Hello, blog readers! I hope you and yours are all safe and well during this time of crisis.
It’s been a long time since my last blog. Life has been busy! I’ve doubled my writing output to two books a year, which has forced me to blog less so I could write more. Then the pandemic hit. My day job as a lab manager threw me directly into COVID research, and, as a group, we’ve been run off our feet since mid-March. However, I’m back now in the run up to the release of EXIT STRATEGY.
EXIT STRATEGY will release in five weeks and I’m excited to introduce you to Gemma Capello and her first responder family, all of whom you will meet in EXIT STRATEGY, and several of whom play crucial roles in the book.
So who is Gemma Capello, hostage negotiator, and where did she come from?
The idea to write about a hostage negotiator was borne out of LONE WOLF and a character that was only on the page for a grand total of about two hundred words. But this character, and the challenges he faced stuck with me, so much so that when I was looking at starting a new series on my own, of the two promising ideas I discussed with my agent, this was the one I wanted to explore first.
My love of writing series has largely come of my love of reading series. I enjoy settling in for a long ride with familiar characters. But as an author, you can also settle into writing a group of characters like Meg Jennings, Todd Webb and Clay McCord of the FBI K-9s. When I start each new K-9 book, my main concern is plot with some character development on the side. But I know these characters so well at this point, I can dive right in with them without much thought.
Writing a new cast of characters required some advance planning. One of the books I read in preparation for the series was 45 Master Characters – Mythic Models for Creating Original Characters, which I used to help figure out some of the major characteristics of my protagonist. In the end, for Gemma, I decided on someone who is a nurturer. But as a single woman who is more married to her career than anything else at this point in her life, most of her nurturing is turned toward her family.
I fell back to a small extent on my own family background when fleshing out Gemma’s backstory. Like the Dannas, the Capellos hail from Siculiana, a small town of less than 5,000 people in the province of Agrigento in Sicily. Like me, Gemma lost a parent as a child, though her loss came as part of a violent incident that she herself was involved in. Unlike me, Gemma is surrounded by only brothers; in her case, four of them. With the loss of her mother when Gemma was ten, she stepped into the nurturing female role in her immediate family, and remains there in adulthood.
Like any large, raucous Italian family they are a nosy, loving group who are caught up in each other’s lives. The patriarch, Tony, is the Chief of Special Operations in the NYPD, heading up the department Gemma herself is a part of as a member of the NYPD Hostage Negotiation Team (HNT). The oldest Capello sibling, Joe, is a lieutenant in the Manhattan Gang Squad. The next oldest, Marco, is a patrol sergeant in the 5th Precinct in Manhattan. Matteo, the third son, is the only Capello to break with tradition and instead finds his place in the FDNY. Gemma follows as the fourth sibling, working her way up through the ranks to detective, finally succeeding in her goal to join the HNT, a highly prized position only eligible to a detective with a minimum of twelve years’ experience in the NYPD. The baby of the family, Alex, Gemma’s closest sibling following the death of their mother, is a detective in the Internal Affairs Bureau.
The family is introduced right at the beginning of Exit Strategy during a traditional family gathering that is interrupted by a hostage taking at New York’s City Hall. Because of their positions and family connections, we see many of the Capellos throughout the story as they collectively work to end the standoff. Gemma may be the one talking to the suspect, and, in the end, risking her life to save the hostages, but when one Capello is in trouble, it’s an all hands on deck moment for the family. I hope when you meet them, you’ll love them as much as I do.
However, EXIT STRATEGY doesn’t just take place inside and around New York City Hall. Gemma has to travel through some of the most fascinating areas of the city in her quest to stop the hostage taker. Over the next few weeks, I’m going to look at some of the highlights of Gemma’s city and their fascinating history. Stay tuned for much more…
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