Dr. Eric Troyer lives with his wife, Vickie, and children, Lindley and Chas, in China Grove, North Carolina. He is a Family Practitioner and runs a busy medical clinic three blocks from his home. Eric teaches a Sunday school class for young adults at First Baptist Church of China Grove.

"Insecurity" is his first novel.

According to Troyer, the genesis of "Insecurity" can be traced back to an episode of "Law & Order." "They brought back one of the former assistant district attorneys for a guest appearance after killing her off a couple seasons before. The creators justified the return by revealing that she had been in the witness protection program because one of the criminals she was prosecuting had come after her."

"It got me to wondering if anything like that had ever happened."

That was early in 2005. Troyer extensively researched the U.S. Marshals Service and the Witness Security Program and other topics, and the story continued to develop. "I tried to include interesting facts about the Witness Security Program so the reader would be learning something along the way," he adds.

The first draft of "Insecurity" took almost a year to complete, "but that's really when the work began."

Dr. Troyer had a hand in the entire process, from proofreading all the way to cover design and printing.

"Early in the process, I contacted musician Weird Al Yankovic's agent to get permission to use the lyrics of one of his songs," Troyer says. "I had heard that such permissions may be quite costly, but I figured I'd give it a try; I could always rewrite the section that included the lyrics, but I really liked it the way it was. Fortunately, I got the permission for a simple mention on the copyright page."

"Insecurity" has a Christian undercurrent, done so in an attempt to forego the glut of profanity and explicit sexual content so prevalent in thrillers today.

"Part of the goal of this novel was to provide a good, action-packed story without these elements," Troyer says. "In fact, I took it a step further by using the Roman Road in character development on a couple of occasions to reinforce it to Christians, and to introduce it to people with other or no religious beliefs."

"Writing 'Insecurity' was an 18-month process filled with many late nights and celebrations," Troyer says. "It was an enjoyable experience and at several points along the way, the story seemed to write itself."

The first edition hardback version of the book is now available from Livicher Publishing for $20 (20 percent off the cover price) plus shipping.

Order this first-rate thriller here.

For more information contact Dr. Eric Troyer at author@insecuritythenovel.com