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Chillwater Cove Q&A |
CHILLWATER COVE Q&A With the Author: Q: Give us the setup of Chillwater Cove. A: Chillwater Cove is the second book in a series featuring Mike Yeager and Peggy Weaver, both special agents in the FBI's Crimes Against Children unit. One night, while working a case in Philadelphia, Peggy discovers disturbing photos of a childhood friend of hers -- taken many years before, when her friend Samantha was kidnapped by a very scary drifter. As we discover, Peggy has a lot of guilt about this incident: she and Sammie were together when the kidnapper crossed their paths. Peggy got away; Samantha didn't. Now, Peggy is coming home to Tennessee, to help Samantha catch the guy – who has apparently come back to finish what he started twenty-five years ago. Q: How does the title fit in? A: The novel takes place in the Tennessee college town where Peggy grew up. Chillwater Cove is a wilderness just beyond the edge of that town -- very beautiful, but also inhabited by people whom Peggy has been raised to fear. As she learns, the inhabitants know a lot about what happened to Samantha...as well as other, even darker mysteries that Peggy uncovers in her journey. Q: In what way is this similar to your debut novel, The Shadow Catchers – and how is it different? A: It's a continuation of the series, but hopefully it also has something new to offer. In The Shadow Catchers, Mike was on administrative discipline in the Nevada desert, trying to earn his way back into active duty. Chillwater Cove begins roughly six months later. This time it's Peggy's story, which is where the differences come in. The Shadow Catchers was written first-person, with a male FBI agent who's among strangers throughout the story. This time it's written third-person, focusing on a female agent who returns to her home town, where everybody knows her. Shifting things around definitely gave me a chance to stretch my creative muscles. Q: Why did you decide to write a story with Peggy as the protagonist? A: When I signed my initial deal at St. Martin's Minotaur, I was asked to pitch some ideas for a second novel. Most of them revolved around Mike Yeager having a new adventure -- Mike goes to Los Angeles, Mike travels north of the Arctic Circle, Mike meets The Flintstones. Mostly the same situation in new settings. Then, almost as an afterthought, I added, "Maybe Peggy could have her own story." My editor, Kelley Ragland, was all over that idea, and she's been very pro-Peggy ever since. Which is very fortunate, because Peggy Weaver has become one of my favorite characters. Q: How does Peggy differ from Mike? A: Mike's all about emotion: he's sincere, he's a smartass, he's damaged, and he wears his heart on his sleeve. Peggy internalizes. She's calm, rational, and much more careful than Mike. Early in Chillwater Cove, Peggy catches a guy while he's trying to steal her Jeep. If Mike were in that situation, he'd probably wind up in a fistfight with the car thief. Peggy just reaches up and hits the engine-kill switch on her remote. Q: Was it difficult writing a thriller about a woman who never loses her cool? A: In The Shadow Catchers, Peggy stays on a pretty even keel, and when I first started the sequel I I was worried that I'd wind up with a female version of Tom Hagen from The Godfather. Then I discovered some hidden depths that make Peggy very interesting to me. She was raised by an extremely demanding father to protect herself at all costs. As a result, when she and Samantha were children and a kidnapper tried to grab them both, Peggy got the hell away. This turned out to be a very good reaction, but it's taken a toll on her over the years. She's always been troubled by what might have happened if she'd hesitated, or if she'd tried to protect Samantha. As it so often happens, survivor's guilt has turned Peggy into a relentless over-achiever. She's supremely capable, but she's also not very good at letting her barriers down. Q: And now that she's come home..? A: Now she gets to find out what could have happened to her...and, more to the point, what did happen to Samantha. Although the two of them have remained best friends, Sammie's never spoken about the kidnapping. It's also a chance to discover why the abduction happened. Through the story, we find out that it wasn't just a random act of violence. Q: What led you to set the story in Tennessee? A: I went to college in Tennessee, at The University of the South, where I spent four of the best years of my life. Like many people, I still have a profound attachment to the place. Somebody once referred to the community as "Brideshead Revisited meets Deliverance," a description I'd have a hard time improving on. The college itself has a quasi-British sense of decorum, and yet it's surrounded by Appalachia. It's in stark contrasts like these that I find my inspiration for drama. Q: How closely does your Avalon College resemble Sewanee? A: I never intended for Avalon to be a stand-in for any single place in the real world. Although certain aspects of the setting are inspired by where I went to college, the characters and events of the story itself are definitely fiction. Q: Even so...your first book was set in Nevada, the second one in Tennessee, and rumor has it the third one will take place in New Orleans. As a Gulf Coast native, aren't you yourself in a sense "coming home"? A: In the years since I moved back home from California, I've come to appreciate the complexity of my native region in a way I never could before. The South is a great place for storytellers! But there's a lot more to the world, and I'd like to see it. Hopefully, as the series progresses, I'll get a chance to take Mike and Peggy to other exciting places. Q: And that part about Mike meeting the Flintstones...you were joking, right? A: It was actually my friend Randy Davis's joke, one that I am very happy to steal. At the same time, I'd like to point out that many of our greatest American legends started out as animated cartoons. You're not going to hear me running down The Flintstones. |
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