Pg. 99: Bruce Hillman's "The Man Who Stalked Einstein"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: The Man Who Stalked Einstein: How Nazi Scientist Philipp Lenard Changed the Course of History by Bruce J. Hillman.

About the book, from the publisher:

By the end of World War I, Albert Einstein had become the face of the new science of theoretical physics and had made some powerful enemies. One of those enemies, Nobel Prize winner Philipp Lenard, spent a career trying to discredit him. Their story of conflict, pitting Germany’s most widely celebrated Jew against the Nazi scientist who was to become Hitler’s chief advisor on physics, had an impact far exceeding what the scientific community felt at the time. Indeed, their mutual antagonism affected the direction of science long after 1933, when Einstein took flight to America and changed the history of two nations. The Man Who Stalked Einstein details the tense relationship between Einstein and Lenard, their ideas and actions, during the eventful period between World War I and World War II.

Visit Bruce J. Hillman's website.

The Page 99 Test: The Man Who Stalked Einstein.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Ed Kovacs's "The Russian Bride"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: The Russian Bride by Ed Kovacs.

About the book, from the publisher:

Major Kit Bennings is an elite military intelligence agent working undercover in Moscow. When he is blackmailed and compromised by a brutal mafia don and former KGB general, he knows that his military career, if not his life, will soon be over. With little to lose, he goes rogue in the hope of saving his kidnapped sister and stopping a deadly scheme directed against America.

Yulana Petkova is a gorgeous woman, devoted mother, and Russian weapons engineer. And maybe more. Spy? Mob assassin? The shotgun marriage to stranger Kit Bennings takes her on a life-or-death hopscotch from Moscow to Los Angeles, from secret US military bases to Las Vegas, where she uses her wiles at every turn to carry out her own hidden agenda.

Hunted by killers from both Russia and the United States, Bennings struggles to stop the mobster's brilliant deception--a theft designed to go unnoticed--that will make the mafia kingpin the richest man in the world, while decimating the very heart of America's economic and intelligence institutions.

Learn more about the book and author at Ed Kovacs's website.

My Book, The Movie: Storm Damage.

The Page 69 Test: Storm Damage.

The Page 69 Test: Good Junk.

The Page 69 Test: Burnt Black.

The Page 69 Test: The Russian Bride.

--Marshal Zeringue

Joy Fielding's "Someone Is Watching," the movie

Featured at My Book, The Movie: Someone Is Watching by Joy Fielding.

The entry begins:

If Someone Is Watching were to be made into a movie, I'd love for Emma Stone to play Bailey. I actually didn't have anyone in particular in mind when I was writing the book, but having given the matter considerable thought over the last few days, I've come to think that Emma Stone would be perfect. She's probably a little young - Bailey is 29 and I think Emma Stone is at least a few years younger than that - but I still think she could make it work. She's a...[read on]

Learn more about the book and author at Joy Fielding's website.

The Page 69 Test: Shadow Creek.

My Book, The Movie: Shadow Creek.

Writers Read: Joy Fielding.

The Page 69 Test: Someone Is Watching.

My Book, The Movie: Someone Is Watching.

--Marshal Zeringue

Seven top YA novels about best friendship

One title on Dahlia Adler's list of seven great YA novels about best friendship, as shared on the B & N Teen Blog:

Over You, by Amy Reed

When Max’s best friend, Sadie, is sidelined with mono over the summer, leaving Max effectively alone in unfamiliar territory, she could mope around in Sadie’s shadow. Instead, Max decides to embrace all the things she never would have at Sadie’s side, and by the time Sadie gets better, Max has to decide whether they really are best friends forever or better off apart. In truth, this book is almost about the opposite of best friendship—finding your own identity when you realize just how toxic the person you’ve been calling your best friend is. But as someone who’s prone to falling into those types of relationships, this is one of my favorite BFF books of all.

Read about another entry on the list.

Writers Read: Amy Reed (October 2014).

--Marshal Zeringue

What is John Renehan reading?

Featured at Writers Read: John Renehan, author of The Valley.

His entry begins:

For Homework: Lord of the Flies, Peter Pan

When I’m sketching a new project (he says with exactly one book under his belt), I end up assigning myself a lot of background reading. Sometimes it’s simple research, and sometimes I can’t really articulate why a book wants to be read. Usually it ends up being fruitful, though I’m not sure which is the cart and which is the horse there. Right now I’m re-reading these two classics while I’m working on a second war book. (Don’t ask; it makes sense to me.) I last read Lord of the Flies in middle school. Turns out it’s a grown-up book. I know it’s still taught in middle/high schools, and at the time I thought I understood its symbols and themes, but reading it now at 42, and as the parent of a son, I see that I wasn’t really equipped as a teenager to appreciate it. I got the boys wrong, too. Ralph is not the self-possessed, tough-but-comfortable-in-his-humane-rationality, Christian-Bale-in-Reign-of-Fire leader I remembered him being. He’s a scared kid who’s in over his head, and he’s got a cruel edge to him that I’d forgotten. And Jack is not the simple malevolence I remembered him as. He’s not a sociopathic personality (though...[read on]

About The Valley, from the publisher:

“You’re going up the Valley.”

Black didn’t know its name, but he knew it lay deeper and higher than any other place Americans had ventured. You had to travel through a network of interlinked valleys, past all the other remote American outposts, just to get to its mouth. Everything about the place was myth and rumor, but one fact was clear: There were many valleys in the mountains of Afghanistan, and most were hard places where people died hard deaths. But there was only one Valley. It was the farthest, and the hardest, and the worst.

When Black, a deskbound admin officer, is sent up the Valley to investigate a warning shot fired by a near-forgotten platoon, he can only see it as the final bureaucratic insult in a short and unhappy Army career. What he doesn’t know is that his investigation puts at risk the centuries-old arrangements that keep this violent land in fragile balance, and will launch a shattering personal odyssey of obsession and discovery as Black reckons with the platoon’s dark secrets, accumulated over endless hours fighting and dying in defense of an indefensible piece of land.

The Valley is a riveting tour de force that changes our understanding of the men who fight our wars and announces John Renehan as one of the great American storytellers of our time.

Visit John Renehan's website.

Writers Read: John Renehan.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Emma Sky's "The Unraveling"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: The Unraveling: High Hopes and Missed Opportunities in Iraq by Emma Sky.

About the book, from the publisher:

When Emma Sky volunteered to help rebuild Iraq after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein in 2003, she had little idea what she was getting in to. Her assignment was only supposed to last three months. She went on to serve there longer than any other senior military or diplomatic figure, giving her an unrivaled perspective of the entire conflict.

As the representative of the Coalition Provisional Authority in Kirkuk in 2003 and then the political advisor to US General Odierno from 2007–2010, Sky was valued for her knowledge of the region and her outspoken voice. She became a tireless witness to American efforts to transform a country traumatized by decades of war, sanctions, and brutal dictatorship; to insurgencies and civil war; to the planning and implementation of the surge and the subsequent drawdown of US troops; to the corrupt political elites who used sectarianism to mobilize support; and to the takeover of a third of the country by the Islamic State.

With sharp detail and tremendous empathy, Sky provides unique insights into the US military as well as the complexities, diversity, and evolution of Iraqi society. The Unraveling is an intimate insider’s portrait of how and why the Iraq adventure failed and contains a unique analysis of the course of the war. Highlighting how nothing that happened in Iraq after 2003 was inevitable, Sky exposes the failures of the policies of both Republicans and Democrats, and the lessons that must be learned about the limitations of power.

Learn more about The Unraveling at the publisher's website.

The Page 99 Test: The Unraveling.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Michael Gregorio's "Cry Wolf"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: Cry Wolf by Michael Gregorio.

About the book, from the publisher:

Introducing resourceful park ranger Sebastiano Cangio in the first of a brand-new crime series set against the glorious landscape of Italy's Umbria region.

Sebastiano Cangio is loving his dream job as a ranger in the stunning Sybillines national park in mystical Umbria. Then the first body is found. Recognizing the hallmarks of a Mafia killing and determined to stop Umbria being destroyed by organized crime, Cangio is pitted against a trail of bodies, greed and corruption that leads right to the top.

Visit Michael Gregorio's website and blog.

Michael Gregorio is the pen name of Michael G. Jacob and Daniela De Gregorio. They live in Spoleto, Italy. Michael Gregorio was awarded the Umbria del Cuore prize in 2007.

The Page 69 Test: A Visible Darkness.

The Page 69 Test: Unholy Awakening.

My Book, The Movie: Michael Gregorio's Hanno Stiffeniis novels.

The Page 69 Test: Cry Wolf.

--Marshal Zeringue

Joyce E. Salisbury's "Rome’s Christian Empress," the movie

Featured at My Book, The Movie: Rome's Christian Empress: Galla Placidia Rules at the Twilight of the Empire by Joyce E. Salisbury.

The entry begins:

Throughout the time I was writing this book, I pictured Angelina Jolie as playing the empress Placidia. First was the obvious –her looks. Galla Placidia was reputed to be stunningly beautiful with dark hair and dark eyes, and her one portrait (on the cover of my book) shows this. Beyond this, however, I’d need an actress who could express a range of emotions and embrace seemingly conflicting character traits. Placidia was deeply religious, yet she boldly exerted power even when her actions might seem unchristian at best. She approved of the execution of her stepmother; her disagreeable husband died under surprising circumstances; she was accused of inappropriate affection with her brother when she needed his support. Yet, Pope Leo knelt at her feet looking for...[read on]

Learn more about Rome's Christian Empress at the Johns Hopkins University Press website.

The Page 99 Test: Rome's Christian Empress.

Writers Read: Joyce E. Salisbury.

My Book, The Movie: Rome's Christian Empress.

--Marshal Zeringue

Five top books to help you celebrate the power of love

At B & N Reads, Kelly Anderson tagged five top books for newlyweds, including:

Possession, by A.S. Byatt

A book that tells the tale of overeducated academics uncovering a long-buried relationship between Victorian-era poets might not seem the most natural choice for newlyweds, but that relationship? Was hot as hell. In this time-shifting novel, A.S. Byatt tracks the discoveries of two modern-day scholars who stumble across evidence of the love affair, tantalizingly allowing us to experience the growing passions of lovers in both eras—including sexy love letters and exquisite poetry. In the end, this is a book about the lasting effects of passion and enduring love, with some of the most gorgeous falling-in-love I have ever seen. Any newlywed in the throes of honeymoon bliss will understand what one of the lovers means when they write to the other, “Did we not—did you not flame and I catch fire?… I thank God for you—if there must be a Dragon—that He was You.”

Read about the other entries on the list.

Possession also appears on Rebecca Mead's list of six favorite books that illuminate the Victorian era, Marina Warner's ten top list of fairytales, Ester Bloom's top ten list of fictional feminists, Niall Williams's list of ten of the best books that manage to make heroes out of readers, Kyle Minor's list of fifteen of the hottest affairs in literature, Emily Temple's list of the fifty greatest campus novels ever written, John Mullan's lists of ten of the best fossils in literature, ten of the most memorable libraries in literature, ten of the best fictional poets, ten of the best locks of hair in fiction, ten of the best graveyard scenes in fiction, and ten of the best lawyers in literature, and on Rachel Syme's list of the ten most attractive men in literature, Christina Koning's critic's chart of six top romances, and Elizabeth Kostova's top ten list of books for winter nights.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Elizabeth Haynes reading?

Featured at Writers Read: Elizabeth Haynes, author of Behind Closed Doors.

Her entry begins:

I have just finished reading Hausfrau by Jill Alexander Essbaum, a novel in which the protagonist is an American called Anna who is living in Zurich, Switzerland with her Swiss husband and children. In part, the story is an exploration of how it can feel to be an ex-pat – belonging to the community by marriage and residence and yet still remaining detached from it.

Anna’s detachment becomes more obvious as the reader progresses through the book. She seems happy enough and yet her behaviour – indulging in increasingly risky and apparently unfulfilling sexual liaisons – demonstrates otherwise. The narrative shows Anna’s disconnected life through snippets of scenes from her past, as well as brief interludes of...[read on]

About Behind Closed Doors, from the publisher:

An old case makes Detective Inspector Louisa Smith some new enemies in this spellbinding second installment of New York Times bestselling author Elizabeth Haynes’s Briarstone crime series that combines literary suspense and page-turning thrills.

Ten years ago, 15-year-old Scarlett Rainsford vanished while on a family holiday in Greece. Was she abducted, or did she run away from her severely dysfunctional family? Lou Smith worked the case as a police constable, and failing to find Scarlett has been one of the biggest regrets of her career. No one is more shocked than Lou to learn that Scarlett has unexpectedly been found during a Special Branch raid of a brothel in Briarstone.

Lou and her Major Crime team are already stretched working two troubling cases: nineteen-year-old Ian Palmer was found badly beaten; and soon after, bar owner Carl McVey was found half-buried in the woods, his Rolex and money gone. While Lou tries to establish the links between the two cases, DS Sam Hollands works with Special Branch to question Scarlett. What happened to her? Where has she been until now? How did she end up back here? And why is her family—with the exception of her emotionally fragile younger sister, Juliette—less than enthusiastic about her return?

When another brutal assault and homicide are linked to the McVey murder, Lou’s cases collide, and the clues all point in one terrifying direction. As the pressure and the danger mount, it becomes clear that the silent, secretive Scarlett holds the key to everything.

Visit the official Elizabeth Haynes website and blog.

Coffee with a Canine: Elizabeth Haynes & Bea.

The Page 69 Test: Under a Silent Moon.

The Page 69 Test: Behind Closed Doors.

Writers Read: Elizabeth Haynes.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Martin Goldsmith's "Alex's Wake"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Alex's Wake: The Tragic Voyage of the St. Louis to Flee Nazi Germany--and a Grandson's Journey of Love and Remembrance by Martin Goldsmith.

About the book, from the publisher:

Alex’s Wake is a tale of two parallel journeys undertaken seven decades apart. In the spring of 1939, Alex and Helmut Goldschmidt were two of more than 900 Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi Germany aboard the St. Louis, “the saddest ship afloat” (New York Times). Turned away from Cuba, the United States, and Canada, the St. Louis returned to Europe, a stark symbol of the world’s indifference to the gathering Holocaust. The Goldschmidts disembarked in France, where they spent the next three years in six different camps before being shipped to their deaths in Auschwitz.

In the spring of 2011, Alex’s grandson, Martin Goldsmith, followed in his relatives’ footsteps on a six-week journey of remembrance and hope, an irrational quest to reverse their fate and bring himself peace. Alex’s Wake movingly recounts the detailed histories of the two journeys, the witnesses Martin encounters for whom the events of the past are a vivid part of a living present, and an intimate, honest attempt to overcome a tormented family legacy.

Visit the Alex's Wake website.

The Page 99 Test: Alex's Wake.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Jan-Philipp Sendker's "Whispering Shadows"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: Whispering Shadows by Jan-Philipp Sendker.

About the book, from the publisher:

The first in a suspenseful new trilogy by the internationally bestselling author of The Art of Hearing Heartbeats, this gripping story follows a retired expat journalist in contemporary China who tries to crack a murder case as he battles his own personal demons.

American expat Paul Leibovitz was once an ambitious advisor, dedicated father, and loving husband. But after living for nearly thirty years in Hong Kong, personal tragedy strikes and Paul’s marriage unravels in the fallout.

Now Paul is living as a recluse on an outlying island of Hong Kong. When he makes a fleeting connection with Elizabeth, a distressed American woman on the verge of collapse, his life is thrown into turmoil. Less than twenty-four hours later, Elizabeth’s son is found dead in Shenzhen, and Paul, invigorated by a newfound purpose, sets out to investigate the murder on his own.

As Paul, Elizabeth, and a detective friend descend deeper into the Shenzhen underworld—against the wishes of a woman with whom Paul has had a flirtation—they discover dark secrets hidden beneath China’s booming new wealth. In a country where rich businessmen with expensive degrees can corrupt the judicial system, the potential for evil abounds.

Part love story, part crime thriller, Whispering Shadows is the captivating tale of one man’s desperate search for redemption within the vice of a world superpower, a place where secrets from the past threaten to upend the country’s unchecked drive towards modernization.

Visit Jan-Philipp Sendker's website.

The Page 69 Test: Whispering Shadows.

--Marshal Zeringue

Six of the best books with sympathetic characters in dangerous settings

Alan Gurganus's books include White People, Oldest Confederate Widow Tells All, and the novella Decoy.

At The Week magazine he tagged his six favorite books with sympathetic characters in dangerous settings, including:

Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe

This early modernist masterwork anticipates contemporary loneliness. Can a single psyche, doing solitary on an island for decades, ever learn to love itself? Yes. Then relief arrives: TGIF!

Read about another entry on the list.

Robinson Crusoe is one of ten great books about hurricanes, and among Bear Grylls's top ten stories of survival and bravery.

The Page 99 Test: Robinson Crusoe.

--Marshal Zeringue

Ten top books about the British in India

Ferdinand Mount is the author of The Tears of the Rajas: Mutiny, Money and Marriage in India 1805-1905.

One of his top ten books about the British in India, as shared at the Guardian:

A Passage to India by EM Forster (1924)

I had misremembered Forster’s celebrated book as a rather prim and joyless novel against imperialism. When I came back to it years later, I found it luscious and funny. Of course the British are absurd and don’t understand India or the Indians, and Dr Aziz and Cyril Fielding cannot truly be friends until the Raj is over and done with. But when Forster toys with his characters, he toys so gently that they never cease to breathe.

Read about another book on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Joyce E. Salisbury reading?

Featured at Writers Read: Joyce E. Salisbury, author of Rome's Christian Empress: Galla Placidia Rules at the Twilight of the Empire.

Her entry begins:

I read a lot of books. I won’t describe the ones that informed Rome’s Christian Empress directly because the bibliography of the book does that. Here’s some of the books that I’ve read while waiting for my book to appear. I unrepentantly love mysteries, and the more complex the better. I’ve recently read Philip Kerr’s books whose protagonist is a non-Nazi detective in Nazi Germany – most recently, If the Dead Rise Not. I also really liked Robert Galbraith's The Silkworm, and the complex and riveting Donna Tartt, The Goldfinch. To be honest, I also read every Jack Reacher novel as...[read on]

About Rome's Christian Empress, from the publisher:

In Rome’s Christian Empress, Joyce E. Salisbury brings the captivating story of Rome’s Christian empress to life. The daughter of Roman emperor Theodosius I, Galla Placidia lived at the center of imperial Roman power during the first half of the fifth century. Taken hostage after the fall of Rome to the Goths, she was married to the king and, upon his death, to a Roman general. The rare woman who traveled throughout Italy, Gaul, and Spain, she eventually returned to Rome, where her young son was crowned as the emperor of the western Roman provinces. Placidia served as his regent, ruling the Roman Empire and the provinces for twenty years.

Salisbury restores this influential, too-often forgotten woman to the center stage of this crucial period. Describing Galla Placidia’s life from childhood to death while detailing the political and military developments that influenced her—and that she influenced in turn—the book relies on religious and political sources to weave together a narrative that combines social, cultural, political, and theological history.

The Roman world changed dramatically during Placidia’s rule: the Empire became Christian, barbarian tribes settled throughout the West, and Rome began its unmistakable decline. But during her long reign, Placidia wielded formidable power. She fended off violent invaders and usurpers who challenged her Theodosian dynasty; presided over the dawn of the Catholic Church as theological controversies split the faithful and church practices and holidays were established; and spent fortunes building churches and mosaics that incorporated prominent images of herself and her family. Compulsively readable, Rome’s Christian Empress is the first full-length work to give this fascinating and complex ruler her due.

Learn more about Rome's Christian Empress at the Johns Hopkins University Press website.

The Page 99 Test: Rome's Christian Empress.

Writers Read: Joyce E. Salisbury.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 69: Joy Fielding's "Someone Is Watching"

Featured at the Page 69 Test: Someone Is Watching by Joy Fielding.

About the book, from the publisher:

A pulse-pounding thriller perfect for fans of Lisa Gardner and Mary Higgins Clark with a sly nod toward Alfred Hitchcock’s classic film Rear Window, Someone Is Watching boasts the extraordinary edge-of-your-seat storytelling of bestselling author Joy Fielding at the height of her powers.

As a special investigator for a hotshot Miami law firm, Bailey Carpenter is smart, savvy, and fearless. When she’s assigned to spy on a deadbeat dad in the middle of the night, Bailey thinks nothing of the potential dangers, only that she needs to gather evidence. Then she is blindsided—attacked and nearly killed.

Now the firm grip Bailey once had on her life is shaken. Her nightmares merge into her waking hours and she’s unable to venture beyond her front door without panicking. A veritable prisoner in her own home, Bailey is uncertain whom she can trust. But old habits die hard, and soon Bailey finds a new use for her idle binoculars: casually observing from her window neighboring buildings and other people’s lives. This seemingly harmless diversion becomes a guilty pleasure when Bailey fixates on the handsome guy across the street—until she realizes that he is also watching her. Suddenly she must confront the terrifying possibility that he may be the man who shattered her life.

Though crippled by fear, Bailey knows she can’t ignore her suspicions and risk leaving a predator at large. With the police making no headway in solving her case, she’s determined to overcome her terror and reclaim the power she lost by unmasking her attacker and taking him down herself. But it’s a harrowing battle that threatens to wreck Bailey’s credibility, compromise an investigation, and maybe even claim her sanity.

Learn more about the book and author at Joy Fielding's website.

The Page 69 Test: Shadow Creek.

My Book, The Movie: Shadow Creek. 

Writers Read: Joy Fielding.

The Page 69 Test: Someone Is Watching.

--Marshal Zeringue

Pg. 99: Tiffany Joseph's "Race on the Move"

Featured at the Page 99 Test: Race on the Move: Brazilian Migrants and the Global Reconstruction of Race by Tiffany Joseph.

About the book, from the publisher:

Race on the Move takes readers on a journey from Brazil to the United States and back again to consider how migration between the two countries is changing Brazilians' understanding of race relations. Brazil once earned a global reputation as a racial paradise, and the United States is infamous for its overt social exclusion of nonwhites. Yet, given the growing Latino and multiracial populations in the United States, the use of quotas to address racial inequality in Brazil, and the flows of people between each country, contemporary race relations in each place are starting to resemble each other.

Tiffany Joseph interviewed residents of Governador Valadares, Brazil's largest immigrant-sending city to the U.S., to ask how their immigrant experiences have transformed local racial understandings. Joseph identifies and examines a phenomenon—the transnational racial optic—through which migrants develop and ascribe social meaning to race in one country, incorporating conceptions of race from another. Analyzing the bi-directional exchange of racial ideals through the experiences of migrants, Race on the Move offers an innovative framework for understanding how race can be remade in immigrant-sending communities.

Learn more about the book and author at Tiffany D. Joseph's website.

The Page 99 Test: Race on the Move.

--Marshal Zeringue

Six top fictionalized biographies

At B & N Reads, Jenny Kawecki tagged six of the best fictionalized biographies, including:

I, Elizabeth, by Rosalind Miles

My lifelong obsession with this lovely royal redhead might make me a bit biased, but Miles’ fictional autobiography of Queen Elizabeth I should definitely be on your need-to-read list. Told from the perspective of a declining Elizabeth, the novel documents her life from childhood to old age, with all the wit, humor, and regret you’d expect from a woman who muscled her way through war, scandal, and exile.

Read about another entry on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue

What is Jon Land reading?

Featured at Writers Read: Jon Land, author of Black Scorpion: The Tyrant Reborn.

His entry begins:

I’m currently reading Revival by Stephen King and loving it. I read authors, not just books. King is at the top of my list and Revival has all the elements that explain why. First and foremost, King is a great storyteller. And reading his stories when I was in college made me want to be a writer. Two of the best books I read last year were Doctor Sleep and Mr. Mercedes, both King tales that were entirely different from each other but both were wondrously entertaining. King invests you in the plight of his characters, makes you feel...[read on]

About Black Scorpion, from the publisher:

The next adventure of The Seven Sins' Michael "The Tyrant" Tiranno, Jon Land's Black Scorpion is a pulse pounding action-thriller as he takes on a worldwide human trafficking cabal.

Five years have passed since Michael Tiranno saved the city of Las Vegas from a terrorist attack. And now a new enemy has surfaced in Eastern Europe in the form of an all-powerful organization called Black Scorpion. Once a victim of human trafficking himself, the shadowy group's crazed leader, Vladimir Dracu, has become the mastermind behind the scourge's infestation on a global scale. And now he's set his sights on Michael Tiranno for reasons birthed in a painful secret past that have scarred both men.

Already facing a myriad of problems, Michael once more must rise to the challenge of confronting an all-powerful enemy who is exploiting and ravaging innocents all across the globe and has set nothing less than all of America as its new victim. Black Scorpion has also taken the woman Michael loves hostage:?Scarlett Swan, a beautiful archaeologist who was following the dangerous trail of the origins of the ancient relic that both defines and empowers Michael, a discovery that could change history and the perception of mankind's very origins.

With the deck and the odds stacked against him, Michael must come to learn and embrace his true destiny in becoming the Tyrant reborn as a dark knight to triumph over ultimate evil and stop the sting of Black Scorpion from undermining all of the United States and plunging Las Vegas into chaos and anarchy.

A major production for a feature film is in active development in Hollywood based on the franchised character of Michael Tiranno, the Tyrant. The film will be based on the blended adaptation of Black Scorpion and its predecessor, The Seven Sins, which both have also been licensed to DC Comics for comic books and graphic novels publications worldwide.

Visit Jon Land's website.

The Page 69 Test: Black Scorpion.

Writers Read: Jon Land.

--Marshal Zeringue

Adam Mitzner's "Losing Faith," the movie

Featured at My Book, The Movie: Losing Faith by Adam Mitzner.

The entry begins:

I try to stay away from imagining the book on film as I’m writing because I think it can make the descriptions of the characters less rich, using short-hand rather than really delving into their characteristics. That being said, I'd absolutely love to see Losing Faith on the big screen (or the small one), and here’s who I would cast in its leading roles:

Aaron Littman. The protagonist of Losing Faith is fifty years old and the chairman of the most powerful law firm in New York City, and the book’s main story line concerns his efforts to stay atop that lofted perch. I think the obvious choice would be George Clooney, but I could also see Colin Firth, Liam Neeson, or even Pierce Brosnan playing the role – assuming they would do it with a New York accent.

Cynthia Littman. Aaron’s wife has to be a match for her husband, and believable as a...[read on]

Learn more about the book and author at Adam Mitzner's website.

The Page 69 Test: A Conflict of Interest.

My Book, The Movie: A Conflict of Interest.

The Page 69 Test: A Case of Redemption.

My Book, The Movie: A Case of Redemption.

The Page 69 Test: Losing Faith.

Writers Read: Adam Mitzner.

My Book, The Movie: Losing Faith.

--Marshal Zeringue