David Baldacci

You know, how did Frankenstein was created?

And I felt that was a far more sort of impressive way to tell the story than just having, you know, an evil person get their just due at the end of the novel.

And that's really why I ended up writing the second novel, just because of her character.

Look, if you create an extraordinary character, at least for me, to be fair with the reader, you have to give it extraordinary motivation.

You know, where did this thing come from?

And does this happen?

And so I took time to really let readers know this is where this woman came from.

You know, for better or worse, you know, this is what created this.

Yeah, we love what we hate.

I know.

It's a fascinating element of the human mind.

And it shows that we can hold two opposing elements in our mind at the same time.

And that's just humanity.

I don't think AI can do that, but human beings certainly can.

And that was what was so fascinating to me about Nash and Steers' relationship, because both of them, under any other circumstances, would just put a bullet in the other one's head.

But then when you take it to another level and you give it time for the characters to actually get to know each other, then all of a sudden the mind realizes there's more there than just this caricature I had in my mind for this person.

And let me dig a little bit deeper.

The fact is, unfortunately, these days, we're in such a rush to do everything.

We never dig a little bit deeper into people.

We have a label.