As I drive over to meet with Will Thomas, I keep wondering one thing: Will he be analyzing me, sizing me up, as we speak, much as his character Barker does with Llewellyn in their first meeting?

Will Thomas' first novel, Some Danger Involved, was published in 2004 by Simon & Schuster. It introduces us to the London Victorian era Enquiry Agent Cyrus Barker and his newly hired assistant, Thomas Llewellyn. Some Danger Involved was selected for the Oklahoma Book Award for 2005 in the fiction category.

As I step into our agreed upon meeting place at the bookstore cafe, I see that Thomas has arrived first, as I suspected he would. My calculations that he might be there early to "set the tone" of the interview seem to be correct. Yet, when I offer my hand in greeting, I am immediately disarmed. Will Thomas, it occurs to me, may be the most genuine person I have ever met. His quiet nature belies what transpires in his mind, the mind that brought Barker and Llewellyn to life.

The man is a character genius. His design of these quirky, realistic characters stretches the reader's knowledge of Victorian England and brings the era to life.

In fact, you could string along all the multiple syllable synonyms for smart, well-done and so forth for his work, but most importantly, the book is just plain old fun and entertaining to read.

Thomas' second novel, To Kingdom Come, published in 2005, reacquaints us with the investigations of Barker and Llewellyn. Thomas' writing has also appeared in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine and in the publications of various Sherlock Holmes societies. He lives quietly with his family in Oklahoma and works as a librarian.

This is what we talked about when we met recently at Borders Bookstore...

by Joe Myers

JOE: Your bio listed on the Simon & Schuster website and in your books is very spare. Is this guarded view of yourself by design?

WILL: [Chuckling] I wouldn't say it was intentional. [Jokingly] You may not be aware of my years in the CIA, but we won't go into that.

JOE: How long have you been writing fiction?

WILL: Only about six years now.

JOE: Do you remember who published you first and the story?

WILL: I had some short fiction published with Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, but a lot more poetry. Sometimes I think it is harder to get a short story published, as opposed to poetry or a novel.

JOE: What was the initial spark for your first novel Some Danger Involved?

WILL: I got hold of a book called London Newsstand Points of Arrival, and it was about the Jews arriving in London in the 1880's. This was something I had never heard or read about it. I felt that certainly there was a chance for something really bad to happen. They were right there on the sea, in England, with no place else to go. I've had Barker and Llewellyn in my mind for some time and I just decided that this was where I wanted their first adventure together to be.

JOE: In Some Danger Involved, Cyrus Barker's physical description by Llewellyn includes Barker's weight of 15 stones. How much is that?

WILL: Each stone is roughly 14 pounds, so approximately 205 to 210 pounds. A very solid man. You know, at some point, you can explain everything. But if you explain everything, you lose the mystery involved. And also, I like to make my readers stretch a little bit. If they have to go the dictionary to look something up, they learn.

JOE: You've mentioned in the past that Some Danger Involved took five years to coalesce. What did you do in those years to make this happen?

WILL: I had to write each day. Sometimes this also involved many long weekends.

JOE: In reference to the character of Llewellyn, when I read Some Danger Involved, he simply sprang to life from the page. To render him so realistically, did you model him after anyone you know?

WILL: I think a lot of his life is based on the life of the writer George Gissing. He was just one of those people who was extremely unlucky in all of the things he did. That, combined with some autobiographical qualities, caused [Llewellyn] to spring full-form out of my head when I started to write.

JOE: Is this character modeling the same for Barker as well?

WILL: One concept that I had in the novel is that I wanted to take a noir-type character from the 1930s, the hard-boiled detective, and locate this type of personality back in the Victorian era and create a kind of "Victorian Noir." And because of the research I had been doing for years, I had learned that Victorian England was a lot more dangerous than people think of it these days. [For example] the walking sticks [that the gentlemen] carried around then were for protection, not just for show.

JOE: How did you break into the literary world with Some Danger Involved?

WILL: We chose a certain number of literary agents and we had assumed that we would have to make our way through the list of twenty-five or so until a stroke of genius happened. The novel made it into the slush pile and was picked up almost immediately by one of the top agents in New York.

JOE: How long did that process take, from the time you were picked from the slush pile?

WILL: Only a matter of weeks.

JOE: You are taking time off from your job as a librarian to start a new novel. Can you share the title and subject with us?

WILL: Yes, it's called The Limehouse Text and it follows the continuing investigations of Barker and Llewellyn in London's Chinatown and offers a resolution to the demise of Barker's deceased assistant that Llewellyn replaced.

JOE: With your new novel, do you have a set writing schedule?

WILL: Sometimes I'll work at home, and sometimes I'll come to a bookstore café like this. It's always several hours a day. Sometimes it's at two in the morning. I'll just grab my pen and pad and begin.

JOE: So you write your novels in longhand?

WILL: Yes, on legal pads. No computers--not because I can't; I just don't. My wife takes what I've written and types it up. She's an author of three novels in her own right and is the first person to read and offer editorial comments on my work. She lets me know if my characters are acting as themselves. After that, our daughters read the book to offer their comments.

JOE: How did you become involved in your extensive Victorian Era research?

WILL: I came to it in layers. Initially, it was on the Internet, learning how to sharpen my research skills. At that point, short of going to England to complete my research, it was time to start my inter-library loans, throughout the library systems. And sure enough, I began to receive books in from all around the country. Things like Victorian telephone books, railway timetables and the like. And I like to use them. If someone arrives on the 802 in my book, there was an 802. That's me writing to entertain myself.

JOE: Any interesting observations from readers of your book?

WILL: I once had a reader tell me that my novel was like Victorian literature for people who were used to playing video games.

JOE: What was it like to receive the Oklahoma Book Award?

WILL: [Laughing] It was a shock. I was up against Billie Letts [Shoot the Moon] and Bill Bernhardt [Dark Eye], great local authors, and when it was announced that I won, of course, there's that split second where I couldn't remember my own name, the name of my own book, and came to the realization that I'd not written an acceptance speech. So, I get up there and blather on for a bit, get off the stage, go home and pinch myself.

JOE: What are you reading right now?

WILL: Elmore Leonard's The Hot Kid is what I'm reading right now. What I read has no rhyme or reason. Usually it's a few Victorian history books and crime novels by Robert B. Parker [Potshot, Gunman's Rhapsody].

JOE: Do you have any thoughts on the so-called decline of literary fiction?

WILL: I see it, especially when I'm at the library. There is just so much interest in television these days and so many things to occupy one's time. When you pick up a magazine or the newspaper, they are spending a great deal of time talking about television as well. So you have this thing where literature is not important to a lot of people, unless it is made into a movie.

JOE: Why do you think that is?

WILL: It's due to the media and marketing. I don't think the quality of writers has gone down in any way. There's a whole spectrum of writing out there, but whether anyone is reading is a different thing altogether.

JOE: Do you have any word of inspiration for non-published writers out there?

WILL: Yes I do. When I sat down to write Some Danger Involved, I thought I would like to get this published, at some point, in anything, any form. I was expecting a long process, but the book was snapped up. You never know until you send it out. Maybe new writers send their work out to a few places and get turned down. That happens. You just have to get brave enough to do it over and over again. Pretty soon the new writer's work will slip into that niche where it was meant to be all along.

Email Joe Myers at joe.myers@okstate.edu.