"How I Came to Write This Book": Dave White

HOW I CAME TO WRITE THIS BOOK: Dave White: WITNESS TO DEATH.

It all started with James Bond.

I’m a huge James Bond fan. I’ve read all the Fleming novels—save THE SPY WHO LOVES ME, but including THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN GUN—and seen all the movies multiple times. So much so that I can quote the really awful lines in MOONRAKER. My favorite is, “Mr. Bond, you appear with the tedious inevitability of an unloved season.” And it’s lines like that which inspired WITNESS TO DEATH.

In fact, I think the first tickle at the back of my brain came when I saw DIE ANOTHER DAY. The first hour of DAD is great. Dark, smarmy, action packed. The last half is… well, let’s not talk about it. And I thought—I want to do better. I want to write a James Bond novel.

So, I tried. Not to actually write a James Bond novel, there are way too many legal troubles or fan fiction stigmas that go along with that. But I tried to write a spy novel, one that had the fun and wit of a Bond movie. That roller coaster ride feel. Great stunts, hot girls, save the world at the last minute. You know the drill.

And it wouldn’t come.

I couldn’t get the feel right. Something was missing from the story. I put it away for a long time. And then I visited Washington DC for the first time ever. It was on my February break from school—I’m a teacher—and I was awed by the city. Loved the WWII Monument and the Lincoln Memorial. The grandness of it all, the majesty.

But it was the Spy Museum where it all started to come together. There are more spies in Washington DC then anywhere else in the world. And I started thinking… what if a teacher got mixed up in all that, somehow? What if a teacher got mixed up with a James Bond type?

And I had my story. There are some very Bond-eque ideas in the story. Bond always seems to move from a city, to a resort, to a desolate area. In my story, the characters end up in New York City, the Poconos, and New Jersey. There are ruthless killers, and beautiful women. Maybe even one in the same.

But it really isn’t a Bond story. It’s a thriller with moments I haven’t seen elsewhere. It’s got character, heart, and emotion.

But it all came from loving Bond. And memorizing a really bad line.

Dave White is the Derringer winning author of THE EVIL THAT MEN DO, WHEN ONE MAN DIES and a new collection, MORE SINNED AGAINST. You can find him at Do Some Damage.