Most of my books are about contemporary subjects, and the world changes so fast that I’m lucky when events haven’t overtaken the book I’m writing at the moment.
How you handle life depends a lot on how you handle plan B, or if you have a plan B.
Somehow our devils are never quite what we expect when we meet them face to face.
I try to use short sentences, short paragraphs and short chapters to keep the reader’s interest.
I like the process of pencil and paper as opposed to a machine. I think the writing is better when it’s done in handwriting.
I have no plans to use the Internet as the main subject of a novel.
It’s good to stay as close to real life as you can, and then kind of dress it up.
Panic – a deep abiding, free-floating anxiety, often without any reason or logical basis.
I was trained in Army Intelligence, but spent most of my army career in the infantry. But like many people of my generation, I was very much caught up in the Cold War, and books and movies about espionage.
Lawrence Kelter is an exciting new novelist, who reminds me of an early Robert Ludlum.
I generally unwind by having dinner with close friends.
Everyone looked pensive, which is good cover-up for clueless.
Ernest Hemingway was the author I drew inspiration from.
It’s really scary when you have a moment of temporary sanity.
There are Mafia families that have bought magnificent houses on the North Shore, although not yet the great estates because they don’t want that kind of high profile.
A lot of our perception of history is influenced by inaccurate movies.
The meaning of life has not much to do with good and evil, right and wrong, duty, honor, country, or any of that. It has to do with cutting the right deal.
Job happiness is directly proportional to the distance you are from the home office.
Mrs. Corey still uses her maiden name for business, or when she wants to pretend she doesn’t know me.
It’s much different today than it was during the Cold War. The CIA is not the subject of many books anymore. But that might change, because of international terrorism and Red China.