Eric Christopherson is a former police officer with a graduate degree from Duke University and years of experience as a federal government consultant in Washington, D.C. One of his favorite souvenirs: a Pentagon-issued top secret clearance badge. He now resides in semi-rural Ohio and is currently at work on his fourth novel, a Gothic historical thriller.
Crack-Up:
Argus Ward is a former U.S. Secret Service agent who runs a protection agency catering to the rich and famous. His best-kept secret--which he shares with lawyers and doctors and even psychiatrists--is his status as a high-functioning paranoid schizophrenic. One day, with little warning, he turns psychotic for the first time in twenty years. He lands in a secure psychiatric facility, charged with the murder of his most famous client, high tech industry billionaire John Helms, the wealthiest man in America.
Argus has no memory of the killing. A blood test suggests to him that some unknown enemy had switched his anti-psychotic medication with identical-looking dummy pills to purposely drive him insane.
A sign of lingering paranoia? His doctor thinks so. Even his wife.
Yet Argus escapes incarceration to prove his theory. With the law on his trail and a ticking time bomb in his head--due to a lack of medication--he discovers that his disease had been "weaponized" by a powerful group to secretly assassinate John Helms as part of a multiple assassination conspiracy of world-wide significance.
Or has Argus simply lost his mind again? What in the end is "real" and what is only imagination in his story?
And what is justice for the criminally insane?
Q: What will e-readers like about your book?
Crack-Up: It's a fast-paced thriller with a lead character who retains his sense of humor despite being a paranoid schizophrenic and suffering from various degrees of psychosis. Often he's not sure of what's real and what's not, and neither will the reader. Is there anything more terrifying than that?
Q: Why did you go indie?
I've had two top-notch literary agents try to sell my thrillers to major publishers but neither ever got a deal done. Last year I became intrigued with indie publishing when I read that Boyd Morrison's success selling his books on Amazon for the Kindle had helped his agent to strike a three-book deal with Simon & Schuster. I'd hoped to emulate him originally when I first offered my books to the public, but now, with the industry transmogrifying so, who knows, I may be better off holding onto my rights.
Q: Who are your favorite authors in the suspense, mystery, horror, and thriller fields?
Among the living, Martin Cruz Smith, Dennis Lehane, and T. Jefferson Parker.
Crack-up at Amazon
At Smashwords
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