The Conscience of the C.O.D. follows the PR director of a luxury cruise line who gets an unexpected surprise when he discovers the owners have donated it to house 4000 refugees, and that is just the start of the nightmare. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?

As they say in newspaper circles – “rip and read”. When I read that New York City seriously considered housing the migrants on cruise ships, the idea sparked in my brain. I was looking for a starting point for a satire on today’s culture. What better way than to compress it all on a cruise ship? With the C.O.D. as my focal point, I loaded the ship up with people and events which became part of my shooting gallery.

Trip Torrent thinks he has it good as the PR director on a luxury cruise ship, but he ends up in a world where if it could go wrong, it is going to, and he has to make the best of the situation. What were some driving ideals behind your character’s development?

Once again, I noticed that in the real world presidential spokepersons only last about 18 months. It is a grueling meatgrinder. They must live in a bizarre world where reality is passed through a prism of interpretation and expedience. (There is an old joke: How much is 2 + 2? The answer: Are we buying or selling?) Torrent wants to rise to that level of achievement and even dreams about how this whole life of presidential misdirection could play out. I could easily see that someone with Torrents personality would love to be the master of misdirection. Keeping reporters confused and guessing. Torrent is not a particularly noble character but I see him as very real with genuine desires and hopes. And he does get tested by events mostly out of his control. He even has a spot of nobility when he thinks (wrongly) that one of the migrants was executed. O’Higgins the revolutionary is a true idealist who is forever battered and bruised by real life (My mother-in-law was a disappointed idealist and served as an inspiration) We all have our ultimate wants in life and too often reality gets in our way.

This is an action-packed and entertaining novel. Did you have fun writing it?

I had a blast! There is so much in today’s society that needs the santizing enema of satire that I had to hold back. In my previous satire Junkyard I have a master media manipulator named Sebastian El Dorado turn a simple old man who built an extraordinary vehicle into a semi-messianic, global figure.

What is the next book that you are working on, and when will it be available?

Working title: It Is Not Yet Your Time. An ordinary man is saved from a traffic death by a woman who is a member of a group called The Apologizers. He is capitvated by her. Her group believes that God has abandoned humanity and they must perform good works in order to … apologize. The man is accidently drawn into an Arab terrorist kidnapping, falls in with goverment agents, and meets the mysterious founder of the Apologizers – all in an effort to romance the woman whom he calls the Benevolent Pumpkin.

I hope to get it out by late 2025. I hope.

Author Links: Twitter | Facebook | Website

Original source: https://literarytitan.com/2024/05/23/rip-and-read/