Recently I had the pleasure of doing an interview with these renowned authors via email. Many thanks to Sonya at  Grand Central Publishing for making this possible, and unlimited thanks to the authors for taking the time to answer these questions! We’re still giving away two copies of Blue Labyrinth, but only until midnight! Enter while you still can!

Lincoln Child, answering for both himself and Doug Preston:

gimmethatbook:  As always, Blue Labyrinth has unusual weaponry and a most unique location to further the story. How did you decide to use the Salton Sea? Have either of you been there, or did you visit there to get better background, and see what the place was like for yourself?

Lincoln Child:  I have an aunt that lives in Borrego Springs, not far from the Salton Sea. I have visited the place and found it both evocative and eerie. Doug and I prefer to situate our books in places that one or the other of us knows, so in that way we were lucky not to have tapped the Salton Sea before.

 

GTB:  Your characters are diverse, and each of them have their own special “voice”. As a writer, you have to become your characters.  Is there a character whose mind is difficult for you to consistently penetrate?

LC:  I think both of us have trouble penetrating Agent Pendergast’s thought processes. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, though, because we prefer to write him from a distance, as it were. It seems to work better when neither the reader nor ourselves know too much about what he’s thinking.

 

GTB:  Many authors have a Twitter page to connect with readers. You have a FaceBook but not Twitter. Any particular reason for this?

LC:  We just haven’t had a chance to get into it. That’s nothing against the service–it just shows we’re a bit behind the times in that particular way.

 

GTB:  Finally, what is the one question you wish interviewers would ask you, but never do?

LC:  How’s this for an answer: the very question you have just put before us!