Interview with David Vinjamuri, author of Operator

Indie Book Promo is happy to welcome David Vinjamuri to the blog!  His is the author of Operator and is here to share some information about his book as well as his writing!  If this book sounds like something that you would be interested in reading, please use the buy links at the bottom of the post to pick up a copy or two.

IBP -  Try to describe your book in one sentence.

David – Here’s a sentence from one of the reviews:

Returning to the hometown he escaped years ago, Special Operations veteran Michael Herne must solve a friend’s mysterious “suicide,” and thwart a vicious criminal syndicate before he and his family are marked for execution.

IBP – State a random fact about yourself that would surprise your readers.

David – I actually turned down a job with the CIA in order to pursue a Master’s Degree in International Affairs.  Which seems like a long way from the career in brand management that I ended up with.  It’s one of my big regrets, though, because although the job was as an intelligence analyst – something I’d done earlier for another agency – I would have been brought in under a program that would have cross-trained me in spy stuff for a whole year.

IBP – Do you read reviews written about your book?

David – I read everything, obsessively.  I suspect this would be true even if there were 300 reviews of my books online.  There were about 100 blog posts and reviews about my business book, Accidental Branding when it came out and I can still quote some from memory.

IBP – Do you have a day job?

David – Yes, a couple in fact:  I train corporate marketers (I was one myself), teach at NYU and write a column online for Forbes.

IBP – What were the challenges in bringing this book to life?

David – The biggest challenge was trying to make it technically accurate.  I’m a big thriller reader and I just hate when authors get details wrong.  I did as much research as I could and got as much help as I was able to make sure Operator was authentic.  I was lucky enough to run the obstacle course at the Naval Special Warfare base in Norfolk and survive.

IBP – Did you know the title before you started writing?

David – No. Operator started as the prequel to an unpublished thriller I wrote years ago.  It was originally called “the soldier’s code.”  Then I met a real Delta Force Operator who was also famous in the special ops community for his tracking skills and in an instant both the character and the name of the book became really clear to me.

IBP – How did you come up with your premise for your books?

David – The premise for Operator came from a real experience I had in my twenties.  I was dating a girl from my hometown who I met in Washington D.C. when I worked there.  She had been teaching English abroad in Japan for a couple of years.  While she was there she met and started dating this guy who became abusive and started stalking her when they broke up.  He followed her back to D.C. and she was living this sort of shadow life there.  Months later, after we were no longer dating, I heard that she had killed herself with a gun.  Then a friend from my hometown told me that the guy who’d stalked her showed up at her funeral, claiming to be her fiancé.  That always seemed odd to me, and a version of that scenario is where Operator starts.

IBP – What book is currently on your nightstand?

David – Broken Harbor by Tana French.  I understand that she is an actress who was just inspired to write one day, and the result was In the Woods.  Which is amazing because it’s one of the best-written mysteries I have ever read.  Her ability to set a mood with description and to understand characters is unbelievable.

IBP -  How important do you find the communication between you and your readers? Do you reply to their messages or read their reviews?

David – I try to read and answer everything.  I’m easiest to reach via Twitter (@dvinjamuri) or on my Facebook page (www.facebook.com/operatorthenovel )
IBP – If you were stranded on a deserted island, who would you want for company?

David – Definitely my wife Michelle.  We have a six-month-old and a three-year-old so if you could arrange for us to be stranded on that island alone for two weeks or so that would be grand.

IBP – What is in the works for you next?

David – I’m working on the sequel to Operator right now.  It’s a more complex story and I can tell you that Michael is again pulled somewhere that he doesn’t want to go.

When Michael Herne’s high school girlfriend Melissa commits suicide, he makes the fateful decision to return home for her funeral. Michael hasn’t stepped foot in his Catskills hometown for more than a dozen years since he left it and a college football scholarship behind to join the Army.Michael quickly learns that his hometown has changed as he is pulled into the web of mystery and corruption surrounding Melissa’s death. He will soon confront the abusive ex-boyfriend, a town sheriff with mixed motives and the ruthless Russian gang at the heart of it all.Michael will be forced to choose between two paths – that of the desk-working, college-educated intelligence analyst he has become or the Tier I Army Operator he once was. Only one of these identities will survive as Michael is relentlessly hunted by a series of ruthless men.This meticulously researched, seamlessly plotted thriller is the first in a new series by David Vinjamuri.