Why the Lead Character in my Thriller is an Over-50 Female

By Sharon Dukett

The Shutdown List, my new thriller, features a fifty-five-year-old woman protagonist.

When I began writing this book, my protagonist appeared to me as an accomplished woman in her fifties. After all, I know plenty of women in their fifties and older who are active, tenacious, and deeply engaged in their careers and their life’s passions. 

Why don’t I commonly see these women in books? On the screen? Featured in the media? They exist in real life. Why do so many books, and thrillers in particular, feature men of any age, and women from twenty-five to thirty-eight as the sidekick or love interest? Sometimes they are the lead badass detective or amateur sleuth, but typically a woman character is under forty. 

Too often, women become invisible in the media as they age—portrayed as people with no power or influence in the world. They appear as grandmothers, wives, lonely-older-single-women-looking-for-love, someone battling illness. While these are all realistic depictions that may fit a woman, they don’t completely define her. I wanted to explore more of her—to watch her become the hero of her own journey, to show how she handles the complexities thrown at her when faced with ever-growing threats, to share her weaknesses and fears, her strengths and creativity that come about as the result of a life of experience that a younger person may not have achieved yet.

My protagonist, Anita Forester, comes from that mold. She is not a badass. At least, not at first. She is an ordinary woman of fifty-five who started and built a technology consulting company during her career, thanks to her insight into giving people what they need. Her experience as a working woman included that of a wife, a mother, a programmer, an executive, someone who juggled responsibilities along the path to success. Too often, however, men have talked down to her and underestimated her ability, a mistake she can use to her advantage. Proving herself to them is not new, but facing danger is. 

The last two years have not been kind to Anita. After selling her consulting company for a significant amount of money, she expected her early retirement to feature a world of travel, time spent with her family, and the opportunity to enjoy herself. Instead, the adult son of her and her husband dies in a fire, gutting her and causing turmoil in her marriage as well. When The Shutdown List opens, Anita is grieving, unable to find the support she needs from her husband, who has shut her out. Her life is now a pile of fractured pieces, where she once had it all. 

Anita’s husband, Julian, asks her to attend a protest with him in Washington. We learn they have done this in the past with their son, so now they will attend in his remembrance. However, Julian gets off at an earlier stop where he says he is meeting friends and will join up with her at the Capitol building. He hands her a list of email addresses and tells her that if anything happens to him, the list might be helpful. “But be cautious,” he says.

Anita is stunned by this revelation, and angry that he hasn’t shared more. 

In Washington, she has another surprise. Julian is leading the protest. She witnesses his arrest as he violates police barriers. An accomplice of Julian’s warns her to flee, that she is also in danger. It doesn’t take long for her to discover this is true, and that the police have released Julian, but he has disappeared. 

As Anita embarks on a mission to find Julian while hiding, she must draw on her knowledge and experience to keep herself safe, to outwit those who are stronger than her, to learn new skills to stay alive. Throughout the book, the reader witnesses Anita’s transformation and the moral dilemmas she faces under new circumstances. 

It was important to me to show Anita as a competent woman, but not a superwoman. Physical altercations leave her in pain. She’s willing to ask for help where she can find it. She makes questionable decisions sometimes. Anita is a woman like us, and she deserves a place in the stories we tell, in the media, in books. 

I hope I have done justice to her story. 

I worked for thirty-six years in information systems, the branch of computer technology that designs and creates software for business clients. During this time, I worked for many years as a consultant, and started my own consulting company. I had nowhere close to the success that Anita experienced, but I know enough about the business to understand how it functions. I worked in both the private and the public sector, spending the third part of my career managing projects focused on web development, and becoming a deputy director of my division. 

By then, everyone knew better than to talk down to me. 

—

THE SHUTDOWN LIST

“Riveting and timely,… full of intriguing mysteries and characters who breathe with life and fire.”
— Gayle Lynds, New York Times bestselling author of The Assassins

People are disappearing. Anita may be next. But first, they have to find her.

Anita Forester witnesses her husband, Julian, being dragged away by police during a protest. A stranger warns her to flee. Still reeling from the loss of her adult son only two years earlier, Anita embarks on a perilous journey to find her husband, unaware of the crucial secret he has kept from her.

While piecing together the trail to her missing husband, Anita intercepts a hard drive containing priceless data sought by a fossil fuel magnate with secrets of his own—secrets he would kill to protect.

Set against a backdrop of climate activism, The Shutdown List is filled with twists and turns, corruption and betrayal. Anita must fight to stay alive and find Julian before he disappears forever.

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Sharon Dukett is the author of The Shutdown List, a new thriller released on June 18, 2024. Her memoir No Rules: A Memoir won the Next Generation Indie Book Awards in Memoirs (Historical/Legacy) and was a finalist for several others. The producer of the upcoming documentary film about the Watkins Glen Summer Jam held in 1973 read the memoir, then interviewed Sharon for the film because of her vivid portrayal of the era. 

Sharon worked in information technology as a consultant, programmer and project manager in the private sector, and a deputy director in government. 

Sharon lives in central Connecticut with her husband, near her children and grandchildren. She is currently working on another thriller.

 

Tags: featured, women writers

Category: On Writing