Chris Benson. . - Author Spotlight - book review

Ebony, Jan, 2002

IN the political thriller SPECIAL INTEREST (Third World Press, $24.95), attorney and journalist Chris Benson offers the story of a savvy, Black Washington, D.C., reporter named Angela McKenzie who is not merely wrestling with the murder mystery that drives the plot, but with the sort of workplace challenges that Black professionals routinely encounter.

Clearly this is not your usual thriller. Benson, vice president and associate counsel at Johnson Publishing Co., has imbued the story with the sensibilities and sensitivities of an African-American perspective and given readers, in Angela McKenzie, a dynamic character to root for and grow with.

EBONY: How did you develop the story line for Special Interest?

CB: It grew out of news events. I decided I wanted to do a story that was as much a political thriller as a mystery, and the events that I saw coming out of Washington created this perfect backdrop.

EBONY: Your book is coming out at the same time as books by several other Black male writers. Is that a coincidence?

CB: I think it's partly coincidence. But I also think that what you're seeing now, in this post-civil rights era, is a group of writers who've been exposed to a lot more, but who've also experienced the tensions that exposure can create. It's that tension that feeds the themes that you'll see in our work.

EBONY: So was the objective to write not just a political thriller, but a social commentary?

CB: My principal objective was to write a story that was engaging, that kept readers going, and that was surprising in the end. But I was also very mindful of pointing out and saying something about the struggles of contemporary Black professionals.

EBONY: Are there more Angela McKenzie books in the works?

CB: I don't want to give away anything, but Angela does survive in this book. Clearly I want this to be a series and when I wrote this, I had a trilogy in mind; so there are some things I deal with in Special Interest that lay the groundwork for other stories.