Guest Blogger: Allan Leverone, Author of Parrallax View

It’s late in the Cold War, and the Soviet Union is slowly disintegrating.

In the midst of this uncertainty and upheaval, a mysterious group of KGB officials has concocted a desperate plan in an attempt to maintain power.


And one beautiful young CIA operative is all that stands between this shadowy cabal and the outbreak of World War Three.

Spring, 1987. CIA Special Operations agent Tracie Tanner is tasked with what should be a relatively straightforward mission: deliver a secret communique from Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev to U.S. President Ronald Reagan.

After smuggling the document out of East Germany, Tracie believes she is in the clear. She’s wrong. There are shadowy forces at work, influential people who will stop at nothing to prevent the explosive information contained in the letter from reaching the White House.

Soon, Tanner is knee-deep in airplane crashes and murder, paired up with a young Maine air traffic controller and on the run for their lives, unsure who she can trust at CIA, but committed to completing her mission, no matter the cost.

Dealing with Violence in Fiction

By Allan Leverone

A co-worker friend of mine recently underwent arthroscopic knee surgery. Afterward, he came into work on crutches and with the knee immobilized in a brace, and was showing me the very tiny holes made in the vicinity of his knee, into which the arthroscopic devices had been inserted.

The holes were tiny. Minimally invasive.

I could hardly stand to look.

If you’ve read any of my books, you might find that assertion hard to believe. I don’t write violence just for violence’s sake, but I’ve spilled my share of fictional blood. Some would say more than my share. When the majority of your work is in the horror and thriller genres, violence and mayhem seem to naturally follow.

I’ve had people shot, stabbed, and beaten up. I’ve written car crashes, explosions, mining disasters and terrorist attacks.

And I have trouble looking at a tiny incision. In someone else’s knee.

My wife, on the other hand, enjoys watching those documentary-type TV shows about operations. You know the ones, on the Science Channel or whatever, where they show actual footage of surgeons repairing a hole in an infant’s aorta, or trying to fix the tissue trauma from a nasty gunshot wound, that sort of thing.

If I walk into the room while that kind of show is playing, I either turn around and walk right back out (okay, I run), or I ask my wife to change the channel (okay, I beg).

Why is that? How is it possible I can describe the most horrific scenes of carnage and destruction in the pages of a book, but my stomach does flip-flops at the sight of a beating heart muscle on television? How can I write about one human being shooting another at point-blank range, but when my kids were little, had to force myself not to panic beyond all reason when one of them suffered even a minor cut?

I suppose the answer would be the same thing that’s bothered human beings from the beginning of time, when we huddled in cold, cark caves hoping tonight wouldn’t be the night that pesky saber-toothed tiger prowling around outside didn’t tear us apart and eat us for dinner: fear of the unknown.

When I’m writing, no matter how gruesome the scene or how distasteful the subject matter, I can see it unfold in my head and I know where I’m going with it, more or less.

A surgical procedure taking place on TV, on the other hand, presents a cornucopia of potential outcomes, none of which are pleasing to my hyperactive imagination. Will blood start spurting from that beating heart the surgeon is holding in his gloved hand? What if he drops it? How about if he sneezes while making an incision? Will that be the end of the patient?

The same mindset applied when my kids were young and dripping blood from their cut fingers. They were injured and they were depending on me to care for them. Me! The guy who has a habit of entering rooms and forgetting why. The guy who can’t stand watching a surgical procedure on TV.

In the real world, the range of possibilities outside my control are endless, whereas when I’m writing, even if I don’t have a clear idea where I’m going in a scene, the range is limited to whatever I’m willing to write. There are lines that I know will never be crossed.

And that makes all the difference in the world.

In the case of PARALLAX VIEW, you can sense almost from the very beginning of the book that a violent confrontation – a showdown – is coming. That is the case in virtually all thrillers, so the reader knows going in to expect it and shouldn’t be terribly surprised when it happens.

What form that confrontation will take, and what outcome will result, is obviously up in the air, but a reader of genre fiction, particularly thrillers, presumably isn’t going to be turned off merely by the description of violence.

How about you? As a reader, do you tend to cringe when you come to the most explicitly violent portions of a book? Do you skip over those passages? How does your reaction to blood spilled on a page differ from your reaction to real-world violence, either televised or happening in front of you?

And can you remember why I came into this room?

Allan Leverone is the author of five novels, including the Amazon Top 25 overall paid bestselling thriller, THE LONELY MILE. He is a 2012 Derringer Award winner for excellence in short mystery fiction, as well as a 2011 Pushcart Prize nominee. Allan lives in Londonderry, NH with his wife and family, and a cat who has used up eight lives.

Visit his website at www.allanleverone.com.

Follow Allan:

Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/AllanLeveroneauthor and Twitter at https://twitter.com/allanleverone

Author Interview: Allan Leverone, Author of Final Vector

Joining us today is Allan Leverone, a three-time Derringer Award Finalist whose short fiction has been featured in Needle: A Magazine of Noir, Shroud Magazine, Twisted Dreams, Mysterical-E and many other venues, both print and online. His debut thriller, titled Final Vector, is available February 2011 from Medallion Press. For details, please visit www.allanleverone.com or his blog at www.allanleverone.blogspot.com.

Welcome to The Book Connection, Allan. Can you tell us a bit about yourself?

I’m a nearly thirty year veteran air traffic controller, having been hired by the FAA in 1982 at the age of twenty-two, fresh out of college. For the last twenty years, I’ve worked traffic into and out of Boston’s Logan International Airport, setting the stage for much of the action in Final Vector.

For as long as I can remember I’ve loved to read and wanted to write, but never really indulged my interest in writing fiction from the time I left college until about five years ago.

Where did you grow up?

Harvard, Massachusetts, a tiny town about thirty miles west of Boston. No, it’s not related to the university!

When did you begin writing?

I loved writing as a child, but after leaving college took about a twenty-five year break from it while I established myself in my career and raised a family. I started a sports blog at Foxsports in January, 2006 and achieved a decent following before realizing my real desire was to write fiction. I began work on my first novel-length manuscript in November of 2006 and have been writing both novels and short fiction ever since.

Do you write during the day, at night or whenever you can sneak a few moments?

I write whenever I can. Being an air traffic controller is definitely not a nine-to-five occupation, so I’m used to the idea of working morning, night, sometimes even overnight. That type of schedule is all I’ve ever known, so writing at any time of the day or night is basically an extension of the schedule I keep in my day job..

What is this book about?

In Final Vector, air traffic controller Nick Jensen’s life is falling apart. His wife Lisa, a Pentagon auditor, has been killed in a horrific car accident and authorities believe she may have been the victim of foul play.

To escape his grief, Nick throws himself into his work at the air traffic control facility serving Boston’s Logan International Airport and is on duty the night a band of heavily-armed terrorists storm the facility. Nick escapes capture, but with time running out, must unravel the information uncovered by his dead wife to stop an assassination plot while outnumbered, unarmed and on the run…

What inspired you to write it?

I think it was a natural subject for a guy with almost thirty years of aviation experience, especially given the attraction terrorists factions the world over seem to have for airplanes as a vehicles for delivering their messages of hatred and violence.

Who is your biggest supporter?

My wife, Sue, first and foremost. A lot of wives, when confronted with a husband claiming to want to write novels, would have said, “Yeah, right, sure. Now get out there and cut the grass.” Mine has supported me enthusiastically from Day One right up to today. The same thing goes for the rest of my family. My kids had a lot more confidence in me becoming a published novelist than I did, most of the time.

Are you a member of a critique group? If no, who provides feedback on your work?

My wife is the first to read my work in most instances, whether she really wants to or not. Beyond that, I have various people I check with for realism, depending on the subject matter. But I decided a long time ago that critique groups weren’t for me, unless I could join a group composed of, say, Barry Eisler, Tom Piccirilli and Stephen King. I just don’t see the benefits of having my work critiqued by people who don’t have any more experience than me.

Who is your favorite author?

It’s tough to limit myself to just one. I’m a huge fan of the three authors from above who form my imaginary critique group, as well as outstanding authors like Sophie Littlefield, Dave Zeltserman and Duane Swierczynski.

Do you have an agent or are you looking for one?

I’m currently un-agented, so Donald Maass, if you’re reading this, have your people call my people, maybe we can do lunch…

Was the road to publication smooth sailing or a bumpy ride?

I’m not sure too many authors would answer “smooth sailing” to this question! In many ways I’ve been more fortunate than some, who have written ten, fifteen, twenty years without managing to score a contract. But one thing anyone who wants to sell fiction becomes intimately familiar with is rejection. Between novel manuscripts and short stories, I would say I have chalked up well over two hundred rejections, probably closer to three hundred. JA Konrath says the difference between a published author and an unpublished author is persistence. I agree.

If you knew then, what you know now, is there anything you would have done differently?

Not really. We are all products of our experiences and even screwing up royally can represent the opportunity to learn and grow. Besides, until I get my own Hot Tub Time Machine, looking back is pointless.

Where can readers purchase a copy of your book?

Final Vector is available in ebook form for all ereaders, and can be purchased at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, anywhere ebooks are sold.

Do you have a website and/or blog where readers can find out more?

Absolutely! My website is at http://www.allanleverone.com/ and my blog, A Thrill a Minute, is accessible from there as well. Also, anyone with a Facebook account can feel free to say hello to me there.

Do you have a video trailer to promote your book? If yes, where can readers find it?

I’m really excited about the Final Vector trailer. It’s available at my website, http://www.allanleverone.com/, as well as at my publisher’s website, http://www.medallionpress.com/, and also at Youtube, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=86g7_negT8o, as well as any number of video sites where it has been distributed by COS Productions.

What is the best investment you have made in promoting your book?

I’m not sure I will really have an answer to that question for months, if ever. As a basically unknown debut novelist, I am well aware of the importance of increasing my visibility with readers around the country. I contracted with Pump Up Your Book Virtual Book Tours for a two-month blog tour and I suspect that will end up being my wisest investment in terms both of money and time spent promoting.

What is one piece of advice you would like to share with aspiring authors everywhere?

Keep writing! It’s kind of a cliché in the publishing business that no author really knows what he or she is doing until they’ve written at least a million words. I don’t know how true that is, but the point is a good one: The only way to improve at anything is to work at it, day after day, even when you don’t really feel like doing it.

My other piece of advice echoes what Joe Konrath says: Don’t give up. Persistence counts for a lot and if the manuscript you’re hawking today doesn’t work out, maybe the one you write tomorrow will.

What is up next for you?

Thanks for asking! I completed a traditional thriller late last year titled The Lonely Mile, for which I am actively pursuing publication. Also, I just completed the first draft of a horror/suspense novel tentatively titled Flicker that I’m very excited about, but that manuscript still needs a lot of tender loving care before it will be ready to be seen by anyone not named Al Leverone.

Is there anything you would like to add?

Yes, first I would like to invite feedback from anyone who spends their time, money and effort reading Final Vector. I truly appreciate your support and welcome any constructive comments, both positive and negative, regarding my work.

Secondly, thanks so much to The Book Connection for giving me the opportunity to connect with your readers!

Thanks for spending time with us today, Allan. We wish you much success.