Countdown to

Breaking Point

6/12/05

30 days (and counting to Breaking Point, in stores on July 12th)

Cast of Characters

Note from Suz:  Welcome to the first countdown page for Breaking Point.  Join me here on my website each Monday through Friday for a short (or long! <g>) excerpt, for photos, reviews, musings, recommended reads, trivia quizzes (with cool prizes!) and other potentially interesting ways to pass the time until Breaking Point's July 12th release date!  

(Special note:  I realize that some readers don't like to read excerpts -- I'll be including a special "excerpt buffer" on the days that I post an excerpt, so that those readers can enjoy the countdown, too!) 

Traditionally, we start the countdown with a list of characters who appear in the coming book.  

And oh, yeah, POV characters are highlighted in ORANGE.  (Click here if this makes you go "Huh?")

Breaking Point's Cast of Characters:

From Max Bhagat's FBI Team:

Max Bhagat -- Our hero.  The head of the FBI's top counterterrorist team, Max has a reputation for being impeccably dressed and unflappable under pressure.  He only loses his temper when the microphones are turned off and the doors are closed.  And then, watch out!  Grown men have wept at the force of his death glare.  Max hasn't slept much in the years since he failed to prevent the brutal rape of a college student on board a hijacked airplane.  He's not sure how he let it happen, but somehow that young woman, Gina Vitagliano, got completely under his skin.  In GONE TOO FAR, despite years of trying to keep his distance, Max's legendary willpower crumbled, and he and Gina shared a night of passion that scared him to death.  He's been running -- hard and fast -- ever since.

Jules Cassidy -- Jules puts the fabulous in FBI.  A gorgeous twenty on a scale from one to ten and quite possibly the funniest, sweetest guy in the world, but sorry, ladies, he's not just gay -- he's out and proud.  He's also best friends with former FBI agent Alyssa Locke.  Unswervingly loyal to Max, Jules is up for a well-deserved promotion in Breaking Point.  

George Faulkner -- One of the newer additions to Max's team.  He first appeared in BODY GUARD as FBI agent Harry O'Dell's partner, and then joined the legendary counterterrorist team in OUT OF CONTROL.  

Peggy Ryan -- One of the top leaders in Max's team.  

Laronda -- Max's extremely capable administrative assistant.  Max found Laronda in the typing pool eighteen years ago, and has brought her with him each step he's climbed up the leadership ladder.

Deb Ehrlanger & Joe "Yashi" Hirabayashi -- junior agents

From AIDS AWARENESS INTERNATIONAL (AAI):

Gina Vitagliano -- It's been years since she was held hostage and assaulted by terrorists on a commercial airliner, and she's working hard to move past the trauma of those hellish days.  Strong and tough, Gina is a Long Island girl -- a New Yorker, through and through.  A beautiful, real-sized woman with Sophia Loren curves, Gina's the only daughter in a big Italian American family.  She's spent the years since surviving the hijacking trying to find a job that will bring meaning to her life -- a life still haunted by terrible violence.   For well over a year now, she's lived and worked in a remote part of Kenya, Africa, as part of a group of volunteers whose goal is to teach AIDS prevention around the world.

Molly Anderson -- Gina's tentmate at their Kenyan AAI camp.  Molly met Gina via email, through a mutual friend -- Navy SEAL Chief Ken "WildCard" Karmody -- and the two women hit it off immediately.  Molly's description of her life in the camp -- working to educate Kenyan women and children about AIDS and other health issues -- made Gina interested in volunteering, too.  Molly has spent most of her adult life serving others.  Prior to Kenya, she lived and worked in Indonesia, where she met and fell in love with an American ex-pat with the obvious alias of "David Jones."  Their affair ended with mistrust, betrayal, and ultimately sacrifice...

Sister Maria-Margarit -- In charge of the nuns at the Kenyan AAI camp, nick-named "Sister Double M" by Molly and Gina.

Other Players:  

Grady Morant -- A former Special Forces NCO and American ex-pat, it's been years since he's set foot in the United States.  He sometimes uses the alias "David Jones," among others...

Chai -- An Southeast Asian druglord who put a price on Grady Morant's head, dead or alive...

Colonel Ramelan Subandrio -- Another old "friend" of Morant's.

Victor Vitagliano -- Gina's brother

Debra Forsythe -- One of the nurses at the Sheffield Physical Therapy Center in McLean, Virginia, where Max went to rehab after being shot in GONE TOO FAR.

Ajay Moseley -- A patient at Sheffield Physical Therapy Center.  14 years old, he survived a terrible car accident, and has been working to regain some use of his badly burned hands.

These are obviously not all of the characters in Breaking Point.  You'll see glimpses or get mentions of other Troubleshooters regulars in the book, too.  (You don't want me to give everything away, do you?)

Blast from the Past:  Here's what I wrote about some of these same characters in countdowns for other books:

From the OVER THE EDGE Countdown:  

Gina Vitagliano -- Age 20, from Long Island, New York.  Touring Europe with her college jazz band -- all of whom are aboard the hijacked plane (in OVER THE EDGE).  (Interesting note from Suz:  I must've have created my countdown page from my outline and character notes.  Fact is, my editor was nervous about Gina being so young, so in the final draft of the book we aged her a year so that she was 21.)

From OUT OF CONTROL Countdown:

Jones -- Claims his first name is David, he's clearly using an alias.  An American ex-pat black marketeer and smuggler living in Indonesia, he's got squatter's rights on an old airfield built by the Japanese back during WWII.

Molly Anderson -- In Indonesia as part of a Heifer Project type mission, Molly lives in a remote village on Parwati Island -- just a few miles down the trail from Jones's airfield.  

Note from Suz:  POV is writer's code for point of view.  I use something that I call "deep point of view" in my books.  This means that I get deep inside of the characters' heads and tell the story through their eyes, using their voices -- their words and thoughts -- as well as their interpretations of various events.  I stay in one single character's POV for each scene in this book (and in other books in the TS/Team 16 series, too).  But I do get inside a number of characters' heads to tell Breaking Point's story.  Those characters' names are highlighted in orange on the list above.  (Back to top)

That's all for now!  Be sure to come back for tomorrow's installment in the Countdown to Breaking Point!

(Note from Suz:  I'm going to try to post each new day's countdown page before noon eastern time.  Please be patient if I'm a little late...)

See you tomorrow!