"I ENJOY CAPTURING THE TIME WE LIVE IN IN MY WRITING." :BUZZKILL'S ALISON GAYLIN

Alison Gaylin's second take on Robert B. Parker's Sunny Randall, has the PI looking into the disappearance of an energy drink mogul as well as figuring out the next step with her boyfriend Richie. She skillfully weaves that relationship story through a fun and exciting private eye tale. Allison took some time to take some Hard Word questions.

SCOTT MONTGOMERY: What about the world of energy drinks drew you to a Sunny Randall story?

ALISON GAYLIN: I'd introduced the character of energy drink CEO Dylan Welch in my previous Sunny book, Bad Influence. I'd noticed the intersect between products like energy drinks and influencers, which that book was centered around. I also was thinking about how dangerous energy drinks can be, despite their heavy vitamin content.  At the time, there were several news reports about young people drinking too many of them and suffering heart attacks and worse. To me, it all added to Dylan's unsavoriness as a character, and in Buzz Kill, he goes missing and Sunny is tasked with finding him.

S.M.: You give almost equal weight in the story to Sunny's next step with Richie and I found it as engaging as her case.. Why did you feel that needed to be addressed?

A.G.:  I'm glad you found it engaging! I love Sunny and Richie as a couple. They're long divorced, yet they've never stopped loving each other. It makes me wonder what bonds them -- and what's keeping them apart? By the end of the previous book, their relationship has been rekindled. Yet Richie has moved from Boston to the Jersey Shore, which makes things even more complicated. I actually feel like the phrase "it's complicated" was invented for Sunny and Richie, which makes them lots of fun to write.

S.M.: What did you connect with Robert B. Parker's heroine to write for her?

A.G.: Sunny is smart and brave and capable, yet flawed. It's her flaws and the challenges she faces that probably I connect with the most. As a woman PI, she moves through a mostly male world, and finds herself working that much harder to be taken seriously.  

S.M.: I really enjoyed the moments where Sunny works to get information from people. How would you describe her technique and how you approach those moments as a writer?

A.G.: Thank you! I think Sunny has an ability to read people, and so she knows what approach to take in getting them to tell the truth -- whether it's flattering someone, getting under their skin, or sneak-attacking them with direct questions. She can't rely on brute strength for interrogations (unless she brings Spike along!)  but she's so perceptive, it makes up for that.

S.M.: Many authors gripe about technology hindering what they can do as storytellers, but you embrace it in your work. Can you talk about how you use cell phones and computers as an asset for story telling, like the GPs car chase, rather than a hindrance?

A.G.: I enjoy capturing the time we live in in my writing -- whether it's the Sunny books or my own -- and technology is probably the biggest indicator of this era. When I'm watching a movie and want to know when it's set, for instance, all I have to do is look at the type of cell phones (or the lack thereof) to be able to tell. Despite her disdain for things like social media, Sunny is very much a modern character. And to think that as a PI, she wouldn't scour the online presence of her subjects, use GPS, text and receive images etc. just feels unnatural to me. In all my work, I like to explore the effect of this technology on our lives. Our reliance on it, its omnipresence, the paranoia it can bring, the false sense of security... it's really a ripe subject to mine for thrillers, and I think, for mysteries like the Sunny Randall ones as well.

S.M.: If you couldn't write, what other art form would you want to pursue?

A,G.: Okay, so writing is really the only art form I'm halfway good at. I can't even write legibly, let alone create any form of fine art. I can't sing, I've studied a few instruments but haven't been very good at that either. I did study theater in college, but as an actor, I'd say I was a very good writer. Does knitting count? I'll go with knitting.