Deadline Rome: The Vatican Kylix received a 4+ star review, making it an IndieReader Approved title.
Following find an interview with author Sari Gilbert.
What is the name of the book and when was it published?
The book is called Deadline Rome: The Vatican Kylix and it was published in the summer of 2021.
What’s the book’s first line?
The first line of the book is: “The darkened room, the only light coming from an uneven space between the dirt floor and the wooden door he somehow knew had been padlocked on the other side, smelled of some kind of animals. Goats, he wondered. Or maybe chickens?”
What’s the book about? Give us the “pitch”.
A young and very ambitious free-lance woman journalist based in Rome accidentally discovers proof of a kidnapping on a visit to an Etruscan tomb with her best friend, a young American priest. She starts adding some sleuthing to her regular reporting duties and subsequently comes to realize that that crime is linked to a fraudulent purchase by the Vatican Museum of a precious Greek wine cup. Working with one of Italy’s courageous investigating magistrates and a few journalistic colleagues she gets to the bottom of it all but not without risking her life.
What inspired you to write the book? A particular person? An event?
Neither of those. I wanted to write a crime novel based in Rome that would enable me to give full play to my knowledge of Italy and some of the experiences I’ve had while being a reporter there.
What’s the main reason someone should really read this book?
Simply to have fun and, in the process, perhaps to learn something more about Italy than they may already know.
What’s the most distinctive thing about the main character? Who -real or fictional- would you say the character reminds you of?
Maybe Orianna Fallaci, although she didn’t write crime novels. Clare can get distracted, mostly by the men she falls in love with, but she is uncommonly tenacious and brave. I wish I were more like her.
When did you first decide to become an author?
As a journalist and a researcher, I’ve spent most of my life writing – just not fiction. I have long wanted to try my hand at writing a mystery/thriller. It’s one of my own favorite reading genres and I thought it was time to write one myself. I covered Italy as a foreign and local correspondent for almost four decades and for at least half of this period, kidnappings for ransom were a veritable scourge here in this country. Archeology is a passion of mine. And as for the Vatican; its presence has always loomed large in Italy for anyone interested either in history or current events.
Is this the first book you’ve written?
No, a few years earlier I wrote a memoir about my life in Rome as an American woman journalist. There, too, I tried to include a lot about the country I’d been living in and my favorite compliment was from a Norwegian reader who said the book enabled her to learn a great deal about Italy.
What do you do for work when you are not writing?
Now that I am fully retired from my job as a newspaper reporter, I am trying to write fiction. I earned a Ph.D in International Relations but somehow turned into a journalist writing first for American and Canadian newspapers and then for Italian dailies. Now I am free to spend my time as I please.
How much time do you generally spend on your writing?
It’s hard to say. Remember, this is not my way of making a living – I have a pension, some rental income and some savings – so I write when I am not following my other passion, which is traveling.
What’s the hardest part of being an Indie author?
I guess it’s knowing that probably you are only going to have limited success, unless you are extremely talented and extremely lucky. Maybe the best part is not having to spend lots of time on a probably fruitless search for an agent or a publisher. But, yes, if a publisher came calling I would “go traditional” as you put it because, let’s face it, it is still considered more prestigious and could get you a chance of reviews in mainstream media etc.
Which book would you like to have written?
One book I would have liked to have written is “The Salamander” by Morris West, a political novel based in Italy in which West, who otherwise is not my favorite writer, (the famous “Shoes of the Fisherman” which somehow sold millions of copies is incredibly boring!!!) really got the political scene in 1970s Italy totally correct. Another is “Istanbul Passage” by Joseph Kanon where the author brilliantly weaves together postwar events and an intriguing and convincing Istanbul setting.