The Author: E.A. Aymar
The Book: They’re Gone
The Genre: Crime Fiction/Thriller
Lives In: Fairfax
The Story: Two women—Northern Virginia freelance editor Deb Linh Thomas and Baltimore bartender Cessy Castillo—share the role of protagonist as they work to uncover why their husbands were murdered with the same modus operandi on the same night. They are very different women in vastly different circumstances, but their need for the truth draws them together. Through their investigation, the duo must sift through the clues in an effort to keep themselves, and their families, safe from those who harmed their husbands. And while there are all the plot twists and turns that you would expect from the genre, Aymar was looking to turn the thriller category on its head a bit. “There’s a very typical approach to a thriller hero: He’s usually a male, and he’s usually ex-military or something like that; he’s a bit of a sociopath, kind of like Jack Bauer in 24, and I sort of got weary of reading those characters and really wanted to write something where a recognizable female was the hero of the book,” Aymar says of his fourth novel. “So, woman as hero is probably one of the underlying subthemes.”
NoVA Connections: Aymar, who wrote this book under the pen name E.A. Barres, has lived in Northern Virginia since 1992 and was heavily inspired by the traits of those who live in Virginia, Maryland and the District. “How these three regions play off each other and intersect is really what drove me because the inhabitants of each are markedly different and very proud to be [from] where they’re from,” he says. With scenes peppered throughout Fairfax and Arlington, as well as in DC and Baltimore, Aymar contends that his book couldn’t have taken place anywhere else. “For me, location’s a big thing,” he says. “I don’t think the book would be recognizable if I just changed the name of the city and put it in Philadelphia.”
This story originally ran in our March issue. For more stories like this, subscribe to our monthly magazine.