Mackay Barr - Gritty Crime Thriller

Mackay Barr is a United States Army Veteran, who served as an Infantry Officer in Afghanistan. A dedicated entrepreneur with a passion for business and outdoor life, he spends his free time enjoying the woods and mountains with his family. They currently reside in Alabama with any number of rescue dogs wandering their serene homestead.  As our Author of the Day, he tells us all about his book, The Lady in the Red Dress.The Lady in the Red Dress deals with human trafficking and the exploitation of women — topics most people shy away from. What made you decide to confront such brutal subject matter head-on?Trafficking is the greatest evil of the last century if not longer. No matter where you are on the religious or political spectrum we can all agree that human trafficking should be stopped. My hope is that literature like this will bring awareness and a desire to fight to the forefront of the readers mind. This isn’t a story about a prostitute with a heart of gold or a brilliant private investigator. It’s a story about a resilient victim that becomes stronger because of what has been done to her. Marion Gamble is not a PI that is brilliant, he’s a PI with a flawed moral and ethical compass, just like the rest of us. He acts on the darker thoughts you, as the reader, have in the back of your mind when you’re thinking just kill him.The novel dives into the underbelly of pay-by-the-hour sex work, surveillance, and organized violence. How much of this world did you research, and how much did you build from imagination?My wife and I have been involved with a number of non-profits in the past that combat trafficking. Some of the stories throughout the series are real life stories I garnered through interviews with victims. A portion of this was from what I have seen personally, either in the private security world or as a military officer. And of course some of it is just my imagination.Trust — or the lack of it — runs through the book. Did you always know the investigator and the escaped woman would form this reluctant bond, or did it evolve as you wrote?I never know any of my characters when I start writing! They build themselves as the book types its way into existence. The original story in my mind was very different than what came through on page. I didn’t know what type of bond they would develop until the characters started to come to life.Darkness follows both main characters. Do you see them as survivors, or as people shaped into something darker by survival itself?This is really a question for all 5 books of the series. Throughout the series the woman’s character becomes darker and stronger with each book; . The private investigator doesn’t become darker, but his darker past gets revealed. Honestly, in the first book you really only get a taste of the anti-hero nature of him.The investigator isn’t squeaky clean — his “sketchy past” raises as many questions as it answers. Was writing a morally grey character more liberating than sticking with a classic “good guy” PI?There are things he will do in the series to make readers ask the question “is he the good guy or the bad guy?” He needed to be the dark spot in the readers mind. Doing things you secretly and deeply wanted him to do, but that a quintessential “good guy” isn’t allowed to do.If this story were adapted to film or series, what actors could you see embodying the PI and the escaped woman?I’ve thought about this one a lot as I wrote it and tried to envision the characters. If the choice was mine it would have to be two unknown actors. Big names might draw a crowd but they also bring with them preconceived character development, that I don’t think would fit here. When my horror novel They See releases next year I’ll have a different answer for you.As a veteran, you’ve seen human depravity in war zones. Did those experiences bleed into how you wrote the raw violence and psychological toll in this book?I don’t think any combat veteran can honestly say, that what they’ve experienced hasn’t influenced every facet of their life. In this case I would say it allows me to connect on an emotional level that hopefully makes the reader feel the characters on a deeper level.Writing about trafficking, contract killers, and survival isn’t light work. Did this story weigh on you emotionally, and how did you decompress while writing it?I couldn’t sleep for three weeks. I woke up every night at 3am and started writing. Every night I wrote more fell asleep for a few hours and started again. It was a story that I had to get out once I started telling it. I wrote the rough draft in those 3 weeks and at the end of it I had a very rough manuscript, and was finally able to decompress from the story and get a good nights rest.You write in a way that blurs the line between thriller, noir, and survival story. Was that intentional, or did the book just refuse to stay in one genre box?I started writing the book to be a psychological thriller. It turned more into a story of survival, love and a general thriller. It didn’t seem to matter what my mind wanted my fingers continuously typed out something different.Human trafficking is a very real, ongoing epidemic. What do you hope readers take away from this story beyond the thrill of the chase?My hope is this will bring awareness to the very real victims that don’t get away. Start researching it and figure out how you as the reader can help fight the greatest evil of our modern world. There are local non-profits that are desperately looking for help, resources and financial support that can help guide those wanting to help combat this very real, very prevalent horror.Do you think fiction like this can shake people awake to realities they’d rather ignore?That is truly my hope. The novel has a substantial trigger warning at the beginning. I need the images to be shocking and dark. I wrote this with the intention that readers can absorb the book on two levels: the surface level of the story, and a deeper level of awareness. My greatest hope is that you’ll sit in a coffee shop discussing with friends the concepts presented here rather than the book itself, so that we can bring about real change.What’s next for you as a writer - do you plan to continue in this gritty crime-thriller space, or do you see yourself tackling other themes?Over the next 9-12 months I will be finishing this series, with a horror novel debut next year. Afterwards I have a 3 book psychological thriller to get out on paper. I do have the concept for one drama and one fantasy that I would like to write but currently I’m focusing on thrillers and horror.