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SAN JOSE, Calif. - Keith Raffel, a Silicon Valley software executive, who infused the passions and compulsions of the high-tech world into a murder mystery, said that getting his first novel published was as difficult as getting his start-up company funded.
His mystery set in Silicon Valley, "Dot.Dead," was published this summer. It's the tale of a rising tech executive who becomes an amateur sleuth after finding his housekeeper stabbed to death in his bed in Palo Alto, Calif. The tech business and the drama of a start-up are part of the twisting plot that takes readers to familiar sites in the valley.
Raffel, 55, was the founder of UpShot, a pioneer in Web-based sales force automation software. After several rounds of venture capital, UpShot was bought by Siebel Systems in 2003 for $70 million in cash.
"You need a thick skin," said Raffel, describing the similarities in pitching a business plan and finding an agent and a book publisher. "In both cases, you are selling a story. ... And the odds are stacked against you."
But Raffel managed to beat the odds.
"Dot.Dead" was published by Midnight Ink, an imprint from Llewellyn, a publisher of New Age books in Woodbury, Minn.
The mystery's protagonist, Ian Michaels, works for a networking chip start-up. He starts investigating after he finds his housekeeper, a Stanford student, stabbed to death. Michaels, a hotshot executive, is accused of the murder under a surreal set of circumstances that turn his life upside down.
"Dot.Dead" provides a feeling of life and culture in Silicon Valley, where Raffel has lived since childhood. Board room intrigue, secret directors meetings, risky new product strategies, infidelities, and jealousy are all part of the plot.
"I'm not at all surprised that a software industry exec could write a murder mystery," said Ellen Sussman, a San Francisco author who has taught Raffel in writing classes. Tech professionals, she said, "are the most creative students I've ever worked with."
Over the past few months, Raffel has been juggling a book tour around the country with his work and family life. He continues to work at Oracle, which bought Siebel earlier this year, and he has received kudos for his debut as an author. He even recently had a chat in Hollywood with a movie producer and an agent, who expressed preliminary interest in the whodunit.
"The book handled the place very well, without getting overly technical, so that someone who is older like I am and not an expert at computers could follow it all,"said Ed Kaufman, owner of the "M" is for Mystery bookstore in San Mateo, Calif., and a host for one of Raffel's readings.
The novel's entrepreneur-mentor character, Paul Berk, is on his second-start-up and left Hungary in 1956 - the same year a real Hungarian legend who eventually became CEO of Intel, Andy Grove, came to the United States. (Many Hungarians fled the country in 1956, Raffel said.)
"His characters had pieces of multiple people that we both know," said Ken Oshman, chief executive of the San Jose networking company Echelon, who has known Raffel for years.
The characters in "Dot.Dead" are "mosaics made up of pieces drawn both from my imagination and from people-watching over the years," Raffel said. "Any writer is a bit of a thief."
Raffel began "Dot.Dead" in 1996 as part of a University of California Berkeley Extension class on mystery writing. He then put the book down to focus on his start-up and picked it up again after finding a chief executive to help run UpShot.
Raffel is now at work on his second book, a thriller tentatively called "Coup" partly set in Washington. Raffel worked on Capitol Hill for several years as a counsel for the Senate Intelligence Committee after graduating from Harvard Law School.
With four children at home, ages 7 to 17, and a full-time job as a group vice president at Oracle, Raffel squeezes in writing when he can, using the culture around him liberally.
"Silicon Valley is a great setting for a mystery," Raffel said. "There is greed and obsession and ambition."
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(c) 2006, San Jose Mercury News (San Jose, Calif.). Distributed by Mclatchy-Tribune News Service.
