An Interview With Private Investigator Nick Forte

One Bite at a Time: Let’s get the elephant in the room out of the way right off the bat: you’ve killed several men. How do you feel about that?

Nick Forte: I don’t feel good about it, but I’m not losing sleep, either. Remember, I wouldn’t be here to answer that question if I hadn’t taken care of those guys.

 

OBAAT: You’re a throwback to an earlier age of detectives; some might call you a dinosaur. How do you justify your methods?

NF: I don’t need to justify myself to anyone except as the law may require. I do what I feel has to be done at the time. If there are repercussions, I’ll deal with them as they come up.

 

OBAAT: Your daughter Caroline figures prominently in these novels. How has your relationship with her evolved as she grows, and how do you reconcile the loving father she knows with the violent man others may see and she’s learning about through the Internet?

NF: What’s between Caroline and me is between Caroline and me. Next question.

 

OBAAT: But she’s a key element of your books.

NF: I don’t write the books. King does. You want to know why he writes them the way he does, ask him.

 

OBAAT: Are you a violent man?

NF: Do you mean do I go out looking for opportunities to be violent? No. I will say I have the potential for violence and people would do well not to provoke me beyond a certain point. A friend once said I am the poster child for ‘fuck around and find out.’ I can’t argue with that.

 

OBAAT: It’s safe to say your closest friend and confidant is Timothy “Goose” Satterwhite, a collector and enforcer for various crime entities on the South Side of Chicago. You were a police officer and consider yourself to be working on the side of the angels. How do you reconcile the close association with such a known violent criminal?

NF: Tim Satterwhite has pulled me out of more scrapes than I have fingers to count. I know there are people who wonder how we can be friends, but the kind of work I do doesn’t bring me into contact with a lot of priests or schoolteachers or caregivers. I take my friends where I find them.

 

OBAAT: You seem to be more inclined to take the law into your own hands as the series goes on. How do you justify that?

NF: The law tells what’s legal, not what’s just. Among the things that frustrated me as a cop was that I was constrained to work on what followed the law and not what the end result would be. As a private operator I can do a little more to see to it that people who need a better deal get one. And, sometimes, that those who were planning to escape justice have it applied to them.