Mind Virus by Charles Kowalski
Publisher: Literary Wanderlust
Release Date: July 1, 2017
Genre: Thriller & Suspense, Mystery
Synopsis:
Robin
Fox is a peace-loving professor of world religions, trying to atone for his
crimes as a U.S. Army interrogator. But at a Washington prayer rally, a suspect
is caught trying to disperse a rare encephalitis virus, the same one used in an
attack in Iraq that Fox once foiled. A CIA agent, John Adler, asks Fox for
help.
Troubled
by this request, Fox consults Emily Hart, his colleague at the United States
Peace Research Institute and wife of its strongest supporter in Congress. She,
however, has her own troubles. Leila Halabi, a Palestinian peace educator, has
disappeared on the way to Washington for a lecture tour. Fox accepts Adler's
request, in exchange for the CIA's help in finding Leila.
Fox
works with a joint FBI-CIA interrogation team, and worries that Adler's
prejudice against Muslims is clouding his judgment. The suspect eventually
reveals that he is part of an international conspiracy to eradicate religion,
"using one virus to cure another".
Fox
deduces that the next attack is planned for Israel during Passover. Meanwhile,
Emily learns that Leila has been imprisoned in Israel, and travels there to
campaign for her release. Spurred by danger to the woman he loves – although he
could never admit it, even to himself – Fox boards a plane that will reach Tel
Aviv before her.
By
careful observation, Fox catches another suspect at Ben-Gurion Airport. Now a
hero to Israel, he persuades the head of Shin Bet to release Leila and let him
interrogate the suspect.
He
infers that the next attack is planned for Jerusalem on Holy Saturday. Joined
by Adler, he sets up surveillance at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, but
fails to prevent an explosion.
Suspecting
that this attack was a diversion, Fox reinterprets his clues and concludes that
the real target is the Vatican. He and Adler fly to Rome in time to catch a
suspect in the act of planting an aerosol device in the dome of St. Peter's
during Easter Vigil Mass. Fox breaks her silence by intimating that her love
for the group's mastermind has been betrayed. She reveals the name by which she
knows him, and gives up enough information to identify the next target:
Westminster Abbey, at an Easter service with the Royal Family attending. But at
the same time, he receives a menacing message: Emily has been abducted by the
mastermind, who threatens to kill her if any cameras catch Fox there.
Fox
goes to London, enters the Abbey in disguise, and uncovers the most elaborate
strategy yet: a sleeper agent in the Abbey choir planted the virus in a fire
extinguisher, and used a time-release flammable agent to make the Archbishop's
vestments spontaneously combust.
After
stopping the attack, Fox roughs up the suspect but learns nothing. His escort
from the Security Service takes him to question the mastermind's mentor at
Oxford. Shocked to hear how his teachings have been twisted, he gives up a
name: Theodore Gottlieb. They go to Gottlieb's house, to find him calmly
awaiting them with high tea and high explosives.
After
a standoff, the bombs detonate and set fire to the house. Fox, cut off from the
police, has to chase Gottlieb to the room where Emily is being held hostage.
Using his military training, he succeeds in seizing Gottlieb's pistol, but his
principles of nonviolence will not allow him to shoot. They struggle, Gottlieb
falls, and the firefighters rescue Fox and Emily in time.
They
return to Washington. Adler has promised to tell the Saudis about the final
target, Mecca during the Hajj, but Fox suspects he is lying and goes to the
Saudi embassy himself. A furious phone call from Adler confirms his suspicions:
the CIA was planning to let the attack proceed, and use an Army-designed
antiserum to blackmail the entire Muslim world.
After
launching Leila's tour, Fox and Emily walk together through the GWU campus. He
yearns to tell her that, when he was sure his life was over, his only thought
was of her. But discretion trumps valor, and when they say goodnight, his true
feelings for her are still a secret.
My Thought’s:
If you are looking
for a good thriller “Mind Virus” is for you. This book had so many twist and
turns which made it that much more interesting.
Robin Fox, a
professor in world religion has his own past that he’s trying to get away from
but finds that he’s right back where he was with several terrorist attacks. Robin
follows clues all over the world, but when a very dear friend goes missing that
fight becomes a personal one.
Awesome job! Mind
virus receives four stars from me!
Author Interview:
Can you
describe what your book is about in one sentence?
A peace-loving religion professor, striving to atone for his
crimes as a military interrogator, must help stop deadly biological attacks on
the world’s great pilgrimage sites on their holiest days.
What is the
theme of Mind Virus?
Mainly, that the fanaticism that leads to violence can be found
anywhere, whether among religious believers or nonbelievers, and the will to
seek peace and understanding can also be found anywhere.
How do you
develop your plots and characters?
Everything begins with “What if…?” In this case, the question was,
“Everyone is always talking about terror in the name of religion; could there
be terror in the name of atheism?” From this question flows the rest of the
plot and the characters. It was easy to develop Robin Fox; he’s the person I
might have been if my life had taken a slightly different turn. As for the
other characters, they may be loosely patterned on a real person, or a
composite of several. If a minor character doesn’t seem sufficiently
well-developed, I ask myself: if I were an actor, how would I play this
character? How would I see the story from his or her point of view, since in
our own minds, we’re always the central character of any story we appear in?
What was your
favorite part of writing Mind Virus?
Following in my protagonist’s footsteps in Israel, Vatican City,
and England.
Give us some
insight into your main character. What does he do that is special? What are his
character flaws?
One reader described Robin Fox as “Indiana Jones meets Sherlock
Holmes: brilliant, moral, instinctive, with uncanny powers of perception.”
Having seen a great deal of the world as the son of a Foreign Service officer,
he is multilingual, culturally adaptable, able to survive in just about any
country, but never completely at home anywhere. After his traumatic experience
in Iraq, he is passionately committed to peace and nonviolence, to the point
where he sometimes hesitates when decisive action may be called for.
If you could
spend time with a character from your book, which character would it be? And
what would you do during that day?
I would love to spend a day with Robin Fox, listening to his
stories about all the places he’s traveled in search of
enlightenment—meditating with monks in the Himalayas, whirling with dervishes
in Turkey, sweating with shamans in the American Southwest—and asking what
conclusions he’s drawn about the beliefs that unite the world’s faith
traditions.
Tell us about
the conflict in this book. What is at stake for your characters?
There are many layers of conflict. The main one, of course, is the
race to stop the villain before he can start a worldwide epidemic. There’s also
the undercurrent of tension between Fox and his CIA counterpart, John Adler,
and Fox’s anxiety that the more he cooperates, the deeper he’s dragged back
into a chapter in his life that he wanted to keep closed forever. And to top it
all off, there’s danger to the woman for whom Fox secretly harbors an
impossible love.
What was one
of the most surprising things you learned in creating Mind Virus?
I learned a great deal about the subtle art of interrogation.
Stories of “enhanced interrogation techniques” (a code word for torture)
dominated the news during the Iraq War, but the best interrogators would
probably dismiss those as crude and ineffective. Good interrogators have to be
keen students of psychology and talented actors, capable of improvising
themselves into whatever role will help them earn the subject’s trust. Fox
summed it up when he reflected, “In any interrogation, the most important questions
are the ones that aren’t asked. Who is this person? What does he want most?
What does he fear most? Once you know the answers to those, the field is won.”
Mind Virus seems to
have some technical aspects that appear to require some expertise or background
in the field. How did you come by this information? (Is it in your background,
or did you just do research?)
Mind Virus was a very
research-intensive book. Very little in my own background prepared me for it,
so I read everything I could get my hands on and consulted everyone willing to
share their experience and expertise with me.
How do you
choose which genre to write in?
I chose the mystery/thriller genre because as long as there’s an
unsolved mystery or a looming danger, readers will keep reading, and a great
deal of philosophy can be woven into the narrative as long as the action keeps
moving along.
What makes
your book different from other books in your genre?
Mind Virus isn’t the
typical thriller that pits the infallible West, led by the invincible United
States, against the dark forces of Islam. It paints the world in more shades of
gray (though perhaps not fifty!). And Fox is quite different from the
standard-issue action-adventure protagonist; he’s a reluctant hero, tormented
by remorse and self-doubt, who always prefers nonviolence over violence when he
has a choice.
Of all the
characters you have created, which is your favorite and why?
Of course, Robin Fox is my favorite, but his antagonist is a close
second. It was great fun to read authors from Nietzsche to Harris and combine
the nastiest parts of their philosophies into one monomaniacal psychopath from
hell. His appearance may be brief, but he gets some of the best lines in the
book.
Tell us about
your background. What made you decide to pursue writing?
I’ve been writing stories ever since I learned to write, and
finished my first (unpublished) novel at the age of 17. I write fiction because
my mind naturally frames things in terms of stories; that’s how I try to make
sense of complex issues. I also find that, especially on controversial and
polarizing issues, the best way—perhaps the only way—of getting people to see
an alternative point of view is through story.
What is your
writing process?
I’m a plotter. I can’t start a manuscript without a clear idea of
how the story is going to go. Once I have the plot in mind, I write the scenes
I’m inspired to write, in no particular order, and often in layers: dialogue
first, then narration, and finally description. And of course, however carefully
I plan, there are always surprises, and the finished product is never quite
what I had envisioned at first. I find that telling a story isn’t like carving
wood or stone, it’s more like cultivating a bonsai. You’re not working with a
slab of lifeless material but with something living, and you can try to direct
it into the shape you want, but you also have to pay attention to the way it
naturally grows.
Tell us about
the challenges of getting your book published. How did it come about?
It was indeed a challenge. The manuscript won more than its fair
share of awards and nominations, and agents and editors found the premise
intriguing, but not enough to sign, possibly because they felt the story was
too controversial to make it past a risk-averse editorial board. But after
dissipating my savings in writers’ conferences, I finally met—on a Twitter
pitch fest, of all places—an editor willing to take a leap of faith, Susan
Brooks.
What is your
favorite genre to read?
I like to read in the genre I like to write in: mysteries and
thrillers. I also read a fair bit of middle-grade fantasy these days, since I
have a son who’s that age, and I’m working on a project in that genre as well.
What are some
of your favorite authors or books?
Of course, I took some inspiration from the big names in the
genre, like Lee Child. Tana French showed me it’s possible to write genre
fiction with a literary flair. Dan Brown, Daniel Silva, and Jeffrey Small paved
the way for thrillers with religious themes. Barry Eisler and Barry Lancet
showed me it’s possible for Japan-based authors to produce books with worldwide
appeal; I’m hoping the same will prove true even for one who isn’t named Barry!
And the list wouldn’t be complete without Leo J. Maloney, who ever since our
chance meeting at Killer Nashville has been very generous with his time and
expertise and always gave me a dose of encouragement at just the time I needed
it.
What other
projects are you working on?
I have other Robin Fox novels in the works, the next one set in my
adopted homeland of Japan. I’m also working on a standalone thriller featuring
an archaeologist who, in the course of an undercover operation to recover
artifacts stolen from Iraq, finds evidence that she is descended from an
extraterrestrial race tasked with saving humanity from an impending disaster.
Do you have a
day job in addition to being a writer? If so, what do you do during the day?
I teach English at a university in Japan. Living abroad adds an
extra layer of challenge to the writing process. I often feel somewhat out of
touch with contemporary American culture, and research that for a U.S.-based
writer would take only a simple trip to the local library, or a call to a local
expert, for me requires careful planning and considerable expense. But on the
other hand, field research in exotic locations is easier, and living at a
distance from my native culture gives me a different perspective from writers
who are immersed in it.
What
motivates you to write?
50% inspiration and 50% desperation. Sometimes a story appears out
of nowhere, grabs hold of me, and won’t let me go until I tell it, and Mind Virus was one such. Also, as a
long-term expatriate, writing was also a way for me to maintain a connection
with the world I left behind.
Why did you
write Mind Virus?
The idea came about in response to the “New Atheist” movement, and
the way its icons—Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, David Silverman, the late
Christopher Hitchens—proclaim that all the world’s problems would be solved if
we could just get rid of religion. Living in a very secular country, I often
hear this sentiment echoed, to the point where I began to wonder: What if
someone were to carry this idea to its extreme, and decide religion must be
eradicated by violent means if necessary? It started out in a satirical,
tongue-in-cheek vein, putting atheists in the shoes of Muslims, always under
suspicion because of the acts of a few extremists (“Do not, under any
circumstances, attempt to carry books by Christopher Hitchens through airport
security”), but the more I wrote, the more frighteningly plausible it felt.
Who did you
write Mind Virus for (audience)?
Anyone who enjoys a thriller with philosophical underpinnings.
People of faith and lovers of peace will identify with Fox most closely, but it
was very gratifying to discover that nonbelievers and military veterans also
enjoyed the story.
Where can we
find you online?
On my website, charleskowalski.com, on Facebook at
charles.kowalski.author, or on Twitter at @CharlesKowalski.
What advice
would you give to aspiring writers?
Forget what they say about “write what you know.” Write what
excites your imagination, and the knowledge you need can be acquired. And if a
story grabs hold of you and won’t let go . . . tell it! Pay no attention to the
inner voices that say “this is no good” or “no one else will be interested in
it.” Believe in yourself, even when it feels like no one else does. To
paraphrase Florence Foster Jenkins, people may say you can’t write, but never
let it be said that you didn’t write.
What are the
most important elements of good writing? According to you, what tools are
must-haves for writers?
The writers I most enjoy reading, even in gritty, down-to-earth
genres, have a touch of the poet in them; they can create original, evocative
images and make words do things they hadn’t known they could. Writing my first
novel left me feeling that the most important quality for a writer is empathy,
the ability to see the world through the eyes of someone from a vastly
different background. Especially, to create engaging villains, you have to see
how the world makes sense from their point of view, even if it’s the polar
opposite of yours. For me, a good villain is one who makes the reader ask, “If
I had the same experience as this person, can I be absolutely sure I wouldn’t
have done the same things?” Apart from that, I’ll let W. Somerset Maugham have
the last word on this one: “There are three rules for writing a novel.
Unfortunately, no one knows what they are.”
Any last
thoughts?
I hope you enjoy Mind Virus—and
if you do, please help spread it!
Biography
Charles Kowalski is
almost as much a citizen of the world as his fictional character, Robin Fox,
having lived abroad for over 15 years, visited over 30 countries, and studied
over 10 languages. His unpublished debut novel, Mind Virus, won the Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers’ Colorado Gold
Award and was a finalist for the Adventure Writers’ Competition, the Killer
Nashville Claymore Award, and the Pacific Northwest Writers’ Association
literary award.
Charles currently
divides his time between Japan, where he teaches English at a university, and
his family home in Maine.
Mind Virus is scheduled for publication by Literary Wanderlust
on July 1, 2017.
Other novels and short stories by Charles Kowalski:
“Let This Cup Pass From Me”
“Arise, My Love”
“The Evil I Do Not Mean To Do”
Charles can be found
at his website, and on
Facebook and
Twitter (@CharlesKowalski).
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