Brad Meltzer’s new book isn’t like Brad Meltzer’s other books – fast-paced, high-concept thrillers that quickly ascend to the top of bestseller lists.

Heroes for My Son (Harper Studio) is just what the title implies – a book about people who embody the values that Meltzer wants to define the lives of his sons Theo and Jonas.

Some of the names are familiar and obvious – Jackie Robinson, Miep Gies, Roberto Clemente, Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King Jr., Albert Einstein – while others are surprising and thought-provoking: Lucille Ball, Charlie Chaplin, Harper Lee.

Meltzer, who lives in Broward County, began writing the book when his first son was born eight years ago, and it’s clear that this is less of a book than it is a personal mission to define and explicate the traits that define heroism.

"It started out as a private project that no one else knew existed," he says. "And I got more and more excited about it. I’ve never worked on anything for eight years, never cared about any book for that long. I felt like the guy that carries the Olympic torch for a block. It’s not my torch and I’ll never own it, but for a block, I’m the caretaker. I needed to get it right."

Meltzer says that the primary reason he wrote the book is that, on the one hand, fame inevitably devolves into a caricature that obliterates the moral point of the life, and, on the other, people who labor in obscurity often deserve more attention than they get.

"Gandhi is used to sell Apple computers. They become icons but as they do they become less than human. That’s the culture we live in."

If Meltzer’s own father had written a book for Brad, who would be in it?

"My dad’s book would be all sports heroes because that’s all he cares about. He’s only read seven books in his life – mine. That’s no exaggeration. But when I was born, my father went to the liquor store and bought a bottle of champagne, to drink on the day I got married.

"So the day came when he lost his job and we moved to Florida and we owned nothing that wasn’t in the car. And in the back seat behind the headrest were two bottles of champagne rolling back and forth. One for me, one for my sister. In his way, he was keeping faith with his kids, and I think that’s part of the subliminal urge that led me to write this book."

Naturally, Meltzer recently gave the book to the audience for which it’s intended: his son. He didn’t care about Rosa Parks or Eleanor Roosevelt, but he did want to read about Roberto Clemente.

"He’s reading my words to me. I figured Norman Rockwell was getting ready to paint the picture. And suddenly I can feel my son start to shrink, and I can feel the air leaving his lungs.

" ‘Dad,’ he says, ‘this is sad.’

"And I’m afraid everything is backfiring. I’d broken my son’s heart for the first time. And the next night he jumps up on his bed, and I say ‘Who are we gonna read about tonight?’

" ‘What about Clemente? I like him, because he risked himself to save people.’

"And that’s when I realized you can’t teach the high unless you teach the low. And like every other great moment I’ve had as a father, it came about through total happenstance."

One-page vignettes aren’t enough to sum up the totality of a life, so Meltzer focuses on the specific trait or decision that changed their own lives. "I tell how George Washington turned down the chance to be king of America because he had faith in the people. That’s where the man is. You can see a movie about Anne Sullivan and Helen Keller, but it doesn’t tell you how Anne’s doctor told her that if she kept reading to Helen Keller she would be at risk of going blind herself, and she said she didn’t care.

"That’s the kind of selflessness I want my son to know about. The point is not to show a great person, but the moment that made them great."