The Nazy Cunningham Character
The idea for Nazy Cunningham came from several sources. Like the other characters in the Duncan Hunter books, she is a composite character. In my travels to the Middle East I ran across/met a young Jordanian woman who was the personal secretary for a senior government official. Her name was "Marwa." Her English was the formal King's English--without a British accent. I was taken aback that she graduated from the Yale University Law School. She wore a head scarf. I saw her several times when I visited the office and each time she would greet me with a hearty handshake and a smile. Then she got married and the next and last time I saw her, of course she could not shake my hand nor could she be touched by a man that wasn't her husband. I knew the rules and that was ok. But the rest of the story was she had married poorly and her husband was a jealous man and beat her.
Then I came across an interesting woman on Al Gore's amazing internet. Before she was George Clooney's wife, Amal Alamuddin was another Arabic lawyer who was sort of an Islamic apologist and more of the type of person I wanted Duncan's Hunter's love interest to be like. Tall, good looking, and the "apologist" in her appealed to me as I was looking for a situation where the future love interest would question her Muslim faith after being blackmailed into spying on an infidel. The infidel being Duncan Hunter, of course. She renounces Islam, he turns her and off she goes to the CIA to be an analyst.
But Nazy Cunningham had to be stunning. Someone who would literally make the racquetball-happy Duncan Hunter stop in his tracks at the first sight of her and then, also literally, flip over onto his back as he tried to recover from chasing a racquetball in a court to spying the woman in the stands. Imagine Roger Federer chasing a tennis ball and right before he swings at it with his racquet, in the corner of his eye he sees this beauty in the stands and for a split second he forgets what's he's doing on the court to "take a peek" at her. When he blinks, he realizes he is supposed to be swinging a racquet at the ball, misses wildly, and the momentum of the distraction causes him to cartwheel onto his back. That is what "Marwa" did to Duncan during their first encounter. Add some green eyes to reflect her royal Persian ancestry and a cover name, given to her by the CIA. In Persian, Nazy means "cute."
What does Nazy really look like? When I saw the 2014 Miss Netherlands walk out onto the stage during the Miss Universe Pageant in a yellow low-cut dress, I about fell out of my seat as I said aloud, pointing like a fool, "That's Nazy!" Duncan's favorite color is yellow. Synchronicity. No brainer. That dress might make an appearance in book #4.
Maverick out!
The idea for Nazy Cunningham came from several sources. Like the other characters in the Duncan Hunter books, she is a composite character. In my travels to the Middle East I ran across/met a young Jordanian woman who was the personal secretary for a senior government official. Her name was "Marwa." Her English was the formal King's English--without a British accent. I was taken aback that she graduated from the Yale University Law School. She wore a head scarf. I saw her several times when I visited the office and each time she would greet me with a hearty handshake and a smile. Then she got married and the next and last time I saw her, of course she could not shake my hand nor could she be touched by a man that wasn't her husband. I knew the rules and that was ok. But the rest of the story was she had married poorly and her husband was a jealous man and beat her.
But Nazy Cunningham had to be stunning. Someone who would literally make the racquetball-happy Duncan Hunter stop in his tracks at the first sight of her and then, also literally, flip over onto his back as he tried to recover from chasing a racquetball in a court to spying the woman in the stands. Imagine Roger Federer chasing a tennis ball and right before he swings at it with his racquet, in the corner of his eye he sees this beauty in the stands and for a split second he forgets what's he's doing on the court to "take a peek" at her. When he blinks, he realizes he is supposed to be swinging a racquet at the ball, misses wildly, and the momentum of the distraction causes him to cartwheel onto his back. That is what "Marwa" did to Duncan during their first encounter. Add some green eyes to reflect her royal Persian ancestry and a cover name, given to her by the CIA. In Persian, Nazy means "cute."
What does Nazy really look like? When I saw the 2014 Miss Netherlands walk out onto the stage during the Miss Universe Pageant in a yellow low-cut dress, I about fell out of my seat as I said aloud, pointing like a fool, "That's Nazy!" Duncan's favorite color is yellow. Synchronicity. No brainer. That dress might make an appearance in book #4.
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