Do You Want to Know a Secret?

  I can't resist. DRIVE TIME is now available! 

 And Library Journal just gave it a starred review, saying in part “Placing Ryan in the same league as Lisa Scottoline…her latest book catapults the reader into the fast lane and doesn’t relent until the story careens to a stop. New readers will speed to get her earlier books, and diehard fans will hope for another installment.”

 

 

And although  DRIVE TIME's main plot is--amazingly--about automobile recalls, at the core, it's all about secrets. And that maybe the biggest secret is knowing when to tell.

Can you keep a secret?

 

Okay, I see you all leaning forward...she’s going to tell us something big, you’re thinking. A secret.

And yes yes yes, we can keep it.

 

Really?

 

What if—all you had to do was tell, and it would change your life? Would keeping the secret as you promised be more important? Or would you be tempted…

 

What if—all you had to do was tell the secret—and you would be a huge success?

 

And what if—you really thought telling my secret would make someone else’s life better? Would it be more important to keep your promise to me? Or to tell for the greater good?

Okay, I don’t have a secret. (Not that I’m going to tell you today, at least.) But secrets are at the heart of mystery, and certainly at the heart of romance. Right?

 

How many times have you wondered just how much you can really share—or SHOULD really share? If your loved one asks: “can you keep a secret”-- what do you say?

 

And if you know a secret do you tell your significant other? When you say—oh, I’ll never tell—does he/she count?

 

And it’s not just in your personal life, of course. How about on the job? As a TV reporter for the past 30 years, keeping things confidential is the hallmark of my work. There are things I’ve been told that I can never reveal. Sources have divulged documents and reports and financial information and medical info, but where it all came from, I can never tell.

When you hear some juicy gossip at work…and you know you’ve got to keep it confidential—can you do it?

 

And  what happens when the secrets of your personal life (and we all have them, including my main character TV reporter Charlotte McNally) and the secrets of your professional life (and we all have them, including Charlie McNally) are coming together on a deadly collision course?

 

May I give you an excerpt from DRIVE TIME? Here, Charlie and her brand new fiancé are asleep in  Josh’s bedroom. At least, Josh is asleep. At age 47, Charlie is wondering what her life will be like when she leaves her home on Boston’s chic Beacon Hill and moves in with her prep-school professor husband.  And then—it turns out Josh is having a difficult night, too.

 “Sweets?” Josh whispers. “You asleep?”

“Not one bit,” I say. “I’m trying, but not terribly successfully. My brain won’t turn off. Nor will the rest of me, thanks to you.” I turn to face him, eyes open again, smiling with possibility, glad for a good excuse to be awake. I’ll just be tired tomorrow.  It’s happened before. I expect Josh to reach out for me, but his expression is—concerned? And why are his glasses back on?  My Josh-radar pings into the red.

“What?” I ask. “What’s wrong?”

“Can you keep a secret?” he says. He’s still on his back, hands clasped over his chest, head turned to watch me.

I sit up, yanking the comforter over me, and twist around to look down on him, assessing. Can I keep a secret? What kind of a question is that?

 “Um, keeping a secret, that’s the reporter’s credo, right?” I smile, trying for adorable-cheerful. Maybe I’ve misread his mood. I squint at the digital alarm clock. It’s hard to be perceptive at 3:34 AM.  “Confidential sources stay confidential?”

(( Josh tells Charlie she has to keep this to herself—but there have been some threatening phone calls coning in to he school where Josh teaches.  Charlie’s an investigative reporter for a Boston TV station, and she thinks this could be a big story. Josh says his boss ordered him not to  tell any one. But he’s trusting his new fiancée..))

 “I don’t agree with him, but he’s the boss. “ Josh says.  “And that’s why I asked you about keeping a secret. You can, right?”  

Silence has never been so noisy. How do I answer that? For the past twenty years, my loyalties have been only to journalism. I stare at my engagement ring again. Somehow, now, the glitter contains a bit of a taunt. Who’d have imagined a continental divide in the middle of a king-sized TempurPedic?

“I’m just thinking,” I begin. “It’s my responsibility as a journalist to investigate what people are trying to hide. Right?”

Josh’s turn on the tightrope. Are his loyalties to me? To his boss? This is a discussion we’ve never needed to have. Now we’re having it in the middle of the night, naked, and when I kind of have to go to the bathroom.

“Wrong,” Josh says.

I shiver, though it’s not cold. I need to let him continue. I need to hear this.

“Wrong,” he says again. “Because it’s your job to—to wait. Until you have all the facts. And we don’t have any facts. I told you something in confidence.”

He turns to me, face softening, then picks up my hand, twisting the diamond on my finger. “We’re not source and reporter here, sweets. We’re almost husband and wife.”

He’s right. But I’m right. Is there a right?

 

In DRIVE TIME, Charlie is torn between her loyalties to her fiancé, her new daughter, her job, her career, her future and her dreams…can Charlie really have it all? Can anyone? And perhaps, as DRIVE TIME explores—maybe the real secret of a secret—is knowing when to tell.

 

So—when is it right to tell a secret? Ever? Are you faithful as a tomb when it comes to keeping our mouth shut? Have you ever told a secret—and regretted it? Have you ever KEPT a secret-and regretted it?  

And pssst...Happy Valentine's Day!

Comments

[Karen in Ohio]

Fascinating premise, Hank! And happy V-D to you, too!

For some reason people--mostly men--have told me secrets since I was in high school. When Terry told me he and his friends were the ones who overturned the headstones in the cemetery where my grandfather was the sexton, I didn't tell. But I also told them to stop doing it, that it made extra, and difficult, work for my grandpa, and if they wanted my friendship I'd best not hear about that kind of stuff happening again. (It never did. I was amazed.)

Do you ever read the Sunday PostSecret posts? Every week I think about what kind of secret I would share on a postcard, and there is only one. But I'm hanging on to it. It is the core of a plot premise I hope to eventually work into a novel. It has to do with revenge, which in this case will be served ice cold, but no less satisfying, I hope.

[Elaine Viets]

When I was a reporter, Hank, people told me secrets. Very personal things about their lives and their marriages. I didn't want this information, but I never told.
Congratulations on "Drive Time."

[Mary]

Congratulations on the new book, Hank!

Sounds like Charlie's got a lot on her plate. This idea of different loyalties and how to handle them is such a good one, for any kind of fiction, especially mysteries. Creating conflict for my characters is so tough. I know they need it, but it's so hard when I want them to have a sweet happy life. :)

[Dana]

Congratulations on DRIVE TIME, Hank, and the wonderful, wonderful starred review!

[krisneri]

DRIVE TIME sounds great, Hank! I can't wait to read it. Major congrats on the starred review!

[Hank Phillippi Ryan]

Thanks, gang. One of the true pleasures of this whole thing is being here with you.

Karen--what's the Sunday PostSecret posts? (And hmm..I have heard there are some people who attract secrets..you may be one of them!)

[Karen in Ohio]

Hank, you must see these, they're amazing:

http://postsecret.blogspot.com/

The Sunday Secrets are posted weekly. I'm thoroughly addicted to them, and cry and laugh every week.

[Hank Phillippi Ryan]

Oh, going right now! Thanks! xo H

[Hank Phillippi Ryan]

Wow. Amazing. Thank you! (I think..) Hooked!

[Sunnymay]

As a nurse, people share a lot of stuff they fail to tell those close to them. I'm always being told secrets at work and in everyday life. One time, I figured out my cousin was pregnant just in her voice on the phone. She swore me to secrecy and I kept my mouth closed until she had spread her own good news. Listening is almost a lost art, since most have their own agenda with points to make like politicians being interviewed. I like to ask multiple questions and see their points of view. Many people keep secrets even from themselves.

[Jan]

The two men in my life (both deceased) each told me a secret. I would never tell their secrets because it would cause people to think differently about them. . . and people aren't on the same wave-length in general and may misunderstand, so it would not be right if I told their secrets anyway. I have only just heard about you from my girlfriend finding your books, I can't wait to read them. Blessings, Janet