Contributing editor Nate Kenyon recently chatted with author Jamie Freveletti about her new thriller, Running Dark.
Your debut thriller, Running with the Devil, was a "runaway" success, an international bestseller, chosen as a Notable Book by the independent Booksellers of America and nominated by International Thriller Writers for best first novel. Has all that changed the way you feel about your own work, or how you approach the writing business?
I'm enormously pleased at the book's success--it's the stuff debut authors can only dream about, but I will admit that it puts a bit of pressure on. I'm trying to just focus on the writing and ignore the marketing while I write. Book 2 comes out June 29, but luckily was written before the first really launched, so I wrote it without influence. I'm currently working on Book 3, and I'm finding that it has been the easiest to write of the three. Like anything else, writing seems to get easier the more you practice!
Tell us a little bit about your new release, Running Dark. Is it a sequel to your debut? Any plans to continue the story?
Running Dark features Emma Caldridge, but is not really a sequel. You don't need to read one to understand the other. In Running Dark I wanted to show another "hot" area of the world-Somalia. Emma learns that Cameron Sumner, the man who helped her in book one, is on a cruise ship in the Gulf of Aden that's under attack by Somali pirates. There's a chemical on board that needs to be analyzed quietly, and Darkview, a contract security company, asks Emma to infiltrate the ship. In the first book Emma ran away from hell. In this book she runs into hell.
Your plot involving Somali pirates has a ring of authenticity to it, to say the least. Was it inspired by current events?
Interestingly enough-no. Like movies, books are written long before they are published-sometimes 18 months before. When I started writing Running Dark, the Somali pirates were not in the news at all. I had clipped an old news blurb from 2005 where they had tried to attack a cruise liner, and I thought it would be a great idea for a thriller. When I pitched the idea of pirates to the publisher they were polite and said, "Pirates? Like Jack Sparrow?" The cruise line industry scoffed at the idea (and wrote me off). I was two-thirds of the way done when the pirates took their first oil tanker and exploded into the news. Of course, by then the cruise industry didn't write me off, but they refused to speak to me as well. The UN began scrambling to change some maritime laws and I was scrambling along with them to keep the legal references in the manuscript current. Being prescient definitely has it's down side!
There's also a scene with box jellyfish and the recent spate of large "blooms" of various jellyfish--many think that overfishing may be causing their rampant growth and movement. Here's hoping I'm not prescient about that as well--the box variety are lethal and kill one or two people every year, but most who live in areas of the world where they exist know enough to stay out of the water when the jellyfish are present.
You seem to do a lot of research for your novels. Is getting the details right particularly important to you?
I do think getting it right is important. I write about unusual situations, so I spend a lot of time making sure what I mention is accurate.
You worked as an attorney for some time. Are you still practicing, or are you writing full time?
I love the law and the intellectual stimulation it provides. I'm on a reduced schedule, though, mostly because the writing has gone so well!
What led to your living in Switzerland, and would you live overseas again?
I'm fascinated by international law, and wanted to learn it while living where it was actually happening. I also wanted to improve my French. I took classes in Switzerland and Salzburg, and interned at a law firm in Geneva. It was a great experience. I'm married to a European, and would live in Europe again in a heartbeat. I also have children, though, and while they are dual citizens of the US and Germany, they're pretty settled in school and I would hate to rip them away right now.
Were there authors or books that particularly inspired you?
So many authors inspired me that it's hard to list them all. Number one has to be the Nancy Drew books. When I was younger I found ten of them in my grandmother's attic--she'd bought them for my aunts- and she gave them to me. I devoured them. I have an early edition of The Secret in the Old Clock and I gave it to my daughter to read.
You've resurrected the idea of the "literary salon," gatherings that were popular in the 18th century, and held your first gathering in March. What led to this idea, and will you have more of them?
I was looking into events from Paris in the eighteenth century and read about literary salons. I loved the idea, but I thought I would switch it up and make it more of a debate setting, with divergent views on one topic. I plan to always have a fiction writer featured on the panel. Our first was "Does Monogamy Kill the Soul?" and we had a geneticist (Lori Andrews) and a speaker from the Kabbalah center in Los Angeles along with two stand up comics. We're going to continue with them quarterly, and the next topics will be "Did Wall Street Kill our Economy and is it Still?" and "Male and Female Relationships in the 21st Century." We'll be hosting them in various restaurants and bars in Chicago. I'm looking forward to them!
What's next for you?
I just agreed to books three and four with Morrow and am busy writing those. I'm also contemplating another, long term project that may involve television. Don't want to jinx that one by saying too much, but if it goes it should be a blast! And finally, I hope to get more involved in a charitable organization called the Tahirih Justice Center that helps female asylum seekers from third world countries. I heard the head of the organization speak here in Chicago, and I was struck by the need that this organization is filling.
Nate Kenyon is a two-time Bram Stoker Award finalist, P&E Horror Novel of the Year Award winner, and author of BLOODSTONE, THE REACH, THE BONE FACTORY and the upcoming SPARROW ROCK (May 2010). THE REACH has been optioned for film. He also has a trade paperback science fiction novella, PRIME, from Apex Books. Kenyon lives in the Boston area, where he is at work on his next novel.
