a little of the real world!

So the levies in New Orleans held, as did most of the barriers around Houston and its environs. I know this was a huge relief to everyone living in the area, and most citizens of the US, who aren’t ready for another Katrina situation. But anyone watching CNN can see the enormous vulnerability of these structures. What’s more, their vulnerability isn’t limited to natural disasters. What would happen if there were some sort of terrorist attack against the levies surrounding New Orleans? A strike doesn’t need to be high tech and sophisticated, as I’ve written it in Gauntlet. It would be ridiculously simple for someone to attack New Orleans, simply by destroying their protection. Someone could very easily hire 20 or 30 guys capable of using excavators, or who had access to explosives. They would be able to take out the walls around New Orleans, allowing the city to be destroyed (again) by nature, and then move on. If a strike like that was coordinated with similar strikes along the Mississippi or any of its tributaries, we’re looking at a disaster that could potentially devastate the heartland. We’ve all seen what the yearly floods do to those areas… what if those floods were manmade, and the walls that had been built to keep the water at bay torn down? Quite frankly, it would be impossible to defend against.

It’s a terrible thing when I can’t watch the news without thinking things like this! Although I have heard that real life and the news are the best places for an author looking to brainstorm new ideas…

Richard Aaron
author of Gauntlet
www.richardaaron.com
Available March 2009

As if writing wasn’t hard enough!!!

So there I was, sorting out the plot of another book in the Gauntlet trilogy when disaster struck.  Lu-lu, our old cat, had died.  Finally after 14 days of grief we obtained a gorgeous little Persian kitten. We’re still in the naming process, but I think the new one will be called “Baby-blue.”  We brought BB into the house, and into the master suite, where my wife and I watched her roam about, exploring the perimeters of the room.
We took our eyes off it for a second or two and she was gone.  I mean really GONE.  We looked and looked, over and under furniture, and in every nook and cranny.  The kids were brought into the search and then the other three pets, but it was a no go.  BB had vanished somehow,  into a warp of the space-time continuum.  For half an hour we looked, panic stricken.  BB was nowhere to be found.  Then, for some inexplicable reason I opened the bottom drawer of my clothes cabinet, and there I saw a little immobile piece of smoky grey fluff.  Instantly I recognized it as BB, and I realized what had happened.  The bottom drawer had been sticking out a couple of inches, and, in my urgency to find BB, I slammed, and I mean slammed, the drawer shut, not realizing that that was where she was.  She’d been shut in that drawer the entire time.
The first thought that entered my mind was  “Oh, Jesus, Dick, you’ve killed her.”  I realized that I would be toast with the family.  Banished from the manor, with women, children, and pets screaming at me, throwing kitchen utensils at me as I fled, never to be forgiven.  The next thought that crossed my mind was how can I create the illusion that somehow I was not at fault, that BB, already over the top from being in an airplane for three hours, had killed herself somehow, by snuffing herself out in my shorts drawer.  Fearfully I reached in and felt around. I felt movement, and yes, to my joy, a pulse.  She was fine.  I was the hero for having discovered her, once again the man of the house for having saved the new kitten!
Now, with relief, I can go back to what I was doing — sorting out how to make high explosives out of household chemicals,  wiping out an entire city, with the CIA and co right at my heels.  Back into the new book. That seems to be my life these days.

Richard Aaron

author of GAUNTLET

www.richardaaron.com

Available March 2009!

Gauntlet – being made available at airport bookstores!

There I was, high in the Chilcotin Plateau, with a temperature of -15. I was standing outside my truck taking the call, which I couldn’t manage to put through the truck’s phone system.  So, fingers numb with cold and teeth chattering, I stood by the side of the road to phone my faithful secretary, Lauralee, and ask her what was so damned important that she needed to talk to me immediately.  My first thought was that there was some major screw up at the law firm.

When I got her on the phone, Lauralee was almost hanging from the ceiling with excitement. The first piece of news was that the airport bookstore chain had purchased 1500 copies of Gauntlet, and was prepared to give the book a prominent display position in the stores.  The volume of people passing by, and the fact that many will be sitting in planes for hours on end, make this a particularly appealing place for selling such a book.

The second bit of news came from my publicist, Antoinette Kuritz, who advised me that John Lescroart, that’s right THE John Lescroart (Betrayal, The Suspect, The Hunt Club, The Motive, The Second Chair, Guilt, A Certain Justice, etc), a New York Times best selling author said, in an email to Antoinette, that Gauntlet is a tour de force of exuberant story telling … that it could very well be the definitive reality based global thriller. That it has great suspense, a killer plot and amazingly real characters.  And that it’s an absolute winner.

My first thought was that somehow he had me confused with someone else. But when I returned to the office and read the emails I see he hasn’t.  I’m humbled that a man with the skill and experience of Mr. Lescroart was so effusive in his praise.  On top of the orders my publisher received yesterday, I’m starting to feel as though we have a tiger by the tail here.

Richard Aaron,

author of GAUNTLET

www.richardaaron.com

The life of Richard Aaron…

I have returned from the beautiful but scarred land of southern California to a grand total of 293 emails in my inbox. To add additional complication, a member of our family, Fat-Lu the Himallayan cat, had to be put down while we were away. So the women in the house are beside themselves. I was home for one day and managed to get through the first 100 emails before I had to fly off to acomplex and nasty negotiation in Vancouver (I’ve got to tell you, lawyers are terrible people). I arrived back home last night to try to console the still-grieving household. I made the catastrophic error of saying, only once, with a genuine but foolish attempt at kindness, that there would be economic benefits to not having to feed the cat anymore. After braving the firing squad brought on by THAT comment, I retreated to my office for the rest of the night.
By 11 PM everything had quieted down, so I pulled out the sequel, “Counterplay,” and began trying to figure out how to get Richard out of a massive underground fortress in central Iran; I finally threw in the towel at 1 AM. Six in the morning hit like a hammer. My usual practice is to jump out of bed and into the shower so fast that I don’t really wake up, and certainly do not have the opportunity to consider how insane my life has become. My body seems to have remembered this practice even through my holiday. This morning I stumbled into the office to find 50 new emails, none of which are spam, since my spam blocker is revved up as high as it can go.          The problem now is that somewhere in this Grecian chorus of emails is an email from my editor, telling me where my advance copies of Gauntlet are. I can’t find the email. It is definitely possible that the spam blocker thinks that by editor sends only spam. I don’t know how these things work. To add to the seduction, she has now sent me photographs of a small pile of books… the Gauntlet ARCs, boxed up and ready to go. But I can’t touch them. I don’t even know when I’ll receive my copies. All I really want is to give Turbee his copy. Maybe that and better drugs. Maybe I should corner some of those drugs for myself…

Is it normal to be so damn busy?

At the moment… I am managing my business, which takes 60 or 70 hours a week (and no I don’t trust anyone else to do it!).  I am working on the sequel(s) to Gauntlet.  It feels like that takes another 60 or 70 hours out of my week.  Of course I need to spend time with my family — say another 60 or 70 hours per week.  My editor says that I need to do book reviews. When you include READING those books, I’d say that’s another 20 hours a week. She also says I need to do writer’s forums — say 20 hours per week.  There are only 168 hours in a week, total. I think I am using them all, at this point. I am also thinking about murdering my editor.
Is this normal??

Gauntlet by Richard Aaron – Book Synopsis

660 tons of Semtex is detonated in a massive explosion in Libya. The operation seems to have gone smoothly, but within minutes of the explosion, CIA agent Richard Lawrence discovers that one shipment of the explosive has been hijacked. Days later, a glory-seeking ‘Emir’ broadcasts to the world that he is planning a massive terrorist strike against a U.S. landmark. And he gives a time line of one month. Now a desperate chase is on, as the men bent on attacking the U.S. use every weapon at their disposal to evade American authorities. Time and again they prove willing to destroy anything—and anyone—standing in their way. But Hamilton Turbee, an autistic computer mastermind at the newly created TTIC agency, discovers a way to track them. His flawed genius gives the nation its only chance at stopping the attack . if the American leadership will listen. As the enemies near their destination, it is up to the TTIC team to stop the massive explosion that could destroy the lives of millions.