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INTRIGUE STEEPED IN REAL LIFE Local writer covers bases in mystery

March 19, 2007 11:16 am

BY LUCIA ANDERSON

Kim Jones hadn't been at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay more than a few hours before she thought, "There's a book here."

Six years later, the Stafford County author is marketing "The Ghosts of Guantanamo Bay" in bookstores around the region and online at amazon.com and barnesandnoble.com.

"Guantanamo" is a mystery story, set in 1997, before the base became a prison camp for suspected terrorists. The protagonists are a young Marine helicopter pilot and his wife, who stumble onto a murderous puzzle that dates back to the start of the Castro regime.

Oddly enough, Kim Jones' husband, Caleb, was a Marine helicopter pilot during his tour at Guantanamo.

"A writer writes what the writer knows," Kim Jones said with a laugh. "He was my technical adviser."

Readers ask her if she's Audrey, the outspoken wife.

"I'm more like Adam," the pilot who is disinclined to make waves, she said. "I would have thought [some of the things Audrey did], but not said it."

Although the history and the geography in the novel are factual, the plot and characters are wholly the product of her imagination, she said.

"I wanted to create characters who were larger than life so you'd remember them."

One thing that matches reality is the atmosphere on base, Jones said.

"You have so much time to think and not that much to do. An innocuous comment could turn into such an event."

With such a small pool of people with whom to make friends, lines of command got fuzzy, she said.

Many of the problems Adam and Audrey experience in their marriage, in his career and with their neighbors can be laid directly to this inward-turned society.

"You arrive in Gitmo one person, and leave another. That's true," she said.

The mystery, which involves a plan by Cuban casino owners to stash their money where Castro can't get to it, was sparked by her grandfather's tales of gambling trips to pre-Castro Havana, Jones said.

She had wanted to be a writer ever since she was a teenager growing up on Long Island.

"I tried to write earlier in my life. I'd only get a few pages done. I realized I didn't have enough life experience to really know what to say."

Since then she's gone on an unaccompanied trip to Europe after graduating from high school, earned a degree in political science, spent a year abroad studying in Germany and Spain, married that Annapolis graduate, accompanied him to six different duty stations, and had two children.

"Now I have the perspective you need to be a good writer," Jones said.

It took her a while to start on "Ghosts." She had to let the Guantanamo experience settle before she was ready to sit down and write.

"I wanted Guantanamo to be its own character, like Manderley in 'Rebecca,'" Jones said.

She wrote five and six hours a day, while her son and daughter were in school.

"I lived these adventures," Jones said. "When I finished with Audrey and Adam, I was sad. It was like I'd lost a friend."

She wrote the book with the idea of appealing to both sexes. She figured the military history would hook the men, the social intrigue would hook the women. Mystery would appeal to both.

She hid her female identity behind her initials K.R., on the assumption that men wouldn't read a military-related story by a woman.

That worked when she was shopping the manuscript to agents, as well. When she sent it out as "Kim Jones," the book came right back.

When she changed to "K.R. Jones," people started getting interested, she said.

In the end, the Joneses decided to set up their own publishing company. Agents told her the big publishing houses would never publish anything as long as "Guantanamo" by an unknown author, and she'd have to do her own marketing as well. And Caleb Jones had always wanted his own business, so why not?

She hired an editor from Warner Books because "I wanted it to be tight, crisp, to read like a best-seller."

She also hired a graphic designer to create the cover and a publicist to help her sell the book.

The book was published in December, and she had her first book signing in the Pentagon Center Borders Books in January.

Now, in addition to marketing "Ghosts," she's busy with revisions to her second book, which is due the end of the summer.

"The Face Behind the Wall" is a suspense story set in Communist East Berlin.

Jones got her background material while studying at Humboldt Universitat in East Berlin during college.

"I was in the first group of American students allowed into East Berlin," she said. This was in 1991, two years after the wall came down.

"I loved every minute of it. Living in the East, hearing the stories."

She said she thinks God gave her "Guantanamo" so she would no longer be unknown when "The Face Behind the Wall" came out.

"This is the book I was supposed to write," Jones said.

She hopes to be able to keep writing in the future, as long as people keep buying her books. She has story lines for two more books about Audrey and Adam.

"I don't need to be rich. I just need to make enough money to justify spending six hours a day writing."