Christopher Reich writes thrillers, so he understands the formula. Put your hero in a race against time and have something important hang in the balance.

What he didn't expect is that his own career would follow a similar plotline.

The Encinitas, Calif., author started out huge. His 1998 debut novel, "Numbered Account," spent six weeks on The New York Times best-seller list and sold more than 1 million copies. Four more books followed, but sales dwindled. Publishers lost interest.

"All of a sudden, I didn't have a paycheck," he said. "I'm living in this nice house, I've got a family to support. I had to do something different."

He called his agent and said, "I've got an idea. I'll call you back in a year." And then he set out to write a book like the ones he had enjoyed when he was younger — thrillers by John le Carre and Robert Ludlum.

The story featured Dr. Jonathan Ransom, a surgeon for Doctors Without Borders, who loses his wife in a climbing accident in the Swiss Alps, and then learns that she was a secret agent.

Trying to figure out her real identity lands Ransom in the middle of a spy game involving pilotless drones, plastic explosives, poison-dipped bullets, $1,600 cashmere sweaters, cruise missiles and a flash-drive hidden in a bracelet.

"I wanted to write the page-turner to end all page-turners," Reich said.

When he was done, he shipped it to his agent, Richard Pine, who liked it. They reworked it for three months, and then Reich made plans to take his wife and two daughters on a vacation.

Three days later, Pine called and told him not to go on the trip.

"Why not?" Reich remembered asking.

"Because all those publishers who wouldn't touch you with a 10-foot pole — every one of them wants to buy this book."

Reich flew to New York and listened to eight publishers make pitches about how they were going to market "Rules of Deception." He chose Doubleday, which released the book in July.

It went to No. 3 on The New York Times' best-seller list, his best showing ever. Film rights have been optioned by Paramount. Foreign rights have been sold in nine countries.

"This is a redemption story for me," Reich said, relaxing in his home office. "I'm back."

How Christopher Reich became a writer is the kind of story that keeps hope alive in every wannabe author.

He was working as an investment banker in Switzerland, traveling all over the world (22 countries in one year) — and he was miserable. He told his wife, Sue, that he wanted to be a novelist.

She asked him, "Do you have a bunch of short stories hidden in a drawer that I don't know about?"

No.

"Did you take even one English class in college?"

No.

But he'd read a lot of books, and colleagues always enjoyed his "deal memos" at work. His father had told him he would be better off if he could be his own boss; he saw writing as a way to get there. They had enough money in the bank for him to spend two years trying.

He wrote "Numbered Account," and through a friend of a friend got it into the hands of James Patterson — yes, that James Patterson — who liked it enough to recommend it to his agent, Pine, who sold it for $750,000.

Not bad for a first-timer. There's a reason Patterson is known in the Reich household as "Saint James."

"I wrote a book that came out at the right time, about Swiss banking when Swiss banking was very much in the news," Reich said. "Napoleon always said, 'I want my generals lucky, not good' and I subscribe to that."

But he knows luck was only part of the equation. He brought a banker's discipline with him to the keyboard, going to the office early every morning and working until night.

"As a writer, you can never wait for the muse to land on your shoulder," he said. "It never happens. You just have to slog through it."

To make sure he stays on the right track now, he regularly consults a definition of the thriller written decades ago by John Buchan, a British author ("The Thirty-nine Steps") widely considered the father of the genre.

In it, Buchan says that the hero has to be in his (or her) 30s and needs to be accomplished in some field. Then, he is put into circumstances beyond his or her control — a fish out of water. There has to be an element of betrayal — someone the hero thought was trustworthy turns out not to be. And there needs to be a ticking bomb, some crisis to be averted.

"The secret to being a good thriller writer is to follow those rules, but to do it in a way other people haven't done before," Reich said.

The success of "Rules of Deception" has him eyeing that slice of the market that Ludlum and Frederick Forsyth used to own. "Nobody is really writing that old-style kind of book anymore," he said. "The kind of book you get totally immersed in, you shut the door and you say, 'Do not bother me.'"

Reich, 46, is a voracious reader of newspapers and magazines. They're the fuel for the engine of his imagination. It's why "Rules" is so firmly rooted in the here-and-now, with plotlines involving terrorism, nanotechnology and Iran's nuclear aspirations.

The danger in making it current, though, is that people attach agendas to your work, Reich said. Some have accused him of being anti-Christian, for example, because one of the bad guys is evangelical.

They've accused him of being anti-government, too, which makes a recent letter he received all the more interesting.

It arrived at his home with the words "The White House" in the upper left corner. Inside was a handwritten letter from President Bush, praising "Rules" as fast-paced and well-written.

Reich said, "Regardless of your politics, it's the president of the United States!" He ranks it as one of the highlights of his life, right up there with meeting David Cornwell (aka John le Carre).

Each of Reich's books has featured a new protagonist, but halfway through "Rules" he decided Ransom might be a strong enough character to carry a series of stories.

He's almost done with a sequel, "Rules of Vengeance," that digs deeper into Ransom's life and relationships. Reich said he'll be going to London soon for research on the police department's surveillance program.

"I feel a lot more pressure to get things right," he said. "When your fiction is based on real events, you have to be careful. I don't want to make mistakes. I go to every place I write about. I want to know: How does the street look?"

He and his family moved to Encinitas, Calif., about seven years ago. They had been living in Austin, Texas, and were thinking about building a house there, but decided it was too hot. Reich's mother pointed them in the direction of Rancho Santa Fe, Calif.; they eventually settled on a place that sits on two acres.

They like it here, Reich said. Good schools, the kids can go horseback riding, and it's not as crowded as Los Angeles, where he grew up. But that doesn't mean he plans to use Southern California as the backdrop for any of his books.

"Listen, Don Winslow, Michael Connelly, Jeff Parker — they all set their books here and they can eat my breakfast on that. My skill set lies in Europe. I've lived there, I've done it, it's in my blood. You write what you know."

Another part of the formula.

To find out more about John Wilkens and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

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