If you haven’t come across the Fixer novels by Jill Amy Rosenblatt yet, then you could be in for a treat. So far, the Long Island-based author has produced four in the series and more are on the way. These are books crafted just for thriller lovers, and Jill has come up with a way into the genre that avoids some of those somewhat cliched characters you’ll come across like jaded detectives, angsty FBI agents or lone wolf action heroes. Instead, the focus here is on a fixer – Katerina Mills – who somehow navigates by her moral compass through a tricky milieu of organised crime, where corruption lurks in every port.
The series begins with The Fixer: The Naked Man, and continues through three further books, which Jill talks about more below. More than most series, it’s recommended you read them in order.
Jill’s first love was screenwriting, and she’s a writer dedicated to every part of her craft from first chapters to characters to plotting and narrative. She has written women’s fiction too, but the pull of mystery and thriller writing was strong. She started the series over 10 years ago and now she feels completely at home. We invited Jill to join us here on the site to tell us more about Katerina Mills, The Fixer.
What are crime fiction lovers going to love about the four Fixer novels so far?
It’s fast-paced, not-stop action, with twists, turns, and healthy doses of gritty noir, an origin story of a desperate young woman who enters a dark and dangerous underworld filled with cops, criminals and killers. There are good bad guys, bad good guys and a heroine with a conscience she can’t afford in her new line of work, so hopefully, there’s something here for everyone! And there’s a dash of romance too!
Who is Katerina Mills? How did you come up with and how have you developed your heroine?
The idea of Katerina Mills came out of a sleepless night after a long bout of writer’s block. I was very upset that I was not doing what I loved. I had an idea of a man and woman in a standoff, a tense negotiation over… something. I didn’t know what that was. I had heard the term ‘fixer’ before, in movies like Michael Clayton, the television shows Ray Donovan and Scandal. Since there were already stories of fixers that were pros at their job, I decided to make this an origin story. How does someone become a fixer? What do they need to learn? How do they do that?
As for how I developed Katerina, I have spent the last 10 years with Katerina, so far, and she never stops surprising me with some of the decisions she makes. I think she does what she wants, and I just write it down!
As a fixer, she’s often treading a fine line between doing what’s right and doing what she has to. Is that where the conflict comes from in the novels?
That’s one of the biggest areas of conflict yes, the internal conflict. In The Naked Man, she asks herself: “What is ethics? The answer that came to Kat’s mind froze her with fear: ethics is whatever you want it to be, as long as you can explain it so that you can sleep nights.”
As Katerina continues to take more complex jobs in The Killing Kind, she gets in deeper as a fixer. Each job takes her further into illegal activity, a line in the sand she inevitably continues to cross, and she is forced to face her own conscience.
Tell us about some of the villains you’ve created in the books, and what you think makes them memorable?
The villains that readers meet in the books range from ultra wealthy corporate executives, an obnoxious hedge fund manager, a Russian Oligarch, New York’s Governor, the head of a mafia family, New York City police officers and a corrupt DEA agent, just to name a few. I think they’re memorable because none of them think they’re particularly bad. Some of them think they haven’t done anything wrong, others think that someone has wronged them so they are within their rights to take whatever action is necessary, and I think that’s always fascinating to look at.
What’s the setting of the novels and what kind of atmosphere do you try to create for the reader?
The setting is New York City. I have always been fascinated with the city and I would go in by train as much as possible to walk around, take pictures, visit the places where I want Katerina to go, try to capture the sights and sounds to describe them in the book. I hope readers get the sense of the city as a character in the book. I try to create an atmosphere of tension and potential danger around any corner.
What are some of the themes, issues or ideas you like to explore in the Fixer series?
If you were desperate, how far would you be willing to go? What would you be willing to do? That’s one of the themes explored. Then there’s the idea of fate versus determinism. How much of what happens is the result of all the choices a person made before? Does someone truly have the capacity to choose? Do they have free will?
Ethics, as mentioned above, too. At one point Alexander Winter tells Katerina that, “It is what it is. Find the truth. Admit it.” Can a person look in the mirror and admit the truth, rather than tell themselves a story they can live with?
Finally, I ask is there such a thing as a ‘good’ criminal?
Are there more Fixer novels on the way?
I’m actually working on the second half of book four, The Good Criminal – Part 2, book five, Shell Game, and book six, Requiem. These books are all very tightly connected so I’m writing them all together to make sure everything fits. Katerina has been through a lot in The Good Criminal – Part 1. She has recovered and dropped off the grid in NYC. There’s one set of a photo negatives to recover that she’s supposed to deliver to three people who all want to possess them, a stolen masterpiece to find and a Faberge egg to forge. Oh, and several murders that still need to be solved. Kat’s got a lot going on!
What is your writing process like?
There’s the BWB (Before Writer’s Block) process and the AWB (After Writer’s Block) process. BWB, I plotted out the entire story, meticulously, as I learned after I took Robert McKee’s Story seminar. However, AWB, I just couldn’t do that anymore. Maybe it felt like too much pressure. The Naked Man was the first thing I wrote AWB. I told myself I would just write scenes as I thought of them, longhand, in a journal, until I felt I was done. Then I go through many rounds of… fixing. It’s very loose, and it works.
Who are some of the crime authors and/or favourite crime novels that have influenced you?
I am a huge fan of Donald E Westlake and his Dortmunder novels. It’s a great twist on the crime caper, a smart thief who’s hapless and unlucky and can never pull off the crime. The Parker series Westlake wrote under the pen name Richard Stark is the complete opposite. Parker is a ruthless criminal, an unrepentant killer when he needs to be, yet you can’t look away. And there’s always a twist in every story. And the twist is natural because it’s a product of a person’s human nature and you can’t fault Parker for not seeing it coming, but it’s nailbiting to watch him try to escape.
Don Winslow is another favourite. His novels The Force and The Power of The Dog were amazing. Gritty, honest and real. You’re drawn into that world and you have no idea how it’s going to end.
I just recently finished the Ruth Galloway series by Elly Griffiths. I enjoyed them so much I ripped through the whole series in a month! Ruth is a great character, a loner that you like, smart, capable, and a great cast of interesting, fully fleshed out supporting characters.
Looking further ahead, what’s next for Jill Amy Rosenblatt, and for Katerina Mills?
There are many more Katerina books to come! Originally, the series was meant to be 12 books but my characters have been running amok again so I think there are more stories to tell beyond 12.
You can grab one or more of Jill’s Fixer novels below. It’s recommended you read them in order…
