Independent local novelist David A. Davies isn’t completely sure where his lead character Chris Morehouse came from.

It’s possible Davies conjured Morehouse during one of the many mornings he accompanies his dog for a walk, or on one of his routine morning runs along Puget Sound trails. Or, Davies said, it’s very likely he found inspiration for Morehouse during his career with the British military or his time working as a security consultant with the United States Embassy in Bonn, Germany.

With the origins of Morehouse up for interpretation, the success he’s brought Davies is not. After his first novel, “The Potential” saw success upon its release in 2014, Davies finished Morehouse’s next adventure in April, “Mask of Deceit.”

The book is available on Davies’ website at http://thepotentialnovel.com/

While he’s currently working on the third book of the Morehouse series, he’ll be promoting “The Potential” and “Mask of Deceit” at the Holiday Gift Bazaar on Dec. 19-24 at The Commons mall, where readers can get copies of the books and meet Davies.

Though he doesn’t remember the exact moment Morehouse came to be, Davies said he recalls moments during his time in Germany that helped mold pieces of Morehouse’s story.

“I remember when (the first) President Bush came to visit the embassy,” Davies said. “Because I spoke English and German, I was able to work with the Secret Service. They needed some kind of local support.

“So, I got to see firsthand what the Secret Service did around the president. From there I got to do a lot more – secretary of state, vice presidents. Whenever they came to Germany, I was there able to help out.”

Serving high-level dignitaries allowed him to see the protocol Secret Service agents go through if there is an attempt on the president’s life.

What Davies saw inspired him to sit down and start writing.

While a presidential assassination is not featured in “The Potential” or “Mask of Deceit,” Davies details examples of how his thought process worked as the first book features a fictional attack on the German ambassador.

Davies said the opportunity to witness important figures and the interactions they had with their security detail, allowed him to collect many different stories and ideas for the series.

“For these guys, the Secret Service and the like, it’s a bit of a calling,” Davies said. “You have to be 100 percent dedicated to it. Your personal life comes secondary to that. When they approach things, they take it very, very seriously. When working closely with these guys, they were calling out things as they saw them.”

While “The Potential” wasn’t published until 2014, Davies said he had (fictional) ideas calling him at all hours, years before it was written. He’d wake up at all hours of the night just to write down an idea.

He eventually went with the idea of an attack on the U.S. Embassy in Germany.

Davies was reminded of the secret routes his detail would drive on during his time in Germany. Each one was designated with a danger level of sorts. Some being far more dangerous to travel than others.

Davies said he decided that memory would be a piece included in the first book.

“That gave me an idea for a plot,” Davies said. “Those roads, particular street names and all that. But then I had to figure out the long plot and the characters and what they do.”

Davies made one point clear; he’s not a fan of Jason Bourne or Jack Reacher.

When he began molding Chris Morehouse, he said he went out of his way to make his hero the opposite of those box office heroes.

Davies said the problem with the Bourne and Reacher characters is they are heroes from chapter one.

He said the idea of an “automatic hero” feels unrealistic and disingenuous, and he made sure Morehouse had a story readers could relate to.

“He’s the unassuming hero type of guy,” Davies said. “He’s not Jack Reacher, not Jack Bauer — not yet. Morehouse begins as a driver at the embassy, who happens to be at the right place at the right time.”

The goal for the series, Davies said, is for his central character to evolved from common man to hero over time.

Morehouse goes from a quiet, unassuming embassy driver in “The Potential,” to a contractor for the Central Intelligence Agency in “Mask of Deceit.”

Davies said he suffered a bit of writer’s block in the geographical sense while writing the first book.

While planning an escape route in the first draft, Davies realized what he originally wrote didn’t make sense.

He said one simple mistake caused him to change the entire structure of the book.

“I had a couple of bad guys in Cypress,” Davies recalled. “They needed to get out of the country really quick, and I wanted to send them to Turkey. And I wanted to put them on a plane. So, I put them on a plane, wrote something else, wrote something.

“When I looked at it, it was like two weeks later that these guys showed up in Turkey. I was like, ‘it doesn’t take two weeks to fly from Cypress to Turkey.’ So I had to restart it, and I ended up writing chapters as days. So the books start ‘day one’, not ‘chapter one’, and so on.”

When Davies finished the first book, he said he wasn’t sure if anyone would like or read it.

He sent it off to a completely anonymous source who turned around and told Davies his story of Chris Morehouse was good.

It wasn’t until a spring afternoon in 2014 that Davies believed it.

Upon the release of “The Potential,” Davies rushed to the Barnes and Noble in Issaquah. He said when he got there and saw his book and his name on the shelf, he was overcome with pride.

“I walked in the store, looked for my name and there it was — right there,” Davies said. “It’s like you never expect to get to that moment. Especially being an independent author. I’m not a big seller, not a big name. For an independent author it’s a big step up.”

After a six-month break, Davies began work on “Mask of Deceit.” But he only knew two certainties: A beginning and an end.

However, because Morehouse was already well-established via “The Potential,” Davies said he was making notes in the margins for a third book early on in the writing process.

Davies said he is a very linear thinker. “The Potential” begins in 1995, and Morehouse’s latest quest picks up in 2000. He is intentionally showing specific progressions because of important, historical events.

Events like “Y2K,” and 9/11, which, Davies said, are events Morehouse is a perfect fit for.

“That was a challenge too,” Davies said. “Because Y2K became a central point to the book, so I had to make sure all important characters from the first book got to that point. Getting people to those dates was difficult to do.”

Davies said in the first book Morehouse is geared towards figuring out who he is. Now, in the latest book, Davies said Morehouse is determined to make a difference.

He said he anticipates Morehouse to be far more sophisticated and seasoned in the third book, where he will become a CIA officer.

When Davies began telling the story of Chris Morehouse, he had no idea where he came from. But after two books and a third in works, Davies said his hero’s personality is crystal clear.

“At the end of the day, he wants to make sure he’s doing the right thing for the right people,” Davies said. “He’ll always be there, on call, ready to go anytime. He wants to be the guy who you can depend on for action.”