Interview: October 31, 2024

DISTURBING THE BONES is a propulsive debut political thriller set in the aftermath of a nuclear weapons crisis. A plot to disrupt a global peace summit in Chicago collides with a civil rights case breakthrough at a mysterious archaeological site. Learn more about the book and how it was written in this interview that Michael Barson, Senior Publicity Executive at Melville House, conducted with the authors: acclaimed filmmaker Andrew Davis and award-winning journalist Jeff Biggers.

Question: DISTURBING THE BONES is a first novel for both of you, Andy and Jeff. But Jeff, you have numerous nonfiction books to your credit already. How did you prepare to write fiction for the first time?

Jeff Biggers: Whether it's fiction or nonfiction, films or theater, every project is about compelling characters, beguiling circumstances and engaging stories that make you want to turn the page. My work has been very narrative-driven in whatever genre, but this novel, as a thriller, was a delight to learn the craft of pacing, dialogue and character development from a film giant like Andrew Davis.

Q: Andy, did you utilize any of your past film projects to provide any of the plot points for this novel? You had quite an archive to draw from.

Andrew Davis: The Package, a Cold War thriller that I did for Orion Pictures in 1989 with Gene Hackman, Tommy Lee Jones and Joanna Cassidy, was certainly a key element in why I wanted to write this novel. The idea of American and Russian Soviet military resisting treaties that would disarm the superpowers was a key element. I wondered how that could tie in to an archaeologist discovering secret weapons bunkers under the ground. Under Siege also had ideas of nuclear weapons winding up in the wrong hands. The pacing and tension of The Fugitive was always in my mind.

Q: Jeff, can you describe the process the two of you had to establish in order to collaborate on the writing of this book?

JB: COVID taught us all that we can collaborate in our homes, through Zoom, Google docs, shared screens and the old-fashioned glory of sending drafts of manuscripts. We worked together on laying out the plot, characters and scenes, the outline of the book, and then went back and forth on writing and editing together. Each person took the lead on their strengths --- for example, be it Chicago and Andy, or southern Illinois and me.

Q: Since this book is both a geopolitical thriller and a murder mystery, keeping it timely was probably one of your main goals. Did you have to change any of the story while writing to accommodate developing current events?

AD: This novel is leaping from the headlines, from a woman presidential candidate who takes on a Trump-like candidate, to the deployment of high-tech weaponry, like hypersonic missiles and laser weapons. We laced in daily themes and news --- and often felt the wild chill of seeing actual scenes from our manuscript unfold before our eyes.

Q: What was the biggest roadblock the two of you encountered while structuring the story as it was first envisioned?

AD: There were no roadblocks, but as this project began as a screenplay and then continued as a novel, we actually felt liberated by the constraints of a film, with its very focused format for writing scenes and dialogue. The novel felt like a big screen production unbound on the page.

Q: Jeff, what surprised you most about Andy’s toolkit as a writer versus his well-known film directing credits?

JB: Collaborating in two provides you with two editors, two sets of eyes, and an immediate partner in shaping, writing and editing the manuscript. Andy's genius as a filmmaker has always been about his powerful storylines, his sense of intrigue and edge-of-your-seat plots, his incredible timing, and his development of characters and their dialogues that haunt you for years.

Q: Do you think you might collaborate again on another thriller in the near future? If so, is there an idea in place yet?

AD and JB: We now turn back to the screenplay for a film, but our characters Molly, the archaeologist; Randall, the Chicago detective; and our international crew of Arkies are hankering for another adventure.