Interview: John Betcher, Author of The 19th Element, A James Becker Thriller

A University of Minnesota Law School graduate, John Betcher has practiced law for more than 25 years in the Mississippi River community of Red Wing, Minnesota.  John Betcher's The 19th Element is part of the "A James Becker Thriller" series.  An additional book, The Missing Element, is also part of this extraordinary series. Mr. Betcher possesses substantial first-hand knowledge of the key to the novels, the Prairie River Nuclear Plant’s real world counterpart, as well as Red Wing’s airport and the flight rules around the nuke plant, thus lending depth to his novels on such topics.

In addition to writing, Mr. Betcher has also been a long-time supporter and coach of youth volleyball in and around Red Wing as well as having authored three feature articles for Coaching Volleyball, the journal of the American Volleyball Coaches Association.

To find out more about John Betcher and  his work, please be sure to visit his website.

Please tell us a bit about your book: The 19th Element, A James Becker Thriller - characters, plot, etc.

In The 19th Element, Al Qaeda plans to attack Minnesota's Prairie River Nuclear Power Plant as a means to return the down-trodden terrorist organization to international prominence. In addition to their own devoted forces, the terrorists enlist two homegrown anarchists, and a Three Mile Island survivor with a pathological vendetta against the nuclear establishment, to assist in the assault.

James "Beck" Becker is a former elite U.S. government intelligence operative who has retired to his childhood hometown of Red Wing, Minnesota – just six miles down the Mississippi from the Prairie River nuclear facility.

Possessing wisdom born of experience, Beck suspects the terrorists' intentions as soon as the body of a university professor turns up on the Mississippi shore – the clear victim of foul play. He recognizes connections between seemingly unrelated incidents – the murdered agronomy professor, a missing lab assistant, an international cell call, a stolen fertilizer truck – but can't piece it together in enough detail to convince government authorities that a larger threat exists. Only his American Indian friend, "Bull," will help Beck defuse the threat.

So it's Beck and Bull versus international terror. May the better men win.

If you could meet, in person, any of your characters, who would it be and why?

I would want to meet Bull. He’s an American Indian with an enigmatic past. I know he has military skills and is fiercely loyal to Beck. But I want to know what he’s been up to for the past twenty years. And most of all, I want to know what makes him tick.

Article Author: April Pohren

April lives in Iowa and is the stay-at-home mom of two young children. An avid book lover since she was able to hold a book, she has fallen in love with blogging and book reviewing. Her own little piece of the world is at Cafe of Dreams where she …

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