T.J. Brearton is a bestselling author whose work blends crime, psychological suspense, and a cinematic sense of storytelling. With nearly thirty novels to his name and a background in film and television, his fiction is known for its vivid settings, layered characters, and quietly unsettling tension. His latest novel, Deadly Shoot, brings all of these elements together in a story set on a remote island with secrets just beneath the surface.
In this interview, Brearton shares insights into his creative process, his longtime fascination with isolation and identity, and how his screenwriting roots continue to shape his fiction.
Deadly Shoot takes us to a remote island off the coast of Maine—a filmmaker’s dream and a thriller lover’s paradise. What inspired Buck Island’s eerie isolation and its blend of cinematic glamour and creeping dread?
“Eerie isolation, cinematic glamour and creeping dread” — can I hire you as the book’s publicist?
I spent time on Chebeague Island when I was younger. I started my first novel there. I’m fascinated by people who live on islands.
Readers across genres often talk about “setting as character,” and the setting for Deadly Shoot —the WWII bunker, the storm rolling in, the sense of isolation—really delivers on that front. Were there specific books, films, or real-world places that helped shape this atmospheric backdrop?
I like these questions! So flattering, thank you. I researched the Maine islands, and I’ve been in that region. Beyond that, a setting usually forms in my imagination unbidden. It’s just there. Maybe kind of like a video game? The more you explore it, the more that’s revealed. I sketched the map in the book based on what I envisioned.
Mack Banner is a reclusive actor lured out of retirement by a role too good to pass up. How did your background in film and TV influence the way you shaped his character?
Seriously, these are great questions. My background in film and TV absolutely influenced this story. I’ve worked on movie sets and so drew from those experiences. I’d had the idea for a character like Mack — an aging actor past his prime, fallen from grace — for a while. And he’s lured, like you say, out of early retirement by a love-letter script.
When I got into this story, Mack formed as an amalgam of Ben Affleck, Brad Pitt, George Clooney. Basically, anyone who might’ve been in Ocean’s Eleven. I modeled Mack’s career on Pitt’s.
There’s a subtle meta-layer in telling a story about a movie being made. Did that give you opportunities to play with expectations—or mislead readers—in a way that a more straightforward whodunit might not?
You should interview for a living. Seriously. That’s a great question. There’s definitely a meta-layer: Mack’s acting as a WWII veteran and is a veteran of the Invasion of Panama. The film he’s acting in, Lateralus, is sci-fi, and plays with time travel and parallel realities. There’s definitely some entanglement there with the main plot, the psychological elements that Mack could be deluded, even an unreliable narrator.
As both a screenwriter and novelist, you know how to work a twist. What were the unique challenges (or freedoms) of crafting a ‘locked island’ mystery where everyone’s a suspect and the storm’s closing in?
I’d never written a locked-room mystery before. The challenge here was the volume of characters. A good locked-room mystery probably has no more than half a dozen? I had 15-20. I thought about sending all but a few off the island but it never quite made sense to do that.
The other challenge was that we get to know these characters as Mack does, and there’s not a real period of establishing who’s who before the first part of the mystery — a missing person — is off and running. So we have to get to know the suspects on the fly. The book is meant to be paced like a thriller, whereas those Agathie Christie, parlor-murder novels tend to be built differently. In the end, it’s a hybrid, and I really like stories that fuse different subgenres together, so I love where it ended up.
With your background in screenwriting and filmmaking, do you visualize your novels cinematically as you write? And if Deadly Shoot were adapted for the screen, who would you cast as Mack Banner?
There’s a strong visual component for sure. I describe what I see, and take dictation for what I hear. Those early drafts need to be clarified though, and obviously I am shaping things as I go. The whole process of writing a novel is kind of like making a movie. I do several takes of a scene, and the actors give it a little of this or a little of that, and then I keep what I like.
If Affleck played Mack Banner I’d probably cash in my chips and leave the casino. That would be it.
Do you see Mack Banner returning in future books, or was this his one and only curtain call?
I absolutely could see Mack in a future book; a Black Dahlia story of his own, a PI in Hollywood. (See also The Big Sleep, A Man Named Doll, etc.)
Three words that capture the mood of Deadly Shoot?
Cinematic, thrilling, surprising.
One thing Mack Banner knows that most people don’t?
The underbelly of Hollywood. Not the drugs or the sex but the dark money.
Creepiest location you’ve ever visited in real life?
Probably Untermeyer Park in Yonkers, near where I used to live. The Son of Sam did some killing there. So they say.
In your own thriller, what role would you play—detective, red herring, or final twist?
Detective. No question.
Thanks again, this was fun.
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