FROZEN PAST – the first in the Jaxon Jennings’ Thrillers – was an idea that surfaced out of a childhood experience growing up in the suburbs of the Washington D.C. area.
No. My friends and I were not stalked by a crazed lunatic, but we did chip out the ice at the edge of our neighborhood pool and push a dummy up under the frozen surface as a gag. The emergency response that arrived to rescue “George” a few days later was something I’ll never forget; a mass of police and fire engines, their lights flashing and radios squawking in the cold evening air, frantically doing their best to save a ragged, stuffed dummy.
I can still hear the sound the dummy made as the paramedic held him up over the deck of the pool, looked at it, cursed, and then threw “George” to the ground. Slosh!
“F*%king kids!”
Looking back, it was not one of my prouder moments. But, being the kids we were, the whole vibe with my friends and the things we did to entertain ourselves, those friendships we had during the snowy winter in Annandale, Virginia, and then the following summer, were some of my most cherished.
I was telling the story of the Pool Dummy to a group of my colleagues when the idea for the novel hit me. Most of the time, this is how my ideas arrive: out of the blue as something else occupies my thoughts.
What if my friends and I had put that dummy up under the ice in the frigid water of our neighborhood pool, and they had pulled out a real, dead body later on?
Frozen Past and the character of Jaxon Jennings was born.
For me, Jaxon has developed into a guy I would probably love to have a beer with. Maybe even four or five. Pick his brain and listen to his stories as his not-so-perfect life has molded him into the man he is.
In Frozen Past, he was a shell of that man. Still trying his best to do a job he no longer had an appetite for. In Cache 72, his new profession of PI proved to be even more dangerous in ways and pushed him to the edge of the law and even over it.
In Father Figure, the third in the series, Jaxon finds himself immersed in the seedy underworld of a city he’s come to call home. And more of his past has come back to haunt him. Only this time, it will mean so much more. Will he be pushed to the point of breaking?
The truth will set you free. What a crock. Jaxon knows it. He’s lived the lie. Many times. But he still must face the truth. The only question is will he survive?