A Conversation with

Taylor Smith

THE INNOCENTS CLUB is the fifth Taylor Smith novel to hit bookstores but the first to reprise characters from one of your earlier works - Mariah Bolt and company, who first appeared in GUILT BY SILENCE. Why did you decide to write a sequel now, after so many stand-alone works?

In general, I'd rather create new characters and new situations with each novel, rather than re-mine territory I've already explored. But when Mariah first appeared in Guilt By Silence, many readers seemed to relate to her and asked me when she was going to make a return appearance. After the crises she went through in Guilt By Silence - the death of her husband, the wounding of her daughter, her betrayal by her CIA masters - readers wondered how she was faring. Such is the power of fiction, I guess, to create sympathetic characters who seem to live and breathe. After a while, I found that I, too, was curious about what was happening to her - and to Frank Tucker, her mentor and friend, who was in dire straits at the end of Guilt By Silence. It also occurred to me that there was a whole side of Mariah's past that I hadn't really explored in the first novel - her relationship with her brilliant, difficult late father. In The Innocents Club, Mariah discovers how little she really knows about his life - and his death.

Your novels deal with issues straight out of the news, including international hot spots and corruption in high places. Yet your characters are far from the cartoonish good guys and bad guys who so often appear in thrillers. Where does the story start for you, with character or plot?

For me, character is everything. If I can't believe or relate to the characters in a work of fiction, then the plot, no matter how clever or action-packed, won't hold my attention. I'm a student of human nature and I'm fascinated with the notion of how fairly ordinary people react when faced with extraordinary circumstances. At the same time, even the best of people have flaws and weaknesses, and even villains have vulnerabilities and likable traits. It's what makes telling the good guys from the bad so hard to do. I love to play with those ambiguities in my fiction.

Which is your personal favorite of the novels you've written?

That's like asking a parent to choose her favorite child! Each one is unique and has attributes I really like. Guilt By Silence is my first-born - or at least the first of my novels to be published - and so it holds a special place. The Best Of Enemies appeals to me for many reasons, not least because of the drama of a story that unfolds minute by minute over a very tense twenty-eight-hour period. Random Acts was a difficult book to write because it deals with every parent's worst nightmare, but for me, confronting that fear paid off in terms of a story that many readers find un-put-downable. Common Passions is unique, the story of a talk show host determined to find her parents' killer more than a quarter century after their murder. Less political than my other books, it still explores the big themes that really interest me, including power, corruption, and the personal strength that derives from family bonds.

Is there a new Taylor Smith novel in the works?

Yes. Watch for DEADLY GRACE to appear late this year (2001). Once again, it's a bit of a departure from my past work - or rather, a departure into the past. DEADLY GRACE is set in 1979, and opens in a small prairie town with the murder of an elderly woman. English war bride Grace Meade had served with the French Resistance during the Nazi occupation, and had helped rescue, then married a shot-down American flyer. Joe Meade died in the waning days of the war, but Grace brought their infant daughter to America to be raised in his home town. When Grace is killed thirty-five years later, however, it's that same daughter who stands accused of her murder - with a motive, FBI agent Alex Cruz discovers, buried deep in their war-torn past.
This novel grew out of a family visit to England and France in September of 1999, on the occasion of the sixtieth anniversary of the outbreak of World War II. I found myself visiting wartime sites and becoming imbued with the spirit of that battle against one of the greatest evils of the last millennium. The story of DEADLY GRACE just seemed to evolve from that.

With a long and diverse career in international politics, it's amazing that you've leapt so effortlessly into a new career as an author. Had you always intended to write?

Actually, from the time I was a child, I deliberately set out not to become a novelist, since my older sister had literary aspirations. As an obstreperous second child, I wanted to blaze my own trail. But when I moved to California a few years back taking a leave of absence to spend more time with my kids, I turned to writing fiction for intellectual stimulation--never planning to make a career of it.

And you used your diplomatic and intelligence career as a starting point?

Yes, but not without some trepidation. I retired from public service just as my first novel, Guilt By Silence, was about to be published. In writing it, I worried about the detail I 'd put into the political intrigue, and spent a lot of time back-researching the facts to be sure that there were public sources available so I wouldn't be arrested for violating the Official Secrets Act.

Was your involvement in international affairs really that top secret?

Yes. After several years as a diplomat, I moved on to become an intelligence analyst for the head of Canadian Security and Intelligence, who liaises with the Director of the CIA as well as Britain's MI6. In my work I was indoctrinated into beyond-Top Secret files and visited those sister agencies. Obviously, in retrospect, this provided great grist for the writing mill.

How is The Best Of Enemies different from other political thrillers on the market these days?

Probably the first thing that distinguishes my books from others like them are the strong female protagonists. In most of this genre, written largely by men, women are there for sex or to be saved, but rarely developed as full characters. My protagonists aren't Amazons, but they're quite capable of doing a little rescuing themselves. I also tend to include old people and children in my books. Ever notice how they often seem to be missing from thrillers?

The fact that I write multiple point of view stories that also feature strong male characters has led some to the erroneous conclusion that Taylor Smith is actually a husband-wife writing team--because, they say, the male voices sound real. That's very flattering, but it's just me, I 'm afraid. (Sometimes I wish I did have help.) As a woman, I write from a woman's point of view, but having worked happily for years in afield dominated by men, I hear my male characters' voices just as clearly.

Which is the more formidable task: to map out plot intricacies, or to create a heroine true to your vision?

Both are challenging I start out with a rough idea of my characters and the general dilemma in which they find themselves (the novel 's core conflict), and I always know how that conflict will resolve itself and what the final scene will be. How I'm going to get to that final resolution is the voodoo part of the process--difficult, mysterious, and almost as much a surprise to me as to the reader.

I find that my voice really comes through my protagonists. When I began The Best Of Enemies, I had intended Leya Nash, my lead character, to be a fairly weak person until she uncovers her father for what he really is. But I found I couldn't write her that way. Leya's her father 's daughter, after all, raised to be strong. Creating her became much easier with that realization.

Have the twists and turns in your plots been inspired by your specific experiences working in foreign affairs and intelligence?

To some extent, but they also come from today's headlines. I started writing The Best Of Enemies just between the World Trade Center and Oklahoma City bombings, which got me thinking about fanatics and extremism. One of the characters in that book is a former hostage in Beirut, the modern symbol of where fanaticism and intolerance inevitably lead. I've had first-hand contact with the tragedies of Bosnia and Rwanda, other cases of nationalism gone nuts. All of this feeds the story-teller.

The destruction of Mallory's home in Common Passions, my second novel, was inspired by an LA Times story of a mansion that was blown up in central California, when a hose was run from the pool 's propane gas heater into the house. Police suspected organized crime in that case, but to my knowledge, nothing was ever proven. Either way, the novel sprang from the news story.

Do you do extensive research for your novels?

A great deal. I've been on police ride-alongs, served as both hostage and go-between in SWAT exercises, taken courses in forensics, interviewed everyone from journalists to talk show producers to FBI agents. I try to convince my kids not to tell their teachers when Mom's off at the morgue, watching autopsies. Makes home life sound very strange.