( CNN ) -- James Sallis may be the best crime writer you 've never heard of . In an award-winning career spanning some forty years , he 's written more than two dozen volumes of fiction , poetry , essays , criticism and biography inspiring a small but cult-like following of readers . Now his fan base is about to get a big boost . His newest novel , `` The Killer is Dying '' is drawing praise from critics all over the world , while his 2005 noir classic , `` Drive '' arrives on the big screen this week . `` Drive '' features an all-star cast , including Hollywood hunk Ryan Gosling in the starring role as Sallis describes , `` a guy who does stunt driving for movies by day and drives for criminals at night . '' Danish director Nicolas Winding Refn won best director at the Cannes film festival for `` Drive '' earlier this year . Sallis also has a new novel out , `` The Killer is Dying . '' It 's the story of three strangers who unwittingly cross paths in the sun-scorched sprawl of Phoenix . There 's Christian , a dying hit man on his final job , Sayles , the detective trying to catch him , and Jimmie a teenager abandoned by his parents , who is somehow seeing Christian 's dreams . It 's Sallis at his existential best ; minimalist noir with a cinematic feel . It 's pulp fiction for the 21st century . Not just a writer , Sallis is also a poet , professor and musician . CNN recently caught up with him to talk about his new novel . Sallis , a man of letters but few words , gave us some insight into his work . The following is an edited transcript : . CNN : `` The Killer is Dying '' is not your typical crime novel , how would you describe it ? Sallis : As a novel about three isolated people living in a huge makeshift city in the middle of forbidding desert , three people who in the course of the novel find community of a sort . CNN : Tell me more about your three main characters , Christian , Sayles & Jimmie . Sallis : Christian is a hired killer dying of an unspecified terminal disease . He goes to fulfill his final contract but is beaten to the punch , and sees his mark taken down by someone else . With no knowledge at all of Christian , Sayles is the detective investigating that attack . He is cut off from others and from his own emotions , with only his job to hold him in place ; his wife is dying of cancer . Jimmie is a teenager abandoned by both parents and living by his wits , buying and selling on eBay to get by , expecting any day to get caught and taken away . Then suddenly , in the third chapter , Jimmie is having the killer 's , Christian 's , dreams . CNN : Phoenix really comes alive in your book , what is it about the city that interests you as a writer ? Sallis : It 's the nation 's fifth largest city , a triumph of will and engineering over common sense , surrounded by miles of what looks at first to be almost nothing . Sprawling , various , indefinable , ungraspable . If ever there was a melting pot , this is one . Kinda south , kinda west , kinda old , kinda ageless , kinda middle America , kinda Hispanic ... . CNN : You 're something of a renaissance man , beyond your crime novels , you 're also a poet , a translator , a biographer , a musician and a teacher . How do these various disciplines influence your work overall ? Sallis : Take any one of those away , the work would be quite different . I would be quite different . CNN : Did you always want to be a writer ? Sallis : I think I knew pretty early that that 's where I was headed . Like the automobile wreck in JB : `` Saw it start to , saw it had to , saw it happen . '' Or as someone once described noir fiction : `` force of circumstances driving protagonists to the commission of dreadful acts . '' CNN : One of your most popular novels , `` Drive , '' is out now as a Hollywood movie . How involved were you in the adaptation and what do you think of the movie ? Sallis : I had no involvement beyond providing the novel -- the buzzer in the chair that got everyone up and moving . It 's an astonishingly fine movie , one that will be talked about and referenced , I suspect , for many years . Nic Refn 's direction , Ryan 's acting , Albert Brooks ' bad guy - all tremendous . Brilliant . Read more about the movie and see a trailer for `` Drive . '' CNN : What have you read recently that really made an impression on you ? Sallis : Mostly rereads : a collection of Barry Hannah 's stories , `` Long , Last , Happy . '' Danny Woodrell 's `` The Bayou Trilogy . '' Also `` The Collected Stories of Carol Emshwiller . '' CNN : What 's next for you ? Sallis : I 'm a hundred-plus pages into a novel about Driver seven years further along , when the mob shows up , apparently to kill him . After that , back to reworking the draft of `` Others of My Kind , '' about a woman abducted as a child and kept in a box under her abductor 's bed , and who is now one of the world 's good people . A brief portion of this appeared in my friend Patrick Millikin 's anthology Phoenix Noir . Oh -- and a lot of playing festivals and coffee houses with my band , Three-Legged Dog . Read more about James Sallis on his website .
' ' Sallis 's 2005 noir classic , ` ` Drive , '' arrives on the big screen this summer . His latest , ` ` The World is Dying , '' involves three strangers who unwittingly cross paths in Hollywood . He has published more than two dozen volumes of fiction , poetry , essays , criticism & essays .