The Ragnarök Conspiracy: Intel 1, Book One

From the Author

THE RAGNARÖK CONSPIRACY is my debut novel and the first novel in the INTEL 1 series of counter-terrorism/espionage global thrillers.

It is the story of two men who share a traumatic loss at the hands of Muslim extremists, and yet take two ultimately divergent paths afterwards. One man, John Savas, channels his pain to become one of the nation's leading, if unorthodox, FBI counter-terrorism officers. The other uses his considerable resources to become something else entirely.

Like many Americans, and especially many New Yorkers who directly witnessed that unprecedented attack on our city, I experienced many emotions. In the time following, characters and a plot began to take shape in my mind. After several years of their voices refusing to be silenced, I decided I had to write it down. All in all, it served as a form of exorcism. It also resurrected my interest in creative writing that had hibernated through two decades of intense work in science.

With some likely eccentricity, I view thrillers as the contemporary form of fantasy or science fiction. Fantasy takes place in the past, with conceits like magic and fairies, and science fiction is the future counterpart, with the magic of advanced technology and aliens. Why are thrillers the contemporary version of these to my mind? Because they also allow for the conceits of events that are not completely realistic, but, because so, allow the author creative license he or she would not have otherwise.

The fantastical - whether it's Rings of Power, the Borg, or improbable global conspiracies - allows authors struggling to portray the very nebulous, and yet very real seeming, ideas of good and evil a vehicle, a canvas for expression that so-called "realism" often does not. That's what is so attractive about writing in the genre.

That and blowing up a lot of stuff.