PW: In Flint's Law, Grace Flint's tear-away pursuit of her adversaries brands her as a rogue operative, as did your previous novel about her. Is it actually possible for individual agents to mount solo investigations as she does?
PE: Yes. Obviously, this is fiction, but it's very much based on women I know who tend to push the barriers. You can do quite a lot if you know how to manipulate the system. There are some cops who behave exactly by the book and some who don't, and it's the ones who don't who tend to get things done.
PW: The genre of espionage thrillers is usually male dominated. Why did you make your protagonist female?
PE: The chief answer is that women are more interesting than men. The cop culture and intelligence culture are so male dominated that in order for women to succeed in it, they have to get through that glass ceiling—they have to be better than the men to get there. I like the idea of seeing Flint struggling in that environment, and prospering. Otherwise she would have been just another macho cop. I also like the idea of continuing her character, of developing her life. My intention is to take her through to age 55, so she's still got 20 years to go yet. That gives us the opportunity to explore what's unique to women, like pregnancy, menopause, breast cancer scares and other things women face and which can make their careers even more difficult.
PW: Is the Financial Strike Force that Flint belongs to based on an actual agency?
PE: No, it's not. It's one of those fantasies that cops who work in anti—money laundering have. They'd love to see something like this.
PW: Agencies that impersonate money-laundering operations run the risk of becoming part of the problem rather than the solution. Is there an alternative method of combating this kind of crime?
PE: The first line of defense against money laundering is the banks and other financial institutions. If they would abide by the very simple rules they're supposed to abide by, they would certainly cut a lot of it out. The problem is, however, that the banks don't follow the most basic rule of all, which is know the customers—i.e., identifying precisely who they are, what the sources of their funds are, and watching for changing patterns.
PW: Given the international scope of Grace Flint's operations, it seems as though she'd garner quite a multinational following. Has this been the case?
PE: It's in about 20 countries so far. She's been very well received in France, Italy and Germany, and she's just come out in Denmark. She's coming out in the Czech Republic, Poland, Japan, Israel, Spain, Portugal.
PW: Will Grace Flint make the transition to the big screen?
PE: Yes. Columbia bought rights to Flint very early on. They had a screenplay that I never saw and that they didn't like, and then Catherine Zeta-Jones read Flint and expressed an interest in playing her. At that point, they brought in an A-list writer who's supposedly writing a screenplay now.
