Ja čitam, a ti?: Author Interview: Jac Wright

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Author's

Book summary:

Love is a battlefield.
The aftershocks of an affair reverberate out to those in the lives of the lovers, who will NOT take it lying down.

Jack Connor's lives an idyllic life by the Portsmouth seaside married to Caitlin McAllen, a stunning billionaire heiress, and working at his two jobs as the Head of Radar Engineering of Marine Electronics and as the Director of Engineering of McAllen BlackGold, his powerful father-in-law Douglas McAllen's extreme engineering company in Oil & Gas. He loves his two sons from his first marriage and is amicably divorced from his beautiful first wife Marianne Connor. Their delicately balanced lives are shattered when sexy Michelle Williams, with whom Jack is having a secret affair and who is pregnant with his child, is found dead and Jack is arrested on suspicion for the murder.

Jeremy Stone brings London's top defence attorney, John Stavers, to handle his best friend's defence.

Who is the bald man with the tattoo of a skull seen entering the victim's house? Who is "KC" who Caitlin makes secret calls to from a untraceable mobile? Has powerful Douglas McAllen already killed his daughter's first partner and is he capable of killing again? Is Caitlin's brother Ronnie McAllen's power struggle with Jack for the control of McAllen Industries so intense that he is prepared to kill and frame his brother-in-law? Is the divorce from Jack's first wife as amicable on her part as they believe it to be? Are his sons prepared to kill for their vast inheritance? Who are the ghosts from Caitlin's past in Aberdeen, Scotland haunting the marriage? What is the involvement of Jack's manager at Marine Electronics?

The cast of characters is made even more colorful by the supporting entourage: the big Scott and his gang, Hosé and Heineken, who carry out Douglas McAllen’s “troubleshooting;” McAllens' bumbling solicitors McKinley and Magnus Laird; Caitlin McAllen’s handymen, Cossack and Levent; and Jeremy’s sidekick, the gay black actor working in the London West End.

While Jack is charged and his murder trial proceeds in the Crown Court under barrister John Stavers’ expert care, Jeremy runs a race against time to find the real killer and save his friend's life, if he is in fact innocent, in a tense saga of love, desire, power, and ambition.

Interview

Hello Jac. Welcome to Ja čitam, a ti? blog. It’s really a pleasure to have you here. I have some questions for you so let’s start.

1. For starters can you tell us something about your book The Reckless Engineer?

The series lead, Jeremy Aiden Stone, is and electrical engineer. He is very versatile and adventurous like MacGyver. He is courageous, cerebral, and highly skilled like Barney in Mission Impossible.

The first story in the series is also about an engineer, Jack Connor, who is a brilliant and charismatic guy whose character fault is that he is weak in love, someone like John F. Kennedy. Then I built the characters of the four very different women who are in his life who pull him in different directions. Jack is weak in character and very confused. He gets drawn into different conflicting and rather irresponsible actions as he is pulled by these women in different directions. The resulting intense conflict has come to a head with one of the women getting killed, and Jack getting arrested for her murder. Jeremy had lost his job working beside Jack in Portsmouth and had returned to London. The story begins with a call to Jeremy from Jack from the police station.

Jeremy returns to Portsmouth with a top London attorney to handle his best friend's defense.

In Portsmouth nothing is what it seems at first sight. Everybody has secrets. Who is the bald man with the tattoo of a skull seen entering the victim's house? Who is "KC" who Caitlin makes secret calls to from a untraceable mobile? Has powerful Douglas McAllen already killed his daughter's first partner and is he capable of killing again? Is Caitlin's brother Ronnie McAllen's power struggle with Jack for the control of McAllen Industries so intense that he is prepared to kill and frame his brother-in-law? Is the divorce from Jack's first wife as amicable on her part as they believe it to be? Are his sons prepared to kill for their vast inheritance? Who are the ghosts from Caitlin's past in Aberdeen, Scotland haunting the marriage? What is the involvement of Jack's manager at Marine Electronics?

The cast of characters is made even more colorful by the supporting entourage: the big Scott and his gang, Hosé and Heineken, who carry out Douglas McAllen’s “troubleshooting;” McAllens' bumbling solicitors McKinley and Magnus Laird; Caitlin McAllen’s handymen, Cossack and Levent; and Jeremy’s sidekick, the gay black actor working in the London West End.

While Jack is charged and his murder trial proceeds in the Crown Court under barrister Harry Stavers’ expert care, Jeremy runs a race against time to find the real killer and save his friend's life, if he is in fact innocent, in a tense saga of love, desire, power, and ambition.

2. From the blurb we can see that there are some mysteries around the whole story. Was it hard to connect all the dots and still keep a mysterious?

Actually weaving the plot and connecting the dots was great fun for me. I can guarantee you will never guess who the committed the crime until the final chapters that reveal the person. I had to plot it very tightly and I admit it wasn't easy balancing the conflicting interests of different characters, but when it did finally come together it was worth the work. It was very rewarding.

3. Also it easy to notice that there is big spectra of different characters from different layers of society. I’m sure it adds to the story. Which one is your favorite?

Many of the characters are from the educated middle class. I include the Scottish aristocratic upper class family, the McAllens – Jack Connor's wife, Caitlin McAllen, his father-in-law, Douglas McAllen, and his brother-in-law, Ronnie. I then have the lower working class characters in Aberdeen, Scotland. I have included European immigrant workers and tourists from Australia. The book has a cross-section of today's British society.

Strangely enough my favourites are two of the supporting characters.

The first one is Magnus Laird, a bumbling solicitor. He is definitely a loveable Dickensian character who I created specially as a tribute to Charles Dickens whose writing inspired me early on in life.

The second character is Otter, the gay half-black actor working in the London West End. I develop him further as Jeremy’s sidekick in the second book in the series, “Buy, Sell, Murder.”

4. There is some romance in the story too and from the blurb I can see that mostly all situations are realistic. Was was easier to create for you - romance or mystery?

The romance was much harder for me. I have been a suspense, mystery, and thriller reader and viewer all my life. I had not read many romances other than the classics. I am also from a very conservative family in which the rule is “one does not speak of such things.“

The main romance in the story is the one that Caitlin is in which resolves in a fairy-tale fashion in the end. (I'm trying not to give away any spoilers here.)

And then I have the personal life of my series lead which evolves in the background through the book. This story will continue into the next book and through the series.

5. If I’m correct you plan to make this a series. How many books can we expect?

The second book in the series – Buy, Sell, Murder – set in the London branch of an American Investment Bank, is half written.

I have a second book in my short fiction collection, Summerset Tales, titled The Bank Job is alo half written to accompany Buy, Sell, Murder. Both of these will be published in 2014.

6. What inspired you to become an author? Do you have a favorite author or book?

I have loved English literature since my mother enrolled me in weekend Speech & Drama classes when I was 3 years old. My mother had this rack full of books like The Pickwick papers, The Tale of Two Cities, Lorna Doone, The Animal Farm etc. stacked on it along with piles of Readers’ Digests. My mother used to read to me from them when I was too young to read; and soon I was reading them myself. That sparked my interest as a reader and a spectator very early.

I started writing seriously when I took my Freshman English class during the first year at Stanford, and then I kept writing over the years. I first thought about presenting my work for publication only from about 2007.

I have always been a writer because of my upbringing. However I thought of it as merely a hobby for a long time. My primary education has been in engineering and I thought of myself as an electronic engineer only by profession. There was one aspect of the culture and education at Stanford University when I was a student there – the idea that you need not be pigeonholed into just one area of talent – that liberated me. You can be a “Renaissance man” who can excel at many things that are considered the opposites of each other. I started writing seriously when I took my Freshman English course during the first year at Stanford, and then I kept writing over the years.

I first thought about presenting my work for publication only from about 2008. One needs a level of maturity and life experience to write with impact for a large audience. One also needs to bridge that mental gap to want to go through that lengthy process of publishing the work. I reached that state of mind about 2007 or 2008.

If I had to give a short answer to this question I would say that my mother's love of reading she instilled in me and Stanford's humanities education program inspired me.

7. I tend to finish my interviews with author’s favorite quote. So can we hear yours?

Seize the day. “Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment.” - Buddha

Thank you for stopping by my blog. I wish you all the luck with your book.

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