Featured Interview With Kris Kaiser
Tell us a little about yourself. Where were you raised? Where do you live now?
I was a bartender in college and that really helped my story telling skills. I always had a menu of lengthy jokes to share. I’m a native of the Midwest (Chicago area) and currently live in Northern California. I still love the Midwest and set most of my work there in interesting and real places. When I’m not writing I like to play tennis for some quality exercise.
At what age did you realize your fascination with books? When did you start writing?
Junior high would be the beginning. Got into the whole Horatio Hornblower series of something like 25 books. Loved them. Got really inspired by a English class assignment in high school and wrote a short story that I turned in two weeks early. Teacher loved it and read it to the class. I would have spent more time writing but my inspiration switched to girls and football.
Once I moved to LA, I got into screenwriting (suspense/thrillers) and had a bit of interest on one that dealt with Al Capone’s vault that an innocent family that stumbles upon it just as descendants of his henchmen are looking for it. Screenwriting is very constraining so I moved into novels to really create some deeper plots and characters. My new series is a result of that.
Who are your favorite authors to read? What is your favorite genre to read. Who Inspires you in your writings?
Robert Ludlum really inspired me on the thriller side and I love creating the suspense that keeps you on the edge of your seat. I’ve been reading William Boyd recently (British author) and enjoy Dashiell Hammett and Robert Parker. The pacing that Dan Brown creates is great and I’ve also drawn much from movies like North by Northwest and The Fugitive as I like stories where an innocent character gets caught up in a bigger conspiracy.
Tell us a little about your latest book?
I became a bit tired of thriller movies starring Tom Cruise or Matt Damon taking place all over the world. I wanted to write a smart thriller set in the good ‘ol heartland of the USA. As I began plotting in 2010, I realized the intricate conspiracy story was getting bigger than one book could handle. So, PROCLIVITY is the first book in The Lamiaceae Chronicles series which will be followed by CONTINUUM and REASONANCE. The pacing is fast with short chapters.
The story centers around a regular guy, Matt Sizemore, who’s emotionally broken. A failed marriage and a string of bad investments lead him into making one more poor decision – ordering depression medication from a smarmy pitchman on late-night TV. The drug that arrives in the mail opens a doorway in Matt’s mind of extreme visions and dreams that keep him from sleeping but open a window to new possibilities. Eventually, the nightly visions become so persuasive that he embarks on a cross-country journey of revenge against the drug maker until foreseen events get in his way.
Newly hired FDA agent, Kevin Sharpe, quickly becomes acutely aware of a swath of suicides caused by the drug across the country. What he discovers is a world of super-secret government agencies and scientific experimentation pushing the limits of of human cognition and leaving a man named Matt Sizemore as the sole survivor of a rogue test and a man that must be found.
One man’s simple attempt to mend his broken life positions him at the center of a thrilling, national conspiracy with implications on a global scale.