Come and Find Me

JAN: It's the moment we've all be waiting for. Halle's new thriller Come and Find Me is about to hit the shelves. It's about a recluse who works and lives online who must now brave the real world when her sister goes missing.

I asked Hallie to tell us about her recluse protagonist, Diana Highsmith, a computer security expert and reformed hacker and how she came up with her character.

HALLIE: The inspiration for Diana in "Come and Find Me" came to me when I tripped over an ad for a year's supply of dehydrated and freeze-dried food. The photo showed a pyramid of cans in lovely pastel colors.

Chirpy ad copy explained: "...this package will give you variety, nutrition, and peace of mind."

Now, maybe if I lived on the San Andreas Fault or in a floodplain I might have ponied up $999.99. But instead I sat there trying to imagine who in the world would see 84 gallon-sized cans with a shelf life of up to 25 years as the ticket to peace of mind?

The answer was Diana, a recluse who is afraid to leave her own house. Someone who's been traumatized. As I gazed out my office window, looking at the one-story ranch house next door, I imagined that the person lived there.

JAN: On the surface Diana seems completely different from your last protagonist Ivy Rose. Is she or are there any similarities? And how hard was it to create a completely different heroine?

HALLIE: At one level they're very different. Ivy in "Never Tell a Lie" is married, pregnant, and desperate to have a child. Diana is single, a recluse whose only "real" friend, other than the ones she interacts with on the Internet, is her sister.

Both books are about betrayal and trust. In "Come and Find Me," Diana has to brave the real world when her sister vanishes. Along the way, she has to trust real people or she won't survive.

JAN: How did you go about your research into computer hacking and security?

HALLIE: I used to work in high tech, so networking with old friends I found a couple of amazing experts on computer security, one of them an expert on cyber-terrorism, another an ex-hacker. They helped me understand why people hack, and what real dangers they pose.

I envisioned Diana working in a virtual world where she could conduct business meetings, investigate security breaches, and "climb" Alpine mountains without ever leaving home. After a little research, I discovered Second Life on the Internet was just such a virtual world.

Armed with enough information to be dangerous, I created an account for myself on Second Life and logged in. First, I created an avatar, a skinny brunette with attitude. I figured out how to make her walk, run, turn, sit, and it was so exhilarating when I finally got her aloft. It felt like I was perched on her shoulders (think: Harry Potter on the shoulders of the Buckbeak the hippogriff) as she soared over the island at the entrance to Second Life. Not so exhilarating was when, seconds later, she plunged into the virtual blue (very blue) ocean. I actually found myself gasping for breath. After that my computer crashed.

Neither me nor my hardware were ready for SecondLife, so I turned to some generous folks who play and work in Second Life, and who let me ride shotgun while they went about their business in virtual reality.

Among other things, I learned that a good percentage of female avatars are created by male players. I learned that even bucolic corners of the virtual world can be infested by "griefers," mischief-makers who rain down toasters or phalluses on unsuspecting players, and how genuinely terrifying it feels to have a cage dropped down on your avatar, even when you know it's "only a game."

JAN: Where will you be talking about the book?

HALLIE: First stop is Brookline Booksmith next Monday, March 21 at 7 PM. Then BookEnds in Winchester Thursday, March 24. Then I'm off to Florida, Ohio, Pittsburgh (A shout-out to Mystery Lovers Bookshop!), Sacramento for the Bee Book Club, and more. I'm updating my web site with new events all the time. I hope lots of Jungle Red readers will COME AND FIND ME.