James T. Barrett

Doug’s bio is simple. He lives in a country setting by a lake at the Atlantic Ocean. He’s married, he doesn’t have a dog, he drinks premium vodka, red wine, and he doesn’t like spicy food. That’s all most people know about him. What else really matters, other than how well he conceives a plot-line and develops the characters in his novels into believable personalities?

His first work, however, was not a novel. No One to Tell was an introspective, a premature memoir, the sort of book he despises because, really, who would know the truth but Doug himself? Not much different than composing a bio. More importantly, the process led him to transcribing the essence of those pages into The Viewing Room, much of which was written late at night in hotel suites across the Southeastern U.S.

Soon after completing The Viewing Room, his premiere novel, he abandoned the world of industry, leaving behind an enviable, albeit increasingly arduous, career in International Sales to those who don’t mind waking every Monday at 3:00 AM to take part in the rigours of air travel, the tedium of endless hotel nights and epicurean delights that over time become indistinguishable from pedestrian franchised food. Or the looming threat of being connected to technical servitude 24/7.

He’d done his time in airports, meandering through concourses, stopping at bookshelves behind junk food counters when mornings were still too dark to see anything but his and other beleaguered reflections staring back from window panes overlooking tarmacs when everyone would rather be in bed sleeping soundly.

The irrevocable decision came at 2:30 AM one Saturday in February, at his car, his emergency shovel in-hand, in the aftermath of a debilitating snowstorm, wearing a short-sleeved shirt, ice forming on his socks, melting into his shoes, since the airline had once again determined that he would not require his luggage for another day or two.

That Monday he left one career behind to begin another with his memorable characters in The Madam.

A few years later he migrated from the joie de vivre of Montréal to the East Coast where he spends most days writing, occasionally deserting the keyboard to smell the sea air, listen to the roar of the hectic Atlantic and watch a daily parade of surfboards passing by his study window.

His novels are based on one simple premise: Each of us will, sooner or later, commit the illegal, the morally wrong, bad, or indifferent.

He’s penned ten novels thus far, the common theme being retribution: Payback. What makes his writing different, what he aspires to, is the realism of his characters and the believability of their predicaments. They are people you would want to know, or do know…most of them. And what happens to them could happen to you.

Most of them are sexy and charming, a few decidedly not so. After all, novels are about escapism and who wants to escape into the unattractive world we already dwell in? And although cops do find their way into his writing by default, they are not the main focus with a few notable exceptions: Dina Becker in Mother's Pearl Dagger, Drew Carling in Deferred Prejudice, and Johnnie Fennell, the fennell, in The Hunt for Gilligan Rose. He’s cool. He’s also pretty much a son of a bitch…according to his prissy female partner.

His genres are Mystery, Suspense and Thriller for an adult market, with requisite elements of Murder, Deception, Intrigue, and the quintessence of Romance brought to a new level.

The average word count of his novels is 160K (approximately 500 pages). He doesn’t believe in spending good money on thin books with lots of white on the pages. Nor does he enjoy reading books whose endings are apparent from page one.

Each of his characters has a personality, a vivid, private story to share as they struggle to survive, seek to kill, or get killed. Creatively, he hastens to add. There are no arrests, no belligerent cops…simply unique closure with a personal touch. That’s retr