High-school sweethearts Ron and Cheryl Howard are both on career streaks as they approach their 30th wedding anniversary, which they plan to celebrate next month in Provence, without their four children – who, by the way, all have red hair, just like their parents.

Mrs. Howard has just published her first novel, “In the Face of Jinn” (St. Martin’s), a thriller set in Pakistan. She writes under the name Cheryl Howard Crew, to honor one of her grandmothers. In early June, Mr. Howard releases “Cinderella Man,” starring Russell Crowe, Renee Zellweger, and Paul Giamatti. After the romp in Provence, Mr. Howard starts work on the film version of “The Da Vinci Code” while Mrs. Howard begins researching the next adventure of her heroine, Christine Shepherd.

Since Mr. Howard is an old hand at fame, it’s really Mrs. Howard’s moment. She spent many years focused on raising children before getting serious about writing a book. “In the Face of Jinn” took her nine years to complete.

At a party in her honor Saturday night, Mrs. Howard sat for three hours on a turquoise settee, signing books for guests. The party’s hosts, Drs. Anjum and Pervez Ahmed, put a tent over their backyard in the Upper East Side, creating an authentic Eastern atmosphere to go with the book’s theme.

Mr. Howard stood next to a gurgling fountain as he praised his wife.

“She’s my creative secret weapon,” Mr. Howard said, mentioning her “great sense of character and people” and her “natural creative sense when it comes to narrative.”

Was her writing talent evident back in high school? Apparently not. “She was a mediocre student in English,” Mr. Howard said. Mrs. Howard later confirmed it, saying she got Cs in English, As in math and science at John Burroughs High School in Burbank, Calif.

Mr. Howard said he was a “much better” student in English class, where they read “For Whom the Bell Tolls” and “A Tale of Two Cities.” As further proof, he mentioned that he was coeditor of the school newspaper, the Smoke Signal.

But what was most memorable about the English class is that it’s where they met. Mrs. Howard told the story of how she managed to get the attention of the teenage actor known to television audiences as Opie. “I talked to him first. I was painfully shy, actually. One day after class, he was surrounded by all these girls. I signaled to him to come over, and he did. Then I asked him, ‘Are you playing basketball this year?’ and then I walked away.”

When they started dating, he didn’t like her to go to basketball games. “It would make him nervous,” Mrs. Howard said.

Not much makes Mrs. Howard nervous, though. In high school, she was a tomboy who took flying lessons and was regular at a gun range. When her martial-arts instructor, Nazim Ali, told her he was returning to Pakistan for a family reunion, she decided to go with him. The research would make her books authentic, like her favorite thrillers by Nelson DeMille and James Clavell.

She took two tape recorders and five cameras to capture her impressions, and she had her brushes with danger (Mr. Howard did worry). But she didn’t experience the kinds of danger she imagined for her characters, who are raped and encounter the Taliban.

On her last day, she bought five pen guns, and she may well have gotten into trouble had she tried to take them out of Pakistan. She left them behind, on the advice of a former CIA operative – taking home a few rugs instead.