Get Lost in Heart-Racing Thrillers with Catherine Coulter

Today I'm delighted to welcome New York Times bestselling author Catherine Coulter. I first fell in love with her historical romances, and then got addicted to her FBI thrillers. Reading one of her books is as much fun as riding a roller coaster!

She has a new novel out with J.T. Ellison, The Lost Key. Here's a blurb and an excerpt:
       In his first hour on the job in the New York field office, freshly minted FBI agent Nicholas Drummond and his partner, Mike Caine, are called to investigate a stabbing on Wall Street. They learn quickly that the victim, John Pearce, is more than the naval historian and antiquities dealer he appeared to be. He's known as The Messenger, but that's where the trail ends. 
      Drummond and Caine must navigate their way through a labyrinth of deadly secrets dating back to an incredible theft during World War I. They're up against a brilliant madman, Manfred Havelock, who will do anything to retrieve what's been lost for nearly a century. Only one person, Pearce's nineteen-year-old son, Adam, a gifted hacker, knows where to look. And he's gone missing. John Pearce's dying words--"The key is in the lock"--set into motion an eleventh hour race to solve the riddle of what key, and what lock, with Havelock one step ahead of Drummond and Caine, leaving mayhem and death in his wake. They must find Adam and stop Havelock before he changes the world forever.

Chapter 1

FBI New York Field Office

26 Federal Plaza

7:25 a.m.

What in bloody hell have I done?

        Nicholas Drummond reported for duty at the FBI's New York headquarters smartly at 7:00 a.m., as instructed. After twenty minutes with human resources, he felt a bit like a schoolboy: stand here, walk there, smile for your photograph, here's your pass, don't lose it. It was worse than the FBI Academy with their strict rules, the uniforms, the endless drills, and more like his training at Hendon Police College with Hamish Penderley and his team.

        The administrative realities of moving from new Scotland Yard to the FBI in New York were decidedly less romantic than the initial prospect had been. Months earlier, Dillon Savich, head of the Criminal Apprehension Unit at FBI headquarters in Washington, D.C., had encouraged Nicholas to make a new home in the FBI, and he'd accepted. It was now the end of May, graduation from Quantico and the FBI Academy two weeks in the past, and he was officially an FBI special agent, and technically at the bottom of the food chain.

        Again.

        Twice he'd done this. The first time he'd left the Foreign Office to work for the Metropolitan Police in London. He'd survived those first days and he'd survive these, too.

        And even better, you don't have Hamish Penderley to ride you now, making you do tactical drills at 5:00 a.m. Zachery's a different sort. So buck up.

        Nicholas knew he should have started out in a small Bureau office in the Midwest, gotten his feet wet, but Dillon Savich had gotten him assigned to the New York Field Office, as promised, working directly for Supervisory Special Agent Milo Zachery, a man Nicholas knew and trusted, with Special Agent Michaela Caine as his partner.

        When they at last issued him his service weapon, he felt complete, the heavy weight of the Glock on his hip comforting, familiar.

        Freshly laminated and now armed, he'd been walked to the twenty-third floor, led through the maze of the cube farm, and ushered into a small space, blue-walled with some sort of fuzzy fabric, the kind Velcro would adhere to, with a brown slab of wood-grained Formica as a desktop. There was a computer, several hard drives, two file trays labeled IN and OUT, and a chair.

        The cubicle was so small he could easily touch each side with his arms outstretched, and that made the tiniest bit of claustrophobia sneak in. He needed more monitors and more shelving and maybe he'd feel at home. Once in the zone on his computers, the close quarters wouldn't be a problem.

        He dropped his briefcase on the floor next to the chair, stashed a small black go bag in his bottom drawer, and took a seat. He spun the chair around in a circle, legs drawn up to avoid crashing. Small, yes, but it would do. He didn't plan to spend much time sitting here, anyway. Part of the deal he'd made with Savich meant Nicholas would be working ad hoc with him at times, running forensic point on cases in Washington. From what he'd already experienced working with Savich and Sherlock and Mike Caine, he was in for a ride.

        A low, throaty voice said near his ear, "Need a bit of sprucing up, don't you think? How about a nice photo of the queen, front and center?"

        Speak of the devil.

        "The queen is hanging happily over my bed in my new digs." He bent his head back to see Agent Mike Caine looking down at him, smiling widely. She was wearing her signature black jeans, motorcycle boots, her blond hair pulled back in a ponytail. Her badge hung on a lanyard around her neck, and her black-rimmed reading glasses were tucked in her blouse pocket.

        "I wonder why I didn't smell you first." And he leaned up, sniffed. "Ah, there it is, that lovely jasmine, like my mum. Hi, Mike, long time no see."

        "Yeah, yeah, all of two weeks since your graduation. So you're all settled in to these new digs of yours? By the way, where are your new digs?"

        He didn't want to tell her, didn't want to tell anyone, it was too embarrassing. Fact was, he'd lost a big argument with his grandfather about where he'd lay his head in New York. He shrugged, looked over her shoulder at several agents walking by. "All settled in. A fairly nice bed in an okay place over there---" And he waved his hand vaguely toward the east.

        She cocked her head at him, and he said quickly, "You look pretty good after being on your own for four months. When can we get out of here?"

        "Champing at the bit for a case already, Special Agent Drummond? You've only been here fifteen minutes. We haven't even had time to go over the coffee schedule and introduce you around. Are we calling you Nick or Nicholas these days?"

        "You know what they say about rolling stones and moss. Nicholas will do fine."

        She looked at her watch. "You're in luck. We've caught a murder."

        He felt a punch of adrenaline. "A murder? Is it terrorism related?"

        "I don't think so. I heard about it two minutes ago. Time to get briefed."

        Milo Zachery joined them in the hall. In his tailored gray suit, white shirt, and a purple-and-black striped tie, Nicholas thought he looked a lot snazzier than Penderley ever had. Slick clothes, fresh haircut. He looked like a big-dog federal agent all the way to his highly polished wing tips. Nicholas knew Zachery was focused, smart, and willing to let his agents use their brains with only subtle hands on the reins.

        Nicholas shook his new boss's hand.

        "Good to see you, Drummond. I'll handle your briefing myself. Walk with me."

        Mike gave him a manic grin, her adrenaline on a level with his, and he was reminded of that night in Paris several months earlier, Mike barely upright, leaning against an overturned couch, bleeding from a gunshot wound to the arm, her face beat up, and smiling. He thanked the good Lord she was here and whole and ready to kick butt.

        Nicholas smiled back and gestured for her to go first.

        "Such lovely manners from the first Brit on the FBI. I could get used to this."

        "Still cheeky, are we? It's good to see that some things haven't changed."

        "Come on, you two." Zachery walked them past his office, down the blue-carpeted senior management hallway, straight out the door and to the elevators. As he punched the down button, he said, "You're headed to Twenty-six Wall Street. Stabbing. The NYPD called us since it's on federal land, so it's our case. I thought it would be a good idea to get Drummond here liaising with the locals as soon as possible. And aren't you two lucky, someone managed to get themselves dead on your first morning. Go on down there and figure out what happened."
        The elevator doors opened and Zachery waved them in. "Drummond, I know you're going to be our big cyber-crime computer-terrorism guy, but we also need to teach you to drive on the right side of the road, get your boots dirty on the ground first." He smiled and clapped Nicholas on the shoulder. "Glad you're with us, Drummond. Welcome to the FBI. Good hunting." He turned, and said over his shoulder, "Oh, yes. Mike, keep him in line."

Meet Nicolas Drummond in The Final Cut, the first in the series, A Brit in the FBI:

To catch the cunning international thief known as the Fox, Scotland Yard's Chief Inspector Nicholas Drummond hooks up with Special Agent Michaela Caine in a deadly high-stakes pursuit. Savich and Sherlock provide the key in this nonstop thrilling chase. 

And check out the latest adventure for Savich and Sherlock in Bombshell.

While on the way to join Agent Dillon Savich's unit in Washington, D.C., FBI Special Agent Griffin Hammersmith gets a call that his sister has been found naked and unconscious, lying in a pool of someone else's blood. 

In D.C., Savich and Sherlock have their hands full when the grandson of the former Federal Reserve Bank chairman is found murdered, his frozen body left near the foot of the Lincoln memorial. Was it revenge against his grandfather for the banking crisis, or something more insidious and personal? It's a bitter winter, and in the endless cold, evil lurks.

Meet Catherine
     Catherine Coulter has written 73 books and has over 70 million books in print worldwide. In 1988, Moonspun Magic, a historical romance, hit the New York Times Bestseller List, and she has continued to hit The List 67 times now. 
     Her immensely popular FBI suspense thriller series with husband and wife team Savich and Sherlock, got its start with The Cove in 1996. The 19th book in the series, Power Play, hit all the top bestseller lists in July. The Final Cut, the first book in her new series A Brit in the FBI, co-written with JT Ellison, became an instant huge bestseller. The 2nd book The Lost Key came out September 30th and promises more of her signature fast paced, edge-of-your-seat action. Critics have hailed The Lost Key as "hair-raising" and "unputdownable." 
     Coulter lives in the beautiful San Francisco Bay area with her husband and three cats -- Cleo, Peyton and Eli. She and her husband love to travel and ski and watch professional football.  She believes the publishing industry today is too crazy not to laugh.
     You can reach Catherine via email. Or find out more about her books by visiting her website or following her on Facebook, Twitter and Goodreads. 

E.E.: What's the first book you remember reading?

Catherine: Tom Thumb, written by my grandmother for me when I was three years old. I sat on her lap and followed her finger while she read. It's never gotten better than that.

E.E.: What was the first story you remember writing?

Catherine: I was ten years old, in love with Little Joe Cartwright on Bonanza, and my books starred my innocent lovable self (in third person, of course) and Little Joe, who saved my beautiful bacon many times. The best moment I remember was robbers chasing a stagecoach, shooting and yelling, and I was flying around on the top, trying to control the runaway horses (remember, I'm ten years old). The book suffered from what is called "The Moving Right Along Syndrome." It was 14 pages long and thankfully, now residing in the ether.

E.E.: What's your favorite kind of story to get lost in?

Catherine: My favorite kind of story to get lost in has Hagrid in it. Also, I'm a sucker for funny, no matter the genre.

E.E.: If you couldn't be a writer anymore, what profession would you take up?

Catherine: If I couldn't, for some odd and bizarre and unacceptable reason, continue to write books, why then, I'd be a hair dresser. I'm that good.

E.E.: Which of your characters would you most like to invite to dinner, and why?

Catherine: My favorite characters? The ones I'd invite to eat tacos with me? That would be Griffin Hammersmith (who's sexier than Tatum Channing), and from the historicals, it would definitely be Jason Sherbrooke. Why? you wonder. Read Bombshell and Lyon's Gate, and see if you don't agree.

E.E.: What's your favorite cartoon character? 
Catherine: Wily Coyote. Someday, someday, he's not going to screw up.

E.E.: Describe an absolutely perfect day.

Catherine: An absolutely perfect day has got to include at least writing fifteen excellent pages, gnashing down yummy Mexican food,  and oh yeah, hitting #1 on the bestseller list. 

Today, Catherine is giving away two autographed copies of her books. Just leave a comment and enter the raffle.

If you could invite any character from a book to dinner, who would it be and why?

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