Karna Small Bodman

JAN BROGAN:  Karna Bodman was on the air for 15 years as a TV news anchor and reporter in San Francisco and Washington, DC. She then served six years in The White House, first as deputy press secretary, later as senior director of the National Security Council (where she was the highest ranking woman on the White House staff). Now she is writing political thrillers (her books have hit “#1 in Thrillers on Amazon”) NYT bestselling author Christopher Reich calls her her new (4^th) novel  Castle Bravo, "smart, slick and as exciting as hell." It just came out in hardback and trade paperback  (audio and e-book versions are “in production” and will be up shortly).

Please welcome Karna to Jungle Red!! 

KARNA BODMAN: Conjuring up plot lines for my series of thrillers (with a romantic twist), I figured out I could play off the many events and crises that hit The White House -- in any administration – but particularly those that occurred during the six years that I worked there – first as Deputy Press Secretary and finally as Senior Director and Spokesman for the National Security Council.

As I wrote scenes for Castle Bravo, inside the Situation Room where we had morning staff meetings, the Roosevelt Room where we had all sorts of planning meetings, and in the Oval Office where – well –  where we were honored to enter once in a while…I’ve tried to capture not only the “scenery” but the conversation, the mood, and  the sense of  near “panic” at times when dealing with a threat to the country.

For this new story, I was inspired by a conversation I had with the Major General in charge of our entire missile defense system – worldwide.  He said, “Let me tell you why we really need a great missile defense system. Imagine that it’s a few years down the road and there is a country that doesn’t like us or some militant group that somehow has procured a small nuclear device. (We all know they’ve been trying.)  And let’s say they also have a delivery vehicle – which could be as simple as a scud missile (Some guy tried to sell one of those on e-Bay for $2 million bucks a while back – we caught him pretty quickly!).  And let’s say they’re off our coast on a ship disguised as a fishing boat – we’d never find them. And finally, let’s say that instead of aiming that weapon at one of cities, which would be absolutely devastating, of course – they aim it straight up and detonate it perhaps 50 miles up in the atmosphere. Now, that would set off what we call an “Electro-Magnetic Pulse” (or EMP) that would “fry” all the electronics on the ground.

 

That means we’d have no electricity grid, no internet, no cell phones, ATMs, transportation, refrigeration, sanitation, aviation….it would set us back to the year 1910 ” These systems wouldn’t “come back” like they do after a black-out. No! The electronics would be destroyed and would need to be completely replaced – which could take months…or years.

When I heard all of this I knew I had to write a story about it because while some in our government are paying attention, it’s not nearly enough .  And while a lot of us write about “real” threats, I always have a hero and heroine trying to work together to stop the “bad guys” – and sometimes fall in love in the process. Some call these stories “romantic thrillers.”  Men say they like the “action” but women often say they also like “the relationships.” So in our writing, while we may be trying send some sort of “message” we want readers to have a good time in the process. One of my favorite quotes is from George Bernard Shaw who said, “The best way to get your point across is to entertain.”

Karna Small Bodman – www.karnabodman.com


JAN: Karna will be happy to answer any of your questions about romantic thrillers or her fascinating history!