Bottled Lightning follows an elite technology lawyer who finds himself entangled in a web of corporate espionage deep in the heart of bustling Tokyo. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?

When I practiced law, we advised renewable and nuclear energy clients on their cross-border transactions. I started wondering what would happen if someone invented an energy technology that would replace every other type of energy, including oil, existing renewables and nuclear. How would powerful entrenched industry players react to the destruction of their market share? I decided on lightning-on-demand technology after experiencing the power of lightning firsthand in the Florida Everglades while lying on the bottom of a skiff with thunderbolts exploding all around us.

The male international lawyer character arose out of my own experience as an attorney practicing in New York and Japan and the experiences of my son, whose mother is Japanese and who has lived in both the US and Japan. I created the female inventor character based on a composite of very smart technology company founders I’ve worked with over the years, including a woman client with a PhD in chemical engineering.

What is it about Tokyo that made it the perfect setting for your novel?

Tokyo has Blade Runner and Neuromancer vibes, particularly at night. It is also an exotically beautiful modern city with a wonderful skyline. And it’s the perfect city for the urban motorcycle scenes in the book.

Did you plan the tone and direction of the novel before writing, or did it come out organically as you were writing?

Completely organically. I pantsed it, i.e., wrote it by the seat of my pants. It started with the desire to write a thriller with an international lawyer character. Then I needed to decide who the client would be and what her invention was. Then I needed to determine the conflict and inciting incident. Etc. Etc. I struggled with each step in the process. For example, I changed the beginning chapter three times. The first chapter I ever wrote didn’t even make it into the published novel. As many successful authors have said, writing is rewriting and the first draft is for the author whereas editing is for the benefit of the readers.

And since I’m a lawyer by trade and Bottled Lightning is my debut novel, in many ways I had to unlearn my legal writing skills to learn how to write fiction. For example, there is a lot of passive writing in corporate legal writing and that is death in fiction. The general rule is that you must write with an active voice, although there are exceptions. Also, in legal writing, I don’t want to be triggering an emotional response in my clients: Kind of like the old TV show, Dragnet – “Just the facts, ma’am,” if you will. In fiction, by contrast, you want to trigger an emotional response in the reader on every page! And in legal writing, you want to give the client the answer or conclusion up front. You don’t want to make a paying customer wade through pages of discussion to find your advice. In fiction, however, you want to hide the ball all the way to the end, while at the same time leaving breadcrumbs along the way.

​What is the next novel that you are working on, and when will that be available?

A novel about tarpon tournament fly fishing in a fantasyland based on the Florida Keys. The working title is Poontown, based on the nickname (poon) guides and anglers use for tarpon, the best fly rod gamefish in the world, bar none. I’m shooting for the first half of 2026.

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