I received a nice Silver Seal (a 5-Star review) from Readers’ Favorite for Incognito, my Vatican thriller.
I was happy to read that the reviewer felt the darkness in the story. It was an effort I put in not only in dialogue, action but in the way I described scenes, including weather.
I’ve been asked to produce another novel with the same characters. We shall see. I enjoyed writing this story. To be frank, I could’ve continued writing further. The darkness somewhat became an obsession with me but I knew I had to write The End at the right moment.
The book is close to the heart. It is based on personal experiences during my trip to Europe that became materials for the story. If you like snow, this is the book for you.
I guess this would be considered the boy’s locker room by today’s standard. While researching the Colosseum in Rome, I discovered plenty of things that I took for granted about gladiator fights. And then I realized how we’ve been duped by Hollywood.
Contrary to what the movies always show, not all gladiators were slaves nor did they always fight to the death. It’s too expensive to have a dead gladiator, especially after training and investing in these guys. It made no economic sense to exterminate the guy.
The “thumbs down” probably didn’t mean death even. Interestingly, there were also women gladiators.
During the early days of the Syrian war I was monitoring a family friend who smuggled himself out of the country. I didn’t say anything to anyone because his safety was paramount.
In the course of his journey he was swindled, robbed, almost killed but he made it to Egypt then to Libya before reaching Italy. Some money was transferred to him.
He kept in touch with that “someone” I know through a cell phone at various stops. He’s safe now somewhere in Europe. His wife and family are with him.
Saint Peter’s square, Vatican City. Almost every religious thriller novel and movie about the Vatican will have an image of it. It has become the standard.
In fact, authors have covered almost every inch of the Vatican that’s its really tough to produce original scenes and ideas.
But I had a good creative director when I used to work a short while at an ad agency. I noticed how he saw things differently even if something had been overused. It took me a while to see how he sees things, and then an idea hit me.
I saw something at the square that jumped out at me. I realized how this could work for INCOGNITO. As with my first novel, Smokescreen, expect the unexpected.
