A tale worth telling
A true story heard at a party becomes the spark for an author’s 13th novel
Albuquerque author Joseph Badal knows a good story idea when he hears it. And the idea for “The Motive,” the first book in his “Cyclone of Violence” thriller series, struck him when he was at a dinner party.
Badal remembers a doctor-friend at the party pulling him aside and telling him that the doctor’s sister in Hawaii was believed to have committed suicide. “It turned out she didn’t,” he said.
Badal said he immediately left the party to return home and begin writing the manuscript that eventually became “The Motive,” a thriller, with an element of mystery.
Now the second volume in the series is out. It’s titled “Obsessed.”
“The antagonist and the protagonists are going to be the same throughout the three installments,” said Badal, who lives in the East Mountains.
The protagonists are Matt Curtis and his girlfriend — later wife — Renee Drummond. The villain is named Lonnie Jackson.
“I kept the same antagonist because he was such a powerful and interesting character. And it allowed me to create a real revenge motive,” Badal said.
“Obsessed” is mostly set in New Mexico, though the story opens in Rio de Janeiro and closes along Mexico’s northern border.
Badal is a prolific author. “Obsessed” is his 13th novel. He wrote the first 10 years ago. There are two books in the Lassiter/Martinez Case Files series, six in The Danforth Saga series and three stand-alone thrillers.
Badal is already plotting the locale of the next Danforth Saga volume — Italy. He was planning to do book signings in Venice in early June.
“I’ll tour and look into the history. I think the Jewish ghetto would be a super location for a future thriller. I love using a historical component,” he said.
Badal said he’s been inspired by the early thrillers of Robert Ludlum.
“And I really love James Clavell. And another guy is James Lee Burke, though I think Burke gets so bogged down in detail. But his detail is so good you have to admire it,” he said.
Badal had worked as a commercial and mortgage banker in Albuquerque and in Santa Fe. “In my late 50s, I came around to what I really wanted to do — write novels,” he said, “though I knew that I wanted to be a storyteller at a very early age.
“Storytelling was a tradition in our family. My parents told us kids stories before we went to sleep. It cemented the relations of the children: We were the heroes in the stories.”
Badal said he and his wife have pursued the same nighttime storytelling with their children and grandchildren.
The Badals have done that so the next generations in their family would develop an appreciation of storytelling and reading.
Badal has won a number of literary awards. Among those awards are the 2014 and 2016 Tony Hillerman Prize for Best Fiction Book.