprising. What isn’t shocking is how capably Percy weaves together a story that honors crime’s past masters – folks like Jim Thompson, Elmore Leonard, and Charles Willeford – to create a story that feels equally modern. The best crime tales, for my money, are stories about shady people doing shady things and then dealing with the consequences – and American Criminal has that and then some. I was honored to sit down with Ben to talk about the book.
ALEX SEGURA: Ben, thanks for doing this. It’s been a minute. Can you tell us a little bit about AMERICAN CRIMINAL?
BENJAMIN PERCY: Colton Ward is a criminal’s criminal. He robs robbers. He pulls off heists on the guys who pull off heists. And now he’s found himself in the crosshairs of the FBI and a crime boss. Colton’s pinched by the FBI and faced with a choice: go to prison or work for the world-weary Agent Hoskins, who heads up a unit that specializes in robberies exceeding one million dollars. Hoskins is targeting a notorious crime boss, Magnuson, the kingpin of a Nordic gang called the Vikes, who are readying a casino heist. To take down Magnuson, Hoskins needs Colton to embed himself within the gang as part of a high-stakes sting operation. If Colton is going to make it out of this seemingly impossible predicament alive, he’ll have to do what he does best: beat people at their own game.
AS: As noted, you’re busy as hell – why tell this story now?
BP: I get online, and what do I see? Sam Bankman-Fried is in court, defending the collapse of his crypto exchange that defrauded investors out of billions of dollars. The Trump Organization is guilty on all twelve counts of fraud, falsifying business accounts, and conspiracy. Opioid manufacturer Purdue Pharma is guilty of conspiracy to defraud the United States. I could go on…We live in a world where Wells Fargo and Amazon and Wall Street are the bad guys, where volatile stocks and empty bank accounts and sky-high college tuition and soaring inflation and interest rates make it clear that America doesn’t serve the 99%. Capitalism deserves disruption. The timing is right for a story about people fighting a broken, predatory system.
AS: For those who might not be familiar with your other work – or are coming to this with more familiarity in terms of crime, what are some of the books you’d compare this to?
BP: The fun, twisty, thrilling tone of the story puts it in the same library as Catch Me If You Can, Ocean’s 11, The Usual Suspects.
AS: Sold. You had me at CATCH ME IF YOU CAN. Can you walk us through the cast?
BP: Colton Ward (late twenties) is a rip-off artist you can’t help but root for. He pulls off heists on the guys who pull off heists. Bank robbers. Casino robbers. Warehouse robbers. Not only is he always one step ahead of them, he lets them do the dirty work.
He rests comfortably on the notion that it’s not really stealing if you’re stealing from crooks…
…and he has enough of a conscience that he dumps a lot of the money into charities, a Robin Hood move that makes us love him.
One of his eyes is blue, the other green, a rare condition called heterochromia that captures the two sides of him.
Here’s the pleasant charmer who tips well and flirts with everyone and stops traffic so a family of ducklings can cross the street.
And here’s the guy who will coldly stare at you down the line of the gun and tell you to do as you’re told.
He’s a liar. And his unreliability carries over to the storytelling. We’ll hear, for instance, several versions of his origin story.
In one, his parents lose everything (because the bank reclaims their business) and his dad commits suicide.
In another story, his father was a con artist who was finally cornered and gunned down by the cops at Colton’s Chuck E. Cheese birthday party.
In another, he and his family were shopping downtown, when a getaway car struck his father at a crosswalk. His body rolled thirty yards before coming to a stop in a broken heap. The driver had just robbed a bank, and he didn’t so much as slow down, squealing away in a purple Lincoln the size of a gray whale. Money fluttered from the open window of the vehicle. And little Colton picked up a twenty off the street. A twenty he keeps in his wallet to this day. The perp was never apprehended. So in a way, everyone Colton is robbing—as an adult—is some version of that guy. The guy in the purple Lincoln.
Whichever version is true, it’s clear that his father left behind an aching cavity he’s trying to fill.
Denny Ward (late teens) is Colton’s disabled younger brother who quite literally serves as his man-in-the-chair (as he’s in a wheelchair himself). His body is broken, but his mind is overactive and brilliant. He not only helps Colton plan and carry out his scores, but he runs algorithms to figure out where crimes are likely to be perpetrated.
Mimi (late twenties) deals cards at the Mystic Bear Casino. She’s currently dating one of the heavies from a Nordic gang called the Vikes. But she and Colton develop their own relationship on the side; at first he’s scamming her so he can learn more about the gang, but then he actively falls for her and she for him.
Magnuson (sixties) runs the Vikes, which are essentially the Scandinavian mob. He’s covered in old, faded tattoos of Viking runes. He and all his boys have their hair dyed a yellow that is almost white. He can be terrifying, but he also tries to bring Colton close as a kind of song. He an outspoken, almost evangelical advocate of saunas and cold water treatments. In fact, one of the first times we meet him he’s rising out of the broken ice of a lake, his pale skin so ruddy it appears burned.
Agent Rocksroy Hoskins (fifties) is black and a career FBI agent who wishes retirement could come sooner. Because he’s increasingly weary. He used to believe in the country he was trying to protect, but more and more he’s starting to think the system is more than a little fucked. This sense of weightiness is brought on by a few factors, among them the crippling medical costs of his wife’s cancer treatments and the fact that he’s oftentimes protecting institutions (like banks) that fuck people over. It’s hard for him not to sympathize with and even live vicariously through Colton.
Their relationship—like a troubled father and son—is really the heart of the series.
AS: This sounds fascinating, and really sets the table for the book – but one thing in particular jumped out at me. Why lean in on an unreliable narrator? How does that help you write the novella you want to exist?
BP: In Tobias Wolff’s short story, “The Liar,” the narrator devotes the first three pages to his mother. He talks about how upset she is on this particular blustery fall day and how she decides to go to church to pray on her troubles and he describes the manner in which she walks into a hard wind and what pew she sits in and the prayers she utters and what she says to the pastor at church and how she then returns home to pull a letter out of a bedroom bureau and read it and read it again and then she burns it in the sink until it curls upon itself like a black fist…
And…it takes awhile…but you eventually realize you’ve been had. All these exquisite details and colorful snippets of dialogue create a reality, but…the narrator wasn’t even there. So how the fuck did he know all of this? He didn’t. We should have known better because the very title of the story warned us: he’s a liar. We’ve been had. He’s lying to the reader just as he’s lying to the people all around him in the story. It’s a great whiplash moment.
I wanted to do something similar in this story. I want the reader to feel continuously whiplashed and unsure who or what they can trust.
You think you know Colton – you think you know the game – and then it turns. Again and again and again.
The story has the form of a confessional, and it’s only at the end that we learn we’re reading a farewell letter Colton has written to Agent Hoskins after escaping the FBI and the Nordic gang, scamming them all. He explains how he pulled it off…and how he came to love Agent Hoskins as a son would a father…and in the end Agent Hoskins burns the letter, so as not to incriminate Colton or himself.
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