Every now and then, a guest sits down at The Miami Book Hub and reminds me why I started this program: behind every book is a person, and behind every person is a journey worth exploring.
My latest guest, Forrest Jones, certainly qualifies.
Forrest is a journalist, novelist and communications professional whose career has taken him from South Carolina to Miami, Venezuela, Chile, Arizona and Saudi Arabia. His debut thriller, The Placebo Agenda, was inspired by what he saw as a reporter in Latin America during the 1990s, including his coverage of Hugo Chavez’s 1998 presidential campaign and an earlier interview with Chavez at his home.
As Forrest put it, the book was born from “things I saw when I was a journalist in Venezuela.” Later, after reading about an incident involving civilians allegedly being asked to keep an eye out for Cuban and Venezuelan doctors in Bolivia, he began imagining the dangers of “rogue powerful players” using unwitting people and governments to advance hidden agendas.
That seed became The Placebo Agenda, a geopolitical thriller featuring Street Brewer, a former Venezuela-based wire reporter who discovers he may be an unwitting pawn in a much larger game. “They need unwitting participants,” Forrest explained. “They’re called placebos.” And when the pawn realizes he is being played, things can get interesting very quickly.
What I appreciated most was the authenticity behind the fiction. Forrest has not simply researched the world of international intrigue; he has reported from places where politics, energy and ambition collide in real time. Yet he made clear he is not a conspiracy theorist. “There’s a lot that goes on that we don’t see,” he said. But his worldview is grounded less in paranoia than observation.
In fact, I found one of his most refreshing admissions to be this: “I’m a pure optimist with a healthy dose of skepticism, not cynicism at all.” That might be the perfect description of a journalist who became a thriller writer.
Miami also plays an important role in his work. Forrest moved here at 14 and, after years living and working abroad, still considers Miami home. In The Placebo Agenda, his protagonist works for a local Miami newspaper called The Gateway, a fitting name for a city that has long served as a bridge to Latin America and the wider world.
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“Miami is a perfect place to start any thriller,” Forrest said. “There’s so much to choose from here.” He is right. In Miami, sometimes you do not need to invent plot twists. You just need to open the newspaper.
We also spoke about craft. Forrest came to fiction through short stories and writing workshops, including John Dufresne’s Friday night writers group at FIU. His advice was practical: read widely, find people who will give tough feedback, and be willing to revise. His own process, he admitted, is messy: “I write it all down at first. Just get it out. Then I do an outline. And then I change the outline, then I throw it away, and then I write it.”
He also interviews his characters as if he were still a reporter. “Why did you do it?” he asks them. That is where the work begins to breathe.
Forrest is now working on Uncovered, a standalone sequel featuring Street Brewer and drawing on his experience in Saudi Arabia. Like his first book, it promises to blend place, politics and personal stakes.
The Placebo Agenda is available through major booksellers, local bookstores by request, and Forrest’s website, contentbyforrest.com.
To watch this and other episodes of The Miami Book Hub, visit YouTube.com/@J.AdrianBetancourt. Please like, share and subscribe so we can continue celebrating the readers, writers and resources that make Miami’s literary community so special.
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Until then, keep reading, keep writing and stay curious, Miami.