Bermuda Heat by P. A. Brown

by J. H. Bográn

A letter. A secret. A tragedy. David’s mother told him his father died when he was born. His mother lied.

Now, that’s a hook!

Let the Bermuda Heat make you feel the warmth of the story:

David Eric Laine always believed his father had died in Vietnam before his birth. His mother remarried and he was adopted by his stepfather and grew up knowing Graham Laine as his only father. Forty years later, a letter arrives and David finds out everything he thought was a lie.

Join Pat Brown and I into this journey to know a bit more about her new release.

-What inspired the premise for Bermuda Heat?

Between 2005 and 2007 I lived in Bermuda under a contract as a Network Administrator for a local offshore legal firm. I spent a lot of time making notes of my impressions of the place, including the hurricane I went through in 2006 when hurricane Florence hit us. My power was out for a couple of days and the whole island was shut down. I had a good view of it — my apartment was a separate unit from my landlord’s place and had a wall to wall windows looking out over a large sound. It was interesting to watch the thing go through, ripping things up, while you know you’re safe. Bermuda has very strict building codes so the only damage are from downed power lines (the ground under Bermuda is nearly solid rock so putting them underground isn’t an option)

-What should we know about the lead character?

David came from a well-off family. Until the time of Bermuda Heat, he thought his father had died in Vietnam before he was born. His mother is a very uptight blue blood who is as ashamed as much because her son, who she groomed to be a lawyer, became a cop as she is that he’s gay. He’s been out to them since his early college days and she has never accepted it. His stepfather, who adopted him when he was 2, has no problems with either his choice of career or his orientation. David did actually go to pre-law, but he hated the whole prep school and refused to go to the East Coast schools. Instead he went to Stanford and along with law, he took a criminology course. He was hooked on the other end of the law and wanted to become an enforcer. So he switched his major to criminal justice and when he graduated went to the LAPD Academy. Back then nobody outside his family and the rare lovers he took, no one knew he was gay. He advanced quickly and became a detective in his 30s, then homicide detective.

-And about the antagonists?

Well, there are two antagonists, one human and one natural. The human one is a cold psychopath; the natural one is all wet. Well, and windy, too.

-How was the research process?

Aside from living in Bermuda those two years, I also contacted two Bermuda lawyers, one civil, one criminal and asked about how a foreigner would be treated if accused of murder, so all the legalities in the book are accurate.

-What’s next from P. A. Brown?

A mainstream historical novel set in New York in the late 1880s. It’s set among Irish immigrants and what they faced in their new life, which usually turned out to be a lot different from what they expected. It’s not a crime novel, nor a romance, which is a first for me. So it will be interesting to see how it goes. I do have another L.A. story to write, but I won’t get into that until I’ve visited L.A. which I plan to do in April.

-In your opinion, what’s the best thing about writing?

One of the things I like most about writing is that it’s not static. Each novel can be a growth, or at least it should be. I think one of the jobs of a writer is to always try to improve and grow. I don’t know the people who read my books, but I think I’ve made an agreement with them to deliver a good story. I owe that to all of us.

-Where can we meet the author?

The only thing I’m doing in this quarter is attend a week long workshop in Portland, OR and go to L.A. for at least two weeks. I am going to New Orleans in October and to Philadelphia in August. One of these years I’m going to make it to ThrillerFest, both to see New York and to go to the conference which I hear is great.

-For the newcomers to the series, would you recommend go straight to the first outing or the order does not affect the fun?

I think things would make more sense if you read from the beginning. You’d have a better idea of who the characters are, but it’s not necessary. But there is some growth in the main characters and to see that progression you would need to start at the first book.

Author Bio:

Born in Canada, Pat Brown’s approach to life was tempered in the forges of Los Angeles and after eight years in the City of Angels she was endowed with a fascination for the darker side of life and the professionals who patrol those mean streets. She considers those eight years a life time’s worth of experience that she mines regularly in her novels. Her latest book Bermuda Heat takes LAPD homicide detective David Eric Laine out of his environment and throws him into alien territory where he ends up fighting for his life against human foes and natural ones.