Dark Sea by E.J. Rand

Your unique and intriguing sleuth is Gary Kemmerman, a fictional character who unexpectedly lost his wife to cancer--as you did in real life. You seem very candid about this, which I find refreshing. This leads me to think you are a just-the-facts kind of guy like Gary. How do you arrive at your own up-front honesty about this?  How did you bring Gary from loss to new life and love?  To what extent are you Gary Kemmerman, or vice versa?

I'm asked this often, and my immediate reply is, the love scenes are Gary's alone.  My guess is that every married couple will recognize pieces of themselves.  Gary lives in my house and wakes me at night with ideas and complaints.  We both understand loss and the illumination of second chances.  My late wife had divorced me, and so I understand angry women.  Told, when I began writing, to create a lengthy bio for my character, I found it already existed in my head--and (fortunate for the reader) it was NOT all me.  I've based characters on family and friends, but the characters take on their own life and my models have never recognized themselves. When we meet Gary, he's dysfunctional, still mourning after a year.  And Becca, after fleeing an abusive marriage, wants nothing to do with men.  Snap, crackle, zap--what fun.  If Gary didn't come with perspective, he'd be on her rejects list.

As you have in real life, Gary recovers from the abyss of loss and depression. He squares his past and future fairly, each in their respective berths as the ship of life sails on (I use this metaphor because you spent some time after college as a Naval officer). Gary discovers that love does sometimes strike twice. Gary's new love is Becca, and together they solve crimes. Your website, which I invite readers to visit, says: "Change--the evolution of Gary and Becca Kemmerman as individuals and as a couple--is central to the series. They change as we do, with resistance, compromise, and wonder."

What does that last quote mean? How do they change? Where were they when they met in the first novel? How do they evolve as characters, to keep us hooked as they do over a so-far four part series? Do you treat them separately, as invididuals, in addition to their being a couple?

This is a core element for me.  I believe a story's trials should evolve the characters--and writing about a marriage, it means separately and together.  Let's start with simple:  the Food Police.  Any nods, out there?  Then there are mannerisms, personality quirks: when we meet her, Becca uses cutting words.  Falling for her in SAY GOODBYE, Gary is blown open emotionally.  Compromise may be the name of the game, but what is each willing to give up?  Becca wants him to give up sleuthing.  What does a strong-willed woman do when the guy says no?--volunteer, in PERFECT COVER, as a police decoy.  In HIGHER CALLING, Gary yields, makes her a partner, and then can't keep up with her.   When I force Gary to give her up to a killer's gun, imagine when she calls him on it.  The reaction is non-verbal: spoken words wouldn't work.

Gary and Becca may have worked out rules with prior mates.  But in DARK SEA, they're on their first anniversary vacation, a small-ship cruise when, self-conscious about her figure, she'd like to find out whether she's attractive.  This sure qualifies as a big-time evolution, especially as Gary has trouble saying no to, and getting angry at, her.  To flip the blender on high, I also have Gary and Becca, in separate incidents, in order to save the other, each kill a man.  Becca had never done that; only a visceral reaction enabled it.   So the author must put them through a catharsis--a release from the horror they've survived, a renewal together.   They wind up looking at each other differently, and the reader knows it.

In Book 1 (SAY GOODBYE), Gary is still grieving. He wears his wedding ring as a reminder (leading us to the title, about letting go). The subject of his first amateur investigation is a divorcée named Becca, who wears a wedding ring for protection. That's really clever, and suggests that you pay a lot of attention to backstory and underlying story. I sense that you probably enjoy such added layers of depth. Can you talk about that and how it makes you feel in putting a novel together? I mean, being with your characters so they live and breathe, or more to the point, as this kind of fine detail brings a story to life.

Every scene will have a meaningful insight, a new peek into character, a connection with memories--all derived directly from the action and story flow--or I'll cut it out.  Every single reader can think back to a lifetime full of these small but vital events.  The trick is to capture them succinctly in dialog, action, description, movement, in ways that are true to their emotions and serve a story purpose.  If an emotional scene doesn't reach the four-tissue mark, I know I haven't hit it.  When I write, I'm not just typing words, I AM the characters.  In DARK SEA, they're about to go on a tour ashore when Becca stops him, gazing at his chest, remarking that it's expensive--and Gary knows that her reaction has nothing to do with money.  In another scene, she says she doesn't want him near her and he knows it's not true, and moves closer, wiping the tears that begin leaking, and when she looks at him.....  Even in marriage, things are seldom what they seem.  As in the wedding rings.  His slips off in the shower, and when he next sees Becca, hers is also off--the emotion is priceless.

In Book 2 (PERFECT COVER), Gary and Becca are married. She is a nurse, and someone is killing nurses at her hospital. Is this novel partially based on a real story? Becca volunteers as a decoy (hence the title, carefully chosen and relevant as always). Seems like a cliff-hanger--Gary is injured, she's in mortal danger, and the perpetrator has everyone fooled. How did you get good at tightening the suspense noose while keeping the romance flowing?

I spent nine days as a patient in a bed beside the nurse's station.  They are my favorites, and I made Becca a nurse.  The security director of a regional hospital told me, during a long interview, that my scenario was among his nightmares.  The subplot in PERFECT COVER is itself a love story--useful, as Becca ignores Gary's warnings, distressing him, though (once again) he can't stop her.  In the end, it's their love for one another, as it relates to the other love affair, that saves them.  I read many books before I began writing, and found complex, emotional plots to be my favorites.  I write what turns me on. 

In Book 3 (HIGHER CALLING), a seemingly random shooting in northern New Jersey draws Gary and Becca into battling terrorists. The title refers to the bomber's belief that he is following a higher calling and is above the law. This novel puts Gary in a terrible dilemma, not only about saving Becca, but also saving the life of a quirky Irish bar girl who is in love with a rogue operative. You have more characters involved here, and there seems to be a growing depth and self-assurance. Tell us about that?

I'd heard it's a worthy author's third novel that's good enough to be published.  I'd submitted SAY GOODBYE and it was rejected; I wrote PERFECT COVER and set it aside, and then HIGHER CALLING poured out in six months.  But I wanted the series to start where Gary and Becca meet, so I redid SAY GOODBYE, and then I redid PERFECT COVER.  So my work starts with number three-and-a-half.

I had planned HIGHER CALLING's Lynn Turner as a bit player but she woke me up, pleading, telling me (in brogue) how to give her some happiness.  She was right, and I fell in love with her (Gary often tells me to keep my hands off Becca).  The poor guy she picked up in the book doesn't have a chance.  Two damaged people, neither able to think "love," no less say it--but you can feel the power of their bond, and their fright.  Caring for him unnerves her; caring for her has him wanting a real life, for the first time. Making characters come alive, resonate, is my challenge and delight. 

I live with my wife in northern New Jersey.  Everything is close:  I've set scenes on the palisades, Fort Lee Historic Park, The Cloisters, Grand Central Terminal, Broadway, the Statue of Liberty, on boats in New York Harbor, in cars on the New Jersey Turnpike...you see what I mean.

In Book 4 (DARK SEA, June 2010), as Gary and Becca celebrate their one-year anniversary on a Caribbean cruise, somebody winds up in the dark sea. Their leisurely trip turns into a mystery of murder, danger, and million of missing dollars, onboard and on tropical islands. They also encounter unexpected marital tensions, which add dimension and reality to the writing. How do you balance the two major threads--the personal, marital versus the adventure-mystery--while keeping the novel on an even keel (again, a nautical term) heading toward its climax and resolution?

In what might be termed Romantic Suspense, my "married couple" thread--Becca's "loosening up"--must tie directly back into the plot.  Gary and Becca meet people because of it.  Others meet and target them because of it.  Links are built between marital and mystery that create surprise and propel action that weaves back and forth, from their cabin to a mountaintop to a topless beach to a ship's bar.  A cruise is a lovely setting: it fosters intimacy between a couple and among strangers.  I adore cruising with my wife.  It proves why we're together. 
An example in the book:  When Becca's bathing suit slips in the ship's pool and she's upset by a man's reaction, Gary suggests they take the afternoon off from the mystery and go on a tour.  Their tour companions further the plot, and the tour option the couple elects almost gets them killed.  Gary suffers from vertigo--a character insight of importance--but after what happens to them, height becomes just another element for him to deal with.  He'd complained when I gave him that handicap, and appreciated my resolving it. 

A ship's officer, a lovely young woman in a white uniform with shoulder boards, granted me an interview.  She was gracious until I asked, "So, your waste disposal system can handle body parts."  "Why not just throw him overboard?" she snarled, almost toppling the chair as she rose. I thought to tell her I'd already done it, but decided not to.

After Wharton, you served as a U.S. Navy officer on the Destroyer U.S.S. Wadleigh. "One day I may turn to the partial murder mystery I drafted while in motion, if my stomach can take it." E. J. Rand, I take that to be a subtle reference to how that class of ship rides the waves, especially in a good gale or a howling storm. Is there any relationship between that partial novel and your sixth, upcoming novel (not about Gary and Becca) Labyrinth? Where do you go after Labyrinth?

Yes, seasick was me.  After surviving a three day hurricane on the World War II destroyer, when I'm on cruises now, I'm the one who can eat when others flee the table.  I've been writing, first for myself and now for others, since I realized I could not talk to my parents and turned inward.  Not their fault; they're gone, and I guess they'd be happy for me.  Or so my brother says.

LABYRINTH is the start of a very different series from Reluctant Sleuth.  Rob Milligan is an NSA agent whose wife has been blown up by a bomb meant for him.  He doesn't know why the agency is trying to kill him and the woman who saved his life, but he'd better find out fast.  It takes place in New York City and Washington, D.C. during five days in May.  It's been his job to change identities for those America needs to protect, and he knows too much.  Rob and Addie Buford are unlikely partners, but mortal danger stokes more than fear.  I'm seeking an agent for this.  I've already completed a sequel, BLINDSIDED, in which Rob and Addie are married and she's eight month's pregnant--she's hormonal and he's protective, interesting when both are caught up in an international conspiracy.  Intimacy during pregnancy is different, amazing, and difficult to write. The plot is espionage at the highest levels, but the story is about two people, and how events change them.

How did you enter into the series format so readily? I would suspect most authors do stand-alone novels for a while until they learn the craft well enough to manage repeats. What advice would you give a beginning novelist in this regard?

What happened to me is that I began to care for the characters.  How could I cut short their escapades, their lives?  I don't suffer plot--I wake up with it, and I've done it both ways:  plotting three threads fully in one novel before drafting, and starting to write when I could see only as far ahead as the headlights.  And aside from the quality of the writing, series must make sense--a reason, when I reworked my first two novels as indicated above, I started with the story in which Gary and Becca meet.  I was told agents and publishers prefer series, so that works.  I've read wildly popular series by others where the key character does not change a tad through twenty books--and I can't do that.  I've changed, and my characters will change.

What advice would you give a new author who wants to write like you do? That begs a point of clarification, actually: would you characterize your novels as romantic thrillers, thrilling romances, or just good reads combining the best of both worlds? Since romantic elements appear in just about all good fiction ever written, as far as I can tell, and you clearly have strong skills in this area, how would you guide newer authors?

I'd prefer the "good reads" tag--what's the difference what nomenclature might apply?  I've written amateur sleuth, espionage, terrorist, sociopath, greed, ambition--diverse twisty plots in order to test my characters.  I create a worthy skeleton on which to drape a love story.  I'm wary of giving advice as everyone is different.  If anything, I'd say write with your passion and emotion, and as a first course, learn what works.  To me, formula may work, but it sucks.  Too often I've come across tacked on, awkward love scenes that read as if the publisher said, add sex or no contract.  Or a finely detailed plot with flat emotion.  "Her alabaster limbs glowed in the moonlight," comes to mind--not that it's wanting, but  I don't want my readers to be a fly on the wall, I want them right in the action.  Maybe that's because even when I'm writing sex, it's really love--it's caring that enables the rest.  But I can't suggest that others have my emotions.

Is there more of a future for hybrid genre fiction in which the love story is as important as a rousing good action tale? For example, picking a great movie at random, there's North By Northwest, an Alfred Hitchcock masterpiece, in which the man (Cary Grant) and the woman (Eva Marie Saint) win each other at the end, overcoming all sorts of terrible obstacles. Are stories like this, and your Reluctant Sleuth novels, the exception, or a secret hidden in plain sight if we only know where to look? I should add, that yours is one of those subgenres in which the strong male and strong female protagonists win each other, and then have to stay won in subsequent novels, which deepens the interest.

LABYRINTH is like the movies TO CATCH A THIEF and CHARADE.  The Reluctant Sleuth mysteries formed as movies in my head, scenes running in video.  I search for lines like, "I'll have what she's having."  Or bits like Grace Kelly's movie ending, "Oh. Mother will love it here," causing Cary Grants's famous expression.  Characters change, and quickly, in those movies.  And in my novels.  Same dynamic.  Keeps me awake.
Rob is on a knee in front of Addie, by the rail on the top deck of a ferry returning from the Statue of Liberty, the crowd in a semicircle around them, watching, when a woman has to call out, "Lady, please be quiet and let him propose."  For my characters and readers, I don't make it easy, but I make it worthwhile. 

In your college days, you majored in Industrial Management at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School, but you minored in Creative Writing. Did you, even then, have an inkling you wanted to write novels for a living?

Good guess, but my parents were very clear on my career path, and I wanted to attend college.  I believe I was the only one striding across campus that way.

I succeeded at management consulting and then public relations careers before daring to try writing after retiring.  First, for a year, I read perhaps five novels a week to learn what talented authors did and what I liked.  Then I made an intense effort to learn what works--the basic rules that support good fiction.  If you know them, you can bend them--but if not, you're less likely to succeed.  Now I'm working harder than ever before, and I'm pleased to say every solid scene I craft chips a month off my age.  I just have to convince the mirror.

John T. Cullen writes fiction and nonfiction. He is the author of A WALK IN ANCIENT ROME, Revised Second Edition (Sep 2009; nonfiction/ancient history); LETHAL JOURNEY (Sep 2009, dark thriller based on a true 1892 crime/ghost story); UMNITSA (WW2 espionage thriller); THE GENERALS OF OCTOBER (suspense: what if we had a Second Constitutional Convention?); and nearly two dozen other books. Visit http://www.johntcullen.com/.