1. After the stunning success of your break-out legal thriller, Color of Law, how were you feeling when you set out to write your new novel, Abduction?Read the full Q & A.
Pretty darn good. But actually, I was setting out to rewrite Abduction. I had already written the first draft, but I wasn'tentirely happy with it; then my son came home from school with To Kill a Mockingbird in hand. Our discussions at the dinner table inspired Color of Law, so I set the Abduction manuscript aside and wrote Color. I had two fantastic editors on that book and learned a lot from their editing, so when I again picked up the Abduction manuscript, I was able to write the story I wanted to write.
2. While some of the major themes of your two novels - family, loyalty, justice, and redemption - remain central to both story lines, why the digression from the legal field in your second outing?
Because I don't want to write only legal thrillers. I want to write mystery/suspense/thrillers involving characters I and hopefully my readers will care about; some of those characters will be lawyers, some will not. That said, the main character of my third book is a judge in a small Texas town.
The Page 99 Test: The Abduction.
--Marshal Zeringue