I’m sure you know that I love novels that feature strong women accomplishing impossible feats. James Jackson has created a brilliant trilogy, the Niki Unbound Trilogy, featuring Ashley Prescott, an undercover agent working for the federal government. If you like thrillers where the stakes are high and the scenes have your heart racing, check out James’ books.
- It’s time to get your protagonist out of their comfort zone. You want to present her with a challenge, and you’ve given her the following choices: climb Mount Everest; run a Marathon; trek across the Sahara Desert with a tribe of nomads; or sail around the world alone. Which would she choose?
Ashley Prescott can run a marathon and would probably think climbing Mount Everest or trekking across the Sahara Desert would be fun. However, in the first novel of the trilogy, Niki Undercover, we learn she can’t swim and is terrified of drowning. That would make sailing around the world alone genuinely terrifying and probably the reason she would attempt it.
- What do you and your protagonist have in common?
Our backgrounds have very little in common. She’s a millennial and grew up as an only child of a single mom who scratched out a living in the upper Midwest. I’m a boomer who grew up as a middle-class suburban kid with both parents. We’re both runners, but that’s pretty thin!
- If you had an argument, who would win and why?
It would be a power struggle for sure, and that makes it an unfair fight. Regardless of whose arguments should prevail, I control the keyboard and, therefore, the result.
- If she could change anything in her life, what would it be and why?
Ashley’s mother died when she was in college. That loss has deeply affected her and estranged her from her father. If she could change anything it would be to have her mother be alive and in good health. Of course, if that were to happen, I’d have to rewrite everything!
- Tell us about your latest book.
Niki Unbound is the final book in the Niki Undercover Thriller trilogy. At the start of the trilogy (Niki Undercover), Ashley Prescott works as an FBI undercover agent infiltrating a militia that seems bent on creating anarchy. In the second book (Niki Unleashed), she’s left the Bureau and tackles an environmental group that targets executives of polluting companies for retribution.
Now five years later in Niki Unbound, she learns of an imminent decapitation strike designed to seize the presidency—and no way to stop it without re-entering a world where hundreds of armed felons know her face. Unable to know who in the government might be involved, she realizes it’s up to her to stop them. She builds her team: four generations of family and friends with skills no one expected.
But the Justice Department gets wind and its vast web pulls threads—each one leading to the team. Subpoenas land. Laptops seized. Questions sharpen. The people who volunteered to stop the coup are the ones now suffering. The question she must answer is whether she can stop the traitors and shield those who helped her—or will saving her country cost her everyone, including herself?
- How long have you been writing? What was the motivating factor that got you started?
I started writing in 2003. My original motivation was curiosity. I enjoyed reading mysteries ever since the Bobbsey Twins and Hardy Boys, but could I write one? After the first draft, the answer to that question was “yes,” but the question changed to could I write a good one? That took a decade of learning to answer in the affirmative. Curiosity still drives my writing, but now it’s curiosity about what the characters are going to do next.
- What was the best writing advice you ever received, and why was it valuable?
“You can’t fix a blank page.” That simple sentence contains two important messages. The most important concept is that it grants writers permission to write a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad first draft (with apologies to Judith Viorst and her Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day, which my kids loved when I read it to them). It implies that it can be fixed. The second message is that unless you have written something, you can’t make it better, so write that first draft.
- What themes do you regularly employ in your writing?
It takes a few novels to discover recurring themes, but with eleven published novels I’ve discovered two themes that are always present, and one curiosity question I always need to answer.
Theme#1: Abuse of Power. Power comes in many forms: physically strong/week, boss/employee, those who have money/those who need money, rules makers/those subjected to the rules, various caste systems, and more.
One of my series protagonists, Seamus McCree, becomes very upset when those in power put their thumbs on the scale for whatever reason—to retain power, subvert justice, gain unearned riches. That abuse is often his motivation for sticking his nose where miscreants don’t want it stuck. The three novels of the Niki Undercover Thriller trilogy all utilize this theme touching on corporate greed, political corruption, and those who would take justice into their own hands.
Theme #2: Family Relationships. In both my series, I age characters naturally through time. An important question my characters address is the question of what makes family. It isn’t just biology, is it? You can be biologically related, but not family; and you can have no common genes, yet very much be family.
Either way, I continue to learn more about these characters as they age and grow and interact with each other—and after all these years together, they are still keeping secrets from you and me.
The questions I always answer: What motivates the “bad guys” to commit their crimes, and what motivates the good guys to go beyond just doing their job to catch them? The criminals always have a justification for their misdeeds—and sometimes it’s hard not to sympathize with them.
- What do you want most for your readers to come away with after they read your books?
My hope is that readers come away having enjoyed the story, wishing they didn’t have to leave the characters quite yet, and perhaps being a bit tired because they stayed up too late turning the pages.
- How many books do you read in a typical month? Do you read in your genre while you are writing?
Since I retired, I’ve averaged reading eighty books a year, which means 6.6 a month. I read both fiction and nonfiction, and my fiction includes crime, fantasy, science fiction, and occasionally “literature.” I don’t worry about reading others’ stories affecting my writing voice, so I read whatever I want, whenever I want.
- What is the last book you’ve read purely for pleasure?
I recently finished Dead Money by Jabok Kerr. It won the Edgar award for “Best First Novel.” Sometimes when I read award-winners, I wonder what the judges saw because I don’t think the book is that special. Dead Money is one of my top reads for 2026. I highly recommend it.
- What is the most challenging area for you as a writer?
It’s not a unique problem. Having been traditionally published, I grew frustrated with the lack of marketing support. Now, as an indie author, I find the most difficult task I face is making potential readers aware of my novels. With average Goodreads ratings consistently well above four stars, readers like the books, but not enough are finding them.
Bio:
James M. Jackson writes justice-driven thrillers with “brains and bite.” His Niki Undercover Thriller trilogy, completed with Niki Unbound, stars Ashley Prescott, an undercover federal agent fighting domestic terrorism of all kinds. He also writes the award-winning Seamus McCree series, which explores financial crimes, family relationships, and their deadly intersection across eight novels, two novellas, and several short stories. A life member of Sisters in Crime and past president of its Guppy Chapter, Jackson calls home the deep woods of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. When he’s not tormenting his characters, he’s likely birdwatching, hunting for moose sheds, or tracking wolves. Find news, extras, and upcoming events at https://jamesmjackson.com.
NIKI UNBOUND blurb
Devastating intel. No one left to trust. A government that wants her erased.
All her working life, she’s disappeared into false lives to keep her country safe. Now that country has cut her loose—no sponsor, no support, no return.
Then she learns of an imminent decapitation strike designed to seize the presidency—and no way to stop it without re-entering a world where hundreds of armed felons know her face.
The Justice Department’s vast web is pulling threads—and each one leads to the team. Subpoenas land. Laptops seized. Questions sharpen. The people who volunteered to stop the coup are the ones now suffering.
If you love stakes that could change the course of a nation, loyalty tested to the breaking point, and a heroine who pays for justice with everything she has, you’ll devour this finale.