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I’ve been more excited about New York Minute and the character of Will Kane than anything in years. I wrote and rewrote this book from the heart. The characters are real to me — and that’s what this book is about: character.
I was thinking about what I wanted to write in terms of thriller a couple of years ago as I’m going back to that genre after years in science fiction. I thought about a Jack Reacher type of character and story; especially given the parallels in Reacher’s fictional life and my real one: Reacher was West Point ’82, I was ’81. Reacher was in Lebanon during the bombing while my unit, 10th Special Forces was running the MTT there when that tragedy occurred. Reacher’s mother is French from Strasbourg; my wife’s mother is French from Strasbourg.
I love Lee Child’s books, but as he says in the new opening to Killing Floor (a must-read), Jack Reacher is a mythical character. A modern knight. I realized I couldn’t write such a character, perhaps because of my own flaws; more on that in a bit. I wanted to write someone like the special ops people I’ve known, warts and all, but with a deep moral code, who is forced, against his will, into making a decision that he swore never to make. I wanted to surround him with a cast of reoccurring characters, each with their own flaws, strengths and backstory, and, most…
