Tell us a little about yourself.
I’ve been in the working world for 30 years, and during that time I’ve basically held two jobs. I was an officer in the military for 8 years, and the last 22 years I’ve worked in law enforcement. Based on that, it would be easy to imagine my world and all it encompasses. But the fact is, my world and focus are more outside of law enforcement. My job has helped me get all the crime/legal/police procedural stuff accurate in my stories, and I’ve used my knowledge and experience to assist other writers if they have a legal/crime element to their story. But Mm true interest though is in the unseen world, supernatural phenomenon, and spirituality. Those are the circles I keep when not on duty. They tend to be more fun.
Tell us about your most recent book.
In 1998 I interviewed an inmate convicted of one of the most brutal and senseless murders in Florida history. Within the sterile, cinder-block walls of a maximum security prison, a baby-faced, 15-year-old boy recounted that gruesome afternoon.
By all appearances, he looked the most unlikely of killers. He sat in my office with prison blues hanging loosely over his petit, lanky frame. He looked like a boy who should be bagging groceries or stumbling through school hallways hunched over by an overstuffed book bag. But that is not what made this case unique. Forty-eight times he had plunged a knife into the chest of an elderly widow, and even more unsettling was his unwavering insistence that those actions were not of his own will. In other words, he claimed he was possessed.
I worked that job several years and had learned to sift through lies to uncover truth. This young man was telling the truth, or at least what he believed to be true. Furthermore, he had already been convicted, and because he had pled guilty, he had waived his right to appeal. It served no purpose to lie at this point, especially such an outlandish one. He was going to spend the rest of his life in prison, and had no legal recourse to attempt otherwise.
His account haunted me for years. Eventually I went on to do my own research in the subject matter and was intrigued with the possibility that spirits could influence humans to commit crimes, maybe to serve a personal agenda. The research gave birth to ideas and eventually those ideas were shaped into a story.
Who is the villain or antagonist in your story and what is he like?
The villain is a spirit who roams the Earth in search of redemption. He last lived one hundred and fifty years ago, worked as a journeyman, and died a sudden, violent death that left him confused and vulnerable. As soon as he crossed over, he was met by a powerful and wise entity who protected him against other spirits, gave him structure and guidance, and taught him the unseen mechanisms of the world. In exchange for his mentorship, the journeyman is sent on “missions” to cleanse the physical world of wickedness and hypocrisy. The entity marks certain humans for termination, and the journeyman possesses unsuspecting humans and assassinates the marks.
What do you think are the heroic qualities he possesses?
The journeyman is driven, and self-sacrificing. He sees a goal and will stop at nothing to obtain it. He actively pursues his goals with the utmost passion.
Is there any respect between this character and the heroine of your story?
None whatsoever. The villain detests the heroine. She is his latest mark and stands in the way of what he sees as his last shot at redemption for his past misdeeds. But there’s more to it. To him, the heroine deserves everything she has coming her way.
If you could give your character one piece of advice what would it be?
Go to the light. GO TO THE LIGHT.
Well…I suppose it’s a little late for that. He’s so cemented in his beliefs and focused on a singular goal, that there’s nothing anyone could say at this point to influence him.
What kind of antagonist is your favorite?
The best antagonist isn’t determined by the form he or she takes. It’s not about looks or powers or creepy appearances. It’s about their character and what goes on inside their head. It’s about their motivation, their flaws, their personality. It’s about what has molded them into the villain they have become, and how convincing their character is. I want to get to know the antagonist and what makes them tick. That doesn’t mean I’ll like them. Maybe I’ll hate them. Its more that I know what they’re capable of. It means I’ll understand their purpose behind their actions. It gives the story more substance and credibility.
Who is your favorite fictional villain?
The character Sylar played by Zachary Quinto on the TV series Heroes. I loved to hate him. He just wouldn’t die. Also, he wasn’t always bad. He started out okay then evolved into a villain. He was conflicted and at times believed what he was doing was good. He was very convincing.
To you, how important is a good antagonist?
It’s everything. The success of a thriller rests on how well the author develops conflict, and the best conflict comes from an antagonist who is a believable character, no matter what form he/she takes. The audience must be convinced the characters could be real and the plot plausible. If not, the author will lose the readers.
The villain must be 3-dimensional, and by that, there must be a complexity that is innate to all human beings. We all have our image we present to others, but if you pull aside the veil and look into the totality of a person’s life, thoughts, beliefs and decisions, it can become a layered web. To convince the audience that the story is plausible, they must see that the villain believes he is justified in his actions, that events in his past have influenced him and compelled him to present-day actions.
During the course of my career, I’ve worked with every sort of criminal from ax murderers to multi-million dollar embezzlers, and with almost no exception they all felt justified in their actions, at least in their own minds. It doesn’t mean they didn’t know that what they were doing was wrong, but it was a means to an end. Even the most reprehensible and dastardly crimes were justified by reason and logic in the minds of the perpetrators. They could walk you down all the threads leading up to the crime, and there was a “cause and affect” and an order. Of course, that doesn’t excuse what they did, but the more convincing the villain, the better the story.
Title: Unholy Bargain
Author: Travis Holt
Genre: Supernatural Thriller
An assassin is at work—one of the best in the trade. His body turned to dust long ago, but his spirit roams the Earth freely, undetectable to the five senses. He stalks his victims waiting for just the right opportunity. Then, in quick succession, he possesses a human host and strikes down his quarry. For a century and a half he has served this way.
Deputy Sheriff Nate Barrington is riding the crest of a new relationship. Kaitlyn Spencer is beautiful, altruistic, enlightened—everything he’s not. She teaches classes in New Age philosophy at her growing school. Nate doesn’t share her spirituality, but the physical passion hasn’t subsided enough for him to care.
Nate’s nirvana quickly unravels when Kaitlyn’s life is threatened on two separate occasions. With no apparent motive or any evidence suggesting collusion, the police are stumped. Even more troubling to Nate, Kaitlyn is eventually convinced she is the target of unseen forces.
A hardheaded pragmatist, Nate isn’t prone to believe that spirits can possess people. As far as he’s concerned, Kaitlyn’s claims of perpetrators possessed by a spirit assassin are on par with comic book stories and have nothing to do with reality, and her esoteric, New Age mumbo jumbo begins to drive a wedge into their relationship. And why Kaitlyn? What secret is she hiding?
Even with the sheriff’s resources at Nate’s disposal, the odds for Kaitlyn’s survival are not in her favor. The true enemy is virtually invisible, and Nate’s conventional police tactics have no effect on the spirit world. Strikes come from anytime, anywhere, and from random, unwittingly manipulated people. Behind it all is a deal the assassin had made with the devil: send Kaitlyn Spencer to an early grave in exchange for a fresh start. For that, the assassin will stop at nothing to uphold his end of an Unholy Bargain.
Author Bio
Travis Hallden Holt is a former U.S. Navy surface warfare officer and veteran of the Persian Gulf War. He’s worked the past twenty-two years in the corrections side of law enforcement, first in the prison system, then in the streets as a probation officer. He spent three years supervising felons in a south Atlanta neighborhood ranked the ninth most dangerous neighborhood in America, where one in every twelve residents becomes a victim of crime each year.
For years, his interests were in weaponry (both small arms and large scale), warfare tactics, hand-to-hand combat, criminal justice and unsolved crimes. But life has a way of molding perspectives, and Travis came to realize the physical world known to the five senses didn’t have all the answers. It scratched the surface at best. Accordingly, Travis’s interests shifted to supernatural phenomenon, spirituality, the mysteries of life, the invisible world beyond our five senses and the forces that lie therein. He’s still a peace officer, but one who has mingled with psychics, mystics, mediums, energy healers, shamans, gurus, artists and denizens of the “underground.”
Travis is the author of Unholy Bargain, a supernatural thriller published by Blood Moon Publishing. He resides in Atlanta, GA.
Links
http://www.travishalldenholt.com/
B&N: www.barnesandnoble.com/w/unholy-bargain/1121714117?ean=9781771152396&isbn=9781771152396
Kobo: https://store.kobobooks.com/en-CA/ebook/unholy-bargain
Apple: https://itunes.apple.com/ca/book/unholy-bargain/id983792769?mt=11
Double Dragon Publishing: http://www.double-dragon-ebooks.com/single.php?ISBN=1-77115-239-7
Paperback: http://www.lulu.com/shop/search.ep?keyWords=unholy+bargain&type