Minnesota author Brian Freeman says his newest book, “Thief River Falls,” due out Feb. 1, is “one of my personal favorites.”
Which, of course, is precisely what you’d expect an author or musician or other artist to proclaim while out promoting their latest work. Also, from Freeman, it’s quite the statement. This is the guy, after all, who’s a New York Times bestselling writer; who has spent weeks atop Audible, Kindle, Amazon, and other bestseller lists; who won Best Hardcover Novel at the International Thriller Writers Awards the year after Stephen King took home the same prize; who has been picked to pen the next two Robert Ludlum books featuring the legendary character Jason Bourne; and whose 21 books include series featuring Duluth Police Lt. Jonathan Stride and San Francisco homicide inspector Frost Easton.
Still, after devouring “Thief River Falls,” a reader can easily see what Freeman means. This page-turner has more twists than Duluth’s Skyline Parkway or even San Francisco’s Lombard Street. It’s a helluva journey, and it has an I’m-not-crying, “Shutter Island”-like shocker surprise at the end.
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“(‘Thief River Falls’ is) as close to what I’ve been trying to do with my writing as anything I’ve done in my life,” Freeman said in a recent telephone interview. “I really want to write emotional thrillers, I mean thrillers that really grab you because of what’s happening in the people’s lives. And so ‘Thief River Falls’ really is exactly what I want to do with my books.”
The standalone novel follows Lisa Power, who, a lot like Freeman, is an author of thrillers set in ruggedly beautiful, real places and filled with actual names and landmarks. But, unlike Freeman, Power is “a tortured ghost of her former self” after the deaths of several family members, as Amazon describes her. When a mysterious boy shows up in her front yard, she goes on a mission to protect him and unravel his mystery — even if she can’t seem to get him out of the small town in northwestern Minnesota that gives the book its title.
Freeman has only been to Thief River Falls once, he said, about 20 years ago, when he was writing a freelance article for a Twin Cities business magazine.
“I really enjoyed the remoteness and the drama of the area, and I have to say, I fell in love with the name of the town. There is such incredible romance and drama,” he said. “I kind of filed it away in the back of my head. I wasn’t coming anywhere close to breaking through as a writer back at that point, but I filed away the idea of a book called ‘Thief River Falls.’”
He just needed “the perfect story to go along with the town and the title,” he said. His similarities with Power — from answering the same questions, again and again, at book signings and other author events to how they both see scenes of chaos and mayhem playing out in their minds when looking at places and landscapes — helped push the book toward reality.
“How Lisa sees the world is true of how I see the world,” Freeman said. “There is definitely a lot of my approach to the world in what Lisa has to say.”
But Power’s emotional and mental struggles aren’t his own, Freeman said, reassuringly.
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“Wait until you read the next one; you’re really going to get concerned about me,” he laughed. “For writers, most of the time, they actually learn to really enjoy sharing their universe, these characters and these thrillers. It’s kind of like having a community of friends around you. The reality is that characters like Stride and Frost and the others in my books, they are certainly very real to me, and they’re always kind of right there with me. But to me, that’s not scary. I think it's actually sort of comforting and sort of cool. When I visit the places where scenes in my book have taken place, it gives those settings a completely different overlay from what any other person might see. I can really still feel the echoes of what happened in my books taking place in those settings.”
Plenty of new echoes and settings await Freeman fans in 2020. “Thief River Falls” is only a small part of what’s shaping up to be a monster year.
A new Stride novel, “Funeral for a Friend,” is to be released Sept. 22. Sorry, the author wouldn’t offer any spoilers. He did say, “I love the book, (and) I know it’s been a couple of years since Stride was on stage, so I know that the folks are impatient for his return. … It’s a great followup to ‘Alter Ego.’ As usual, I am putting poor Stride through hell.”
“Deep, Deep Snow,” originally an audiobook, was recently made available on Kindle. A paperback version will be out later in the year.
And the new Jason Bourne novel, “The Bourne Evolution,” is scheduled for release July 28. Freeman is humbled, he said, at being chosen to join a franchise and character beloved by millions around the globe.
“I’ve been a lifelong (author Robert) Ludlum fan, and ‘Bourne Identity’ is one of my favorite books of all time,” Freeman said. “It is a huge responsibility, but it’s the kind of thing you sort of have to put aside while writing. You just have to realize that no matter what you do there will be a contingent that will never be happy. Bourne is such a beloved, iconic character.”
He wrote the Bourne and Stride books simultaneously last summer, switching off weekly.
“It was the most intense creative period I’ve ever gone through, but it was also a lot of fun because the characters are so different,” he said. “I mean, Stride is so intense and in such psychological puzzles, and Bourne is just sort of pure adrenaline. It was a very taxing and tense summer, but it was also the most fun I’ve had writing in a long time.”
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Just as 2020 promises to be among the most fun for fans of Freeman and all his many offerings. That can start with “Thief River Falls,” “a thrilling, nonstop adventure,” according to Real Book Spy, and, “smart, wickedly suspenseful and full of truly shocking twists,” as Edgar-winning author Alison Gaylin said.
Chuck Frederick is the News Tribune’s editorial page editor. He can be reached at 218-723-5316 or cfrederick@duluthnews.com.
