Nightmare Therapy: 
Bringing The Radix to Life
by Brett King

In my world, writing fiction is the perfect job.  I could name a handful of reasons why I’m passionate about writing.  The strangest one, I have to admit, is that I write thrillers to stop the nightmares.

As a kid, I had night terrors.  When I became an adult, the nightmares didn’t stop.

Cheri, my lovely but long-suffering wife, can recount story after story about the nightmares that haunted my twenties and early thirties (thank God we’re both psychologists).  Funny thing happened when I started writing fiction.  The nightmares stopped.  Now, I know what you’re thinking:  this guy is batshit crazy.  I have to admit I’m a little eccentric.  Aren’t all writers?  But here’s the thing:  I’ve come to realize that my twisted brain needs a creative outlet.  When I don’t indulge it with storytelling, my imagination punishes me with dark dreams.  Maybe it’s similar to what John Lennon said:  “Song writing is about getting the demon out of me.”

From time to time over the years, I strayed from writing fiction to concentrate on work as a psychology professor.  The nightmares always returned.  I’m at work on my novels more than ever and I’m happy to report that writing fiction everyday keeps the demons at bay.  You could call it “nightmare therapy.”  Am I normal now?  God no.  My dreams are less terrifying these days, but hopefully my thrillers make up for it.

Based on the nightmares alone, you might think I would write horror novels.  As you know, there’s another King out there who does that and he’s damn good at it.  Instead, I try to make life a living nightmare for the characters in my thrillers.

John Brynstone, the hero in my debut novel, The Radix, is an elite government agent involved in the hunt for a legendary relic thought to possess extraordinary powers.  The hunt for the Radix becomes a nightmare for Brynstone.  In a different way, it draws Cori Cassidy into a nightmare as well.  This is how we meet her on a snowy December night, one that will go down as the most terrifying in her life: 

     Everyone here thinks I’m crazy.  Cori Cassidy knew 
     that’s what the doctors and nurses thought about her.  Even 
     the ward attendants.  She had been admitted to the Amherst
     Psychiatric Hospital five days ago.  Since then, she had 
     talked to a numbing parade of clinicians, all probing her mind
     for clues.  But she wasn’t crazy.  Not at all.  It was her little 
     secret. 

The lives of John Brynstone and Cori Cassidy become entwined as their nightmares become one.  Across continents, they must unravel riddles and ancient mysteries no one has been able to solve for five centuries. 

The heart of The Radix mystery lies in an obscure document known as the Voynich Manuscript.  Unequaled as a book of puzzles, it is an authentic document with distinct “Voynichese languages.”  Housed at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University, it has frustrated a legion of amateur and professional cryptanalysts hoping to unlock its centuries-old mystery.  Either a book of secret codes or one of the most sophisticated hoaxes in history, the origin and meaning of the Voynich manuscript remain shrouded in secrecy.

Brynstone and his team are not alone in their quest.  The modern-day descendents of the infamous Borgia family will stop at nothing to wield the power of the Radix.  At the same time, another organization has sent a nameless assassin to kill Brynstone before he can steal the legendary relic.

I love the world of ideas and as a professor, I tell stories to bring the facts to life.  In my fiction, I use facts to give shape to my stories.  Only a small percentage of my research on everything from the psychology of Carl Jung to Leonardo da Vinci’s sketchbooks actually makes it into the final edit, but it’s almost always an intriguing process of discovery.  Jeffery Deaver called my novel, “A topnotch thriller!  Part Da Vinci Code, part 24, The Radix is roller-coaster storytelling at its best.”  James Rollins added that, “Brett King’s The Radix is a gem of a novel, a thrilling blend of historical mystery and modern intrigue.  Lightning paced and expertly told, here is a debut not to be missed!”

I hope you will enjoy reading The Radix.  Meanwhile, I’m hard at work on the second book in the Radix saga, due in print in early 2011.  I need the nightmares to run free in my thrillers so they won’t haunt my sleep.

For more from Brett King, visit his website.

Buy the book.