I always ask authors about what inspired them to write their books, and here’s a first: Wellesley’s Jane Pirozzolo got the idea for her international thriller and romance from reading an article in a publication called Marine Technology. Well, that and many Christmas vacations in Key West.
The first-time author and 46-year Wellesley resident’s self-published “The Key West Affair, written under the pen name J.P. Lathrop, “delivers murder, intrigue, and romance when the Navy’s Top Secret Unmanned Underwater Vehicle guidance systems are stolen and traded to foreign powers.” (UUVs are the Navy’s counterpart to airborne drones.)
“The Key West Affair” is the first in a series of Quinn Callahan mysteries that will next venture to Nantucket, “where an underbelly of crime lies just beneath the glitz and glamor of the island’s seaside mansions and mega yachts.”
Pirozzolo says her debut novel was 4 years in the making, with stops and starts along the way. She got an offer from a New York outfit to publish the book, but decided that self-publishing was a better option.
This Boston University graduate has a degree in literature, and her career has spanned working for Boston Magazine, in the trade show business and currently for a financial management firm. She also penned a history of the Italian community in Wellesley, which Pirozzolo says can be found at the Wellesley Historical Society.
She has long been a fan of mystery novels, so it’s not shocker that her first book is in that genre.
And with the coronavirus crisis in full swing, she’s getting work done on 2 other books. One is the sequel called “Pulse,” and another called “Black and Blue,” is a racially charged story about a police officer’s murder.
We wrote a few years back about Jane’s husband, Dick, who released a novel of his own called “Escape from Saigon: A Novel.” I asked if that put pressure on her to crank one out and she says “Not at all. I wrote mine four years before he did. I think he got the idea from ME!”
The next mystery for the Pirozzolos to solve will be when Jane can do author visits for this book. They’d hoped to attend the Nantucket Book Festival in June, but unfortunately that has been shifted to a virtual event due to uncertainty related to COVID-19.
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