Treason

AUTHOR’S NOTE

I hope you enjoyed reading Treason!

Treason was a fun book to write, but I did so with some trepidation. The plot structure of each book in the Trident Deception series determines which characters play dominant roles, and Christine O’Connor is forefront in Treason. Although the Trident Deception books don’t have a true main character — the novels use a montage approach featuring Captain Murray Wilson, SEAL Jake Harrison, Christine O’Connor, and the president — if you had to hang your hat on someone, it’d be Christine, because she’s the only one of the four main characters who can move around. Wilson and Harrison are tied to USS Michigan and related SEAL operations ashore, and the president isn’t going to head out on any exciting missions. As a result, much of the Trident Deception story lines are told through Christine’s eyes.

This is problematic, in my opinion, because most military thrillers feature strong male leads, typically Special Forces types, which Christine isn’t. She’s also completely untrained. She’s not a character you’d design as a lead for a military thriller series. The reason for this is that I never intended to publish more than one book. However, when St. Martin’s Press offered to buy The Trident Deception, their first question was — Are you writing a sequel? My answer was — Of course! I threw a proposal together that night and plugged in the characters who survived The Trident Deception, and sent it in. St. Martin’s Press then offered a two-book deal.

So there I was, with a character set ill-suited for sequels, but for which I’ve been contracted for five so far, with many more hopefully to come. Under normal circumstances, a White House staffer like Christine would attend meetings and brief the president, and that’s about it. But that’s pretty boring and readers would soon be flipping past every page Christine appeared on. To keep things exciting, I gave Christine a few useful character traits — she’s impulsive and vindictive — which gets her into situations most people would walk away from. She’s also deadly with a pistol (as long as the target is stationary and inside twenty-five feet) and very athletic, being an Olympic-level gymnast. (Both of my daughters were gymnasts, and I’m amazed at the things they can do.) Neither of those skills came in handy in Treason, although they’ve been useful in previous novels and perhaps will be in future ones as well.

Anyway, this is a long-winded explanation of why Christine O’Connor is featured so heavily in Treason. Primarily, it’s just the way the plot turned out. It also turns out that Christine is the favorite character in the Trident Deception series, based on reader feedback, followed by Wilson. One of the questions I frequently get is — When are Christine and Jake Harrison going to get together? Harrison is married, I remind everyone. However, hold that thought. The next book paves the way, and Harrison’s marriage isn’t going to be dissolved by a simple divorce. (I write thrillers, and courtroom drama doesn’t count.)

Finally, the usual disclaimer — some of the tactics described in Treason are generic and not accurate. For example, torpedo employment and evasion tactics are classified and cannot be accurately represented in this novel. The dialogue also isn’t one hundred percent accurate. If it were, much of it would be unintelligible to the average reader. To help the story move along without getting bogged down in acronyms, technical details, and other military jargon, I simplified the dialogue and description of operations and weapon systems.

For all of the above, I apologize. I did my best to keep everything as close to real life as possible while developing a suspenseful (and unclassified), page-turning novel. Hopefully it all worked out, and you enjoyed reading Treason.