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ALONE
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In your own words, how would you describe ALONE? |
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So there's a hero, Bobby Dodge, who is a designated sniper with the Massachusetts State Police. He's called out to a domestic barricade situation, where a father is holding his wife and son at gunpoint. In the course of events, it appears the husband is about to kill his wife, so following the guidelines for proper use of deadly force, Bobby shoots the man dead.
Immediately afterward, allegations surface that the husband wasn't the threat that night-the wife was. She's been abusing the son. The husband was only trying to save his child's life.
That central mystery drives the rest of the novel. What was really going on that night? Who is the real threat in this family? And what does it mean to spend the rest of your life wondering if you killed the right man?
It's a fun novel. Bobby's one very sexy man, while the women in the book are just plain dangerous. |
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How did you come up with the idea for ALONE? What came to you first? Character or plot? |
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In the case of ALONE, I started with an idea for a character-a woman who is sympathetic but disturbing, alluring but cold, courageous but frightening. I basically concocted a series of crimes that either made this woman the unluckiest person in the world-or the most dangerous. I then came up with two plausible endings-one that convicted her, one that exonerated her. Then I started writing to see which ending would prevail. It was neat to work on a project that at any time could go either way.
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What was the hardest/strangest part of researching the novel? |
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For the opening shooting sequence of ALONE, I felt it would be easier to have a actual house in mind. Finding the proper position for Bobby, the police sniper, involves understanding the angles, distances, and architecture of the brownstone in question. So I took my husband, who is an engineer and much better at spatial relations than me, on a tour of Back Bay, Boston . We picked out a house at random-I think we liked the detailing around the windows-and my husband sketched out the townhouse exactly as a sniper would do, analyzing each door and window, examining the neighborhood for the best perch, etc. Halfway through this, of course, the owner comes home. Here we are, across the street, sketching away. He checked on us two or three times. I'm pretty sure he thought we were casing the joint, and if I checked with the Boston PD right now, I'd find a photo of myself labeled a "person of interest." |
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What makes Catherine Gagnon, the female lead of ALONE, tick? |
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My books are always driven by psychology. For whatever reason, I have a fascination with the past and how it shapes us. For Catherine, I was exploring a central theme-if you had a very traumatic situation in childhood, but were fortunate enough to survive it, would kind of mark would it leave? Would you be stronger from your ordeal? Or weaker? Good? Or bad? Or maybe all of the above?
Then I found a novel by Dr. Lenore Terr, the famous psychologist who studied the children from the notorious Chowchilla kidnapping case in 1976, when a busload of children was hijacked and buried in a gravel pit. The kids dug themselves out within twenty-four hours, and all survived. But none were ever the same. Dr. Terr's book examines the impact that event had on each child as he/she grew into adulthood. Some of those findings are the basis for Catherine. She survived a horrendous situation. Or did she? |
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Did Catherine ever do anything that surprised you? |
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Actually, the whole ending of the novel surprised me. I had literally plotted it to go either way. Catherine could be good, or Catherine could be evil. Then I waited to see what was right for Catherine. She definitely turned out to be more complex than I imagined.
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Was it a challenge telling ALONE mostly from a male point of view? |
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Originally, the novel wasn't intended to have such a strong male lead. But Bobby just sort took over the story. I love him, though. He's one of my favorite characters ever, so it seemed very natural to let him guide the book.
In fact, as often happens in my world, I've decided Bobby has more stories to tell. So look for his adventures to continue in '07 [in HIDE], as he joins Boston PD Detective D.D. Warren in investigating the discovery of a mass grave that may or may not have been the handiwork of Mr. Bosu two decades before. Sometimes, old crimes lead to new victims.
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