Steven Gore has had to walk a fine line in his life's work.
So when the Bay Area-based veteran private investigator decided to write books about what he's encountered, he had to exercise caution.
"First, I tried to write nonfiction … but so much of what I do is confidential. … The most interesting stuff is the most privileged stuff."
Which certainly means it shouldn't make its way to bookshelves. So Gore changed his plan.
"I gave up on that and decided I would write fiction. … Fiction was just a safer way to go."
And though he's spent most of his career trying to stay out of the public eye, Gore took time for a telephone interview with the Deseret News about his new series of novels featuring fictional private investigator Graham Gage.
"I just wanted to show people … how these kinds of people (private investigators) think and the kinds of things they do," Gore said. "I surprised myself because I didn't think I had the talent for it."
But Gore feels his time in the field is helpful in the creative process. He says he is at the tail end of a few cases he's working on.
"I find that my writing is better if I'm kind of out there sometimes."
Insisting on the fiction angle, Gore states on his Web site (stevengore.com) that he is "not Graham Gage." But, he says, he has worked in the places where Graham Gage works and associated with the white-collar criminals, gangsters, federal agents and law enforcement allies similar to whom Gage faces in "Final Target."
"The characters are the kinds of people I've confronted or worked with," Gore said, adding that no character is a real person, but rather a composite of many people he's come across.
The events in Gore's novels aren't completely real, either. But they're not what run-of-the-mill private investigators deal with, and Gore wants readers to know about that.
"Private investigators do more than following spouses," Gore said. "There's this whole other world."
That world, for Graham Gage, includes stock fraud, sensitive secrets regarding defense technology, threats to national security — and many lives in danger.
"I wanted to expose other readers to that," Gore said.
He also wanted to expose readers to other challenging aspects of his field, particularly working in other countries. Gore has worked in France, Ukraine, China, India and Pakistan, among other places.
He cites the cultural challenges as a major stumbling block with which private investigators must deal, giving the example of someone he worked with in India who believed certain classes of people were "untouchable."
Gore also spoke of widespread corporate fraud and corruption in law enforcement, which he says "still bother(s) me."
Gore counts British author Graham Greene and crime-fiction writer Ross MacDonald as chief among his influences. He calls Greene, who worked in British intelligence, the "best thrill writer ever." He added that Greene had said a "feeling of insecurity" helped his writing.
Gore said that MacDonald "just understood what you're thinking as you walk down the hallways and knock on the door. I want to give readers that same experience."
The readers will get that experience in "Final Target," and Graham Gage comes back for more — Gore's second novel is scheduled for release in November with a third coming in 2011.
Gore says his best friend is a writer, and he has been privileged to confer with and receive compliments from other authors while he cuts his teeth as a novelist. He appreciates the feedback of writers such as Cornelia Read, author of "The Crazy School," who called "Final Target" a "James Bond for grown-ups."
"I'm thrilled when other writers take a look at it, because they're under pressure to write books just like I am," Gore said.
e-mail: rtrishman@desnews.com