SHOWCASE: Web of Betrayal: There's No Hiding in Cyberspace by Clare Price

There’s No Hiding in Cyberspace

The year is 1994, the dawn of the Internet Age, when companies from Silicon Valley to London are fighting to claim the billions to be made on the new information highway. 

Peter Ellis, an aggressive investigative reporter struggling to repair his damaged reputation after being framed for rigging a story, attends the Consumer Electronics Show and learns that a skilled programmer known for cracking secure computer code has mysteriously disappeared. 

Peter’s quest to find the missing programmer unwittingly pits him against a brilliant hacker and deranged killer with an agenda of his own: taking revenge on the man who ruined his life—computer industry luminary David Lockwood—who is now poised to introduce a product that will change the Internet forever. 

As Peter is drawn into the deadly game of betrayal and murder, he is faced with losing everything he holds dear: his career, his one true love, even his own life. Can he find the programmer’s encoded disk—which the holds the key to the killer’s identity—before his luck runs out?

Clare witnessed the birth of the commercial Internet firsthand as a research director with the Gartner Group, the global leader in information technology consulting. As a principle analyst in Gartner’s Internet Strategies Service, Clare assisted many of the world’s biggest technology companies (IBM, Microsoft, Cisco, HP, Sun Microsystems, Oracle) in their bid to make the information highway a reality. 

That experience prompted her to write her first novel, WEB OF BETRAYAL, set in 1994 at the birth of the Internet. Fury is unleashed when a long simmering grudge match between a brilliant hacker turned killer and a renegade tech visionary erupts into murder and betrayal, and a struggling reporter risks his life and one true love to find the truth. 

Clare began writing at age five with her short story, “My Dog Nicky.” In her career she has been a business journalist, tech industry journalist, Internet industry analyst and a VP of marketing for several software startups. 

Clare is an Ohio native and a graduate of the University of California, Berkeley, with a B.A. degree in Rhetoric. She currently lives in Sacramento, California with her two Shetland Sheepdogs, Dan and Toby. 

Visit her website http://webofbetrayal.com

Q. What inspires your writing?

A. Love of story, Love of Characters, Love of Words. 

Love of Story: From childhood I loved making up stories, sometimes even more than reading them. From preschool I organized my family and friends into plays and story games. 

Love of Characters: I love creating a new character but I say I only do part of the work. I may give them a name and backstory but they often create their own story as the book goes along. 

Love of Words: I love the flow of words, how they sound when a sentence really works well. I love using words to paint a picture that the reader can really sink into, that fires their imagination and lets them really identify with the character’s story.    

Q.  What is your favorite thing about being a writer?

A. The creative process of developing a story, a plot and helping my characters come alive. As a new book develops I’m often swept along with the action. My characters own their world and as much as possible I let them run with it. When I start writing I really enter that world and sometimes when I’ve been writing for a long stretch it feels like “the bends” when I come up from writing and reenter the real world. 

Q.  What is the toughest part of being a writer?

A. I would say editing because I have to cut things that I’ve enjoyed writing. There were three chapters in Web of Betrayal that I cut because they were driving the plot in the wrong direction including a really great murder scene. It was painful! But I followed that great writing advice from Stephen King, “Murder your darlings.”

Q.  If you could not be writer, what would you do/be?

A. I’d be a political strategist. I’m a news junkie. I love the gamesmanship and complex maneuvers of political strategy or really most strategic challenges. I guess that’s why I choose to write thrillers. 

Q.  What would the story of your life be entitled?

A. Never Give Up! It has taken me 20 years to get Web of Betrayal published. I kept with it because I believed in this story and eventually rewrote the manuscript five times. I’m really glad I stuck with it to see it come onto the market.   

Q.  What is your favorite book of all time?

A. Gone with the Wind. A classic, epic story, larger than life characters, a historical narrative. Set in a pivot time for the world.  I think I’ve read it at least a dozen times.

Q.  Which character from ANY book are you most like?

A. From girlhood, Nancy Drew. She is smart, independent, skeptical, curious, adventurous and always willing to take a risk. She is out in front not hiding behind the boys like so many stories for young girls used to be (when I was growing, thankfully not now).

Q.  What character from all of your books are you most like?

A. Peter Ellis, the main character of Web of Betrayal, is definitely my alter ego in many ways. I drew from my experiences as a technology and business reporter for many of his life and experiences. I like to believe I share his passion for news, for reporting, and an unflagging desire to find the hidden truth. 

Q.  Which book would you love to take a weekend vacation inside of?

A. The Hobbit. I would have to say that is my second favorite book of all time. It’s full of adventure, heroes and big epic battles as well as good life lessons like self-sacrifice and true friendship. It’s another one that I often turn back to for joy, adventure and inspiration. I would love to have Tolkien’s gift of truly creating a whole new universe for my characters, but I’ve tried writing fantasy and Sci Fi and it’s not my strong suit.  

Q.  What is your favorite season?

A. SPRING. I am an eternal optimist and love to see the earth bloom and the birds sing again after winter.

Q.  What inspired your book cover(s)?  Or what is your favorite book cover and why?

A. I wanted a cover that would invoke the title of the book, Web of Betrayal, and the heart of the story – a man caught in a web. What I love about the way this cover is designed is that we don’t know if the man caught in the web is the perpetrator or the victim. That’s part of the mystery of the story. 

Q.  Are you working on something new?

A. Yes, I’m working on the sequel to Web of Betrayal, called Search. It picks up the main character Peter Ellis 20 years later and introduces two new ones that I’m really excited about. It’s about Peter’s search for a purpose after experiencing great loss and another character’s search for her missing daughter.  I’m at the plotting and character building stage. Just getting to know everyone again.

Q.  Anything you want to say to followers of this blog or those that are just stopping by?

A.  Thanks to everyone who takes a chance on reading new authors just getting started. I hope the new stories we tell will be as enjoyable as their old favorites. I would love to hear from anyone who has read my book or even visited the Website about what they think about the story or the impact it may have had on them.