There are a lot of memorable opening lines in novels.
"Call me Ishmael," from Melville's Moby Dick.
Or, "Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again," from Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca.
Then there's my personal favorite: "Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Four shots ripped into my groin and I was off on the greatest adventure of my life!" from Max Shulman's Sleep Til Noon.
The reason I wrote The Negotiator was due to a first line that just popped into my head one day while I was working on a new project, and which I quickly wrote down so I didn't forget it:
"I'm a negotiator, the best in the world."
There.
That one sentence bubbled up in the creative cauldron that is my mind, and lived for a while on an otherwise blank document on my computer.
I didn't know who the narrator was, but I knew he had a cool job. He was a negotiator. Or, rather, the Negotiator.
Imagine you're in the possession of something highly illegal, like stolen bonds, or jewelry lifted from a burglary, or a rare piece of art. You need to get rid of it, but you don't know who to trust to get a fair deal without being ripped off.
That's when The Negotiator steps in. He will appraise your stolen item (no drugs, people, or anything that would threaten the security of the United States) and approach a potential buyer. He will serve as the intermediary, ensuring that both sides of the negotiation feel comfortable with the deal, with him getting a percentage of the sale for making the deal.
It's a win-win-win all around.
And then I started writing The Negotiator, and then started having a lot of fun, more fun than any author should get.
You see, I'm also the author of the Lewis Cole mysteries, and the eleventh novel in that series—Hard Aground—was released this past April. I also write science fiction, and I have a novel coming out in October, Black Triumph, from Baen Books. Oh, and in my spare time (hah-hah-hah), I'm also co-authoring works with New York Times bestselling author James Patterson.
Which meant that when I started writing The Negotiator, it wasn't my first rodeo, but I decided to do something very, very different.
No outline.
None.
Zero.
Zed.
There are plotters (writers who write detailed outlines of their works) and "pantsers" (writers who write from the seat of their pants), but at least in those two examples, both sets have some idea of where the story is going.
Not me.
Heck, I didn't even know the name of my main character, the narrator, and to this day, I still don't know his real name. I don't know where he was born, how he was raised, or what his background is. He's a mystery, an enigma, and as I noted in Chapter One:
"…What did I do before I went independent?
Perhaps I was once one of those $500 an hour Wall Street lawyers working for a hedge fund, going line by line through financial documents, yawning desperately in an attempt not to toss myself out of a twentieth floor window. Or maybe I was the best BMW salesman in Southern California, with a wall of plaques and a shelf full of trophies denoting same, complete with my own private parking space and a host of envious fellow salesmen who wished they could dine on my liver. Or maybe I was a Special Forces soldier, with a love of firearms and the canny ability to be dropped into whatever Third World hellhole was making the news that month, and being able to reach an agreement between tribes that have been at war since the time of Charlemagne over a stolen goat.
Take your pick."
But what I quickly learned that writing in ignorance produced a Zen-like bliss, and I had so much fun just writing the story, letting things happen, and trying to puzzle out what happens next.
And part of the fun was having something bad happen to The Negotiator, where a proposed deal quickly turns deadly, leading into a lot of gunfire and the death of The Negotiator's business associate.
That won't stand.
And as the book unfolds, the reader gets to learn more about my main character than his negotiating skills, including his investigative techniques, his attractiveness to members of the opposite sex, and his absolute drive and determination to find justice, no matter what.
For in that case, that's non-negotiable.
***
"The mysterious George has lots of clout, and the Negotiator has to make some exceptionally sharp and unexpected deals in his quest for payback. DuBois wraps up his clever tale with a few nifty twists. Readers will hope for a sequel."—Publishers WeeklyFor the Negotiator, calling 911 isn't an option.
The Negotiator has built a lucrative business on his talent for moving valuable merchandise with no questions asked. As a successful entrepreneur in the criminal underground, he's learned that it's good for business—and for his health—to keep gunplay off the table as much as possible.
But when a deal that promises to deliver a massive payday leads to a bloodbath, he's forced into a no-holds-barred mission for vengeance. And for the Negotiator, when the stakes of a deal are life and death, gunplay is definitely back on the table.
Praise for Brendan DuBois:
"Surprises keep coming until the last page, where we're let in on a vast, circular plot reminiscent of Grisham—and worthy of him."
—Booklist
"A taut, suspenseful thriller."
—Library Journal
"DuBois throws in a pleasing final surprise."
—Kirkus Reviews
"[DuBois] writes a mean novel."
—Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine
Brendan DuBois (New Hampshire) is the author of Resurrection Day, the Lewis Cole series, and several other novels. His short stories have been included in several "Best of" anthologies, and have won two Barry Awards and an Al Blanchard Crime Fiction Award. Visit him online at www.brendandubois.com.
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