JUSTIFIABLE DECEIT

Short Description

Justifiable Deceit follows journalist Tierra Campos and FBI Special Agent Victoria Larsen as they independently begin questioning the official investigation into a devastating school shooting in Brockhampton, Massachusetts.

When Tierra conducts an interview with a prominent survivor turned political activist, she asks several questions he doesn't seem prepared to answer. Her career quickly unravels, and she becomes the target of increasingly dangerous retaliation.

Meanwhile, Victoria uncovers troubling inconsistencies in the original investigation. As the two women begin comparing their findings, they discover that the truth about Brockhampton could have enormous political consequences.

Genre

Justifiable Deceit is a political thriller combining investigative journalism, crime fiction, government intrigue, suspense, conspiracy, and action. The novel features multiple perspectives, overlapping investigations, political maneuvering, and a mystery in which the apparent motives of several characters become increasingly difficult to reconcile.

Inspiration

Justifiable Deceit began as a very different novel titled Home of the Crusaders. In that version, the two main characters survived a school shooting but later found themselves on opposing sides of the national debate surrounding it. My editor at the time hated the manuscript and told me it was not a story. I disagreed—and promptly threw most of her terrible advice in the trash. I did, however, recognize that the novel needed a different direction. That abandoned manuscript eventually evolved into Justifiable Deceit.

The new story grew from a disturbing question: What if someone publicly associated with surviving a school shooting had actually been involved in planning it? To my knowledge, there was no real-world precedent for that premise. Ethan was very loosely inspired by the young activists who have gained national prominence following school shootings, but his story takes that visibility into much darker territory.

I also wanted to bring together an unlikely investigative team: Tierra Campos, a journalist determined to uncover the truth, and Victoria Larsen, an FBI agent bound by the law and the responsibilities of her position. Neither woman was designed to be an effortless “girl boss” who could overcome every obstacle without struggle or consequence. Tierra and Victoria make mistakes, confront their weaknesses, and grow through what they endure. Their strength is earned, as are their successes—and that progression became one of the most important foundations of the novel and the series that followed.

Behind the Book: Justifiable Deceit

• Victoria Larsen was inspired by a friend of mine who works for the FBI. Victoria is entirely her own character, but that personal connection helped me think about how an experienced federal agent might approach the investigation, the politics surrounding it, and her uneasy partnership with Tierra.

• I wanted to portray the gun-control debate without playing favorites or using the novel to impose my own views. The issue is too complicated and emotionally charged for easy answers, so I tried to give each perspective a fair hearing and allow readers to reach their own conclusions.

• Ethan is fictional, but he was inspired by the student activists who have emerged after school shootings. I was interested in the extraordinary influence young people can acquire after surviving a tragedy—and what might happen if the public misunderstood the person standing at the center of that movement.

• Tierra’s experience during the Summerville school shooting was supposed to hit hard. It became such a defining moment in her life that I eventually wrote Narrow Escape to show readers what happened that day and how it shaped the woman she became.

• I love the idea of a news organization that is brutally centrist, which led to the creation of Front Burner. Its journalists are willing to challenge both sides, anger everyone, and pursue the story without adjusting the facts to fit a preferred political narrative.

• Capitol Beat was inspired by the fictional political program of the same name on Aaron Sorkin’s The West Wing. Interestingly, that series had its own continuity issue: the program was initially called Capitol Beat and later became Capital Beat.

• Wilson Newman is the aging anchor whom nearly everyone still respects. He represents an older model of broadcast journalism—measured, authoritative, and trusted because his reputation was built over decades rather than through outrage or viral moments.

• I wrote Alicia Standish as a deliberately complex character. She genuinely wants to do the right thing, but she is also politically ambitious. Her challenge is reconciling those two impulses when justice, public pressure, and her own future no longer point in the same direction.