Pat McKee studied at Presbyterian College, Georgia State University, and Emory University School of Law and later founded the law firm McKee & Barge, where he represents educators and educational institutions. Always a lover of the written word, Pat decided in 2010 to enroll in the Masters of Professional Writing Program at Kennesaw State University where he combined his legal knowledge with imaginative storytelling to craft his debut legal thriller, the futuristic Ariel's Island.
In the book, attorney Paul McDaniel is framed for the murder of a judge and enlists the help of Ariel, a female-presenting AI program, to clear his name. Yet Ariel's lack of a moral code and Paul's inability to guide her result in disaster as Ariel changes from an able assistant to something far more sinister. What will happen when Paul puts his trust in technology? And will he survive when his emotions combine with an already volatile mix?
Ariel's Island takes the reader on an odyssey that reinterprets Shakespeare’s The Tempest, by way of modernizing the classic tale of Prospero, a castaway sorcerer, the spiteful creature, Caliban, and Ariel, the air spirit. The book blends literary mythos with contemporary issues, all set within a future time period that may arrive soon – or may already be here.
Pat stops by In Reference to Murder today to talk about researching and writing the novel:
My first work of fiction, Ariel’s Island, is a legal/techno thriller inspired by Shakespeare’s Tempest. A young lawyer is framed for the murder of a judge, and he enlists an artificial intelligence program to help him clear his name – so you can tell right away there were multiple directions I would need to pursue research. The real challenge was to resist my inner (and dominant) nerd qualities, not spend all my time chasing arcana, and get some writing done!
So, quickly to lay to rest the part that came easiest to me, the legal stuff: Because I am (still) a practicing lawyer and have been so for over 40 years, I didn’t need to do much research in that area. As the protagonist states at one crucial point in my novel, “Being a lawyer has many benefits. One, not so evident, is that a lawyer’s mind is filled with obscure data which often comes in handy at the most opportune times, such as the knowledge that flight plans of private jets are public information . . .” (I did have to look that one up.) But for the most part I relied on my experience built over decades of litigating cases big and small, from federal courts in major cities to magistrate courts in rural communities, and on my knowledge of the inner workings of law firms – again as my protagonist observes, “a major law firm is no different from law school, the closest thing to swimming naked with great whites one can do on dry land.”
On the other hand, I am completely out of my league concerning the technical aspects of artificial intelligence – or anything else to do with computers for that matter. (I am able to operate this word processor, but don’t try to get me to explain how it works.) Writing about technology presents a more literary challenge than merely understanding how it operates; almost any specific technology one writes about is obsolete before your novel is published – a lot like seeing flip phones in a movie that is more than a few years old. While there is the temptation to put your hard-won knowledge about technology on the page – so many gigabytes about this and so many terabytes about that (and maybe bend toward the sci-fi genre than is otherwise intended) – I decided to describe the technology in my novel mostly by indirection. As when the protagonist is confronted with the computer setup of a GBI agent trained in electronic surveillance, he remarks: “Agent Grey took me inside and opened a pair of doors that appeared to be a hall closet, but instead revealed a small room with a desk, server, large flat screen monitor, and laser printer – all the latest equipment, newer even than what I had at the firm. Agent Grey rattled off some computer-geek talk about how fast and good it was, but as far as I was concerned, he might as well have been speaking in tongues.” In so doing it is my hope that the technology in my novel won’t seem so futuristic as the latest sci-fi magazine nor so soon become as out of place as having a teenage character refer to MySpace.
Where I let my imagination truly run and unloosed my desire to research down every obscure rabbit trail is in the connection of my novel with Shakespeare’s Tempest. I indulged myself with multiple readings and numerous performances of the play, then dove into the secondary sources, thematic analyses, historical investigations – most of which, I must admit, were more enjoyable than productive of words on the page. In the end, it was still Prospero’s final scene – one that convinced scholars that the wizard is a stand-in for Shakespeare himself – that inspired Ariel’s Island. Here Prospero frees the spirit Ariel and gives up his magic to travel back to Italy and claim the Dukedom of Milan. And it is his act of freeing Ariel that is the impetus of the novel: What happens when an all-powerful spirit without a moral compass is loosed upon the world? No amount of research can help answer that question; in the end, it is all up to the imagination.
You can learn more about Pat McKee and Ariel’s Island via his website, or follow him on Facebook and Instagram. Ariel’s Island is available today via all major booksellers. (Note that some of the book launch events listed on his website may have been postponed or canceled due to coronavirus precautions, so check with the hosting organization first.)
