Interview:UNTHINKABLE Issue 1

Is the main character in this series Alan Ripley based on you at all?

Not intentionally. But the more that I've written him, the more I've found in common. I think, like me, he is someone who would love to be a real life hero - I've harbored aspirations of working for the military or in intelligence. And, also like me, he'd be the LAST person that you'd want to defend your country against terror - at least when the story begins. I'm giving him the chance to change that, though, so over the course of UNTHINKABLE he's able grow into the kind of hero he writes about. I'm not sure I'd want that opportunity in real life, since it would involve, you know, danger.

This issue basically has the relationship of the two brothers at its heart. Does this come from a relationship you have had with a brother or one you have seen?

I'm an only child, so in addition to being selfish and spoiled, I'm unable to draw from my own experiences when it comes with siblings. But I have people close to me who I consider to be real-life heroes, who I both envy and admire, as Alan does his brother Steven. I don't know whether they feel as negatively about me or my work as Steven does about Alan and his. As a former Navy S.E.A.L. (among other things), he sees Alan writing about what real people bleed and die for as exploitative.

Where did the theme of terrorism/conspiracy theories come from?

This inspiration for Unthinkable came from this idea after 9/11 that many people were saying it was something out of a Tom Clancy novel or Jerry Bruckheimer movie. The government took this line of thought seriously, and formed a think tank made up of the countries top thriller writers, like Brad Meltzer. The idea was that if we could use these writers imaginations to come up with worst case terrorist scenarios, we might be able to devise defenses against them before the terrorists could plot, let alone act on them.

Where I made the fictional leap was...what if their scenarios came true? What kind of conspiracy would you need to pull something like that off, and more importantly, how would a writer feel if his work were used to hurt people.

Did you have to do a lot of research into these two areas for the book?

Yes, although I did much more research on terror than conspiracy theories. I've done more research on Unthinkable than all my other books combined. Mostly publicly available reading material, but I also talked to people whose job it is to think about terror for a living. What I learned from the former was scarier than the latter - it's frightening how much info there is out there that could be used to hurt us.

I don't believe in conspiracy theories in general, and 9/11 in particular. For one thing, it's very hard for one person to keep a secret, and that increases exponentially when with each additional conspirator. I think they are a way for people to impose order on a chaotic universe. It's much easier to accept the idea it takes whole agencies, countries and criminal enterprises to kill JFK than it is to realize that one nut can disrupt the social order with relative ease. That said, conspiracies make for better drama then lone gunmen.