Seeley James - Combining Psychological, Political, and Action Thrills in a Continuing Epic

Seeley James' near-death experiences range from talking a jealous husband into putting the gun down to spinning out on an icy freeway in heavy traffic without touching anything. His resume ranges from washing dishes to global technology management. His personal life stretches from homeless at 17, adopting a 3-year-old at 19, getting married at 37, fathering his last child at 43, hiking the Grand Canyon Rim-to-Rim at 59, and taking the occasional nap. His writing career ranges from humble beginnings with short stories in The Battered Suitcase, to being awarded a Medallion from the Book Readers Appreciation Group. Seeley is best known for his Sabel Security series of thrillers featuring athlete and heiress Pia Sabel and her bodyguard, veteran Jacob Stearne. One of them kicks ass and the other talks to the wrong god. As our Author of the Day, Seeley tells us more about his Sabel Security boxed set.

Please give us a short introduction to what you Sabel Security boxed set is about.

The boxed set is the gateway drug to the ever-expanding Sabel Security universe. Our heroine, Pia Sabel, is a former soccer star and amateur boxer who uses her father’s security company to take on corrupt politicians, rogue corporations, and terrorists. Her team includes our hero, Jacob Stearne who is a veteran of too many tours of duty in the Army Rangers. His army psychologists determined he had PTSD-induced schizophrenia and wanted him booted out before he became a rampage killer. But the people’s lives he saved, including an influential general, knew that Jacob’s connection to the unemployed god Mercury, former messenger of the Roman gods, was the divine inspiration that allowed him to save hundreds of lives on the battlefield. Is Jacob looney or is his smart-mouthed god real? It’s a matter of faith versus madness. The situation provides levity in an otherwise pulse-pounding series. In writing these three novels, I tried to live up to the phrase, “ripped from tomorrow’s headlines.” In more than one case, these fictional stories have been proved -albeit unfortunately- true.

Tell us more about Jacob Stearne and Pia Sabel. What makes them such a great team?

Pia is the catalyst, and the financier, for rooting out conspiracies in our society. Jacob provides the muscle to take out the bad guys. His divine guidance often snatches the team from Death’s scythe. Pia is no slouch in the action department due to her athleticism and determination. Together, they are the brains and brawn keeping our nation safe.

You have had a very eventful life, with some near-death experiences, times of homelessness and more. How has this influenced your writing?

Life’s challenges lead us from one stepping stone to the next. The one event that did more to influence me than any other was adopting a three-year-old girl when I was nineteen. Raising her as a single dad, dealing with the mother who loved but abandoned the girl, while trying to grow up myself taught me many valuable lessons. The most impressive of which is the resilience of children when their childhoods are chaotic and unpredictable. I based Pia Sabel’s core character on my first daughter’s tenacious desire to succeed in spite of difficulties. For more on this story: http://seeleyjames.com/2013/02/making-it-real/

Element 42 revolves around a deadly disease and a patented drug. What inspired this story?

I wrote this story before the Purdue Pharma scandal proved how evil big pharma could be in real life. At the time, Glaxo, Pfizer, J&J, Abbott Labs, and Eli Lily had paid fines ranging from $1.4 billion to $3 billion and shrugged them off as (quoting a real CEO speaking to stockholders), “the cost of doing business.” Even after huge fines, these companies still produced more profits than any other industry by a tremendous margin. They were also trying to patent everything from basic elements on the periodic chart to our DNA. I extrapolated a premise: What would a big pharma company do next? What if they engineered a disease that only their patented drug could cure?

In Death and Dark Money, the pair has to work with terrorist financiers. The theme of corruption and "dark money" runs through many of your books. What draws you to this subject?

Wherever there are people in power, there is money trying to corrupt them. King Solomon dealt with this problem. The Romans institutionalized it in the holiday Saturnalia. During this festival, people gave lavish gifts to people they loved, admired, and respected … including business partners and politicians. In 2010, the Supreme Court allowed certain types of charities to collect money from anyone anonymously and donate it to political causes. Thus far, no significant amount of foreign money has been traced publicly to any specific politician. There is a Russian woman in jail right now who was caught donating a small amount to the NRA that might have gone to the Republican party. There were allegations (unproven) that Chinese money made it into the Clinton campaign. My concern is, what if terrorists or foreign powers donated anonymously? How would we find out? For all we know, the Saudis (fill in any wealthy country or group) are pouring millions into our elections. The details of this reality are brilliantly delineated by Jane Meyer in her book Dark Money (which came out just as mine was going to the printers). It is the most frightening aspect of modern politics.

Death and The Damned deals with a billionaire smuggling terrorists into the country. Tell us more about it.

In 2010, Bill Gates was the wealthiest person in the world at $80 billion. That year, he gave half of his fortune to his charity. Seven years later, he was worth $80 billion again, proving that you can’t even give it away. Our nation’s fascination with giving public funds and tax breaks to billionaires so they can build stadiums they then charge us money to sit in (among the many gifts we give them) astounds me. The wealthy have become so incredibly wealthy they can launch sports cars into space. What if one of them, enamored with the violent militia’s popping up all over the country (like Patriot Movement AZ), wanted to hasten a race or religious war? It would cost him/her less than one of the 405 Bugatti Veyrons sold in the US.

Besides writing, what other secret skills do you have?

I can whistle while smiling and can meow so much like a cat that your dog will bark. (Too much time on my hands as a child. Put your children in soccer.) I’m also an avid hiker. I hike a local mountain on a daily basis, hike down to the bottom of the Grand Canyon and back several times a year, and run off to hike when I should be writing.

Readers say that your books are intense and keep them at the edge of their seats. How do you pull this off?

I get messages from a used god. Or. The first thing I learned about writing was not to give away the thing everyone is fighting over. In Alfred Hitchcock’s immortal story, North by Northwest, everyone is after “the microfilm”. When the story ends, the audience still does not have a clue what’s on the microfilm. That’s clever.

Have you always wanted to be a writer?

Yes. I read Treasure Island when I was ten and thought, this is a career option? I’m in. But adopting a child meant I needed money more than an MFA, so I put the idea on hold until I raised my first child, then my second family. Now, forty years later, I’ve an empty nest and more time and quiet to think.

What's an aspect of being a writer that you didn't know about going in?

It’s a LOT harder than it looks. When my first editor sent back notes, I started reading up on “value shifts” and “turning points” and many other aspects of the craft. We never get it perfect but every once in a while, we get close. I always think, I’ll get it just the way I want it in the next book.

How do you force yourself to finish what you're doing before starting the next project when the new idea is nagging at you?

“Focus” is the biggest problem I have (regardless of what my wife might tell you). I keep side-stepping issues. I hired an editing coach for my last book. When you pay someone to review five thousand words on Friday, you have a tendency to get them done so as not to waste the money. Best investment I ever made.

Do you consider yourself a disciplined writer? Do you have a schedule that you stick to, or is it more in the moment?

Disciplined? If you count hours of goofing off before diving in and writing 3,000 words in an hour, disciplined, OK. As for a schedule, I find myself most creative from 4 to 8 PM. I schedule my advertising, marketing and accounting for the mornings. As for in the moment? I’ve come to learn that I make the moments happen through a blue collar attitude. I have to write words the way a bricklayer lays bricks, one after the other. The more I write, the more words come to me.

What are you working on right now?

I’ve been sickened by mass shootings after Christchurch and Sri Lanka. My work in progress is about our hero, Jacob, falling into a group of “patriots” only to discover they plan something horrific on an unprecedented scale. I sure hope he figures out how to stop them in time.

Where can our readers discover more of your work and interact with you?

My website is easy to find: http://seeleyjames.com I’m also available via email at [email protected], Facebook https://business.facebook.com/seeleyjamesauthor/ , BookBub (if you only want to hear from me when a new book comes out) https://www.bookbub.com/authors/seeley-james, or Amazon https://www.amazon.com/Seeley-James/e/B0087TR3OM