International Thriller Writer
Author Cym Lowell recently sat down with Janice Maynard to discuss his thriller, “Jaspar’s War” and talk about his initiative, OPERATION: NEXT CHAPTER, and how it is helping wounded service men and women.
Through this initiative, money is raised to purchase voice-activated computers for our heroes who are severely wounded or injured and are not able to use their hands.
For the full article please click here.
Big Law attorneys [have] … published thrillers during the past year. These lawyer-writers describe women and men who’ve enjoyed exotic beaches and dinner parties, who bid for power at the top of the federal government and who risk themselves to save the United States or, at least, solve a mystery. Cym Lowell, a McDermott, Will & Emery tax partner based in Dallas and Vietnam War veteran, self-published the novel “Jaspar’s War” in March. The book describes the wife of the secretary of the Treasury as she travels across the world to rescue her family after a mysterious plane crash. There’s one question Lowell hears more than others. “How much research did this take?” he said. “And I just smile and say, ‘None, because I’ve lived this.'” Of all the far-flung scenes in Lowell’s book, he’s only failed to visit one: Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.
I am pleased to report that I have been writing thrillers for almost 20 years. It began with a daughter studying at Oxford and having to write a novel in a tutorial. She picked out an event that actually happened to us on a train ride through Switzerland. There were a few places where she needed some additional life experience to fill in blanks in the story. I became hooked.
Missing You
by Harlan Coben
(Dutton/Penguin Books 2014)
Harlan Coben’s most recent story is masterful, as always. The path of Kat, the detective protagonist, to solve a perplexing disappearance of a mother (brought to Kat’s attention by the missing woman’s son) is quite an adventure. At the same time, Kat is, oddly enough, connected to her long lost love, who disappeared almost 20 years earlier. In the end, the sleuth discovers an ingenious crime spree developed by a longtime pimp to earn more money in the internet age from those seeking a love connection online.
The Professor
by Robert Bailey
(Exhibit A Books, Osprey Group 2014)
The Professor is a gripping legal thriller that grabs hold of you in the first few pages and doesn’t let go until the end. The reader is drawn into a realm of intrigue in many emotionally draining directions. The pacing and story is as gripping as the Ken Follett masterpiece Eye of the Needle.
Robert Bailey, a trial lawyer in Alabama, makes a stunning debut as a fiction writer.
The Last Man
by Vince Flynn
(Emily Betsler Books/Atria 2012)
The Last Man is, perhaps, a fitting title for the last book published by Vince Flynn before his early death. Like his other works, it is beautifully written, easily read, intense, and blends Mitch Rapp into an intriguing, current storyline. In this episode, a dangerous assault on the integrity of the CIA is underway with roots in Afghanistan. Rapp is implicated as a bad guy. Can he save the CIA and, secondarily, find his way out way into the clear?
Lying Awake
by Mark Salzman
(Vantage Contemporaries, Vantage Books, division of Random House, Inc.)
What is the nature of your faith? Is it a belief in God? Something supernatural? Another person? Or yourself?
I have often explored these questions with thoughtful friends, which seem to arise more frequently as we age and experience life.
In Lying Awake, Mark Salzman explores the subject from the standpoint of a woman named Helen who became a Carmelite nun adopting the name of Sister John of the Cross. After 28 years in the cloister, she felt abandoned by the God she dedicated her life to serve. She wrote diaries, which were later published, providing a source of income for the cloister located in the Los Angeles hills.