Bones creator Hart Hanson creates a new kind of private investigator with The Seminarian

For his new novel, The Seminarian, Hart Hanson started with a character rather than an incident.

For his new novel, The Seminarian, Hart Hanson started with a character rather than an incident.

The former executive producer of the TV series Bones wanted to create a different kind of L.A. private investigator, which is easier said than done, considering the tradition dates back to Phillip Marlowe in the 40s all the way to Michael Connelly's Hieronymus "Harry" Bosch and a couple dozen others in between – but Hanson understood that what draws readers into a crime novel is the exploration of its hero’s emotional life as much as the crime.

“What’s his job?” Hanson asks. “What’s his backstory?”

“I had a couple ideas,” he says. “Oppositional disorder and a guy who’s a lapsed Catholic. A guy who gave up on Catholicism.”

Meet Xavier Priestly – or Priest, as he’s known to an eclectic collection of Venice Beach irregulars, law enforcement types, pimps and rivals he comes across in The Seminarian, which Hanson will talk about in an early-morning Wordfest event Friday at the Memorial Park Library (full disclosure: I’m interviewing him).

The coffee talk literary nosh will be the back end of a back-to-backer for Hanson, a happy grandpa who grew up in Vancouver Island, studied at the University of Toronto and UBC, had stints at CBC (story editing and writing for The Beachcombers),  North of 60,  the award-winning Traders, in addition to writing various episodes of shows such as Outer Limits, The Road to Avonlea, Stargate, Judging Amy, Joan of Arcadia, The Finder (which he created), and many others.

Before he gets to talking about The Seminarian, on Thursday night Hanson will be the one doing the interviewing when he sits down with Kathy Reichs, to talk about her latest Bones novel – and maybe share a few stories about turning a bunch of them into a beloved, long-running  television series.