Before Robert Crais was a bestselling novelist specializing in crime and mystery – his new novel is The Sentry – he was a successful TV writer specializing in high-end shows such as Hill Street Blues and L.A. Law.

And then he created Elvis Cole, a wisecracking Los Angeles private eye, whose best friend is named Joe Pike, who doesn’t crack wise much at all, and Crais’ life and career changed. He’s never looked back.

On a recent book tour through Palm Beach County, Crais talked about his two careers.

How do you feel about the grind of the tour?

Clearly there’s things I don’t like. Airports, especially with modern security. But I love going out to meet readers. The opportunity to meet the people who read my books and love my characters – that’s a privilege, and I truly enjoy it… People line up to tell me they like what I do, the publisher pays for it, and I get to eat good food. Where’s the downside?

The Elvis Cole novels started out light, but after a while you went dark. Was that a conscious decision or more organic?

It was organic. As the series progressed, two things happened. I was trying to write more deeply about the subject matter I was approaching, and I wanted to explore that subject matter more deeply through Joe Pike. It’s one thing to have a character who’s funny and has a great sense of humor, like Elvis. But when you’re dealing with sensitive subjects – a missing child, or characters who are in great pain – it starts to walk a fine line between what’s funny and what’s inappropriate. As the subject matter got more human, the humor had to give way, so I pulled back.

Were you at all concerned that your readers wouldn’t like the darker tone?

I’ve never taken it for granted that readers would follow. I’ve learned that what I need to do is tell stories that interest me and try to entertain myself. If I can do that, there’s a pretty good bet that the readers will follow along. The note to self was: ‘trust my instincts.’

Most screenwriters that walk away to write novels do it for street cred, then go back to screenwriting for the money, but you really walked away.

I didn’t like it. I didn’t like the collaborative nature of it. When I first got involved, it was fun and exciting, but it wore me out. The work is never your own, it’s always a combination, a team effort between the actors, the producers, and on and on. I wanted to express my stories through my characters in my way, without having it watered down or changed by other people. And for me, that’s the novel. If the novel is Disneyland, I’m Walt Disney. I do what I want.

Have you ever been tempted to go back to screenwriting?

Never. I truly love writing books. I’ve had opportunities and I get offers, but I’m not interested.

Do you think you’re a better novelist than you were a screenwriter?

Much better. I think my years in TV and films were enormously beneficial to me as a writer. It was like being in school. I worked for really good shows and talented people. And those shows stress characterization, dialogue, the very best aspects of what makes an interesting plot. And all the lessons I learned from Hill Street Blues and Cagney and Lacey and L.A. Law, I like to believe that I brought those same lessons to my prose. .

The difference between writing a novel and an hour episode of Cagney and Lacey or Hill Street Blues is time. I have far more time to take care of the work.

If I want to spend additional time looking for nuance or depth in the scenes I’m writing, I have that liberty, and I take it. That’s one of the things I find most rewarding about novels. It’s 100 percent mine, and I’m 100 percent proud of it.

Is it true that you refuse to sell the movie rights to the Cole novels?

True. I feel differently about the stand-alones. I’ve sold those, and one got made as Hostage with Bruce Willis. But I consider Elvis and Joe my life’s work. They’re what I’ll be known for, and I’m extremely protective of them. Not just for the characters but for the way my readers see them. If I were to allow a film to be made, even a good film, it would change the way readers see them. And that puts me off.

A book is an art form that isn’t finished until a reader reads it. It’s close to a collaboration between a writer and reader. Every reader that reads my book has a slightly different view of Joe Pike, and we’ve created that together. I love that that’s the nature of novels.

I know novelists who somehow feel a lack of validation because their books have never sold to the movies.

I can understand it, having sold several books and having had one feature made, but I wasn’t all that hot and heavy about it before it happened. I started in Hollywood, that’s where I was a baby writer, so as a business it holds no allure for me. When you spend a dozen years working with TV stars and sound stages and being around the business, all the magic’s gone.

For me, the dream is a book on a bookshelf, and I have that now. That’s my passion. It doesn’t get any better than to have created something that didn’t exist before.

~scott_eyman@pbpost.com