Hey Alan, huge Caseyhead here; you might remember me as the BourbonBastard on The Caseboards around ~2006-2009 before I got banned (L.O.L.!). Anyway, I know everyone always gives "What I Can't Forget" a lot of crap for being "the weird second book," but I loved it. It really shows how much "The Big Apple" meant to you as a New Yorker.
Reading WICF in the summer of 2002, the part where Casey guns down the terrorist leader and says "this wasn't just for my family - this was for the 3,000," made me cheer out loud. I enlisted the next day - the recruiter outside the school gym loved the book too, LMFAO! Anyway I'm not in the Army anymore (can't talk about it), but I always hoped you'd "return" (pun DEFNITELY intended!) to the WICF espionage style. Maybe Casey faked his death in TSS and has been working for the CIA undercover??? Would love to see it!!
(PS: Hate the movies. I remember getting into arguments with ValKylmr about how Hollywood would never get your books right and it looks like I won. I think that dude's dead now tho)
Hello. Always great to hear from a fan! For legal reasons, all updates about the website went through the webmaster, "DarthVimes", to my agent Barry Wheeler, so I didn't hear much from you guys, but the love was always appreciated!
2001 was a difficult time. It was a wakeup call that bad things could happen in America- and not something so trivial as another murdered wife or a wife-murder spree by a Triad assassin who eats children's eyes. I wanted to express that pain, that desire for vengeance against whatever region did that to my city (New York City).
I'm not proud of everything I wrote back then. My New York Spirit was running high, and I know I crossed some lines in my patriotic fervor- among them ignorantly naming the terrorist cell Casey was hunting down after what I later learned was the largest news organization in the Middle East, all because it "sounded scary". I should have known better. All that being said, I'm glad it inspired you!
I can't promise the return of Alex Casey. He's had a good run, and I intended The Sudden Stop to be his final chapter...I hope this isn't upsetting to hear, but if Alex Casey walked up to me right now, I'd shoot him myself.
As for the movies, I've tried to stay out of discussions about adaptations of my work, but suffice it to say, MCG took his own direction with the story, and I feel like a lot of the nuance was lost. I just wish fans got to see the dream sequences where Casey leapt from lines of blood arcing through the darkness, over and over and over again, on the big screen. Who knows, maybe they'll try again someday!
I am trapped in the dark place. I need help. I need to get out. Help me