The Spider Catchers
by Marilynn Larew
by Marilynn Larew
The Spider Catchers by Marilynn Larew
Genre: Thriller – 300 pages
“A solid introduction to a new thriller series.” Kirkus Reviews
Synopsis
Sex, money, and terrorism
What do the violent takeover of Fez brothels and a new stream of terrorist funding have to do with the disappearance of Alicia Harmon from the Fez office of Femme Aid Maroc? When CIA analyst Lee Carruthers tries to find out, she is swept into a tangled web of dirty money and human trafficking, and people will kill to find out what Alicia knew. If only Lee knew. She’s working blind, and in this case, ignorance is death. Her search takes her through the slums of the Fez medina to the high-rises of the new city and finally to a terrorist camp in the Algerian desert.
The
Spider Catchers
Lee Carruthers #1
Available in both Trade Paperback and eBook
About The Author
Marilynn Larew was born in Omaha, Nebraska, and after a living in a number of places, including the Philippines and Japan, she finally settled in southern Pennsylvania, where she and her husband live in an 150 year old farmhouse. She has taught courses about the Vietnamese War and terrorism at the University of Maryland and travelled extensively in Europe and Asia. She likes to write about places she has been or places she would like to go. She has published non-fiction about local history, Vietnamese history, and terrorism. This is her first novel.
Interview
What is one book everyone should read?
One size doesn’t fit all
when it comes to books everybody should read. I think they should at least be
divided by gender and possibly by age. The one book I think all women should
read is The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan. For women of
a certain age, her book was nothing less than an eye opener. She studied the
restlessness felt by middle-class housewives and diagnosed it as lack of
fulfillment. Society, advertising, scholarship, Freud all defined women’s
highest role in society as being a wife and mother, In those days, career women
were defined as perpetual spinsters. Some school districts even made woman
teachers who married resign.
After working in many fields
during World War II, many women resented being cast back into a domestic role
they found unfulfilling. She was talking to me, and before the week was out, I
had registered in college to finish my BA. I went on to acquire a PhD in
history and taught for a number of years in the University of Maryland system.
Friedan n’s book helped me to stand in the sun and be, Or begin to be, for learning
to be is a lifetime project. Standing on your own feet without leaning on
anybody else is terrifying and liberating act.
What inspired you to want to become a writer?
I’m not sure any one thing
made me a writer. I’ve always been a reader. I love books. I need them the way
a druggie needs a fix. Somewhere along the line, I decided I wanted to make
them, to build a story into a novel that other people would want to read. It
was not until I retired that I was able to sit down and learn to write
something other than the non-fiction I had written as a scholar. Writing
fiction became my job. I’m a writer. And with the publication of The Spider Catchers, I’m an author.
What is your favorite Quote?
This is Margaret Atwood’s take on writing:
“Nobody is making you do
this:
You chose it, so don’t
whine.”
If you could live anywhere in the world where would it be?
I’d love to live in
Istanbul. I can’t quite say why, but when I visited it for the first time it
felt right, as if it were embracing me. I’ve been to other cities. Hong Kong is
a close second to Istanbul. It’s a vital city, a city that never sleeps. I love
Paris and London, too, but they’re places I visit. Istanbul feels like home.
When you were little, what did you want to be when you “grew up”?
When I was in grade
school, I wanted to be a nun, but I grew out of that, and went on to want to be
a nurse. You can see that both of these ambitions are careers. Unlike many
girls, I never planned to be a mommy. I didn’t play with dolls for very long
after I entered grade school. I never wanted a dollhouse, that model the middle
class home with a mommy and daddy and two children and a kitty and a doggie.
You remember them. They had little furniture that you could move around; the
kitchen even had little dishes and pots and pans. What I really wanted was a cap
pistol, so perhaps you can see why I invented Lee Carruthers, of the CIA. She
doesn’t carry a cap pistolistol; she carries a Glock.
Any other books in the works? Goals for future projects?
The Carruthers #2, Dubai Gold, is already underway. In it,
Lee promises Cynthia Branson to find her husband. George. Lee already knows
where George is. He’s dead in Dubai, but why did he wash up on the shore there carrying
a false passport? And what did the key he sent his to his wife from Iatanbul
open?
Charlie McGee will be #3.
In it, Lee will help Charlie McGee search for his dead father’s Vietnamese
family in the mountains west of Khe Sanh I can finally use the pictures I took
on my trip to Khe Sanh.
What is the best book that you've read recently?
I’m actually working two
books at the moment. One is nonfiction and the other is fiction. The nonfiction
book is The History of the Vietnamese,
by Keith Taylor. It is a superb work written by a man who spent nearly 50 years
studying Vietnamese history. It covers Vietnamese history from the beginning to
the day before yesterday. It’s the book I needed when I was teaching Vietnamese
history, and it will remain the standard work in English for many years to come.
I consider that he conferred immortality on me by putting me in his bibliography
and by quoting me.
For
fiction, I’m rereading Dead Man’s Chest,
by Kerry Greenwood, featuring Phyne Fisher, Greenwood’s aristocratic Melbourne
flapper and private detective. Greenwood has a light and airy style, and a
laugh out loud sense of humor, but this masks the seriousness of the topics she
addresses – murder ,blackmail, piracy in the South China Sea, incest, human
trafficking. These are not funny topics, and Phryne, with her usual mordant wit,
treats them with the seriousness they deserve. I often reread Kerry Greenwood books
because I like to visit with Phryne Fisher and the vibrant characters Greenwood
creates.
Author Links
Author Links
Website: www.marilynnlarew.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/marilynn.larew
Twitter: @marilynn_larew
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