Jeffery Deaver

Question: Tell us briefly about Edge.

Jeffery Deaver: In Edge, our protagonist — known by the sole name Corte — is a “shepherd,” basically an über bodyguard working for an unnamed U.S. government agency, charged with keeping witnesses and innocent (or not so innocent) people safe from threats, when no one else can. In this book Corte is charged with protecting Ryan Kessler, a Washington D.C. cop, and his family when it’s learned that the villain is trying to get some information from Kessler, presumably because of one of his cases. The bad guy is a scary one: Henry Loving, a “lifter,” someone hired to extract (or “lift”) information from his target by any means necessary, including threatening or otherwise using his or her family. Torture is just one of his many tools of the trade. Edge also looks at the dynamics of what happens among family members when they’re thrown together under such extreme circumstances.

Q: How is Edge typical of and different from your other books?

JD: Well, it’s a typical Deaver book in that it takes place over a short period of time — a long weekend — and it races along without pausing for breath. And it’s got my typical twists and turns — including some really shocking surprise endings (yes, that’s plural), right up until the last couple of pages.

But what isn’t typical is that it’s written in the first person, unique for me. I did this because I wanted the challenge of incorporating twists and turns into a book where the readers have the same information as my protagonist. It certainly was a challenge, but according to the early reviews, at least, I think I pulled it off. Also, I liked the intimacy that comes from the relationship between reader and protagonist when you write in the first person. I think fans like that too.

Q: Where is the novel set?

JD: The novel’s set in a place where I actually happen to live much of the time, in and around Washington, D.C. Much takes place in Great Falls, Fairfax and in the District itself. My protagonist lives in a wonderful part of the area, Old Town Alexandria. Though it’s not a political thriller, I wanted the book to convey the exotic nature of the nation’s capital, as well as the decidedly gritty side of the District and surrounding areas. There are some Civil War motifs in the book too, which I love.

Q: Do you prefer stand-alones or series?

JD: I have no preference really. Each has its own advantages and disadvantages. With stand-alones, for instance, I can always imperil my main characters and risk killing them off (yes, I love messing with my readers’ minds!), which I can’t do with series. But I have to invent a whole world every time, whereas with series novels I know the characters, locations, institutions, etc. The real key is deciding which category is best for the story idea. For instance, the Lincoln Rhyme books are best for technical subjects, the Kathryn Dance for more psychological thrillers. The stand-alones let me experiment, often combining the two and trying out new forms (like the first-person in Edge). I think more people like series, so that’s what I stick to most of the time.

Q: What’s coming up in the future?

JD: It’s public knowledge now that I’m writing the James Bond novel for 2011. It’s largely completed, though there’ll be some more editing to do (you can never do too much rewriting). After that, I’m continuing with my next Kathryn Dance book for 2012, and the next Lincoln Rhyme in 2013. . . . Phew, hearing all that, I better get back to work!

“Best Fiction Pick For 2010”
— Kirkus Reviews

“Deaver unveils some nifty new tricks in this edge-of-your-seat thriller . . . Deaver’s first first-person narrator, Corte, is an exciting new weapon in the author’s arsenal of memorable characters.”
— Publishers Weekly

“Fans of Deaver’s fiendishly clever suspensers won’t be surprised by the nonstop deceptions, reversals, shocks and surprises, but this time they’re even more varied than usual, and, given the characters’ backgrounds, a lot more plausible. The result is his most successful thriller in years.”
— Kirkus reviews (starred review)

“This is a fine thriller with strong characters and a compelling story.”
— David Pitt, Booklist

“In Mr. Deaver’s kaleidoscope world, the odds seem to change with each turn of the page.”
— Tom Nolan, Wall Street Journal

“The challenge is to figure out what the rules are in this brain-teaser of a thriller, which pits two ruthless professionals against each other in a murderous contest over the lives of a Washington, D.C., police detective and his family.”
— Marilyn Stasio, New York Times

June 2004

The Rules of Play

The man who wanted to kill the young woman sitting beside me was three-quarters of a mile behind us, as we drove through a pastoral setting of tobacco and cotton fields, this humid morning.

A glance in the rearview mirror revealed a sliver of car, moving at a comfortable pace with the traffic, piloted by a man who by all appearances seemed hardly different from any one of a hundred drivers on this recently resurfaced divided highway.

“Officer Fallow?” Alissa began. Then, as I’d been urging her for the past week: “Abe?”

“Yes.”

“Is he still there?” She’d seen my gaze.

“Yes. And so’s our tail,” I added for reassurance. My protégé was behind the killer, two or three car lengths. And he was not the only person from our organization on the job.

“Okay,” Alissa whispered. The woman, in her mid-thirties, was a whistle-blower against a government contractor that did a lot of work for the army. The company was adamant that it had done nothing wrong and claimed it welcomed an investigation. But there’d been an attempt on Alissa’s life a week ago and — since I’d been in the army with one of the senior commanders at Bragg — Defense had called me in to guard her. As head of the organization I don’t do much fieldwork any longer but I was glad to get out, to tell the truth. My typical day was ten hours at my desk in our Alexandria office. And in the past month, it had been closer to twelve or fourteen, as we coordinated the protection of five high-level organized crime informants, before handing them over to Witness Protection for their face-lifts.

It was good to be back in the saddle, if only for a week or so.

I hit a speed dial button, calling my protégé.

“It’s Abe,” I said into my hands-free. “Where is he now?”

“Make it a half mile. Moving up slowly.”

The hitter, whose identity we didn’t know, was in a nondescript Hyundai sedan, gray.

I was following an eighteen-foot truck, with Carolina Poultry Processing Company painted on the side. It was empty and being driven by one of our transport people. In front of that was a car identical to the one I was driving.

“We’ve got a two miles till the swap,” I said.

Four voices acknowledged this, over four very encrypted com devices.

I disconnected.

Without looking at her, I said to Alissa, “It’s going to be fine.”

“I just . . . ” she said in a whisper. “I don’t know.” She fell silent and stared into the sideview mirror as if the man who wanted to kill her were right behind us.

“It’s all going just like we planned.”

When innocent people find themselves in situations that require the presence and protection of people like me, their reaction more often than not is as much bewilderment as fear. Mortality is tough to process.

But keeping people safe, keeping people alive, is a business like any other. I frequently told this to my protégé and the others in the office, probably irritating them to no end with both the repetition and the stodgy tone. But I kept on saying it because you can’t forget, ever. It’s a business, with rigid procedures that we study the way surgeons learn to slice flesh precisely and pilots learn to keep tons of metal safely aloft. These techniques have been honed over the years and they worked.

Business . . .

Of course, it was also true that the hitter who was behind us at the moment, intent on killing the woman next to me, treated his job as a business too. I knew this sure as steel. He was just as serious as I was, had studied procedures as diligently as I had, was smart, IQ-wise and street, and he had advantages over me: His rules were unencumbered by my constraints — the Constitution and the laws promulgated there under.

Still, I believe there is an advantage in being in the right. In all my years of doing this work I’d never lost a principal. And I wasn’t going to lose Alissa.

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“Deaver’s infernal puzzle mysteries invariably inspire words like devious, diabolical, and devilish, all of which apply to XO. It’s Dance’s toughest case, and one of Deaver’s best books.”
— New York Times

“Deaver’s excellent third novel featuring Kathryn Dance…. Lincoln Rhyme and Amelia Sachs, the leads of Deaver’s other series, make cameo appearances in a novel sure to please fans of both series.”
— Publishers Weekly, * Starred Review

“Fans of Deaver’s celebrated sleuthing marathons will wait with bated breath as this onion is peeled to disclose multiple layers of deception, betrayal and triple crosses.”
— Kirkus Reviews

“Written with Deaver’s usual keen eye for dialogue and character and featuring his customary right-angle plot twists, the novel will be a sure-fire hit with not only his legion of fans but also with readers who have yet to sample a Deaver novel. And Deaver fans who have felt that the Dance novels aren’t quite as sharp as his Lincoln Rhyme series might have to think again. This may be the most compelling of the Dance books.”
— Booklist

“Deaver is a master of manipulation. “XO” delivers more twists than a bag of pretzels, and just when readers believe they have everything figured out, another surprise awaits them. Fans of Deaver’s other series featuring paraplegic Lincoln Rhyme will be excited to see him make a cameo appearance.”
— Jeff Ayers, Associated Press

“In his new thriller, “XO,” Jeffery Deaver gives his readers triple or quadruple their money, with more twists, turns, and doglegs than an East Tennessee back road.”
— Knoxville News Sentinel