Peninsula author Mike Trigg out with second novel ‘Burner’

“I’m not sure yet if this is a memoir or a manifesto, a love letter or a suicide note.”

That’s the first sentence of Mike Trigg’s new novel “Burner,” a thriller set in San Francisco that captures the present day zeitgeist of political unrest, wealth inequality, social media addiction and high tech. 

The ethos of the present era is brought out through a tragic love story between Shane, the leader of a populist movement run amok and Chloe, a tech billionaire’s daughter who is abducted by the same group. 

While the opening line came to Trigg, a Portola Valley resident, in what he calls “a fever dream,” the idea to write this book is something he has lived with for many years. Before he became an author, he spent over two decades in the tech industry, prior to which he worked for several years on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C.

“I was there during a very tumultuous time in the early ’90s — it was the rise of right-wing radio, it was the rise of Newt Gingrich’s ‘Contract With America’, the ‘Unabomber’ happened around then, the Oklahoma City bombing happened around then, we had ricin mailed to the Capitol around then,” he said. “It was sort of the first time in contemporary politics where we really saw the seeds of what has become even more extreme politics in our country.”

That’s when his interest in the subject began to grow. “I’ve been very fascinated, in a good and bad way, with the intersection of technology and politics, how technology platforms have been used and abused for driving political polarization, driving extremism,” he said about his inspiration for the book.

After percolating through his consciousness for years, the idea crystalized on Jan. 6, 2021, when a riotous mob of Donald Trump’s supporters attacked the U.S. Capitol building. 

“When that happened, I think it was a wake up call for everybody — both on the left and the right, I hope — about the dangers of populism untethered,” he said, about toxic realities that eventually formed the basis of his fiction. “What happens to democratic society when you don’t have a common definition of the truth? The core question we wrestle with in America right now is ‘what are the limits of free speech?’”

Trigg feels strongly about the sway that wealthy individuals and foreign governments have over the democratic process and is disturbed by the way social media platforms are exploited for propaganda.

“When I wrote the book, I thought it would be a retrospective critique,” he said. But in the run up to this year’s elections, as he pointed out, a lot of the same issues are being discussed in the news every day. 

“I have tremendous anxiety about the 2024 elections,” he said. “I worry about that for our country, I worry about that for our children. That was a big inspiration for the book.”

“Burner” will publish on April 16. 

This is Trigg’s second literary endeavor. His first novel, “Bit Flip,” which was published in August 2022, is a Silicon Valley-based satire of local tech culture.

“My lane as a writer is contemporary thrillers that examine the impact of technology on modern life,” he said, classifying his books as “cautionary tales.”

While his work is crafted to entertain readers, it also bears a stamp of his personal brand of activism. “Both books very much have a message to them,” Trigg said. He is genuinely concerned about the potentially toxic side to technology. 

His concern is not unfounded. Social media connects people but also creates virtual alter egos with fractured identities. The internet has a wealth of information but also brings with it the dangerously murky dark web. “This is kind of why I became an author — to affect the conversation, to offer my opinions,” he said.

He’s happy expressing his views through his fiction. “Having been in the tech industry for 20 plus years, I was there. I saw first hand how these things spawned, not in a nefarious way; just that there’ve been so many unintended consequences to these platforms and bad actors who’ve been able to exploit them,” he said.

While writing “Burner,” he spent a lot of time researching cases of domestic terrorism and consulting experts such as FBI agents and prison wardens. The book begins with one of his central characters narrating his side of the story from prison. “I always had this epistolary framework in mind,” he said, referencing literary tools like court transcripts and newspaper articles that pepper the narrative. 

The book lends itself readily to being adapted for screen. “It does have a cinematic quality to it,” he said in agreement with the critique. “It hasn’t been optioned yet.” 

The audiobook version is nearly complete, though. The process of bringing his characters to life, he said, was very gratifying.

Trigg has finished writing his third novel, a story about an internet and mobile phone outage. “It has a lot of the same notes — technology, politics,” he said about his next thriller.

He reads novels at the staggering pace of a book a week. “I read 52 books a year,” he said. Books he enjoyed in recent times include “Wellness” by Nathan Hill, “Wandering Stars” by Tommy Orange and “Chain-Gang All-Stars” by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah.

Actively participating in the literary world is an important part of Trigg’s life as an author. He is part of International Thriller Writers, an honorary society of writers from this genre. The group organizes an annual conference in New York called Thrillerfest. They also give away an annual book prize for which Trigg judges the e-book competition.

“Burner” is published by Sparkpress. On April 18, 6:30 p.m., Trigg will appear at a book launch event at Books Inc. Palo Alto, Town and Country Village, 855 El Camino Real #74, Palo Alto, where he will discuss the book with renowned author Chris Yeh. For more information, visit booksinc.net.