People who know Teri Coyne’s work as a stand-up comedian are going to be very, very surprised by her intense, emotionally wrenching first novel, The Last Bridge. There are many good words that could describe Coyne’s story of 28-year-old Alex “Cat” Rucker, an alcoholic waitress who fled her rural childhood home as a teenager then returns to confront her family demons 10 years later, after her mother’s suicide. “Page-turner,” perhaps. Or “psychologically compelling.” But “funny”? Most definitely not.

“People ask, wow, where did that come from?” Coyne says with a characteristic laugh during a call to her home on Long Island’s North Fork. For some years Coyne managed a technical writing and training team at a New York law firm and divided her time between an apartment in Queens and the 110-year-old house she bought and renovated on Long Island, while performing and writing on the side. The favorable early buzz about her first book has not entirely freed her from needing a job, but she now works as a consultant and spends more time at her North Fork home composing an early draft of a second novel. “I am drawn to the darker side of humor,” Coyne says. “I was inspired and influenced by comedians like Richard Pryor, Lenny Bruce and Bill Hicks. But when I performed, I certainly wasn’t intense and dark like this book.”

The Last Bridge developed from a kind of vision Coyne had after abandoning standup in order to tell a larger story than she could in her comedy routines. “The book started with an image in my head of a mother taping garbage bags to the wall, a shotgun and the opening line of the book: ‘Two days after my father had a massive stroke, my mother shot herself in the head.’ Once I heard that voice, I couldn’t stop. I wrote the opening line and it just started coming. Looking back, it started at a time in my life when I was exploring this concept of what makes a family, what makes a person a parent. Is it blood or is it choice? Are we the product of our experiences? Or are we the product of our choices? As I started to write this story, it became very clear that that was really what I was trying to explore.”

The exploration did not go entirely smoothly. “Clearly when it takes you 10 years to write a book, you’re not in a big hurry to get something out there,” Coyne says, laughing. “This was my first book. I was learning the process of writing a novel while I was working on it. My goal was not publication but rather to make it the best story I could make it. That meant spending a lot of time writing and rewriting and focusing on getting the tone right.”

Interestingly, Coyne says that she had to leave her house to write the most difficult parts of the book. “When I was working on something that was really, really emotional it was easier for me to just go sit in a public space because for some reason I’m not as distracted in a public space.”

Although she can’t listen to music while she writes, Coyne uses music to get into the writing. She developed playlists for each character she was working on. “Every character has a song and that song just puts me immediately into the head of that person,” she says. Her playlists are on iTunes and her website.

Coyne’s early struggles to learn her craft were not helped by the nature of her central character, Alex, otherwise known as Cat. “It’s very difficult to write a character that you know your reader is not going to like right away. Cat is not a very likeable person in the beginning. But I felt very protective of her. I had to find a way to keep readers with me until I could show who she really is. Anger is not a real emotion and Cat’s anger is a disguise for something deeper. I had to find a way to show what that anger is covering.”

Part of what Alex is covering—or running from—is an abusive relationship with her father. Coyne’s unnerving portrait of that relationship draws on research she did with victims of abuse and from her own family history.

“Cat is not me,” Coyne says, “and none of the characters are reflective of people or characters in my own life, but some of their qualities are composites. That said, I made them all up, so they really are me. I dedicate the book to my father. He had a drinking problem and he had abusive and violent behavior. I struggled with that, as did all the people in our family. There’s this very private thing that happens inside of the family and then there’s this public life you lead in school or outside of the family. You learn very early that your family situation is not something you share outside of your family.”

“I had a lot of friends who had siblings who were kind of the black sheep or developed drug problems or drinking problems,” Coyne recalls. “People thought these people were broken, that something was wrong with them, that they were weak, that they didn’t have any ambition. But the older that I got and the more that I talked to people and saw what really happens to people who come from abusive families, I saw that these are not weak people. These are people that are masquerading a tremendous amount of pain. As I started to learn more and understand more, I started to really see that we have these notions or conceptions about people who are troubled that often aren’t really honest about what that person is really going through. It’s very, very important for me to shed light on that.”

As a result of this passion for bringing light to a difficult subject, Coyne’s empathic and ultimately redemptive first novel has struck a chord with early readers in ways that have completely amazed her. “It has been a lifelong dream of mine to get a book sold and published,” she says. “It’s a phenomenal thing that has happened to me. But I have to say I am in total awe of the reading community. It has just really blown me away how passionate readers are and how they do go out of their way to make contact with me and how dedicated they are to getting the word out about The Last Bridge. It’s really impressive and inspiring.”

The feeling, it seems, is completely mutual.

Alden Mudge writes from Berkeley, California.

What are you most looking forward to during the holiday season?
I look forward to my family being together—they have started to scatter! So it's wonderful when we manage to be together. Our in-law families are all close and we have a great time with Secret Santa, stealing gifts from one another and having time to appreciate one another. We know that we're lucky and we try to help others out as well.

Why do books make the best gifts?
Books make incredible gifts—they can just about last forever! I think they're also thoughtful gifts. I know that my daughter-in-law, an incredible young artist, adores picture books but she doesn't always feel they fit into a newlywed budget. Buying her a book she's been wanting is a great pleasure. Especially this year—we've had some tough times. Books can be great friends at these times.

What are you planning to give to friends and family?
What am I planning to give? Well, naturally, lots of books. I do 10 stockings a year—books are a great way to stuff those stockings! I try to make my gifts fit the person, so my list will also include clothing, fishing gear, Disney tickets and more.

What was the best book you read this year?
One of my greatest pleasures was reading for an upcoming anthology for Mystery Writers of America. There were so many truly wonderful stories that honing down the numbers was almost impossible. The talent out there is boundless.

Although Presumed Innocent was a blockbuster bestseller, it took you 23 years to publish a follow-up. Did you always intend to write a sequel to tie up loose ends?
To be honest, I thought for many years that I never would write a sequel. I always thought self-imitation is an inherently limiting thing for a writer, and I was afraid of trying to equal a book whose success at the time depended in part on breaking new ground. [But] at this stage, I was no longer worried about constraining myself. And by now, enough time has passed that I thought many people would be curious about Rusty—starting first of all with me.

Some of the events in Innocent eerily echo Rusty’s experiences in Presumed Innocent. How do you approach these parallel circumstances but twist them so they are fresh and new?
Well, I think one of the deepest truths about life is that people are sometimes compelled for reasons they don’t understand to keep repeating the same mistakes. So I regarded the parallel circumstances as deeply revealing of the character, and full of a meaning that wasn’t as clearly there the first time around. All the characters in Innocent are informed by the experience of the first book, and are trying desperately, in a paraphrase of Ecclesiastes, not to step in the same river twice.

Often lawyers who become authors of legal thrillers have a difficult time developing a fluid writing style, but your writing has always been gripping and accessible. What is your secret?
I was a novelist before I was a lawyer, having been a creative writing fellow at Stanford before I headed to law school. As a result, I was not trying to “find” my narrative voice after my style had been shaped by legal writing. I see legal writing as a distinct and somewhat limited voice that I’ve mastered, but one that does not really interfere with the creative voice I’d found before.

Given that you are still a practicing lawyer, what drives you to write fiction that also deals with the law?
I always say that the great break of my literary career was going to law school—it was one of the most fortuitous decisions of my life. I was a lecturer in the English department at Stanford, and for me going to law school meant giving up a teaching career. But I realized I was passionate about the law and the questions it asks, about deciding right from wrong for an entire society, fashioning rules that are firm yet flexible enough to fit the multitude of human circumstances. Those questions continue to preoccupy me. The truth is that I became not only a much more successful writer when I started writing about the law, but also a much better one as well, because I was writing about things that gripped me to the core.

The law often relies on individuals interpreting laws and regulations as best they can. To what extent do you think your novels contain characters and actions that are subject to the interpretation of your readers?
Without subscribing too heartily to deconstructionism, there is a truth that every reader reads a book his or her own way. But art of all kinds also depends on creating universals; in the case of narrative, we seek to create a fully imagined individual, a character, to whose life readers have something of a universal reaction. There are great differences in nuance in terms of readers’ responses, but if there is not a common element, a book is probably not a success.

Thriller writer Andrew Gross honed his writing skills collaborating with James Patterson on books like Jester. Four solo novels later, he's become a best-selling author in his own right and has started a popular series starring police detective Ty Hauck, a tough guy who always tries to do the right thing. In Reckless, Gross pits Hauck against a group of unlikely terrorists whose target is America's financial system. Though Hauck is no longer a detective, he can't let this case go since in solving it he will also avenge the death of a friend.

We asked Gross a few questions about the book, the thriller genre and what sparks a writer's imagination.

In Reckless, Ty Hauk is no longer a cop. How does this change his ability to act in the story? Has it changed his character?
No, he's not a cop—or I should say, head of detectives—but he's still an investigator at heart and what he finds at the outset of Reckless hurtles him back, unofficially, into his old role. He is constrained by the fact that he has no badge, but he learns to piece things together through guile and stubbornness and by circumventing the proper authorities. And his new boss, too, who wants this investigation tabled.

In the book he's forced to weigh his own immediate interest agains the vow he has made to a dead friend to avenge her death. He never feels completely at home in his new role, but his toughness, smarts and clear sense of right and wrong are still prominent, though, as you say, he is swimming in a different pond.

You have said you try to combine the personal and the global in your thrillers. In this novel, terrorists attack America through our financial system. Do you think such a thing is likely to happen in the future? Are you surprised it hasn't already?
I don't really think of myself as a "this could happen" guy, but more of a "what if" guy. I’m not sounding any alarm bells. I'm trying to entertain. What I like to do is deal in conspiracies—with something important at stake, and with meaningful consequences worth covering up, and, of course, killing for. That's why my books always build from something local and personal to something much wider with more at stake. I would say that, for sure, financial terrorism and attempts to destabilize our economy are underway on a large scale—and there is no doubt to me, after the names of the dead have been read and read many times over, the true, lasting cost of 9/11—between two wars, global security, etc. is reflected in our national deficit and the spending of trillions of needless and unproductive dollars.

What kind of research do you do for your books?
Not as much as some, but enough to sell my characters and scenes to the readers. I'm not an information source. I don't want to be thought of as some kind of expert. Certainly not on finance. I want to be credible for sure—but I want to entertain a hundred times more than edify. You don’t exactly need an MBA to enjoy Reckless. In years of business and living where I do [Westchester, NY], I’ve known dozens of high-up financial guys, but it's the desperation and panic of someone whose once-secure world has been turned upside down I wanted to get at. And to me, panic is universal.

Before writing your own (four) books, you previously collaborated with James Patterson on six novels. What did you learn from him about the writing process?
Jeez, that's a big question. Lots. Jim's brilliant, if not as a stylist, then as a conceiver of ideas, an editor and an innovator in thriller structure. Here are three examples: short, dramatic chapters that end with a punch and insidiously draw you to the next one. Tons of surprises and plot reversals right to the end. And making sure the reader is invested in your hero's plight within the first 10 pages. I think all writers could learn from that. Oh yeah—and maybe something about keeping the story moving, too!

What scares you?
Well, my 401k scares me! And I don't do creepy well. Not in the books, and I surely don't go to "scary" movies. But if it's a serious question, what truly scares me is probably the potential deterioration of our country through polarization, divisiveness, lack of education, poor use of capital and lack of a cohesive long-term strategy that may render us non-competitive in the next decades. Not very thriller-esque perhaps, but it's at the top of the list of what worries me.

Suspense is one of the most popular genres in the world. How do you explain its appeal?
You could make the case that genre fiction crime, suspense, etc., instead of being dismissed, is actually the most relevant form of fiction being written today—dealing with the issues and events that reflect the headlines and the crises that affect the world today. I like to write about life and death matters; I like to write about everyday characters measuring themselves up to heroism; I like to write stories with large consequences at stake. I like to raise the blood pressure and keep people gripped. I like my stories to move fast. And I think those things are what captivate readers of suspense, as well.

What are you working on next?
Not a Ty Hauck book—a stand-alone. It's called One Last Thing. We had a personal tragedy in my family last summer. My 21-year-old nephew, a troubled bi-polar kid, jumped off a cliff and sadly killed himself in California. My brother's only child. So I’m working on a plotline about teenage suicide, mental illness, and a 30-year-old revenge killing that leads back to a Manson-like family. It's a very personal book for me; some of the stories, true or apocryphal, are about my family. I think it will please. Then I'll go back to a Hauck book on the next one.

Knopf publisher and editor-in-chief Sonny Mehta, who introduced the works of Stieg Larsson to American readers, talks about the phenomenal success of the series.

How did you first hear about the Millennium trilogy?
I heard about the books at the Frankfurt Book Fair in 2007. At that time, they were already creating quite a stir in Europe. I bought American rights soon after returning to New York.

What was it about the books that made you want to acquire rights for Knopf?
I read The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo in one sitting. I thought it was remarkable for both its suspense and its portrait of society. Lisbeth Salander, “the girl,” is one of the most dynamic and original characters I’ve encountered in years. I believe we had only synopses of the second and third books, but one could tell from the ambition of Dragon Tattoo that the trilogy was going to be an impressive work in its entirety.

The publication of the trilogy was a unique situation—the author was dead, the books had to be translated from their original Swedish, and they were published at different times in different languages all around the world. What was it like working with such conditions?
It’s certainly an unusual situation, but not unprecedented. We had a similar experience when we published Suite Française a few years ago. The author, Irène Némirovsky, died during World War II, and her daughter had only just discovered and decided to publish the manuscript, which was in French. So the novel wasn’t as contemporary as Stieg Larsson’s, but it was another one of those rare works in translation—particularly without a living author—that found a wide audience in the United States and around the world. It’s tragic to realize that these authors didn’t get to experience the success of their own work, but it can also be reassuring to know that publishing their books may help their legacy to endure for generations. (Read our review of Suite Française)

Were you involved with re-titling the books for an English-speaking audience? (The first book’s original title was Men Who Hate Women.)
The British editor, Christopher MacLehose, from whom we bought the books, and who commissioned the English translation, came up with the title. I wasn’t involved in that process, but I knew we wanted the American edition to use this title rather than Men Who Hate Women. There was some concern that the original title might, in English, sound like a self-help book. Also, the title The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo emphasizes the character of “the girl,” Salander, who in my opinion is one of the main strengths of the trilogy.

Why do you think the books became so successful here?
I think it was a combination of factors. We had a terrific series of jackets, the look of which has now become iconic. We did advance reader’s editions, which went out to a wide group of fellow writers who were very supportive, [and] there was a large marketing campaign. But mainly it’s the strength of the books themselves. I think they really touched a chord with American readers.

Is it true that Larsson left a partial manuscript for book four when he died?
I’ve also heard those rumors, but I don’t have any concrete information about a fourth book. I understand that as long as Stieg Larsson’s estate is in dispute, it probably won’t be possible to get hold of the manuscript, if it even exists.

RELATED CONTENT
Read our reviews of all three books in the Millennium Trilogy

Photo of Sonny Mehta © Michael Lionstar.