What is Patrick Lee reading?

Today's featured contributor at Writers Read: Patrick Lee, author of Deep Sky.

The entry begins:

I recently finished Persuader, by Lee Child. Some of my favorite books and films have centered on the idea of a protagonist forced to live out a lie under dangerous circumstances. In Persuader, Child's Jack Reacher takes part in an elaborate, off-the-radar ruse by a group of DEA agents, resulting in his being accepted into the household of a violent criminal mastermind. The bad guys think Reacher is hired muscle they can use for a while; his true goal is to find and rescue a missing woman, and to take revenge against an enemy he'd long believed to be dead.

A false pretense is like an engine that continuously generates conflict and jeopardy. At every turn the lie must be shored up like a failing dam, and every attempt to do so is itself another lie, adding to the pressure. Persuader wrings every bit of danger out of a brilliantly framed situation, forcing Reacher to make increasingly smart--and desperate--moves.

A few months ago I re-read what must be one of the most impactful books I've ever opened:...[read on]

About Deep Sky, from the publisher:

The anomaly called the Breach is the government’s most carefully guarded secret.

But there is another secret even less known ... and far more terrifying.

As the U.S. President addresses the nation from the Oval Office, a missile screams toward the White House. In a lightning flash, the Chief Executive is dead, his mansion in ruins, and two cryptic words are the only clue to the assassins’ motives: “See Scalar.”

Now Travis Chase of the covert agency Tangent—caretakers of the Breach and all its grim wonders—along with partner and lover Paige Campbell and technology expert Bethany Stewart, have only twenty-four hours to unearth a decades-old mystery once spoken of in terrified whispers by the long since silenced. But their breakneck race cross-country—and back through time and malleable memory—is calling the total destructive might of a shadow government down upon them. For Travis Chase has a dark destiny he cannot be allowed to fulfill...

Learn more about the book and author at Patrick Lee's website and blog.

Patrick Lee's first novel, The Breach, hit the world at the beginning of 2010. It was followed by a sequel, Ghost Country, and the final volume of the trilogy, Deep Sky, was released in December 2011.

My Book, The Movie: Deep Sky.

The Page 99 Test: Deep Sky.

Writers Read: Patrick Lee.

--Marshal Zeringue