Joseph Reid / Parker Adams
The Lock Box
When an army-vet-turned-safecracker is forcibly recruited to be part of a dangerous heist, she’ll need all her skills to get out alive in this fast-paced thriller perfect for fans of Jeffery Deaver and P. J. Tracy.
The Writer’s Dossier 5/8/2025 – The Joseph Reid interview
DOSSIER: So, even though you’re a patent attorney now, you played with sharks when you were a marine biologist. The irony of two shark-laden careers is not lost on The Dossier, but I’m interested, which profession is more dangerous?
REID: Starting me off with an easy one: it’s dealing with the predators that have no feelings and slice through you with no care for your humanity—lawyers.
Seriously, most people’s fears about shark attacks are overblown thanks to Jaws and Shark Week. The odds of being attacked by a shark are roughly the same as being struck by lightening twice. There are certainly some sharks I fear more than others—my hot take is that tiger sharks are way worse that great whites—but people shouldn’t be afraid of going in the water. And when I was a marine biologist I probably faced more danger of slipping and hitting my head on a boat than dying from a shark attack.
Writing the female lead
DOSSIER: In your latest book, THE LOCK BOX—which has thrilling, non-stop action—Monna Locke is the go-to safecracker in Los Angeles who runs into some big trouble on a job. As an attorney who’s seen a lot of things out there, how did you go about learning to write a female lead character (and an Army vet) with a pretty niche profession? What’s that research look like?
REID: Great question, and I apologize in advance for the long answer.
As a patent attorney, I’m used to doing a lot of research into technology, whether that’s through books or online, and that’s how the safecracker portions of Monna came to be. I had the disadvantage that I was writing the book during COVID, so I couldn’t really travel, but there were lots of online resources about safecracking, famous safecrackers, etc. For example, the Harry C. Miller contest is mentioned in THE LOCK BOX—that’s a real thing, where professional safecrackers get together and test to see who’s the fastest.
As for Monna being a woman, being a vet, and the other parts of her life, it’s like with any character—I talked to a TON of people and tried to find the universal parts of her that I could tap into. I interviewed a series of vets about their experiences in Afghanistan to get that piece. She has some interactions with JAG officers in some flashback scenes, and I know a few of them from my day job.
Writing a female protagonist was definitely a challenge, but one I took very, very seriously. I’m the only male in my house—I have a wife, two daughters, and even all our pets are female, so I felt a special obligation to get her “right.” Then, once I was done with a draft of the manuscript, I enlisted a whole host of beta readers, all of whom were women that shared one or more characteristics with Monna. Mothers. Women who own their own business. Female veterans. I wanted to get as many opinions as I could to try and make sure I wasn’t inadvertently investing her with some inherent bias of mine. And honestly the best compliments I’ve received since the book came out are from women who’ve said I made her believable and realistic.
That glamorous writing life
DOSSIER: Where and when do you like to write? It’s a San Diego beach, isn’t it? Some little boardwalk you’ve found where you can get everything right, right?
REID: Oh if only it were as glamorous as you’ve imagined. How I wish I wrote on a beach chair with a pina colada at my side as the sun went down—that’d be sweet!
In reality, it’s the exact opposite of the scenario you’ve laid out. To balance writing against my day job, I get up at 4am. In the dark, I stumble outside and drive off to my office where I can make noise without waking my family (and there’s limitless coffee). I write there for about 3 hours every day, and then I run home to get changed and take one of my kids to school before serving as a lawyer all day.
Editing is slightly different. I find I can do that just about any time of day, so I’ll do that at night, or if I have spare time here and there through the day. But in terms of writing from scratch, that usually only happens first thing in the morning.
Crimes in the air
DOSSIER: Your Seth Walker series (Thomas and Mercer) features a Navy brat turned electrical engineer turned US Air Marshall. What made you combine those three elements into creating Seth’s character? You’ve published three books in the series, will there be more or are you working on the film rights to LOCK BOX?
REID: Working with a lot of engineers in my day job, it fascinated me how differently they look at the world than I do as a former biologist. They walk into a room and they see wiring and radio waves and things that just never occur to me. So, going into the series, I knew that I wanted Seth to think that way, and to use technology to solve his cases and win his fights. But as I thought about where to set my techno-sleuth, I struggled a little bit. Authors like Connelly and Sandford do such a good job of nailing the places where they live and showing us unappreciated or misunderstood parts of Los Angeles, Minneapolis, etc. But as a Navy brat, I don’t really have that kind of attachment to a single place. I also didn’t want the series to get repetitive, where he might be solving the same kind of crime multiple times in the same place.
As it turned out, I spent a ton of my time in airports and on airplanes for my day job. And I started to think about aviation as a backdrop for crime stories. So many different things happen in & around aviation: smuggling, terrorism, etc. So it seemed like a rich setting that hadn’t been explored as much. But who’d be solving crimes on airplanes? Well, an air marshal.
That’s really how the different pieces of Seth came together.
The Last Word
DOSSIER: Is there anything else you’d like to reveal in your Dossier today? (We like headline-making breaking news and it gives our graphics department something to do other than play video games all day.)
REID: I wish I had a huge announcement to make, but nothing like that yet. I’m 50,000 words into a new book, which will be something completely different than Seth and Monna. It’s an idea I’ve been noodling for a while that resonated with me right now for personal reasons. Once I finish that one, then I can see what comes next for my other characters. But in the meantime, I’m still going to conferences like Left Coast Crime (where we just saw each other) and Bouchercon in September, and doing book events with author friends in & around San Diego.
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