Author Interview: K.B. Martin on Writing the Thriller You Shouldn't Read Alone

We sat down with K.B. Martin, author of *Justice Through His Eyes*, to talk about the craft choices behind his debut thriller — the ones that hold the reader's pulse up page after page.

**P&K: Your book reads fast. Was that a constraint you set for yourself, or did it emerge from the material?** K.B. Martin: Both, honestly. I knew going in I wanted the chapters to end in places that made you turn the page, not places that made you set the book down. So I started writing each chapter looking for the exit — the line that pulls you forward.

**P&K: How did you think about the protagonist's moral line?** K.B. Martin: That was the hardest part. I didn't want him to be a clean hero, and I didn't want him to be a clean antihero either. Justice is the title of the book, and the question the book is actually asking is whether revenge and justice are the same thing. He doesn't know. I didn't either, while I was writing it.

**P&K: A lot of readers tell us they finished it in one sitting. Did you write it that way?** K.B. Martin: Not intentionally — but I wrote it without cushioning. There's no long scene where two characters sit at a diner and talk about their feelings. Every paragraph either moves the plot, sharpens the character, or does both. That naturally makes the book read quickly.

**P&K: What's next?** K.B. Martin: A second book, same protagonist. Different question, different pressure. The first book was about whether he could stay on the right side of the line. The second is about whether the line was ever in the right place.