MC: Walk us through the world of Devil's Cape, it's heroes, it's villains, it's origins...

RR: Devil's Cape is a superhero thriller set in the fictional city of Devil's Cape, Louisiana. A masked pirate calling himself St. Diable founded the city in 1727 and his influence is felt even in the 21st century. Devil's Cape occupies the same space that Slidell, Louisiana, occupies in the real world, but sprawling farther, a sister city to New Orleans, but darker and more corrupt. Its streets are twisted in unexpected directions and its architecture is heavily influenced by the pirates who created it--decorated with gaudy, unmatched trimmings (the pirates' bounty); fortified against attack and surveillance; filled with secrets.

Beyond the city itself, there are three main heroes in the book:

Jason Kale is a television crime reporter and an outcast from the powerful Kalodimos crime family. When he and his twin brother Julian were babies, their father baptized both children in water containing threads from the Golden Fleece, hoping to give them an edge to keep them from being drawn into the "family business." That baptism ultimately gave both boys the abilities of the Argonauts of Greek myth, including Heracles' strength, Idmon's visions, and the Boreals' power of flight. Jason has used his abilities rarely, but has distanced himself from the rest of the family, particularly from his corrupt Uncle Costas, one of the top lieutenants of the Robber Baron the crime lord of Devil's Cape. But Julian has begun to use his powers in their uncle's service as a masked criminal called Scion. As the story progresses, Jason realizes he needs to take action and becomes the hero Argonaut, a role that puts further him at odds with the rest of his family.

As a teenager, Cain Ducett was a violent gang leader and drug dealer. He attacked the wrong person and ended up cursed as a result, finding himself transforming into a hideous winged, clawed creature. When he returned to normal, the experience jarred him into changing his life. Today he's a respected psychiatrist and has written his previous metamorphosis off as a hallucination. Events in the book, including the escape of a homicidal superpowered patient of his called Rusalka, force him to reevaluate his interpretation of his past. As he begins to transform again and adopts the identity of the mew superhero Bedlam, Cain struggles to keep his emotions under control.

Kate Brauer is the inheritor of a legacy. Her father was the third superhero to call himself Doctor Camelot. He wore high-tech powered armor that allowed him to fly, enhanced his strength, and included a number of nonlethal weapons. One of the premier heroes of Vanguard City, a gleaming metropolis in Connecticut, he was murdered decades ago by a group of super-powered carnival freaks called the Cirque d'Obscurité. When his killers turn up in Devil's Cape, Kate travels to the city and brings her father's armor with her. A brilliant engineer in her own right, Kate adapts and improves the armor, making it stronger and faster and vastly increasing the capabilities of its communication and sensor systems. As the new Doctor Camelot, she resolves to stop the Cirque d'Obscurité, no matter how dangerous that might be.

I've touched on the villains above: the Robber Baron, the Cirque d'Obscurité, Rusalka, and Scion. They're all important to the development of the story.

MC: I've seen Devil's Cape described as Southern Gothic meets Heroes. Do you think that's an accurate description?

RR: Ah, marketing copy. I'd say it's a fair description. There's certainly a Southern element to the setting and many of the characters, with an appropriate mentality and themes that often pop up in Southern writing, such as the importance of history, reconciling love for home with an understanding of that home's darker moments, and family, of course. And as far as Heroes goes, both my book and the TV show feature superheroics in settings that feel real, exploring what it might be like to live in a world where such strange and wonderful things happen.

MC: In the world you've created you have super heroes and super villains, with advanced technology and supernatural abilities but set in a realistic setting. Why did you decide to go this route? And do you think there's an audience for this type of novel?

RR: I think that Devil's Cape is kind of a meeting ground for people who like to read thrillers and people who like to read comic books. I wanted to explore a genre I love--superheroes--in the medium of prose. I definitely think there's an audience for this type of novel.

MC: Devil's Cape is a fictitious sister city to New Orleans. What are the advantages in going with a created setting rather than a real one?

RR: You get to make up cool stuff! Creating a city of my own let me build on familiar elements--the real-life setting of Louisiana, a New Orleans flavor, etc.,--while adding in other things that worked for my story, such as the strong pirate influence on the city and the historical elements of the various people who have lived there over the years. It's nice being able to part with reality a bit--making the streets run the way I need them to and developing neighborhoods and infrastructures to meet the needs of the story. Of course, once I've created an element, I need to be consistent about it. Here's a tip for anyone trying the same thing: Develop the map early on. Creating a map later in the process and trying to match it to all of your descriptions can be a huge undertaking.

MC: This is your first novel. Can you talk about what this process has been like for you?

RR: After the initial submission for the Wizards of the Coast open call, the primary challenge for me was time. The underlying idea of the call for submissions was that although you were submitting three chapters and an outline for the initial review, you were expected to have the full manuscript available if you made it to the next step. Well, I have a full-time job and two kids and just didn't have the time and energy to pour into completing the book just in case. So when Peter Archer of Wizards' book department contacted me and told me that Wizards liked the submission and wanted to see the whole manuscript, I was simultaneously elated and terrified. I was expected to provide a complete book within 10 days! Wizards was kind enough to extend that to five weeks, but even that was a very, very tight turnaround time, especially since I was in the middle of a huge project at work and couldn't just drop things. My wife and sons were a great support, giving me a lot of extra time on nights and weekends to work on the manuscript, and thanks to a really great team at work, I was able to squeeze in a couple of short-notice vacation days to help get that first draft wrapped up.

I didn't know it for a while, but the book almost died shortly after I sent it off. Peter Archer, the editor at Wizards of the Coast who had liked the submission and who had been my contact there, left the company. I had no way of knowing this, so it seemed to me that Wizards had just decided to pass on the book. I sent Peter a couple of e-mails, which of course never reached him, and assumed that I had been rejected. But about four or five months after I'd sent the completed draft in, I got an e-mail from Phil Athans, senior managing editor at Wizards of the Coast. Phil had been clearing out Peter's office and came across my manuscript--I'd had it printed in Renton, Washington, where Wizards of the Coast is based, and delivered by courier because I was so close to the wire on my deadline. It was in a box and had been stamped "Paid in Full" by the courier and for quite a while Phil thought that that was the title of the book. Phil nearly pitched the manuscript, but he decided to read at least a little bit to see what he thought, and he liked it. His e-mail to me got the book back on the track to being published. After that, there was a lot of revision work to be done. After I sent off the book, I kind of made a mental list of things I'd like to develop further if I ever got the opportunity. My editors at Wizards had their own list of suggestions (and honestly there was a lot of overlap there--we saw eye to eye on nearly everything) and so I went through more drafts of the book, getting it ready for publication.

I guess the most surprising thing for me was the way revising the book often worked in fits and starts. I'd work on it very intensely for weeks, then have a long period where I kind of held off, waiting to see what Wizards thought of the changes. It was a good process, though, and coming back at it fresh always helped me make it better.

MC: What's the response been towards Devil's Cape?

RR: I don't have any sales figures yet, or anything like that, but people I've talked to about the book or who have written about the book have generally been very positive. Superhero fans certainly seem to enjoy it, but I've also been very pleased with the number of people who don't particularly like superheroes, but who have ended up really enjoying the book because of the characters and action and setting. I just want to spread the word about it--I hope that once someone picks it up and reads a few pages, it will stand on its own merits.

MC: What's next for you Rob?

RR: I'm working on a sequel to Devil's Cape. I'm kicking around a couple of other ideas, but that sequel's my main goal.