Brendan DuBois answers questions about his latest novel, KILLER WAVES...

Q. KILLER WAVES is your fourth Lewis Cole novel. Before describing what it’s about, can you tell us something about Lewis Cole?

A. Lewis Cole has been the protagonist in four of my novels: DEAD SAND, BLACK TIDE, SHATTERED SHELL, and KILLER WAVES. Lewis once worked for the Department of Defense as a research analysis in an obscure agency at the Pentagon. One day, during a training mission out in Nevada, he is the sole survivor of an accident that killed his entire section. In exchange for keeping his mouth shut about what happened, the government gave him a pension, a beachfront home in Tyler, N.H., and a job as a magazine columnist. But haunted by what happened to him and his friends, he has a thirst for justice that sometimes gets him into trouble.

Q. And what happens to Lewis in KILLER WAVES?

A. Early one morning, while standing on the rear deck of his home, Lewis notes flashing lights from the state park nearby. A brief walk later, he discovers the local police are investigating the shooting death of a stranger in a rented car, a stranger who doesn’t belong on this tranquil stretch of coastline. Soon the Feds arrive to investigate the case, and they convince a reluctant Lewis to assist them in finding out who this man is and what he was doing near Lewis' home. Based on his own past, Lewis is suspicious of the Federal investigators and who they claim to be, and he soon learns that his suspicions are well-founded. Among other things, some of the leads bring him to a story almost sixty years old, concerning German U-boats interned in New Hampshire after World War II.

Q. German U-boats. Is this true?

A. Yes, it is. After the end of the war in Europe in May, 1945, a total of four German U-boats were brought to the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, up the coast from where my fictional Lewis Cole lives. These U-boats were examined and their cargo taken off. However, part of the cargo from one of these U-boats went missing in 1945, and has not been seen since. That missing cargo -- without giving too much of the plot away -- is the key to the action in KILLER WAVES.

Q. And how did you get this information about the U-boats?

A. From a newspaper article, believe it or not. There was an article some years ago about this particular U-boat, and it clicked with me, that this would be a perfect Lewis Cole novel. So I clipped it out and saved it, and when the time was right, I went right to work.

Q. What else is the book about?

A. In this novel, Lewis is really a reluctant hero. He has bad memories about his experiences with the Department of Defense, and isn’t comfortable working with the government, yet again. But he comes to realize that what he’s working on is important, is almost his duty. And I suppose that was another key to the book: the reluctant hero who realizes that despite his feelings and experiences, he has a duty to see the matter through to its end.

Q. And will there be a fifth Lewis Cole novel?

A. Absolutely. I’ve recently finished the first draft of the fifth Lewis Cole novel, called BURIED DREAMS. History again plays a part in this novel, where Lewis befriends an older man, an eccentric who believes that Vikings once settled, around 1000 A.D., in that part of the Atlantic coastline that would later become Tyler Beach. One night, Lewis finds an excited message on his answering machine: the old man has found Viking artifacts! But when Lewis gets to the man’s house, he finds he’s been murdered and the artifacts have disappeared...