At the end of this month, I’ll begin writing the next Mauro Bruno novel, The Puppeteer. I anticipated starting this manuscript in late January after completing The Archangel, the latest Matt Moretti-Han Li thriller. However, as that storyline unfolded, I became increasingly fond of my newest character, Prague detective Juraj Adamik, and decided to give him an expanded role in my story. The readers who previewed this manuscript formed, just like the author, an intense liking for this character. Subsequently, with prodding from the reviewers to make Adamik the primary character in a new book series, which is what I did with Mauro Bruno, who first appeared in The Archivist, I’ve decided to make Adamik the main character in the manuscript that follows the next Gunter Wayan novel.

Although I seem to have a penchant for private investigators and detectives, each marches to their own drummer and has a unique way of getting themselves into and out of trouble while dragging their friends along for the ride. However, the consequence of expanding Adamik’s participation in The Archangel was that it delayed the novel’s publication by over fourteen weeks, resulting in a manuscript approximately twenty percent longer than my last novel, The Collector. While Moretti, Han Li, and the other members of Nemesis are, as usual, neck-deep in trouble throughout the book, so is Adamik, their paths eventually converging in a situation that neither could have anticipated.

That said, and with The Archivist manuscript behind me, I’ll now begin writing The Puppeteer and once again putting Mauro Bruno, Elia Donati, Lisette Donais, and Pia Lamberti in life-threatening situations.