The Write Stuff

I devour books, in all forms. Most of them in their print version, which may surprise some people who have labeled me an apologist for all things Amazon and Kindle-ish. But I am an unregenerate library rat. The city where I live, Naples, FL, has the best library system I’ve ever seen. The Headquarters Library is housed in a building that resembles the Alamo (pre-Santa Anna), and there are more branches in town than Publix supermarkets, which as anyone in Florida knows, seems impossible. As a thriller and mystery writer myself, I’m always looking for inspiration, so I recently grabbed some Nero Wolfe mysteries. Addictive? Think Hershey’s Kisses or N.C.I.S. I don’t know why I picked up Might As Well Be Dead , my first Wolfe. I didn’t even know much about the author, Rex Stout, who sounds like a star of silent Westerns, but is in reality one of the finest mystery writers this, or any country, has ever produced. After finishing Migh t, I rushed out to get the first two Nero Wo...

I t is a given among many thriller writers like myself that research is a royal pain in the asterisk. I mean, nothing can ruin a good story like facts can! After all, fiction writers are in the business of making stuff up, right? Now, take “virons”. These nasty bits are a combination of viruses and prions. They are so small it takes millions of them to get through the eye of a needle, after the camel. They kill camels, humans, fish, asparagus – anything you can think of. And they don’t exist. I made them up, and they wreaked appropriate biological havoc in my thriller, “The Viron Conspiracy”. I’m pretty sure there are people out there who now believe in virons. I’m also pretty sure that someday some scientist with too much time on his or her hands will produce a real viron, which will wipe out the human race and root vegetables before the scientist can even collect a Nobel Prize. (Just for the record, and to prove that I do look stuff up: a prion is, according to th...