I’m no stranger to Barbara Nickless’s novels. She is fearless in her writing and entertains readers with an intricate, lyrical voice. Still, as I read A Voice in the Dark, I felt the author may be reaching for something beyond fiction. As always, I wanted to learn the story behind the story. Please welcome Wall Street Journal and #1 Amazon Charts Bestselling Author Barbara Nickless.
Author Barbara Nickless
An online manipulator with a deadly hold on his followers challenges an FBI agent to stop him in a gripping novel of psychological suspense.
Donnell: Thank you for joining me, Barb! You’ve written multiple books in two wonderfully received series, the Sydney Rose Parnell and the Dr. Evan Wilding series, followed by a terrific standalone, The Drowning Game. And now Thomas Mercer has released your latest, A Voice in the Dark. Why did you write this book?
Barbara Nickless: I was deeply troubled by all the stories I read where either humans or AI bots had convinced teens to do something terrible to themselves and/or others. I had to capture the story as a warning to both parents and young people. When my editor phoned, asking why I hadn’t submitted a proposal, I popped off with this idea. All I had to do then was make it happen. Easy, right?
Donnell: R-i-g-h-t! As easy and nebulous as mist. Your story opens when members of a Denver family are murdered and their twin teenagers disappear from the crime scene. FBI Special Agent Helen Belle is pulled into the case when a Major Crimes detective alerts Belle they either have a copycat, or The Midnight Man is back.
Belle is part of Colorado’s Violent Crimes against Children (VCAC) taskforce. Does a team really exist in Boulder? Regardless, was VCAC helpful to you in writing this story?
Barbara Nickless: Yes, VCAC really does have a unit in Boulder, or they did at the time I was writing A Voice in the Dark. Things change so quickly! They also have (or had) a coordinator with BAU at that same resident agency (BAU is the Behavioral Analysis Unit at Quantico). For Helen, her primary job is working as a special agent with VCAC; the work she does with BAU is called “collateral duty.” In doing my research, I was fortunate to talk to agents currently working in VCAC, one of whom had been the BAU coordinator.
Donnell: Agent Belle also has an interesting expertise in Criminal Humanities from Colorado College. Is this an actual CC curriculum? If so, I want to enroll!
Barbara Nickless: Oh, I wish. I’d enroll, too! There aren’t any degree programs in the criminal humanities (also known as literary criminology and even, occasionally, gothic forensics). Classes that focus on these topics are generally folded into English or Criminology departments. It’s an emerging field, and we may see degree programs soon. I’d expect them to start at the University of Toronto, where some of the leading practitioners teach and conduct research.
Donnell: You write in first person, present tense, which makes your deep point-of-view narrative powerful… words like. “We don’t need a devil when we have ourselves.” Was this first person tense choice deliberate from the onset?
Barbara Nickless: Thanks! Using first person for Helen felt natural for this novel. But using present tense was a deliberate way for me to push myself; I try to grow with the writing of each novel. (Readers can judge my success.) Now that I’ve started with present tense, I don’t want to stop. I love the immediacy it offers, the sense that I’m with the character as events happen. Hopefully, readers feel the same way.
Donnell: Then, of course, you give your female protagonist unusual traits for a LEO professional, e.g. Helen throws up and pops Tylenol when she looks at crime scene photos. You give her a childhood in which she emerges a compulsive neatnik. You once told me you knew Evan Wilding from your Dr. Evan Wilding series immediately. Was this the case with Helen?
Barbara Nickless: Helen was a slow burn. She was reluctant to share with me, and I let her background remain, well, in the background. There’s much more about her past in the second book (Night Swans, out May 2027), even though it’s still backstory, not part of the main plot. At least I now know why she gets sick at crime scenes!
Donnell: The second protagonist you introduce is the amazing Benedict Hoffman. I’d be lying if I didn’t tell you Benedict Cumberpatch came immediately to mind. Still, you make Hoffman your own, and I didn’t think I’d ever be attracted to an academic, but it’s my interview and I confess. Hoffman is everything I want in a hero. Smart, driven and selfless. He’s out to protect vulnerable children and goes to great lengths to do so. Please talk about how you created him.
Barbara Nickless: Thanks so much! I appreciate that. Benedict was even more reluctant than Helen to reveal himself to me. Am I not trustworthy?? He proved so private, in fact, that my editor initially asked if he was on the spectrum. I was surprised and also not surprised. He just wouldn’t open up. It took some long talks during long walks to get him to share. And, yes, my neighbors all think I’m nuts, even though I try not to move my lips when I’m talking to my imaginary friends.
Donnell: Online gaming has been around for decades. I suspect with AI, it now has a multitude of new challenges. I was fascinated by how your antagonist drew adolescents and teenagers into his web. This appears to be a huge undertaking to learn all you included in this novel. How did you even start?
Barbara Nickless: It was overwhelming. I’d become interested in gaming through my son but, sadly, I can no longer talk to him about it. I began my research with a wonderful novel called Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin. From that book I learned both the difficulties in creating a game, the egos involved, and that—yes—teens and young adult love so-called farming sims as much as shoot-’em-up games. I also spent a lot of time watching players on Twitch, a live streaming gaming platform. And I read the graphic novel and watched the hugely successful game-turned-prestige TV, The Last of Us. Finally, a gamer friend reviewed the document and fixed the errors he found.
Then there was the whole AI angle … I started with a book called If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies: Why Superhuman AI Would Kill Us All by Eliezer Yudkowsky and Nate Soares. Things went downhill from there.
OTOH, researchers in the Maldivdes are using AI to help rebuild beaches destroyed by climate change. It’s not all bad news. The key is in how we manage our Frankenstein.
Donnell: Your settings are vivid. You take readers from the Boulder/Denver area to the U.S. Midwest and finally to Colorado Springs. Reading about Colorado Springs was like coming home. How instinctive are settings and descriptions to you?
Barbara Nickless: I love settings and weather and opening with them—the very thing Elmore Leonard warned against. 🙂 Setting makes an amazing character, and while we have to be careful not to overdo it, using a few details to paint a picture is an art. And a fun one!
Donnell: Then of course your police and FBI procedure is in depth and second to none. You also write a fabulous boxing scene. How much research goes into your novels? Reading, interviews, something else?
Barbara Nickless: You and I are much alike in that! I do love me some research, and I’ll take every chance to indulge. I used to rely mainly on paper-based research, being much too shy to pick up the phone. But as I’ve gotten more experience, I realize people love to share their stories and love to help you get the details of their job right. So, when I can, I go straight to the source. Speaking of which, any alpinists out there?? I badly need to talk to serious mountain climbers.
Donnell: This book deals with our most vulnerable children. Brain function plays an integral part. Also, in thinking about the title, A Voice in the Dark, I was wondering if it applied to Midnight Man or his victims? Thoughts?
Barbara Nickless: I included the ongoing series discussion between Helen and Benedict as to where “evil” comes from because it’s a question that continues to come up for me—over and over.
The most terrifying thing about AI bots and online influencers is that a human’s prefrontal cortex (the part of our brain responsible for impulse control, decision making, and planning) is still maturing through our mid-to late twenties and beyond. This means younger people process rewards, risks, and social pressures differently than, say, a forty-year-old.
As for the title, you can thank my publisher’s marketing department for that. I think it works very well—applying to both the child victims and the Midnight Man—but my original title was The Midnight Man.
Donnell: Barbara, thank you for always answering my insatiable questions! As a parent and now a grandparent, I came away wishing we could make A Voice in the Dark required reading. Of all the fabulous blurbs you’re received touting this novel, the following said it best:
ABOUT THE BOOK:
When a husband, wife, and son are murdered in their Denver home and the family’s teenage twins vanish, the case draws the attention of FBI profilers Helen Belle and Benedict Hoffman. It triggers more than professional alarm. It mirrors a horrific case they investigated five years ago, when a boy slaughtered his family and went mute after speaking only a handful of haunting words. Among them: Midnight Man.
Then, nearly thirteen hundred miles away, one of the twins is found dead in a snowy Ohio field, and the parallels between the past and present cases grow more disturbing. Identical suicide notes. The same symbolic blood imagery. And a shared obsession with an online fantasy game. Its mastermind is an influencer who manipulates his most vulnerable and alienated players into killing the people they love most.
The Midnight Man is back.
Helen and Benedict must hunt the darkest corners of the internet to find him before someone else falls prey to an insidious evil that, for now, is in total control of the game.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Barbara Nickless is the award-winning, WSJ and #1 Amazon Charts bestselling author of nine novels; her first and third series have been optioned for film. A teacher and activist, she teaches combat veterans and civilians in the U.S. and Ukraine. She is a member of the Mystery Writers of America, Sisters in Crime, the FBI Citizens Academy Alumni Association, the World Affairs Council and the Association of Former Intelligence Officers. A former fencer and falconer, Barbara lives in Colorado where she loves to hike, cave, snowshoe, and drink single malt Scotch.
Great interview. I’ve always been a fan and can’t wait to read Barbara’s latest!
Thanks, Brooke. I hope you enjoy! You know how hard it is to send a new book out into the world.
Fab interview! And that line about not needing the devil…wow!!!
Thanks, Marie. Isn’t it always fun to throw some philosophy into our stories?
Wonderful interview! I’m looking forward to reading this one! It’s great to learn the story behind the story!
Margaret, thanks. I agree–I always love to learn what the author was thinking as they plotted their next story.
One of the most compelling thrillers ever, IMO. I was invested in a matter of pages. Thank you, Barbara, for trying to call this menace to peoples’ attention. We really have created Frankenstein.
Thanks, Donnell. It’s so true! And once Frankenstein gets loose …
I’m loving this book! It’s rare that I read a book that I can’t wait to get back to! (I need a pajama day where I do nothing but read!)
Barbara… I can help with the alpinist connection. Give me a shout if you still need someone.
Peg, thanks! I need the same PJ day. Oh, if only. Thanks for the alpinist connection. ❤️