What is the name of the book and when was it published?
The Carpathian Assignment – release date was May 28, 2014
What’s the book’s first line?
The young woman hurrying down a dark street was lost in thought, remembering the consuming passion of the afternoon’s tryst that had extended on into the early evening and kept her from hearth and husband …
What’s the book about? Give us the “pitch”.
The year is 1897, and the Hungarian Empire is at the height of its power. In far-away England, Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes provides the fictional basis for modern police work’s focus on deductive reasoning and forensics. In Vienna, Sigmund Freud revolutionizes psychology. Science, logic, and reason hold sway over superstition, folklore, and legend.
In the remote Carpathian Mountains, a manhunt is underway. Chief of Police Kalvary Istvan and Gabor Kasza, a young investigator from Budapest, bring the latest in law enforcement techniques to bear on the identification and capture of a serial killer hunting the streets of Bistritz and its surrounding forests.
The police believe they pursue a man, possibly one of the persecuted Roma, who calls the nearby Borgo Pass home. Locals, while quick to blame the Roma for most misfortunes, hold a different theory—one running counter to the twin floods of reason and science inundating Europe. They cast fearful glances at an abandoned castle set high in the mountainside. They wear crucifixes and hang garlic on their doors. And they speak of an immortal, damned nobleman named Dracula.
What inspired you to write the book? A particular person? An event?
I love the time period, the location, a good detective story and a touch of gothic horror of the old school. I am a great admirer of Bram Stoker’s original and wanted to write the “back story” of Dracula as seen from the locals. I went to school in Vienna for a time and enjoy the history and culture of central Europe, which was the subject of my first book, An American in Vienna, and is featured prominently in this book as well.
What’s the most distinctive thing about the main character? Who-real or fictional-would you say the character reminds you of?
The most distinctive thing about him is his combination old-world chivalry and yet openness to “modern” detective techniques being pioneered in the late 19th century with the advent of knowledge of serial killers. I can’t say that he reminds me of anyone that I can think of. He is a combination of a military man with detective that is unusual to find in detective fiction, to my knowledge.
What’s the main reason someone should really read this book?
It’s a unique combination of historical fiction and gothic horror that is not often seen in the horror genre. Similar to Erik Larson’s “Devil in the White City”, you will learn about a time and place while being entertained with a good, old-fashioned gothic horror story all the way through about an antagonist you probably already know something about.