Montreal-based writer and book critic, Stuart Nulman interviewed me a while back for THE DIGITAL DRIVE IN, an e-book and audiobook news, reviews and interviews site. I have reproduced it below.
“The Fixxer is the classic knight errant who is always helping people in need, yet he possesses a cynical attitude. He is slightly outside the law, but is always elegant. He is not a tortured soul, yet he has some dark elements within him,” he said. “The Fixxer”, a combination some of the best elements of James Bond and the Saint, is the protagonist of what Leiva hopes is the first in a series of Noir yet witty thriller mysteries called Blood is Pretty, which is now available as an e-book and soon as an audio book from Crossroads Press (http://store.crossroadpress.com/product_info.php?products_id=90), and also available at the Amazon Kindle Store (http://www.amazon.com/Blood-Pretty-Fixxer-Adventure-ebook/dp/B003V8BUAM/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&m=AG56TWVU5XWC2&s=digital-text&qid=1280189710&sr=1-1).
This first Fixxer Adventure has gathered the endorsements of literary master Ray Bradbury, and Academy Award-winning film producer Richard Zanuck. Where Sam Spade made San Francisco his gumshoe battleground and 19th century London was the home base of Sherlock Holmes, Leiva plunks the Fixxer into the maelstrom that is contemporary Hollywood as his base of operations, where he uses his suave operative skills to champion the downtrodden of Tinseltown. “Hollywood can be a rough road. Everyone is trying to be a winner, but they don’t want to get hurt getting there. People get insecure there in an odd way, and things get harder and harsher,” said Leiva, who has had his share of the Hollywood experience as an animated movie authority, a film producer, playwright and screenwriter. “The Fixxer makes his money off the sins and foibles of Hollywood. They amuse him morally, but he’s there to fix the problems at hand for the movers and shakers. And yet, something immoral will happen that’s not so amusing, and that’s when the knight errant in Fixxer comes out.”
In Blood is Pretty, the Fixxer is hired by a minimally talented film director to put the pressure on a film geek named David Spencer to accept $250,000 to sign over all his rights and credit for a film treatment he has written that the director thinks will put him in the league of Spielberg and Lucas. Spencer refuses and is subsequently murdered. “Although the Fixxer didn’t commit the murder, he feels his involvement led to it and his moral sense demands to know why and demands that he avenge it if possible,” said Leiva. Although the Fixxer’s character and mannerisms has the elements of the fictional detectives and heroes that Leiva read voraciously in his youth, it’s British secret agent James Bond who was the main influence in the shaping of the Fixxer. “I’ve been a big James Bond fan since the age of 13, when I read the comic book adaptation of ‘Dr. No’ that was featured in an issue of D.C. Comic’s ‘Showcase’ (in 1963),” he said. “Bond was my fictional hero for all the normal stuff, such as the adventures, the romance of traveling to those exotic locations … and all those women! The books by Ian Fleming were more serious than the movies, because Bond wasn’t always the winner. He went through trials, tribulations and torture, yet he doggedly kept at it,” added Leiva. “He was the blunt instrument of government, was pretty tough, yet he took all that abuse trying to achieve his goals and win at the end. It was a metaphor for getting through life.”
And it seems that people who like a good mystery have warmed up to the Fixxer’s first foray in Blood is Pretty. “Everyone who has the read the book have enthusiastically loved it, which has helped maintained the book’s five-star rating on Amazon,” said Leiva. “One person even told me that, ‘you’ve ruined my sleep because I couldn’t put the book down.’” This type of reaction has given Leiva the motivation to create more Fixxer adventures. He is currently doing the final copy edit of the second Fixxer adventure, called Hollywood is an All-Volunteer Army, and is germinating the idea for a third Fixxer novel. Why choose such an offbeat title as Hollywood is an All-Volunteer Army for the Fixxer’s next case? “This is a normal problem in Hollywood,” said Leiva. “Many people lucky enough to work in Hollywood still spend an inordinate amount of time pissing and moaning about the harsh reality of it. But people aren’t drafted into the world of Hollywood, indeed many are dying to get into the entertainment business — and all the glamour that goes with it – of their own free will. In the sequel the Fixxer is asked by one young woman who has been hurt by that harsh reality to fix her problem, but that’s a problem that can’t be fixed, and in turning her down the Fixxer advises her to just deal with it because, “Hollywood is an all-volunteer army.” Of course a little later she turns up dead in a snow drift on the frozen Bearing Sea just off the Seward Peninsula wearing a Donna Karan evening gown and high heels — and then the adventure begins.”
Stuart Nulman writes the Book Banter column for the West End Times in Montreal and reviews books for the international radio program, The Stuph File, and is the author of Beyond The Mountain: True Tales About Montreal
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