Will iconic images recorded in the grooves of an ancient vase unite the Holy Land or rip it further apart?

THE VASE

A novel by Mark M. DeRobertis

Muhsin Muhabi is a Palestinian potter, descended from a long line of potters. His business is run from the same shop owned by his ancestors since the day his forebears moved to Nazareth. The region's conflict saw the death of his oldest son, and rogue terrorists are in the process of recruiting his youngest in their plot to assassinate the Pope and Israeli prime minister.

Professor Hiram Weiss is an art historian at Nazareth’s Bethel University. He is also a Shin Bet operative on special assignment. With the help of fellow agent, Captain Benny Mathias, he plans to destroy the gang responsible for the death of his wife and only child. He puts a bomb in the ancient vase he takes on loan from Muhsin’s Pottery Shop.

Mary Levin, the charming assistant to the director of Shin Bet, has lost a husband and most of her extended family to recurring wars and never-ending terrorism. She dedicates her life to the preservation of Israel, but to whom will she dedicate her heart? The brilliant professor from Bethel University? Or the gallant captain who now leads Kidon?

Harvey Holmes, the Sherlock of Haunted Houses, is a Hollywood TV host whose reality show just flopped. When a Lebanese restaurant owner requests his ghost-hunting services, he believes the opportunity will resurrect his career. All he has to do is exorcise the ghosts that are haunting the restaurant. It happens to be located right across the street from Muhsin’s Pottery Shop.




Friday, May 29, 2015

Edits Are In

Got the first round of edits to Killer Eyes yesterday. I was quick to get started on them. Once I got home from work, I went to work on those edits. I got a lot done the first day, too. Mostly small things were edited, like the removal of a few words here and there, but for the most part the manuscript was "clean" or at least that's how my publisher described it. And she was right. I spent a lot of time on that manuscript making sure it was clean. Just as I'm doing with my John Dunn manuscript. The longer you work on it the cleaner it becomes.

So I'll be eager to get back to work on the edits when I get home from work today, too. It's an enormously fun thing to do. Like doing art, or writing music. It's all related, really. It's creating something. I've had a lot of experience at this point in my life creating things. Art, as in drawings, paintings, and sculptures. Music as in songs. And now books, as in novels. Writing novels might just be the most fun. Well, maybe it's a toss up. No, I think it is. You create a universe, you populate it and dictate the course of events. What could beat that?

No comments:

Post a Comment