Interview with James Grippando

The amount of personal data floating around the Internet is mind-boggling. If you have any doubts, just Google yourself. The ability to remain private is nearly impossible these days. Government agencies, business firms, and marketing companies use this public information for their own specific needs. Data mining or dredging, as it is most commonly called, has changed the way our world operates.

This month’s Jen’s Jewels James Grippando addresses this very topic in his latest release AFRAID OF THE DARK. A New York Times bestselling author of suspense, he delivers once again a nail-biting, edge-of-the seat thriller featuring his popularly handsome hero Jack Swyteck. To all corners of the globe, Grippando takes the reader on an unforgettable ride into the sinister underworld of data mining.

As part of this interview, Harper, an imprint of Harper Collins Publishers, has generously donated five copies for you, my favorite readers, to try to win. So, don’t forget to look for the trivia question at the end of the column. And as always, thanks for making Jen’s Jewels a part of your reading adventure.

Jen: A trial attorney by profession, your prowess in the literary world is just as impressive with eighteen bestselling novels under your belt. So that my readers may get a glimpse into the life of the man behind the words, please share with us a brief overview of your educational and professional background.

James: I wanted to be a lawyer since the eighth grade, when my parents took me to Springfield, Illinois to see Lincoln’s law office. I stuck with the goal, went to law school, and practiced law full time for about twelve years until I decided to become a full time writer in 1996. I had the great fortune of having some terrific teachers in high school and as an undergraduate who never let me forget my dream of becoming a writer.

Jen: Please describe for us the "Ah! Ha!" moment when you made the decision to pursue a career as a writer.

James: In 1988, I was five years into the practice of law and tired of the fact that no one—including judges—seemed to be interested in any of the legal stuff I was writing. I also noted that the hottest show on television was L.A. Law, and the hottest book in the country was Scott Turow’s Presumed Innocent. There seemed to be this insatiable public appetite for stories about lawyers written by lawyers. So I started writing, nights and weekends, still practicing law full time. Finally, after four years, I had a 250,000-word monster in the box that no publisher wanted. But my agent assured me that I had received—get this—the most encouraging rejection letters he had ever seen. With his encouragement, I wrote THE PARDON over the next seven months, and it sold to HarperCollins in a weekend. It’s now all over the world in over 20 languages. Don’t you love happy endings?

Jen: For those readers unfamiliar with your work, what two previous novels best encapsulate who you are as a writer? And in your opinion, what sets these two apart from the others?

James: The answer has to be my more recent novels, because I’m always evolving as a writer, never what I used to be. MONEY TO BURN (2010), a Wall Street thriller, was especially personal for me, since I wrote it while my father’s health was failing, and I worked him into the story as "Papa," a grandfatherly figure from the World War II generation. Papa was a great counterweight to the greed of Wall Street that drives the plot. The other novel I’d point to is WHEN DARKNESS FALLS (2007). That’s one of my favorite Jack Swyteck novels. The storyline is intense—a hostage standoff that unfolds in less than 24 hours—and the character Vincent Paulo, a blind hostage negotiator, is one of the most interesting I’ve ever created. Vince returns in AFRAID OF THE DARK, where he finally confronts the man who stole his sight.

Jen: As a New York Times bestselling author, there are high expectations that subsequent books meet those parameters. In terms of nuts and bolts, describe for us your writing process. Do you outline first? Are you a linear writer? Do you know whodunit before you start? Or, does the story simply take on a life of its own?

James: My plots are complex, and my characters are rarely who they appear to be, so outlining is essential. One of my longest outlines was for MONEY TO BURN (2010), which was over seventy pages long. But I never outline the story beyond the point of major conflict, where good clashes with evil. The resolution of the conflict always works itself out in the writing. That does lead to some surprises. In one of the early Jack Swyteck novels (BEYOND SUSPICION) there’s a great "double twist" that I didn’t see coming. And in AFRAID OF THE DARK for example, on page 374 … well, maybe I should let you read for yourself!

Jen: AFRAID OF THE DARK is your sensational new release that kept me up until the wee hours of the morning. More chilling and sinister than your previous works, the story centers on a very hot topic… data mining. How did you arrive at the premise?

James: Data mining is definitely a timely topic, which makes it tempting for the marketing people to say that AFRAID OF THE DARK is "ripped from headlines." In truth, that tag line couldn’t be farther from what I do as a novelist. We live in a world of real-time news. By the time anything is ripped from the headlines, bloggers have blogged it to death. No one wants to hear another thing about it a week after it happened, let alone a year or more. If your novel is going to be timely, you have to stay on top of current events and be able to forecast how forces may collide to create news somewhere down the road. I started writing AFRAID OF THE DARK more than two years ago, when Facebook was exploding, and it seemed to me that privacy issues and data mining were going to become hot-button issues. Right about that same time, I was also doing legal work for one the recognized pioneers of data mining—a man who was actually one of the data miners that the FBI turned to in 2001 to help track down the terrorists who were responsible for the 9/11 attacks. Very early in the game, I got caught up in the love/hate relationship we have with the two faces of data mining—the good it can do for law enforcement, and the evil in can promote in the wrong hands. It’s that tension that drives AFRAID OF THE DARK.

Jen: In terms of research, how much was needed in order for the story to ring true with the readers? And, what was the most fascinating bit of information you discovered along the way?

James: I love research. That’s the great freedom of a writing career, being able to dive headlong into any subject matter that interests you. Research not only gives the book an authentic voice, but it helps keep me as a writer connected to the real world. By research I really mean getting out in the field. One of the most chilling moments during my research for AFRAID OF THE DARK was when I watched a law enforcement demonstration about the trading of child pornography over the internet. We were in a room with a huge map of the world on a screen. On another screen, we watched as a tech expert went into an actual live trading session in a peer-to-peer network and identified a file that was known to contain child pornography. We didn’t actually view the file, thank God. But the tech expert then traced the trade history of this file on the big map. Little red dots showed how it moved from one computer to the next—from "peer to peer." First, it was a few dots in a community. Then dozens of dots in a city. Then hundreds in a state, thousands in a region, and in seemingly no time at all, it was thousands and thousands of trades across the globe. It was like watching time-lapsed photography, only this was internet crime in motion depicted by the viral spread of these red dots. That image was something I knew I had to put in AFRAID OF THE DARK.

Jen: The main character of the story is Jack Swyteck, a dashingly handsome criminal defense lawyer who has appeared in your previous works. Please bring my readers up to speed on his back-story.

James: Jack is not super-cool, super-rich, or super-successful. But he is the kind of guy we all want as a friend—someone we care about enough to celebrate his good days and suffer through his bad ones as if they were our own. Theo and Abuela make Jack especially fun to write and read about. Most of us can relate to having someone in our life like Abuela—that person who can’t understand why we didn’t meet the love of our life by our twenty-first birthday. And all of us need a friend like Theo—someone to remind us that "There are two kinds of people in this world, risk takers and s--- takers. Someday, you gotta decide which you’re gonna be when you grow up." Jack has aged in real time, starting in THE PARDON as a rebellious twenty-nine year old lawyer who defends death row inmates. He’s forty-ish in AFRAID OF THE DARK, but he’s come full circle, reunited with his first boss who readers met in The Pardon. Readers seem to enjoy that kind of continuity in the series.

Jen: In this novel, Jack shows us his much softer side. Engaged to a feisty, take-no-prisoners F.B.I. agent named Andie Henning, his domestic life is in a period of flux. What makes these two work-a-holics such a good pair?

James: I get a flood of e mails about Jack finding the right woman. Suffice it to say that he’s made plenty of mistakes. Andie Henning made her debut in 2000 in a stand-alone thriller called UNDER COVER OF DARKNESS. Readers really loved her…and it made me think Jack might too. I wrote her into GOT THE LOOK, the 2006 Swyteck novel, and she and Jack have grown closer in each installment since. The relationship rings true to a lot of readers who can connect with two good people trying to find love while balancing challenging careers, trying overcome what life throws at them. But a big part of what makes them interesting—and what makes the sparks fly—is the exciting plots that surround them. When you’re a criminal defense lawyer in love with an FBI undercover agent, life throws plenty of obstacles in your way.

Jen: Jack’s relationship with Neil Goderich, a former boss and mentor, is the driving force behind his decision to defend a suspected terrorist. In what way does his decision put a strain on his relationship with Andie?

James: Neil made his debut in THE PARDON, the very first Swyteck novel. Neil was the lawyer who brought Jack into the Freedom Institute right out of law school, where he defended death row inmates. Bringing him back made sense, because Jack has really evolved since that first novel, and it would take a character like Neil to bring him back to his roots and defend someone as unsympathetic as an accused terrorist. But I also like the way Neil’s return puts a strain on Jack and Andie. Andie’s an FBI agent, and naturally she feels the heat when Jack takes a case that puts him at the center of the war on terrorism. But on a more fundamental level, you can easily relate to meeting "the old friend" who has known your spouse much longer than you have. It can make you wonder.

Jen: As the harrowing details of the secret detention sites come to light, why does Jack refuse to walk away?

James: That’s who Jack is: The truth is important to him. I think it’s why people are drawn to him.

Jen: How did the completion of this novel change you professionally as well as personally?

James: People have often asked me "what kind of name is Swyteck?" That question is answered in AFRAID OF THE DARK. Jack makes a pilgrimage to the Czech Republic, where he discovers his roots and the horrifying story of a village known as Lidice. Without giving anything away, writing that aspect of the story had the greatest impact on me. It opened a window to the side of my own family that I didn’t know much about.

Jen: Let’s switch gears now and talk about your promotional plans. First of all, please take us on a tour of your website highlighting specific sections of note.

James: I was among the first authors to have a comprehensive website (www.jamesgrippando.com), and there is so much good stuff there. The logical place to start is "About James Grippando" and "About Jack Swyteck." Then I’d go to "About the Books." One of the things visitors to the website enjoy most is a feature called "Behind the book," which is literally the story behind each of my novels. It tells you something personal about the inspiration for each story. Probably the most hits to the website, however, are for a story I wrote for the Miami Herald, which can be found under the menu button "Other Writings." It’s a tear jerker about the loss of my office mate of nine years, my golden retriever named Sam.

Jen: Will you be participating on a book tour? If so, where may my readers find more information?

James: I do tour whenever a new book is released, but I’m also doing events year round. I post all of my events on my Facebook fan page. That’s the best way to know what’s going on.

Jen: Are you currently at work on your next novel? If so, what can you share with us?

James: I just finished the 2012 release, which is outside the Jack Swyteck series, though not entirely. One of the most popular characters in the series is Jack’s fiancé, FBI Agent Andie Henning. She was a hit without Jack in MONEY TO BURN (2010), and she’s back strong and taking on Wall Street again in 2012. But the process never really stops. I’m now in the fun stage—back to playing that "what if" game—for the 2013 novel.

Jen: I have to admit…my husband is a huge fan of yours. Having read AFRAID OF THE DARK, I now know why! I look forward to reading all of your previous work. Thank you so much for stopping by to chat with my readers. I wish you the best of luck in the future.

James: Thank you for having me.

I hope you have enjoyed my interview with James Grippando. Please stop by your favorite bookstore, local library, or on-line retailer such as Amazon.com or BarnesandNoble.com and pick up a copy of AFRAID OF THE DARK today. Better yet, how would you like to win one instead?

Answer the following question correctly and you could be one of five winners

What is the name of Jack Swyteck’s love interest in AFRAID OF THE DARK?

Later this month, I will be bringing to you my interview with Michael Lee West, author of the hilarious cozy mystery GONE WITH A HANDSOMER MAN. You won’t want to miss it.

Until next time...

Jen