Behind the Covers - Background to Project Moses – A Mystery Thriller
JOBS
The main character, Enzo Lee, is a reporter for a San
Francisco newspaper. He was an
investigative reporter who got burned and has now turned to churning out feature
fluff stories. The other major
character, and also his romantic interest, is Sarah Armstrong who is an
attorney.
In real life I was both an investigative reporter and an
attorney so I could borrow heavily on those experiences when writing Project Moses.
The newsroom I describe in the book – tattered carpeting,
piles of newspaper, small interior offices where editors looked out over the
reporters - are what the newsrooms were like at the
newspapers where I worked. I
exaggerated some of the conflict between reporters and editors. But, there was plenty of that as well. Reporters can be tough to manage and most
make lousy managers when they’re promoted high enough. Plus, you’re dealing with something pretty
personal – how someone has written a sentence, paragraph or article. Deal with all that under deadline pressure
and things get tense, although the insults can be marvelously articulate.
On the law side, I borrowed a lot both from lawyering and
also from my experiences covering trials as a reporter. For a time, I covered the courts so I was in
and out of courtrooms all day long.
Once, I covered a sensational murder trial that went on for months. Many of the people “working” the trial –
lawyers, cops, reporters, courtroom artists – got to know each other well. A lots of friendships and, yes, romances were spawned by being in such close
quarters for weeks.
PLACES
The action in Project Moses takes place in three
places: The Bay Area and particularly
San Francisco; New York; and the desert of Arizona. Mostly, I described places where I had been
because it was easier for me to describe specific scenes. Recalling the concrete details helped give a
“you are there” sense to the book, hopefully.
San Francisco
Enzo Lee is Chinese-Italian-Scottish. He grew up in San Francisco and lives in a
flat in North Beach which is an Italian neighborhood but right next to
Chinatown. There are a lot of scenes of
him walking the neighborhood on his way home, going into one of the temples to
meet someone and doing tai chi early in the morning with instruction from the
venerable Master Chu, among other moments.
Project Moses also describes the homes of Sarah and Enzo as
flats in Victorian era homes with intricate wood floors, stained paneling, tall
ceilings and the great detail that went into houses of that era. San Francisco is filled with great old places
with loads of charm like that. Many of
them – particularly closer to the downtown and working waterfront – were built
in the 15 years after the Great 1906 Earthquake and fire wiped out most of the
city. A few areas that escaped the fire have even earlier homes. It’s one of the aspects of San Francisco and
nearby areas that I enjoy and my homes here have that flavor.
Rural Arizona
Some of the action takes place in rural Arizona. In Project Moses some of the genetic and agricultural
research takes place there and Enzo travels there to investigate what is going
on. He ends up having some harrowing
experiences. I worked in Arizona as a
reporter for 5 years and won a Pulitzer Prize for my investigative work there. One of the major investigations I conducted
there occurred in a rural area mainly known for cotton farms, the state prison
and absolutely blistering weather five months out of the year. I spent two months during the summer there
knocking on doors in the poorest neighborhoods – sometimes mere shacks. My partner and I were finding women who had
been forced by doctors at the county hospital to be sterilized. The doctors hoped to reduce the number of new
kids coming onto the welfare rolls. Those
weeks left me with some incredibly vivid memories. We found numerous cases, exposed the forced
sterilizations, and ended the practice.
Enzo Lee, 37, a burned out reporter, has forsaken investigative reporting on the East Coast to churn out feature fluff in San Francisco. He likes his North Beach apartment, steps away from his Chinatown roots. Running, tai chi, great food, women who are attracted to his exotic looks. Life is good. Then, Lee is ordered to cover the unexplained deaths of a local judge and prosecutor. Intrigued by the connection, and the judge's attractive niece, Sarah Armstrong, Lee begins to uncover a bioterrorism scandal whose perpetrators - including government officials and Silicon Valley titans - will kill to conceal. When Lee and Sarah become targets, the question becomes whether the pair can evade their hunters and piece together the story before their time runs out.
My Review:
This was a really fantastic read! Action, wit, and some great locations, mentioned in the above guest post, they all came together for a really fantastic mystery thriller, and yeah, I really enjoyed this book! Quite entertaining to read!
The thing about this book that makes it a fantastic thriller, is that a lot of what happened in it, from the science, to the bad guys and the good guy's actions, could happy. And that's pretty terrifying, most of the time!
These characters were really great to read about, I enjoyed learning about their lives in this high speed, action packed book, it was really the best! They really came to life in these high stakes games! So good!
The ending was just perfect, I loved how everything came together, after all that running, from place to place, and gathering up what they needed-whether they knew at the time or not-and yeah, it just all came together and was really awesome!
What a great book, I enjoyed it a ton!
Author: Robert B. Lowe
This was a really fantastic read! Action, wit, and some great locations, mentioned in the above guest post, they all came together for a really fantastic mystery thriller, and yeah, I really enjoyed this book! Quite entertaining to read!
The thing about this book that makes it a fantastic thriller, is that a lot of what happened in it, from the science, to the bad guys and the good guy's actions, could happy. And that's pretty terrifying, most of the time!
These characters were really great to read about, I enjoyed learning about their lives in this high speed, action packed book, it was really the best! They really came to life in these high stakes games! So good!
The ending was just perfect, I loved how everything came together, after all that running, from place to place, and gathering up what they needed-whether they knew at the time or not-and yeah, it just all came together and was really awesome!
What a great book, I enjoyed it a ton!
Author: Robert B. Lowe
Read: July 10th, 2012
Source: Virtual Book Tour Cafe Review Copy
Reason Why: Sounded like a good book!
Publisher: Enzo Publications
Published: January 23rd 2012
Publisher: Enzo Publications
Published: January 23rd 2012
 |
| 4.5/5 Hearts |
 |
| 4/5 Books |
 |
| 4/5 Stars |
My first novel is a mystery thriller set mainly in San Francisco called Project Moses. It's a Grisham-type thriller with a bio-terrorism plot and has romance, humor, suspense and food - lot of very good food.
I'm a life-long fan of mystery novels from the Hardy Boys through LeCarre, Francis, Grisham, Hiaasen, Child and many more. Out of college, I was a newspaper reporter for 12 years for publications in Arizona and Florida. I won a Pulitzer Prize for my investigative reporting while at the Arizona Daily Star in Tucson.
My second career was as a lawyer (now reformed). I worked at a couple of law firms in the Bay Area in the high-tech start up realm. After 5 years, I decided to get into the business side instead and was CEO or a high-level officer at larger and smaller tech companies since the mid-90s.
Project Moses is my first novel. Currently, I'm working on a second one involving some of the same characters. Like Moses, the next will be largely based in San Francisco and the Bay Area where I've lived the past 23 years (aside from a 2-year hiatus in Seattle.) I expect this to be the final career turn for me.
I live with my wife Candace and have two daughters, one in college and a 7th grader who tries to keep me up to date.
Contact and Buy AKA Links:
Stops on the Tour:
June 26 - Introduction at VBT Cafe' Blog
June 28 - Guest Blogging at AZ Publishing Services
June 29 - Giveaway & Book Feature with Excerpt at So Many Precious Books, So Little Time
June 30 - Interviewed at Hard Cover Feedback
July 2 - Interviewed at MK McClintock's Blog
July 5 - Interviewed at My World
July 9 - Review & Interview at A Book Lover's Library
July 11 - Review & Guest Blogging at Words I Write Crazy
July 13 - Review & Interview at The Writing World
July 16 - Review & Guest Blog at The Lucky Ladybug
July 18 - Reviewed at Books, Books, and More Books
Glad you enjoyed the book. Thank you for hosting RObert today :)
ReplyDelete