Sightings

I took advantage of a visit to metro DC this past weekend for a friend's 50th birthday celebration (and many more, Joel!) to scout some locations I'm using for my upcoming novel, Dark Network, the sequel to Faithless Elector.

I'm not from DC, and I have never lived there, but my wife and I have good friends there, and we visit often.  Nevertheless, siting places for clandestine meetings, udon noodles and murder was a problem.


Faithless Elector was situated primarily in Seattle, which I know well, having lived there for over 20 years.  Though I now live in Philadelphia, I have intimate knowledge of the University of Washington campus, the Pike Place Market and the Arboretum.  For the first book, I used Google Streetview to refresh my memory of a place, or to calculate distances.

But for the meetings and mayhem in Dark Network, I was forced to rely almost entirely on Google Streetview to find and establish the locations.  I was pleasantly surprised by how well it worked when I was finally able to do research on the ground.

There were six sites I used in and around DC that I found using Streetview.  I was able to get to four of them. While visiting them suggested some tweaks and local color I had not contemplated before, I did not have to abandon them.  The parking lot in Bethesda, MD, (yes, I know--another parking garage!) is as spooky as I thought/hoped it would be.  The 'drops' my conspirators use in Rock Creek and Lansburgh Parks work very well.  At no point, fortunately, did I get to a site and think "Oh, no! There's a security camera right there."  Even better, I was able to confirm that there was a camera right where I wanted it...which I had first seen on Streeview.


In fact, one area near the DC Armory is better than I had hoped.

I'm in the home stretch for Dark Network.  When it's finally out, I will be very interested to hear from DC-area readers about whether the sites I've chosen 'work' for them.

 James McCrone is the author of Faithless Elector, a suspense-thriller, Publishers Weekly calls a “fast-moving topical thriller.”  Its “surprising twists add up to a highly suspenseful read.” The sequel, Dark Network, is coming soon.

Faithless Elector, by James McCrone is available through Amazon.
If you live in Philadelphia, pick up a copy at Head House Books -or- Penn Book Center

Lacking the "consent of the governed"

The Faithless Elector series is a sharp critique of the precarious state of our democracy.

Faithless Elector, which debuted one year ago today, is a taut thriller about stealing the presidential election.  Its central premise is the latent weaknesses and possibility for abuse inherent in the Electoral College system for electing the president.  The precise machinations envisioned in the book have not come to pass (thankfully!), but the larger issues raised by the story remain.  And, those same weaknesses remain latent and prone to mischief...and there are others.

Faithless Elector, and the second book in the series, Dark Network (coming soon!) were never narrowly about political parties or merely the weakness(es) of the Electoral College; but rather, the precarious vulnerability of our democracy and its potential impotency in the face of decisive, ruthless, well-heeled interests.

"Governments are instituted among Men," the Declaration of Independence reads, "deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed".  The Faithless Elector series shines a glaring light on how that consent can be thwarted and negated.

I'm gratified that readers (see Amazon reviews) and independent reviewers have picked up on these broader themes of political accountability and personal responsibility, of the necessity for "ordinary" people to participate in the life of their nation.

To take just three examples:

• Book Viral Review: "Taut and well-paced, but for readers reading between the lines it also works on a moral level."

• "The pleasure of Faithless Elector lies not just its smooth evocative prose, but in the author's justified confidence that good writing can make chases through recognizable locales sufficiently exciting without a Navy SEAL or a terrorist plot." Review, Plattsburgh Press-Republican

• Publishers Weekly Review: "A fast-moving topical thriller...Surprising twists...add up to a highly suspenseful read."

The series has never been about the rightness or fitness of one party or another.  Parties are, after all, at least responsible and responsive to their constituents; and ideally, when a party no longer has our consent, they are voted out.  The series is about what can happen when a tiny group seeks extra-democratic means to take control for their own benefit.  In that way, the books may be more prophetic than even I imagined.  You should see for yourself.

 James McCrone is the author of Faithless Elector, a suspense-thriller, Publishers Weekly calls a “fast-moving topical thriller.”  Its “surprising twists add up to a highly suspenseful read.” The sequel, Dark Network, is coming soon.

Faithless Elector, by James McCrone is available through Amazon.
If you live in Philadelphia, pick up a copy at Head House Books -or- Penn Book Center

Faithless Elector penalties upheld...for now

The fines leveled against the four Washington State Faithless Electors issued by the Washington State secretary of state, have been upheld on appeal by a state judge, the Seattle Times reports.

Washington State first put the Faithless Elector laws into place after Mike Padden, a Republican Elector back in 1976, voted for Ronald Reagan instead of his party's candidate Gerald Ford.

Many states have such laws.  Most think they would not stand constitutional scrutiny. Indeed, the judge in the case seems to say as much when he notes that he doesn’t have the authority to rule on the plaintiffs’ argument that the Constitution doesn’t give the state the power to punish electors for contrary votes, but that they could argue the constitutionality of the law on appeal.

It has long been held by those who study US elections (see Professor Robert Alexander's response, right) that electors were free agents.

People on either side of the issues concerning the Electoral College concede that as conceived--and written--in Article 2, Section 1 of the Constitution, electors are independent actors.  It remains to be seen whether the Supreme Court will agree.

This is the first election where fines have been leveled against electors.  Thus far, no one has had to appeal a fine levied by a state against a faithless elector, so no one had "standing" to bring a case, and the question has never come before the Supreme Court.  It may now.

Will the Supreme Court side with the states?
What will the result mean for future presidential elections?

The premise of my novel, Faithless Elector, is based on the weaknesses and possible abuses latent in the Electoral College.   If the Supreme Court sides with these faithless electors in Washington State, it will potentially invalidate every such Elector law in those states that have them.  And if that happens, how much longer will the Electoral College remain viable as an instrument for electing the president.

And on a personal note:  how much longer will my thriller be relevant?  :)

 James McCrone is the author of Faithless Elector, a suspense-thriller, Publishers Weekly calls a “fast-moving topical thriller.”  Its “surprising twists add up to a highly suspenseful read.” The sequel, Dark Network, is coming soon.

Faithless Elector, by James McCrone is available through Amazon.
If you live in Philadelphia, pick up a copy at Head House Books -or- Penn Book Center

Faithless Elector celebrates one year!

March 14, 2017

The interaction and dialogue with readers has been the greatest reward.

One year ago today I received the final proof copy of Faithless Elector from the printer.  Thank you to everyone who has supported and taken part in a wonderful journey!  It's one I hope will continue with Dark Network (coming soon!), and the third book in the series, working title "Consent of the Governed."

Somehow it seems longer than only a year ago. In early March of 2016, I had already spent the past four months revising and re-revising a years-old draft I had put away because I couldn't interest any agents or publishers.  That also seems to be changing.

Since its publication on March 23, 2016, Faithless Elector has found a readership, for which I am deeply grateful.  I've had correspondence from all over the country, most of it very positive (some of it alarmingly CAPS LOCK hostile, but those folks were never actual readers). I've had two readers who identified themselves as real Electors. One, himself a professor, felt events in the book were a little too close for his comfort: one night, he, like the fictional Professor Calder, was working late at the university.  The sudden sounds of slamming doors and footsteps echoing through his building, he told me, unnerved him.  He decided to finish his work at home that night.

I have heard from other readers that the book has ruined parking garages for them.  They can no longer view them as just an ugly part of the landscape, but as fraught with danger.  Graduate students and academics have told me they enjoyed the portrayals of Calder and Matthew and university life. I've loved meeting readers--in person and online--and I've had wonderful questions at the readings and book talks I've done, as well as passionate appeals to bring back certain relatively minor characters. (I'll do what I can!)

Though I was setting the story in the very near future--the 2016 presidential election--March was too early to say who the candidates would be.  I decided to use fictional candidates on purpose.  While I hoped the book's topicality in the run-up to the election would help it stand apart from the thousand other political thrillers out there, I didn't want it to be a broadside--about one party or one candidate trying to steal the 2016 election.  I wanted to make sure readers wouldn't automatically view the events through the divisive prism of the primaries.  The story would suffer under the weight of pre-existing views.  I wanted the book to express a broader dilemma.  Again, I'm gratified that readers have seemed to embrace this part of the book.  The story appeals to conservatives and liberals alike.

The key to Faithless Elector was that in a close Electoral College race, it would not take much to tip the scales. A disciplined, well-funded group could undermine and hijack the parties--and the will of the people.  It was a danger then, and the danger remains latent now.  Moreover, the novel's plot hinges on the actions of ordinary citizens thrust into extraordinary circumstances, forced to act, forced to risk everything for their belief in democracy.

Amazon reviews and independent reviewers have picked up the broader themes:

• Book Viral Review: "Taut and well-paced, but for readers reading between the lines it also works on a moral level."

• "The pleasure of Faithless Elector lies not just its smooth evocative prose, but in the author's justified confidence that good writing can make chases through recognizable locales sufficiently exciting without a Navy SEAL or a terrorist plot." Review, Plattsburgh Press-Republican

• Publishers Weekly Review: "A fast-moving topical thriller...Surprising twists...add up to a highly suspenseful read."

From October 2015 to July 2016, my wife and I were living in Oxford, UK, where she was a visiting fellow at the university.  I had no work permit and decided to use my time to "make a good fist of it," as the English say, finish the book and get it out there.  I worked with an extraordinary editor suggested by a friend, who pushed, challenged, corrected and cajoled, and he helped make the book much better than it had been. (Thank you, Jim!)

I have enjoyed the work of writing every day far more than I could have anticipated.  Even when the work does not go well I realize that whatever problems I'm having, where I am today is exactly where I've wanted to be since I was 15 or 16 years old.  In fact, today is better than what I hoped for. Typing away in my room, I couldn't have guessed at what it would be like to have readers respond.  The interaction and dialogue with readers has been the greatest reward.

James McCrone

Philadelphia, PA

Sailing too close to the wind

http://www.darknetwork.co/

“Virtue is more to be feared than vice, because its excesses are not subject to the regulation of conscience.” 

  ― Adam Smith

The epigram from my work-in-progress, Dark Network, the sequel to the thrilling Faithless Elector, seems more apt as the days since the commencement of the 115th Congress and Donald Trump’s inauguration roll unalterably by (it’s only been a week!).

Each morning as I open the document and set to work finishing the novel, Adam Smith’s quote, above, stares back at me. The first clause, “virtue is more to be feared than vice” seems at first perversely counter-intuitive, the kind of cheeky opposition Oscar Wilde might construct to sharpen the witty inversion or tart reveal that completes his aphorism, as in: “It is absurd to divide people into good and bad. People are either charming or tedious.”

Adam Smith is after darker matter. Principled men are often the worst sort of demagogues, because they believe they are doing the right thing. Taken in full, Smith’s sentiment seems like a postscript to Socrates’ claim that “the unexamined life is not worth living.” We examine least—if at all—that which we regard as virtuous or legal. As the comedian Chris Rock reminds us: apartheid was legal; the holocaust was legal; slavery was legal. In the end, legality seems to be less a matter of justice than of power.

Dark Network is about power. The umbral conspirators are bent on taking power for themselves at the expense of everything we hold dear. The chilling, dark recognition at the heart of the plot is that the conspirators would say they were seizing power in order to preserve everything we hold dear. They are doing the right thing, they would say. And people who are doing the right thing are rarely troubled by scruples or conscience. Why would they be?  The tension for the characters in the novel centers on how far they are prepared to go in defense of their principles before they have abandoned them all.

I was troubled by how close to the wind Faithless Elector unwittingly sailed. (I wrote it years ago and published it March of 2016, long before Trump was even the Republican Party’s candidate.) But Faithless Elector presaged the threat of vote-rigging as a campaign tactic, as well as the manufacturing of news stories. It does not end in the same way as the true election; and I thought, wrongly it turns out, that Dark Network, as the sequel describing in effect an alternate universe would not be so potentially controversial or inadvertently relevant.

I may be all too right about the forces arrayed behind the shadowy conspirators and where the real power lies.

Dark Network is coming soon.  Maybe it's already here.

 James McCrone is the author of Faithless Elector, a suspense-thriller, Publishers Weekly calls a “fast-moving topical thriller.”  Its “surprising twists add up to a highly suspenseful read.” The sequel, Dark Network, is coming soon.

Faithless Elector, by James McCrone is available through Amazon.
If you live in Philadelphia, pick up a copy at Head House Books -or- Penn Book Center

Writing Ahead

Dark Network and Faithless Elector examine and distill an important moment

I am finishing work on Dark Network, the sequel to Faithless Elector.

Working on the draft has had a strange Sliding Doors/alternate universe feel as I near writing the end of book two because the events are taking place RIGHT NOW! Or rather, the dates coincide.

In fact, I find that I am now behind for the first time since I started writing this series. In the world of the book Dark Network it's January 17, 2017; whereas as I write this post, it's January 21, and Donald J Trump is president of the United States.

Faithless Elector was published in March, 2016, and it rode a wave of enthusiasm and interest right up to the true election, the Electoral College vote on December 19. Sales remain good, but they have cooled.

Until this week, when the dates I was writing about fell behind reality, I felt a little like I was writing SciFi. I was editing Faithless Elector in the winter of 2015-16, too early to include real-life candidates and events.   The events were in the future (albeit the immediate future).

I regard the non-specifics as a strength.  The books examine and distill an important point in time, speak to the issues of that time: a hostile, suspicious, divided electorate; eroding trust in institutions and norms; the sclerotic power of elites.

They are works of fiction, novels. Novels are not reporting. The book I wrote and the one I am finishing were never meant to be prophecy, and they certainly weren't meant as polemics.  It is worth noting, however, how much of the fictional plot came into play in the real world:  fake news, vote-rigging allegations, a shadow power ruthlessly, secretly attempting to manipulate the process to their own ends all play a part.

I've blogged earlier here and here about the enduring themes of literature and what I take to be the true business of writing:  telling a good story, creating a believable world in which character is revealed through action.  The immediacy of the stories, then, is not disposable "ripped from the headlines" reportage, not after-the-fact diagnosis, nor snooty punditry.

They are thrillers.

And though the books are set against powerful, inscrutable forces, the message is that people--ordinary people--still care, and can still make a difference.

I've been pleased by the reactions and overwhelmingly positive reviews for Faithless Elector. It's been quite a journey, and I am hopeful it is not near ending.

 James McCrone is the author of Faithless Elector, a suspense-thriller, that

Publishers Weekly calls a “fast-moving topical thriller.”  Its “surprising twists add up to a highly suspenseful read.” The sequel, Dark Network, is coming soon.

Faithless Elector, by James McCrone is available through Amazon.
If you live in Philadelphia, pick up a copy at Head House Books -or- Penn Book Center

NOTE: Charles Johnson has recently published The Way of the Writer: Reflections on the Art and Craft of Storytelling.  Check it out!

When ideologies collide: Faithless Elector and Dark Network

Faithless Elector, and its sequel, Dark Network are stories about courage, duty, fidelity and a belief in ideology: and what happens when those qualities and ideologies collide.

The Electoral College vote has passed (Dec. 19)--not without incident or intrigue--and although the specific events described in my novel, Faithless Elector, did not happen, the fact is they could have happened. Faithless Elector is a work of fiction, after all, not a prediction.  The events described in the novel would throw the nation into chaos, precisely what the protagonists risk their lives to prevent.

Dark Network, draft cover

While the thrillers Faithless Elector, and its sequel, Dark Network (coming soon!) take current events as their impetus, they are first and foremost taut, plot-driven stories contending with themes that endure after the headlines have faded and events in the real world have expressed themselves. The stories are about courage, duty, fidelity and a belief in ideology: and what happens when those qualities and ideologies collide.  And as long as the Electoral College endures, the latent possibility for mischief and malfeasance also endures.

In Faithless Elector, a small, deadly efficient conspiracy seeks to overturn the result of a close election by getting a number of Electors to switch their votes, to become "faithless electors."  The conspirators operate in the shadows, but they seem to be everywhere.

In Dark Network, it becomes clear that the conspirators are still trying to influence the outcome.  The protagonist, FBI Agent Imogen Trager, must fight against time, a sinister network clinging to life and hope--even her own colleagues--to find out who is still trying to steal the election and stop them. There is barely one month until the inauguration...

In both books, each group of actors--the conspirators and the protagonists--believe they are doing the right thing.  The protagonists must ask themselves how far they are prepared to go in defense of their principles before they have abandoned them all along the way.

 James McCrone is the author of Faithless Elector, a suspense-thriller, that

Publishers Weekly calls a “fast-moving topical thriller.”  Its “surprising twists add up to a highly suspenseful read.” The sequel, Dark Network, is coming soon.

Faithless Elector, by James McCrone is available through Amazon.
If you live in Philadelphia, pick up a copy at Head House Books -or- Penn Book Center