Yeah, that's me on a bike way back when. Two wheels move the soul.
Funnily enough, the opening plot for Stuntman came to me as I was driving home on my birthday to an empty house. Of course, my house hasn’t been empty in 20 years. Not since I married my wife and adopted her son have we had a quiet home. But I digress. I could still feel what Luke was feeling—that foreboding dread of uncertainty and creeping loneliness. Then I needed to ratchet up the plot, and he found his wife in bed with another man. It took some stumbling around for me to find the motive for the murder.
But this book has been the labor of a lot of years of tinkering and changing. I think I started Stuntman back in 2018 and wanted a radical departure from the Ryan Weller Series I was then writing. I wanted first-person grit and unfiltered bias seen through the protagonist’s own eyes. If it was sex, it was sex. If he dropped a few F-bombs along the way, then that’s how he got the job done. I wanted to mimic Jack Reacher in short staccato sentences that keep the tension ratcheted up and the reader on the edge of their seat.
I love this story. I love this character. I love motorcycles.
Of all the characters I have written, Luke Wesson is closest to my bones. I rode motorcycles and loved to ride hard and fast and do tricks on them. I wasn’t the best or the greatest, but I made some damned fine memories with my Hooligan brothers and then with my son, slinging him around in a sidecar.
My original intent with this series was to pitch it to agents to get a traditional book deal. For the last four years, I have been meandering on and off the pitch circuit and got nothing but rejection letters or no comments at all. The opening of the book changed from Luke doing a long action gag on the skeleton of a high-rise with the reader thinking he was about to be shot as a criminal to what I call “The Jump-Wreck Opening,” or the published form it now is.
After spending time trying to get an agent, I realized I should forget about it and concentrate on expanding the Evan Graver brand. That started with the John Phoenix Thrillers and Liberty Brigade—the first book I ever wrote. Anyhow, Luke Wesson wanted to add his arrow to the quiver, and I had already written three books in the series to tell agents they were ready to go.
So far, the reviews have been good, and I hope you all enjoy riding along with Luke Wesson and his adventures.
Book 2: No Regrets opens in New Mexico and pretty much stays there for the entire book. My first brush at this book was that Luke would be a Jack Reacher on a motorcycle, riding from town to town to defend the innocent and leave black streaks on the pavement. And I’m sad to say this is not my favorite book. To be sure, it is an adventure, and while writing it, my wife and I road tripped to New Mexico so I could see the scenery firsthand and spend time on location. While the book stretches more into the Weller/Phoenix arena, Luke does have his own wisecracking, movie-quoting ride-alongs, and it eventually sets him up for a return to Hollywood in …
Book 3: L.A. Story. Back from his extended ride, Luke is having a tough time finding work and eventually takes a job as a stunt coordinator for a troubled young director. No sooner does filming start than the trouble begins, and Luke is thrust into the middle of it to investigate who is terrorizing the set. And it's not an easy answer.
Book 4: The Hard Line shoves Luke into the middle of a crime in progress when he witnesses an abduction and decides to save the woman himself when 9-1-1 puts him on hold.
So far, I’ve enjoyed writing Stuntman, and I can honestly say that being a stuntman is one of the first jobs I ever wanted to do when I was a kid, having feasted on Knight Rider, The Fall Guy, and Bond films and overindulged in Evel Knievel making his famous motorcycle jumps. And there were the Duke Boys, straightening the curves, Smokey and the Bandit, and whatever else Burt Reynolds wanted to drive fast in Cannonball and Stroker Ace and Gator. Throw in some Hot Shots and Hot Shots: Part Deux and we’ve got ourselves some action, boys!
But the kicker, the one movie that made me sit up and say, “I want to write a book like that someday,” was Romancing the Stone with Kurt Douglas and Kathleen Turner. For me, it was, and still is, the quintessential action comedy where the good guy gets the gems and the girl and has a helluva lotta fun along the way.
So, what you get in Stuntman is my love of movies, stunts, motorcycles, wisecracking jokes, good friends, cold beer, hot women, and, hell, every great movie stereotype you can think of.
Hope you hang on tight and enjoy the ride.