Former Colonel Lou
Christopher is an ex-Army Ranger retired from the military and contentedly
working as a New York investment broker. After being assigned a number of
lucrative accounts and becoming accustomed to living the good life, he
discovers there is a pay back. His former military skills are requested under a
threat of losing everything he has.
Handed a group of misfits to assemble into a
military strike team, he is coerced into leading the team on a mission of
domestic terrorism. At the center of a bridge outside of Manhattan, his strike
team is caught in the act and unexpectedly becomes engaged in a deadly
firefight. It's then that he learns the mission was a political maneuver from
the highest levels of the U.S. Government-and ultimately realizes he has been
betrayed by his superiors. Learning his team was considered nothing more than
collateral damage and intended to be killed and left as scapegoats, he uses his
unique military expertise and engages in a fight for his life.
As the strike team is decimated, he and a female
teammate elude the opposition forces to survive and escape, turning the tables
on his superiors. Using his distinctive set of military skills, he now becomes
the hunter and vows to extract his revenge and bring them all down.
Transplanted to Maine
mid-westerner Larry Crane brings an Illinois sensibility to his writing. Larry
graduated from West Point and served in the Army before starting a business career on Wall Street. His writing
includes articles for outdoor magazines, plays, short fiction, and his most
recent thriller novel, A Bridge to Treachery. In his spare time, Crane is a
hobbyist videographer for his local Public Access Television Station and is a volunteer at his
local historical society. Larry and wife Jan live in splendid isolation on the
coast of Maine.
1. What treasure would you
most like to find at the auctions you go to?
For me, auctions are
endlessly interesting because there’s always the chance that you’ll find
something there that you just can’t do without. Not big things, little things.
It’s an adventure that puts a little pizzazz into days that at times get pretty
drab. Everybody’s heard stories of rare finds and all that, but I don’t really
think that’s ever going to happen to me.
I wouldn't recognize a Picasso if I saw one. Well, maybe one of the well known ones, but
that wouldn't be a find then, would it?
2. Did you have any qualms about putting your
friends in harm’s way by involving them?
I didn't have a lot of time
to think about that, and now that you bring it up, I have to admit it
wasn't the most thoughtful
thing to do. When bad things start cascading down on you, you just have to
reach out for a life line. You can’t very well go to perfect strangers. It’s your friends who will make a sacrifice
for you. Of course, I’m hoping that
nobody will ever know who stepped up for us. They didn't hesitate a second,
either. I hope and pray that nothing comes down on them.
3. Is it ethical to have
your three star general father pulling strings for you in the Army?
As an Army brat, you get used
to the fact that wherever you go you’re father is going to be known to everyone
as a pretty big cheese. Daddy wanted our
lives to be as normal as possible, but he also wanted to do whatever he could
to make our lives pleasant. It isn't like you had to corner Daddy and ask him directly to do something, like in The
Heartbreak Kid, Cybil Shepherd batting her eyes at Daddy Eddie Albert and he
melts or something. You just mentioned
it at the dinner table, casually, an aside really, and you knew Daddy was going
to look into it. Well, at least for me, he was.
5. What are your favorite
scenes in A Bridge to Treachery: the action, the dialog or the romance?
I had some pretty funny sex
scenes—silly ones, not steamy. Lou and I were steamy sometimes,
everybody is, but thankfully, Larry left those out. As for dialogue, I like the
scenes where things get pretty urgent and I have to really talk turkey to
people and show off my strong side. You know, now that I think about it, the
scene in the honeymoon suite of the Blueball Inn was pretty steamy.
6. Did you have a hard
time convincing Larry to write any particular scenes for you?
My participation in the story
just kept growing from the time Larry first put me in a real scene. I even got
my own POV eventually. In the beginning, point of view was handled strictly by
Lou. Shifting the point of view helped a lot in keeping up the pace once things
got going fast and furious. And if you want to get some sense of the emotions that
are raging at this point, it helps to have someone on the scene who’s a tad
more demonstrative than Lou is. I begged Larry to include the scene where I hide something from the
coppers in the Grasshopper Pie ice cream container. It’s a doozy.
7. Do you infiltrate
Larry’s dreams?
Are you kidding? He definitely infiltrates mine. I assume I
return the favor. Oh. Larry’s dreams, not Lou’s. Yes. I infiltrate Larry’s dreams too, I’m
sure. Who could forget the night I rushed into the boudoir of our frosty German
apartment dressed in a Navy watch cap, two squirts of whipped cream and a
Chocolate Chiparoo cookie on a string?
Well, it was unforgettable for me. And he’s the guy who dreamed it up,
so...
8. Why do you carry a bird
book around with you everywhere?
That was eons ago. I had a
real interest in birds that came from my mother. You never know when you’re
going to spot what turns out to be a Yellow-Bellied Sapsucker. Having your
Roger Torrey Peterson at the ready is essential. The book also reeled in some
pretty interesting guys who wanted to know what I was so intently reading.
9. Are you happy with the
genre Larry has placed you in?
Sure. I get to be a strong
and resourceful adult female. What else
could I want? Besides, the thriller genre takes in an awful lot of ground. A
Bridge to Treachery really walks the thin line between action/suspense and
general literary fiction at times.
10. If you could rewrite
anything in A Bridge to Treachery, what would it be?
Somewhere in the book in a
moment of weakness, I reveal that I love Lou the most when he’s at his lowest
points and most needy. It’s because at these points my role in our lives grows.
That translates into a secret desire on my part to see Lou stumble presenting
me an opportunity to step in and save the day. Is that not greed worse than any
of Lou’s?
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