SHIRLEY PALMER'S
DANGER ZONE
SHIRLEY PALMER'S
DANGER ZONE
What’s in a name?
For Maggie Cady and her toddler son, Jimmy, everything. Maggie Cady — AKA Andrea Bellini — returns home one day to find her second, settled life shattered.
The family dog is sprawled dead in the driveway.
The front of the Cady homestead looks like a war zone —bullet holes and broken glass.
Maggie/Andrea’s ex-cop husband has narrowly avoided the Cady canine’s fate.
And:
The couple’s four-year-old son has been stolen from the security of his upstairs room.
The attack and the child-snatching are tied to the secret life Maggie has kept hidden from her husband…A life lived under a different name, in a different world…a life punctuated by a perilous pedigree.
Maggie flees the scene of the crime intent upon finding her son. Husband Sam soon follows, scrambling to uncover his wife’s secret past in a bid to save her and their child. Pursuing both are a shoot-first-ask-questions-later brigade of police detectives, FBI agents, professional killers and bloodline obsessed brigands.
Welcome to Danger Zone, Shirley Palmer’s third novel — a foot-to-the-floor page-turner calculated to nail readers to the wall. The book also reads like a movie — an adrenal gland assaulting thriller begging a big budget, big screen treatment.
Danger Zone has already drawn strong praise from Kirkus and Publisher’s Weekly.
Palmer, who was born in England and who now makes her home in Los Angeles, shares something in common with the heroine of her third novel: a secret identity.
Readers who enjoyed Palmer’s first two books, A Veiled Journey and Lioness know their author by a different name: "Nell Brien" — a pseudonym drawn from the author’s mother’s maiden name when some feared "Shirley Palmer" might be confused with writer "Elizabeth Palmer." Danger Zone is the first of Palmer’s novels to appear under her own name. It is also the first of her books to appear between hardcovers.
Palmer is now working on her fourth thriller, The Trade, scheduled for release in 2003. That book deals, Palmer says, "with the enslavement of women and children — which very sadly, is the fastest-growing criminal enterprise in the world. It is estimated by the United Nations to be worth upward of 12 billion dollars a year."
The book will return Palmer to the international setting of her first two novels, the first of which was set in Saudi Arabia, where Palmer lived for a time; the second in Africa.
It was her time spent in Saudi Arabia — very much a man’s world — that contributed to Palmer’s literary career. "Being a woman, there wasn’t much to do. In the past, I had always wanted to write, but I never had the time. This was the perfect opportunity for me…so I wrote a novel." That novel, A Veiled Journey, appeared in 1999. It now appears harrowingly prescient.
Though Palmer shifted some events and concepts from Afghanistan to Saudi Arabia, Palmer noted in an acknowledgement to the first edition of her book that she was drawing heavily from conditions in Afghanistan resulting from the rule of the Taliban — putting a name to the then little-known governing body that, a scant two years later, would be on the lips of men and women throughout the west.
You can visit Shirley Palmer's official site HERE.
Interviewer Craig McDonald spoke with Shirley Palmer from her home in L.A. on Sept. 18, 2002.
McDonald: Danger Zone turns on hidden or secret identities. This is your third novel and the first to debut under your own by-line.
Palmer: I was glad to get my own name back. This book, Danger Zone is somewhat different than the first two. A much more violent book.
McDonald: I was going to say "visceral."
Palmer: (Laughing) Yes – "visceral." I was interviewed by somebody last week who said they thought it was written by a man.
McDonald: I would assume there is a little risk here. The first two books (published under the name Nell Brien) were best-sellers. Now you are changing that market identity. Was this a matter of distinguishing this novel from the other two books in terms of taking your own name back?
Palmer: I was told that "Shirley Palmer" — my own name — would be better for this kind of book. I decided I wanted to go under my own name and not my mother’s name anymore.
McDonald: This is your first hardcover release. Is there some special significance in that for you?
Palmer: There is. My first novel, A Veiled Journey, I thought was a really terrific book. I don’t think it got the review that I think it deserved. I think that this one has a better chance in the marketplace of being taken seriously. I am thrilled by that. It has a great significance to me.
McDonald: You have previously been identified with the Romance genre — at least there are some who seem to want to identify you with that genre. Ken Atchity has described you as "the thriller writer to watch." Do you see yourself as a genre writer?
Palmer: Never. And I never did. I am not a Romance writer, I never have been a Romance writer and my novels, neither one of them are Romances. Neither one.
McDonald: They didn’t strike me as such at all. I was a bit thrown by the Romance identification.
Palmer: I certainly wanted to shed that mantle. Although, of course, women are the major purchasers of books in this country and there is no shame in being a Romance writer. I just don’t feel that that fits my personality.
McDonald: Your first two novels were set largely outside the United States. Why did you to write this particular book and have this strong American setting this time out?
Palmer: I was told that the American readership is more interested in…
McDonald: Ourselves?
Palmer: Books set in the United States, so that’s where I decided to set my next novel. I personally am fascinated by foreign places. If I can have a good read and learn something about a foreign place I am thrilled by that. I write to entertain and to inform and I wanted to reach a wide readership. The market is here in the United States and I wanted to reach that.
McDonald: Why did you write this particular book? What inspired the plot of Danger Zone?
Palmer: I’ve written always about very strong women. Women, really, who are willing to put their lives on the line for what they believe to be right. Both novels (A Veiled Journey and Lioness) involve that theme. It seemed a natural step to go to a woman who would do anything to protect her child. That is what this is about. From there I wondered what would happen if a child was kidnapped? How would a woman react? Well, a woman would want to kill. She would go after that child. She would go to any lengths and sacrifice anything to get that child back.
McDonald: It’s been indicated that you did quite a bit of research and interviewed people with the FBI, BATF and Coast Guard. How did you initiate these contacts or find these people?
Palmer: I have a friend who was in the Chicago police force and he had some contacts. He put me in touch with people. And the Coast Guard? I actually just called the Coast Guard. I called and asked who to talk to and finally got in touch with my contact there.
McDonald: The Federal Witness Relocation Program, without giving too much away, plays a role in the book. How much information on their practices or procedures were you able to uncover? Did you speak directly with people who are affiliated with that organization?
Palmer: Nobody who actually had been in that situation. I read several books and whatever I could download from the Internet about it. There’s not a great deal out there about it, actually. I talked to the FBI.
McDonald: In the course of your research and trying to gather material from your expert sources, did you pose questions that for one reason or another went unanswered?
Palmer: No. They were less than forthcoming about some things — made it absolutely clear there was a shield around those things.
McDonald: Your first novel, A Veiled Journey, was published several years before the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, but based on the repressive initiatives implemented by the Taliban. What were your reactions to the events of 9/11 when the Taliban rose to the fore in connection with those events? You lived in Saudi Arabia for some time....
Palmer: I lived in Saudi Arabia for five years, until the middle-1980s.
McDonald: There was much reported over the last year about the treatment of women, for instance, by the Taliban. Nothing about that was news to you, I take it?
Palmer: Nothing. Nothing.
McDonald: Obviously, you were ahead of events in terms of the general public in North America. The Taliban were not on the radar of the average American.
Palmer: When we came back from Saudi Arabia in 1986, my husband and I both knew that the threat was going to come from the Islamic world one day. No question about that. So we were not surprised. I wrote a small essay for the reissue of A Veiled Journey (re-released in May, 2002) that the holy books of all religions have been interpreted at different times by different men and that it is not, necessarily, the truth of the religion. It’s only the interpretation. You only have to think about the Inquisition, or the Crusades.
McDonald: Do you outline your books, or are they written organically? Danger Zone moves so furiously, I couldn’t imagine it being something you were making up as you were going along. Do you go in with a fairly set plan?
Palmer: No, on Danger Zone I didn’t. It was written with much pacing. Much sense of putting them in jeopardy and wondering what would happen? What would be the reaction of this man, this woman?
McDonald: You were writing to your own rhythm as a reader?
Palmer: Right. Absolutely. To the characters — how would they react? What would they do? How can I up the ante on this?
McDonald: I’m not the first to note this: Danger Zone is extremely cinematic. Did you write the book with an eye toward cinema? Is there any interest at this point in terms of Hollywood?
Palmer: There would be, obviously. But that’s not the reason that I write like that. You look into A Veiled Journey or Lioness — the book set in East Africa — I tried to bring a sense of place. Certainly in Saudi Arabia and the African novel, the country in which it is set is almost a character in the book. Both places play a large part in both books. In Danger Zone, I didn’t deliberately do it with a movie in mind.
McDonald: The first two books are definitely of a place and very evocative. But Danger Zone has that Hollywood action film kind of feel. I think there would be a real Hollywood interest. Do you visualize your characters in terms of screen personalities? If you were casting, who would you cast?
Palmer: Strangely enough, I did not have anybody in mind for the woman, the character Maggie Cady. But for the man, Sam Cady, I had Alec Baldwin in mind.
McDonald: Is that right?
Palmer: Yes, I could see him. Though a less beefy bloke….
McDonald: He has put on a bit of weight.
Palmer: But he’s a strong, middle-aged sort of man, so that’s whom I saw.
McDonald: Your female characters — all three of them — take up firearms at some point in the three novels. Have you used weapons?
Palmer: Actually, (laughing) I am opposed to bearing "firearms." Totally opposed to it. But, in our culture, it seems that that is what would come to hand, immediately. In Maggie Cady’s case, she clearly comes from a violent background. Her brother is a "made" man. I tried to show there was closeness between her brother and her and he wanted her to know how to handle herself in any situation.
McDonald: Among your three characters, who do you view as the strongest?
Palmer: Each of them, in a different way. The first two I saw as fairly ordinary professional women who were drawn into situations because of who they were. In the first case, in A Veiled Journey, the woman is drawn into the life of the women behind the veil, and finally is willing to — because of her own moral convictions — to put her own life on the line to bring somebody to freedom. In the end of that book, we never really know if she would have killed that girl, or not, to prevent her from being taken back. I don’t know myself whether she would or would not have done that.
McDonald: Really? It’s unresolved in your own mind?
Palmer: Yes. It is unresolved in my own mind: Would she kill rather than have the girl go back? I left that up to the reader to decide. And in Lioness, the character, a strong woman, did not believe that her brother had died in the way that was described in Africa. They had come from a very troubled childhood, and at the end of that book, she did indeed kill her brother’s murderer, but, in doing so, there was superimposed on that another face, and when she kills him she kills the character from her past and found herself free.
McDonald: Your first two novels prominently feature twins. Why?
Palmer: Yes! You know, I didn’t realize that myself, actually! I think it was just a device.
McDonald: I was going to ask you if you’re a twin yourself.
Palmer: No, I’m not. I am a cousin to a twin, but I am not. I’ve always been interested in that bond between twins, however. That was purely a coincidence, I think, if such a thing can be. Who knows what can be kicked up in one’s subconscious?
McDonald: Right. You look back over a body of work and you can see these recurring motifs that surface for perhaps inchoate reasons.
Palmer: Right. Exactly right.
McDonald: In terms of your background, before you began writing, you served in some capacity with the British delegation to the United Nations. Could you describe your role with that body?
Palmer: I worked in the coding and decoding room. I was a glorified secretary, only. In those days, there was an incident that I thought was very very interesting at that time. It was during the Cold War, a very long time ago, and some people from the delegation were invited to a small town in Connecticut. One of the other members of the party that was being entertained by this lovely town was Russian. Later on, this Russian contacted me — and this was just about the only interesting thing that happened in that whole job — and he wanted to meet with me. I think it was a classic case. I did go immediately to the head chancery to talk about it. It was a classic case of a secretary being wooed by somebody who thought they were going to get into the coding and decoding room of the British delegation of the United States.
McDonald: Intelligence penetration?
Palmer: That’s what we suspected. I was told "Do not meet this man," "do not talk to him," "do not do anything." "Do not ever be in a private place. Do not." So, I did not. But that’s the only interesting thing that ever happened in that job.
McDonald: You also worked with the British Consulate General.
Palmer: Yes, the Consulate General in New York. Then I got married and of course I was married to an alien — an American citizen — and could no longer work for the British Delegation to the United Nations. That was the end of that job.
McDonald: What did you do at the Consulate General?
Palmer: Same sort of work.
McDonald: Do you ever hear from former associates regarding your books?
Palmer: No. I never have.
McDonald: Are those who are around you surprised by the kind of books you write?
Palmer: Yes. If you looked at the photo of me on the web site in the black jacket with the red background, I think she looks much more like somebody who knows something about firearms. There was a picture of me that made me look like somebody who was about to have tea with a vicar. I know that I can come across as a lady who is about to have tea with a vicar. It’s not my persona at all. I’m not like that, at all. I feel I come from a family of strong women. My grandmother was widowed. Her husband was killed in the battle of the Somme and he left her with five children under the age of 10. She struggled and she brought all of those children up alone and was a great mother. My own mother was deserted by her husband — my father — when I was three or four, and brought me up. I have been inspired by these women who do this. I know what happened in Great Britain in World War II: the men were gone and the women kept the country going. They worked on the land and they worked in factories and they brought children up and they grew crops. My own mother did all that. She fought fires all night and went to work in a truck the following day. These brave women....
McDonald: Were you threatened by the V-2s?
Palmer: Well, if you consider being bombed out three times....
McDonald: That would be being threatened, yes.
Palmer: Yes, we were living in air raid shelters, being bombed by V-1s.
McDonald: You were living in London itself?
Palmer: Yes, we were evacuated from London when I was a very young child.
McDonald: You retain vivid memories?
Palmer: Vivid. I mean vivid. Stories that are pretty horrifying, actually. But that is the genesis of my respect for women.
McDonald: Do you feel you had a childhood?
Palmer: No. I have a grandchild now, four years old, and she has a lot of toys. I was talking to a friend of mine, also a writer, who was in Scotland during the war, and said I don't remember having toys. I don't remember toys. I remember books, but my childhood didn't have toys in it. I remember getting ready for the invasion.
McDonald: In each of your books, the female character is torn between two worlds: Maggie Cady is split between her settled, second life with her husband and her Mob-family background. Liz, in A Veiled Journey, must reconcile her life as a doctor with her heritage as the daughter of a Saudi Arabian concubine. Cat, in Lioness, must cope with the resurgence of painful childhood traumas when confronted with the needless slaughter of animals and the murder of her brother. Why do you consistently return to this motif of division?
Palmer: I have women working out demons. This is the human condition. We are able to put the demons of the past behind us, but it is a journey.
McDonald: Who do you read for enjoyment?
Palmer: I read James Lee Burke. Allen Furst, I think, is a wonderful writer. I’m reading Sebastian Faulk’s Birdsong, a great book about World War I.
McDonald: Is there a particular writer whose achievement you aspire to?
Palmer: I’m not looking to write the Great American Novel. That’s not my style of writing. What I really aspire to — what I want — is to provide a few hours of a really good read, because that’s what I love more than anything at the end of my day. I think, "Oh, I’ve got a wonderful book to go to" and I’m just as happy as I can be. That’s really what I aspire to: In my own way, to reach a wide readership and provide entertainment and escape, and perhaps to learn something from my book.
McDonald: You do bring a lot of research to bear, so there are many things to take away from the books.
Palmer: In Lioness I wanted to bring an awareness of the need to protect these great beasts, or any animal. In A Veiled Journey I wanted to show something about the Islamic world and the condition of women in that world.
McDonald: Are you done with that particular topic? Particularly in light of the fact that now everyone’s attention is focused on the Middle East.
Palmer: I’ve been toying with bringing that character back. I’ve been asked to bring that character back by a lot of people.
— © Sept. 18, 2002, Craig McDonald