ELIZABETH GETS GRILLED

JAYNE: Boy, howdy, am I excited! When it comes to edgy, romantic thrillers no one does them better than Elizabeth Lowell. Her latest, INNOCENT AS SIN, is out now in hardcover. It features a fascinating and very dangerous agent from the mysterious group known as St. Kilda Consulting. Gotta tell you, EL, I love the St. Kilda books!

ELIZABETH: What are friends for, right? I love your dust bunnies and the Arcane Society.

JAYNE: Thanks. Okay, let's get right to the good stuff. What gave you the idea for a thriller based on the illegal arms trade in Africa?

ELIZABETH: That’s easy. Headlines. When the son of France’s most powerful politician is accused of brokering/receiving bribes from the French/African oil trade, it intrigues me. A lot. As oil, like any other natural resource, is a source of cash, which is another name for power, rebels aren’t shy about hijacking a resource for their own uses.

JAYNE: But I read newspapers, too, and nearly all of the background of INNOCENT AS SIN was news to me.

ELIZABETH: Newspapers are just one information source. Books, magazines, internet sites, court transcripts, and hyperlinks in text are all great sources. There are some amazing blogs out there, including some by former government employees— everything from diplomats to special ops. (My husband is incredibly good at finding and assessing such blogs.)

JAYNE: You trust blogs?

ELIZABETH: About as much as I trust the average news reader on TV. Not much! But I’m not building a court case, so I’m free to juggle blogs from right, left, center, and parallel universes. Every opinion can suggest a piece of plot, an insight into a character, and a chilling appreciation of how fragile what we call civilization really is.

That’s the core of the St. Kilda Consulting books: the fragility of social order in an increasingly chaotic world. In the 21st century, big central governments seem either to disintegrate like the Soviet Union or move so ponderously that the transnational criminals easily evade national laws. Each victory for the criminals is a loss for civilization.


JAYNE: I love the combination of adrenaline and sensuality in your plots.

ELIZABETH: So do I! It makes the whole experience more intense for the reader—and the writer. People under pressure, particularly under threat of death, don’t have time to play dating games. There aren’t many shades of gray when you’re fighting for your life. All emotions are heightened. Greed, fear, lust, love, rage; everything is sharper, more urgent.

Kayla Shaw and Rand McCree discover that very quickly. They also discover that when everything is at risk, trust is a double-edged sword. Make the right choice and live. Make the wrong one and die.

JAYNE: Could you give us a little excerpt?

ELIZABETH: I will, if you send me the new dust bunny ms as soon as you finish!

JAYNE: Deal!

ELIZABETH: First some background. Rand McCree is an artist who is working for St. Kilda Consulting just long enough to find the man who murdered his twin brother. Kayla Shaw is a private banker who is being framed for money laundering. At the moment, Rand is painting a canvas for a “Fast Draw” competition being held at the Phoenix, Arizona, estate of Andre Bertone, whose vast fortune came from smuggling arms.


Rand’s first thought was that the surveillance photos hadn’t done Kayla justice. There were shadows and light, haunting sadness and laughter, heat and cold, a whole universe of possibilities in her fiercely intelligent eyes.

He felt like he’d been sucker punched.

“What do you think?” he asked her.

Kayla looked from the painting to the man. Somehow she expected artists to be short or slight or old or shy or … unthreatening. This man wasn’t any of those things. Tall, long-limbed, wide-shouldered, powerful, with gray-green eyes that could etch steel.

“I think,” she said, “that it’s too bad the subject isn’t worthy of the artist.”

Rand almost smiled, almost swore. She’d seen right through him, knew he thought the Bertone estate was a screaming paean to the bad taste.

What’s a woman like Kayla doing in a place like this?

But instead of asking the age-old question, Rand used a palette knife to blend some of the fresh oil paint, then applied a few dabs to the canvas. He squinted to measure the effect.

Then he gave Kayla a sideways look.

She was turned half away from him. If you didn’t look in her eyes, she seemed younger than he knew she was. Her body was athletic, fit, attractive, and so tightly strung she all but vibrated. Tan skin, black linen suit and a scoop-neck silk blouse that just revealed a small rose tattoo on her collarbone.

Rand wanted to lick it.

Kayla’s dossier had intrigued him, his dreams had been hot, and her reality was even hotter.

“I don’t remember you being on the program,” she said.

“I’m a late entry.”

With a feeling close to awe, Kayla watched Rand bring the canvas to life. The result was beautiful but not at all mild. A very masculine kind of beauty. Intense. Edgy. Riveting.

Like him.

Under the pretext of viewing the canvas from another angle, Rand turned sideways, coming closer to Kayla. She smelled of cinnamon and vanilla, sunshine and just plain woman. Her dark brown hair was streaked by the sun or a very expensive colorist. Ice blue eyes, minimum makeup, and that damned tempting rose tattoo.

I hope you’re as innocent as I believe you are, Rand thought grimly. But innocent or not, we’re stuck with each other.

Maybe we should just lie back and enjoy.

“You know a good place for us to have dinner after this is over?” Rand asked.

“I kind of have another commitment,” Kayla said.

The look on her face said she didn’t want it.

“Can you break it?” he asked.

“I’m thinking about doing just that.”

“So I’m not entirely out of the running,” Rand said.

“Why do I feel hunted?”

“My technique must need work.” He turned to smile over his shoulder at Kayla.

And saw his brother’s killer.


JAYNE: Oh, yeah, this is definitely an Elizabeth Lowell thriller, all right. Hot and edgy; a real rush. Readers, take my advice and run, do not walk to the nearest bookstore or click on any of the links below.