TIFFANY
The year I was twelve I sat in the darkened Court Theater, just as thrilled as I was supposed to be, while my obsessions and anxieties interacted with the obsessions and anxieties of that horny boy who’d grown up to be Alfred Hitchcock. Rear Window started me off, and I’ve loved thrillers ever since.
Of course I loved the classic films of the Cinema Noir, and I loved the thriller genre even better when I found it in print, in the work of Raymond Chandler and Ross Macdonald. I’m a sucker for every twist you can throw into it—the despised detective walking alone down the mean streets, the innocent bystander swept up by the machinations of some despicable crew, the only honest cop in town taking on the mob, the endangered heroine who finds that she can’t rely on anyone but herself. For most of my writing life, I’ve wanted to write a Noir thriller, and Tiffany is it.
Tiffany is the result of the violent encounter—in the back alleys of my mind—of American Noir with Manga (I’m thinking, in particular, of Urasawa’s Monster). My protagonist is a young model in a big dirty American city, trying to start her career after the great meltdown of 2008. Desperate for money, she is drawn into a mysterious and sinister club. There’s a murder, and a bitter old cop, and some evil bad guys— Tiffany is definitely intended for adult readers.
Chloe Chan’s superb and moody drawings have brought the first few pages of Tiffany to life. To see them, click here: tiffany_may
Story, © Keith Maillard | Art, © Chloe Chan