Timothy Jay Smith is a writer and a wanderer, who has travelled all over the US and the rest of the world. His previous career put him in close contact with major global events, from the collapse of the Soviet Union to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to the refugee crisis in Europe and human trafficking. They’re topics that fuel his writing, in novels such as Istanbul Crossing and Fire on the Island, he strives to show ordinary people and how their lives can be caught up in the tides of history, as it happens.
Released in September 2024, Istanbul Crossing was his fifth novel, and this June he’s set to re-release Fire on the Island. We’ve recently included excerpts from both novels in our weekly newsletter for you to try. Today, we welcome Timothy to the site to talk about the novel, its key characters, the Greek islands where it’s set, having a gay protagonist and his many inspirations as a writer.
What are crime fiction lovers going to love about Fire on the Island?
Several things. It’s empathetic characters. It’s setting on a beautiful Greek island. Its fast-paced story that is both serious and humorous. The mystery of who is the antagonist – in this case, an arsonist – that is not revealed until the very end.
Who is Nick Damigos, what inspired him and how have you developed him as your main character?
Most people don’t realise that the US has FBI agents in approximately 180 countries and territories around the world who work with local law enforcement to prevent or solve criminal cases related to trafficking of people, drugs and weapons, or which have serious refugee problems. In the past, my work brought me in contact with some of them. In Fire on the Island, I consciously decided to make Nick gay for two reasons. First, gay FBI agents have faced harassment and job loss only because of their sexuality, even – or perhaps, especially – when the Bureau was under the guidance of the notoriously closeted gay FBI Director, J Edgar Hoover. Second, contemporary Greek culture is essentially homophobic, and I wanted to confront its misconceptions by making my hero gay. It also allowed me to make the whole story more interesting.
What is Nick up against in Fire on the Island?
Nick is sent to the island to investigate a series of mysterious fires, presumably set by the same arsonist. Each fire has come closer to the village, raising suspicions that he or she intends to set fire to the village itself. But what would be his/her motive? Nick discovers that the village is rife with conflicts, some dating back generations, and any one of which might motivate someone to set fire to the village.
Who are some of the other characters we’ll meet on this journey to Greece?
A cunning priest and art forger, a likeable Albanian waiter with a hidden wayward past, a seductive bar mistress with a mysteriously missing husband, the Coast Guard’s captain who has his own agenda aside from rescuing refugees, an abandoned deaf gypsy boy who witnesses more than is good for him, and a stubborn restaurant owner always butting heads with her equally stubborn teenage daughter. The whole village, in fact, hides its violent history. Nick has his own secrets, too, which contribute to his falling for a young bartender who becomes his prime suspect.
Can you tell us more about the setting for the novel and the role it plays in the story, and why you love the Greek islands?
In my first job after college, I worked for a Greek research institute to devise strategies to retain a rural population. In the prior ten years, the Aegean islands had lost 20 percent of its population, and I had the incredible opportunity to be based for two years on Santorini while traveling between the other islands to explore job creation opportunities. How could I not fall in love with the Greek islands?
Entirely separate from that, some twenty years ago, I started going every year to the island of Lesvos which, by unhappy coincidence, became Ground Zero for the refugee crisis which peaked in 2015 to 2017. In one 12-month period, 500,000 refugees landed on my village’s beach. It was that experience that inspired me to write Fire on the Island,
Arson happens quite a lot but we rarely see it written about in crime fiction. Why did you choose this type of crime as being central to the story?
I didn’t choose arson as my story’s crime; it chose me. Like 90 percent of what’s in the novel – place, characters, conflicts – there was a real arsonist setting fires in the hills behind Vourvoulos, my fictitious name for the village where the story takes place. Arson also worked thematically. Ultimately, it becomes clear that my antagonist wants revenge on the whole village and burning it down would certainly accomplish that.
What are some of the underlying themes you wanted to explore and why?
As with all my novels, I want my readers to develop an understanding how major issues of our time – trafficking, war, the many refugee crises – affect the lives of ordinary people. I don’t exactly want their sympathy which is based in sorrow, but their empathy which is based in understanding.
As a gay writer, I also want to show alternatives to the stereotypes that plague gay men and by extension, the whole LGBTQ community. We aren’t all silly queens and sex-crazed pedophiles, but in fact we’re also FBI agents, or CIA agents (The Fourth Courier), or army sharpshooters (Cooper’s Promise). In Fire on the Island and subsequently Istanbul Crossing, I portray how religion has demonised homosexuality. None of this is overtly message-driven in any of my five published novels but conveyed by creating real characters coping with their real sexual identities in the real world.
Which other crime authors and/or books have inspired you, why, and what are you reading at the moment?
When I turned to full-time writing, I was counseled by friends not to become known as a gay writer; it would pigeonhole me as a writer of porn and erotica, which was the stereotype for gay writers at the time. I countered by saying that I saw the world through a gay man’s eyes, and that’s perspective that I wanted to write. I took encouragement from contemporaneous literary works by Alan Hollinghurst (The Swimming Pool Library) and Michael Cunningham (A Home at the End of the World). I wanted to be a literary writer that, as I found my voice, morphed into literary suspense. In that sense, it’s fair to say that I find inspiration in novels by Christopher Bollen (A Beautiful Crime and Havoc) who, like me, has gay protagonists, suspenseful plots, and sets his stories in exotic places.
What’s next for Timothy Jay Smith and what’s next for Nick Damigos?
Until now, I’ve not seriously considered writing a series, but meeting Nick Damigos has me thinking about it. I’ve enjoyed developing his character, and I could certainly take him on crime-solving assignments to other Greek islands, or around the world for that matter. On the other hand, I have the rather unique distinction of being 16th generation American and feel some obligation to explore and reflect on the legacy of those 16 generations. Perhaps a multi-generational crime that Nick solves? Lots of possibilities but no decision yet.
We reviewed Fire on the Island on its initial publication in 2021. Check out our review and/or grab a copy using one of the buttons below. Visit Timothy’s website here.
