This book gave me one of my most interesting experiences as a writer. It started from an idea of a hero storming the fortress of a mad villain hell-bent on destroying the world. This came from my younger days, when I enjoyed watching Sean Connery as James Bond and reading pulp fiction like Doc Savage. I envisioned the story opening with the battle between the agent and the villain’s henchmen already in full-swing and the cause of it all being revealed in successive chapters. This concept, although interesting, did not survive the first draft, but not for any problem with the writing of it, rather, because I found a devil within the story who wanted out and she proved to be much stronger than my imagination.

A group of agents from various countries form an alliance of convenience in order to storm the mountain fortress of a madman styling himself Mephistopheles, a villain who appears to posses’ weaponry considered advanced in the 1930’s. All of the characters were men, and I really wanted a woman agent in there. Not a femme fatale in stockings and suspenders, but a cool-headed killer who was as deadly as any of her male colleagues, and so Artemisia Montessori was born. Originally, I had intended the British Agent, Doc Hunter who appeared in my previous novel ‘Eugenica’, as the protagonist, but the more I wrote about Artemisia the more she pushed herself to the front. In the end, being a gentleman, I let her have her way.

Although the story starts in a pulp fiction setting it quickly moves further afield. The central tenet in this story is that very few things and people are exactly as they seem. After the storming of the fortress, the surviving agents discover a darker mystery that may have tremendous implications for the world and the survival of the human species. A shadowy figure known as the Philosopher has walked the Earth for many years and wherever he goes people disappear, often their wealth and all of their possessions with them. He is seemingly protected by an organisation known as Argus Panoptes, who are quick to kidnap and kill his enemies. The trail leads from Mephistopheles’ mountain fortress located on the border of America and Canada, to Europe, and then into the jungles of South America.

The three agents pursuing the Philosopher all have their own agenda. Agent Frasier of US Navy Intelligence wants to prove himself to be the best by keeping up with the eugenic superman, Doc Hunter. Artemisia is an agent of the Italian Military Intelligence who wants to escape her life as an assassin but is unsure as to whether she can recover her humanity again. When she discovers that her cousin has disappeared after coming into contact with the Philosopher, she commits herself to one last mission in the hope of finding some redemption. Hunter has more personal reasons to find the Philosopher and a belief that this may prove to be his last mission also. Of the three it was Artemisia’s journey that I enjoyed writing the most. I am glad now that I did not force her to remain a supporting character. Her transition from the cold assassin to a woman looking to start a new life in which blood and murder is not a common feature was engrossing to write.

So, if you fancy a globe-trotting mystery thriller set in the 1930’s in which few things are as exactly as they appear then I can recommend to you ‘The Devil Within Us’!