Joe Victim: A Thriller

Joe Victim is the result of a process that’s taken more than ten years, starting with a vague idea for a sequel way back when we saw one millennium leave and another one come in. That’s when I was writing The Cleaner. Sometime during the year 2000 when it was done, but before the five or six years of rewriting that would follow it, I used to think—a sequel would be cool.

The sequel didn’t progress beyond the idea of I’d like to write a sequel, and for now I’ll call it The Cleaner II, for many years. Back in 2008, two years after The Cleaner was finally published, I wrote the first 20,000 words of The Cleaner II, then no more. Of course it was never far from my mind. I kept people updated on what Joe was up to in the other books—he was in jail. He’d show up, he’d get mentioned—Joe wasn’t going to be forgotten. Then the end of 2011 rolled around and suddenly, out of nowhere, I knew it was time. The sequel went from something I’d been thinking about to something I had to do. I spent that summer inside writing, binging on junk food and ignoring my Xbox. The book took shape. It had a direction. It even had a title. Joe Victim.

Like the six books before it, Joe Victim has had many helping hands. My editor at Atria Books in New York, the wonderful Sarah Branham, always makes me think in different directions. She helps shape the novels and makes me be a better writer, and makes me want to be a better writer. Sarah rocks! As to the rest of the Atria and Simon & Schuster team: Judith Curr, Lisa Keim, Mellony Torres, Anne Spieth, Isolde Sauer, Janice Fryer, Gillian Cowin, and Emily Bestler, among all the others who do great, great things.

Aside from being lucky enough to have one of the best editors around, I also have the best agent in the world. If you know Jane Gregory of Gregory & Company, then you know what I say is true. Jane is brilliant. As are Claire Morris and Linden Morris, and of course Stephanie Glencross, Jane’s in-house editor—my go-to person for all things writing and all things life.

Let me sign off once again by thanking you, the reader. Thanks again for the support, the emails, and the Facebook messages. Thanks for coming along to book signings and festivals to say hi. You’re who I write for, you’re the reason I like to make bad things happen . . .

Till next time!

Paul Cleave

March 2013—Christchurch