I’ve spent forty years in the startup trenches, where the difference between success and bankruptcy often comes down to clarity. Say what you mean. Mean what you say. Cut the unnecessary words. That philosophy didn’t just shape my business career—it shaped how I write.
When I sat down to write the Greg Newsome series, I knew one thing for certain: I wasn’t going to waste your time with purple prose about the “cerulean majesty of the twilight sky” when “the sun went down” would do just fine.
The Elmore Leonard School of Invisible Prose
Leonard had a rule I’ve internalized completely: “If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it.” The man was a genius at making prose invisible. You don’t notice his sentences—you notice Dutch Leonard walking into a room or Raylan Givens adjusting his hat. The writing serves the story, not the other way around.
Compare that to many contemporary thriller writers who can’t resist telling you how the protagonist’s “steely gaze pierced the veil of duplicity like a rapier through silk.” Just tell me he knew the guy was lying.
In Let It Die, when Greg and Izzy get kidnapped in Mexico, I don’t spend three paragraphs describing Delgado’s “predatory smile” or the “oppressive weight of captivity pressing down upon their souls.” Instead:
“Greg sat alone in the chair, lost in thought. He did, however, have company, so he wasn’t entirely alone. He shared the room with two armed sicarios. They were both nasty-looking, rude, mean, and smelled like cigarettes and sweat. But heck, at least he had company.”
That’s it. Danger. Discomfort. Dark humor. Move on. The reader gets everything they need to know, and I’m not showing off my thesaurus.
The Balance: Plot and Character Working Together
Here’s what I’ve learned from decades in business and writing: plot and character aren’t enemies—they’re dance partners. Too many thrillers sacrifice character for plot (looking at you, Dan Brown), while too much literary fiction drowns plot in character study (hello, five pages about making coffee).
My approach:
- Character drives plot – Greg doesn’t stumble into danger randomly. His impulsivity, loyalty, and inability to say “no” to friends create the situations that drive the story forward.
- Plot reveals character – You learn who Benny really is not through backstory dumps, but by watching him grieve, rage, and ultimately choose between revenge and his son’s future.
- Action serves theme – Every gunfight, chase scene, or torture sequence isn’t just exciting—it’s asking questions about violence, loyalty, justice, and what we’re willing to become to protect the people we love.
- Pacing respects both – I won’t slow down a tense scene to philosophize, but I also won’t rush character moments just to get to the next explosion. When Benny breaks down after losing his wife and daughter, the plot stops. It has to.
Writing for Two Audiences Simultaneously
I’m writing for people who want fundamentally different things from books, and I refuse to choose between them:
For readers who want a propulsive story:
- Tight prose that moves
- Clear action sequences
- Genuine stakes and consequences
- Momentum that pulls you through 300+ pages in a weekend
For readers who want philosophical depth:
- Exploration of grief’s five stages through narrative structure
- Examination of the cycle of violence without easy answers
- Characters wrestling with moral complexity
- Themes of masculinity, family, loyalty, and redemption
The key is integration. I don’t stop the action to deliver a philosophy lecture, and I don’t rush through meaningful moments to get to the next car chase. The philosophy lives in the action.
When Benny tortures the Serbian assassin, you’re getting:
- A visceral, tense sequence (plot)
- Insight into Benny’s psychological unraveling (character)
- Questions about justice vs. vengeance (theme)
- All in the same scenes, all moving forward simultaneously
Cormac McCarthy: When Minimalism Becomes Its Own Religion
McCarthy represents another form of minimalism—stark, biblical, relentless. His prose in Blood Meridian and The Road is poetry pretending to be prose. No quotation marks. Minimal punctuation. Every word carries weight because he makes you feel the weight.
But McCarthy writes like a man carving the Ten Commandments into stone. It’s exhausting and exhilarating.
I’m not trying to be McCarthy. My characters crack jokes while bleeding out. They make pop culture references during hostage situations. When Benny “The Knife” Santini is about to torture someone, I don’t describe it like the last chapter of Revelations—I let the scene breathe with dark humor and human awkwardness.
The difference? McCarthy wants you to feel the apocalypse. I want you to feel like you’re in the room with real people doing terrible things for understandable reasons.
Humor as Defense Mechanism: The ADHD Hero Who Shouldn’t Still Be Alive
Greg Newsome is not Jason Bourne. He’s not Jack Reacher. He’s a middle-aged business coach with ADHD who survives by:
- Building teams of more capable people
- Cracking jokes under pressure
- Occasionally getting very lucky
- Making impulsive decisions that sometimes work out
This isn’t accidental. Humor, in my books, isn’t just comic relief—it’s how people actually cope with trauma. It’s how soldiers deal with war. It’s how ER doctors handle death. It’s how my characters stay sane while doing insane things.
When Greg is about to be tortured in Delgado’s barn, he doesn’t deliver some stoic action-hero monologue. He thinks about how much his shoulder hurts and whether he’s going to survive. When Izzy spits in Delgado’s face, it’s not some choreographed empowerment moment—it’s raw, human, and messy.
Character arcs without sacrificing plot:
Benny’s journey – From powerful mob boss → grief-stricken shell → man choosing his son’s future over revenge
Frank’s journey – From tech entrepreneur avoiding family business → vengeance-obsessed son → return to his true self
Izzy’s journey – From by-the-book FBI agent → willing participant in vigilante justice → someone who says “enough”
Greg’s journey – From business coach → danger magnet → man questioning whether he’s become the monster
These arcs unfold through action, not in place of it.
The Themes: No Answers, Only Questions
I don’t do tidy moral resolutions. Let It Die is about revenge, and I don’t pretend revenge makes anyone whole.
The questions I’m asking:
- When does justice become vengeance?
- Can violence ever truly end violence, or does it just perpetuate cycles?
- What does loyalty cost, and when does it become complicity?
- How do we process grief without destroying ourselves?
- What happens when good people do monstrous things for understandable reasons?
I’m not interested in giving readers easy answers. I’m interested in putting them in the room and making them wrestle with the same questions my characters do.
Benny gets his vengeance. Does it bring back Chiara and Sophia? No. Does it stop the cycle of violence? Absolutely not. But does he need it anyway? That’s for you to decide.
Direct Language, No Nonsense
Here’s the thing about some literary fiction: it mistakes complexity for profundity. I’ve read novels where the author spends five pages describing a character making coffee, and by the end, I still don’t know if they like their job.
My philosophy:
- Use the simplest word that does the job
- Trust readers to understand subtext
- Show, don’t explain
- Cut every word that doesn’t earn its place
When Sling and Greg are transporting Vuković in the trunk, I don’t wax poetic about “the moral labyrinth of vigilante justice” or the “karmic echoes of a soul condemned.” I show you a man panicking in a box, and you decide how you feel about it.
Stephen King once said, “The road to hell is paved with adverbs.” I’d add: and pretentious metaphors. My job is to tell you a story, not to prove I went to college.
Comparative Landscape: Where I Fit
I’m closer to:
- Elmore Leonard – Crisp dialogue, invisible prose, morally complex characters
- Dennis Lehane – Gritty crime worlds where nobody gets out clean, deep character work
- Carl Hiaasen – Dark humor, morally compromised heroes, absurdity meeting violence
- Lawrence Block – Flawed, human protagonists who aren’t superheroes
- Don Winslow – Willingness to examine violence’s true cost
I’m different from:
- Lee Child (Reacher) – My hero isn’t a superman; he survives by building teams
- Tom Clancy – Less technical detail, more character psychology
- Dan Brown – Character development matters as much as plot twists
- John le Carré – Faster pacing, more accessible language, occasional humor in dark places
What makes my work distinct:
- Action thrillers set in the startup/tech world (I actually know this terrain)
- Protagonist with ADHD who leads through relationships, not physical dominance
- Humor used as psychological defense mechanism, not just comic relief
- Philosophical depth without sacrificing narrative momentum
- No easy moral answers, but clear emotional stakes
The Innovation: ADHD Meets Action Thriller
Here’s what I think I’m doing that’s genuinely new: I’m writing an action series where the hero has ADHD, survives by building teams, and uses humor not as a quirk but as a survival mechanism.
Greg doesn’t plan three moves ahead because he can’t. He’s a “first things first, second things never” guy. He’s impulsive, distractible, and constantly getting in over his head. And yet, he’s also brilliant at:
- Reading people and building loyalty
- Making connections others miss
- Talking his way out of situations his fists can’t handle
- Assembling teams where everyone’s skills matter
That’s not Reacher. That’s not Bourne. That’s a different kind of hero—one that resonates with readers tired of supermen.
The Bottom Line: Story and Substance
I write the way I do because I believe in:
- Clarity over cleverness
- Character depth that doesn’t slow plot
- Getting out of the story’s way
- Respecting readers who want entertainment AND substance
You can read my books for the plot and have a great time. Greg gets kidnapped, there’s a gunfight on the Danube, someone’s torturing someone else, and the good guys (mostly) win.
Or you can read for the themes and character arcs. Watch Benny struggle with grief’s five stages. See Frank almost lose himself to vengeance before his father pulls him back. Notice how Izzy draws a line she won’t cross. Wrestle with whether any of this violence was worth it.
Both readers are right. Both are getting what they came for.
I’m not trying to win a National Book Award. I’m trying to write books that work on multiple levels—page-turners that also make you think, and maybe laugh, even when people are getting killed.
If that sounds like your thing, welcome to the ride.
Get Let it Die or any of my books on Amazon.
