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| Federal Reserve Bank |
Serendipity figures into the writing
life in sometimes spooky ways. Especially with my first Theresa
MacLean book Takeover (the fourth was released September 27).
Just as I’d be mulling over some aspect of my plot, someone or
something would come along and prod me into the next few chapters.
In the book, the Federal Reserve bank
in Cleveland is taken over by armed robbers and forensic scientist
Theresa goes against the flashy negotiator by giving the robbers
something they want in order to free her wounded and dying fiancé. I
am embarrassed to report that it grew out of a recurring daydream
about gorgeous Rory Cochrane on CSI Miami. The scene never
occurred on CSI Miami, but somehow my brain synapsed the cute
guy and the brilliant sunlit street and the desperate situation
together and worked at it until I had it perfect, not that thoughts
involving Rory Cochrane were difficult to return to. Just a daydream.
(Okay, fantasy, I admit it, are you happy now?)
From there, I happened to go to the
Sleuthfest convention in Fort Lauderdale and happened to attend the
Sisters In Crime dinner and happened to sit next to an older man and
his wife, people unknown to me. In the course of making polite
conversation (my mother did teach me a few manners, despite what
others may tell you) it turned out the man had been a New York police
officer for years, many of them on the hostage rescue squad, and he
had written an article on negotiation that was still used to teach
classes at the FBI Academy. Through him I tracked down a copy of it,
which I used and listed in my bibliography in the book.
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| PT Library |
Then, I was sitting on the couch
watching TV with my husband (a scene which, unfortunately for our
waistlines, occurs all too frequently in my house) when a commercial
for the 2006 Harrison Ford movie Firewall aired. I sat up and said
aloud, “I won’t make my robbery at an ordinary bank. I’ll make
it at the Federal Reserve bank.” Having walked past the Fed
in downtown Cleveland many times on my way to the library, I knew it
was a large and distinct location. What I didn’t know was that
there are only 12 in the country and that a Fed is completely
different from your corner savings and loan, so that no one in their
right mind would rob a Federal Reserve. This, however, eventually
worked in my favor, adding another layer of
things-are-not-what-they-seem to the story.
Of course the movie Firewall
has absolutely nothing to do with the Federal Reserve. Perhaps the
wiring in my brain has a few shorts.
These facts and ideas and half-baked
scenes were floating around in my head when we went over our friends’
house for a party one evening. We live in Cape Coral, Florida, so
that while my husband and I are in our 40s, most of our friends are
retired. I like partying with retirees. They cook well, don’t
cancel because they couldn’t find a babysitter, never show up
‘fashionably late’ and have lived long enough to have an endless
supply of interesting stories. One such man had been an elevator
repairman, one of those guys allowed into even high-security
buildings because, of course, no one wants to take the stairs. He
could tell me quite a bit about the layout of the Cleveland Fed.
Another person at this same party had worked in a bank for all of her
professional life and as an examiner for the latter portion of it.
She had been to the Fed many times in the course of her work. I had
been struggling to come up with a significant title and asked for any
inside terminology regarding banks, or robberies, or the Fed. At
first she said no, thought about it, got another drink and said,
“Well, when we had the kind of robbery where the guy waited in the
parking lot for the first employee to show up in the morning, usually
the manager, and walked them in at gunpoint to open the safe, we
would refer to that as a Morning Glory. When there was a single
robber, he was a Lone Gunman, and when there were two or more, we
called that a Takeover.”
You never know where or when this kind
of help will fall into your lap. Talk to the people you meet, and ask
questions. Lots of questions. Even if you don’t even know yet what
it is you want to know, ask, talk, and most of all, listen.
Oh, and go to parties.
Lots of parties.
BIO:
Lisa Black’s fourth book Defensive
Wounds was released by Harper Collins on September 27. Forensic
scientist Theresa MacLean battles a serial killer operating at an
attorney’s convention. Lisa is a full time latent print examiner
and CSI for a police department in Florida.
