The Inside Scoop!

Mike Dellosso

and his thriller

Kill Devil

Tyndale House

*******

I grew up in…

I was born in Baltimore, MD, right in the city, and lived there until I was nine, roaming our neighbourhood and listening to 1970s rock-n-roll. We then moved to Hanover, PA, a town of 10,000. Quite a change from the big city. There I roamed the woods and that’s where my imagination really developed.

I was inspired to write my first published novel by…

In 1998 my brother-in-law was in a very serious motorcycle accident. My wife and I travelled to Albany, NY to be with my sister. Darrell’s prognosis was terrible. If he survived, the doctors were all saying he’d be in a vegetative state the rest of his life. We were all devastated. I returned home full of every kind of emotion possible and didn’t know what to do with myself. Finally, I did the only thing I could think to do and that was to grab a pen and paper and write. I fell in love with writing then. It was like being born again. For several years I toyed with non-fiction writing, devotionals, vignettes, personal thoughts, that sort of thing. Then in 2004 I got the idea that I wanted to write fiction. I was mesmerized by Frank Peretti’s books and wanted to try my hand at it. So I wrote one novel and then another. That second book was The Hunted, my first published novel. And by the way, Darrell survived his ordeal and is free of any lingering signs or symptoms of his brain injuries. He and Katie have four kids.

The books that have most influenced my life are…

Frank Peretti’s works. All of them. C.S. Lewis’ The Chronicles of Narnia. Henry Blackaby’s Experiencing God. Lots of Max Lucado’s books. And A.J. Cronin’s The Citadel and The Keys of the Kingdom.

My biggest challenge when writing is…

Finding time, without a doubt. It’s always a challenge working my writing in around my full-time job and family. It’s a constant frustration. Same goes with marketing and promoting my books. I have to consider myself a part-time writer because I can only put in part-time hours. Honestly, I think my sales suffer because of it. I always think—part time writers get part time sales. It’s just a fact for so many of us.

One of my favourite authors is… Why?

A.J. Cronin. He was a Scottish doctor and novelist who wrote in the mid-20^th century. He’s got some great books that have meant a lot to me. I don’t read too many books more than once but I’ve read all of his at least twice. The Citadel I’ve read three times. He has such a way of connecting with the characters in his books and that allows the reader to connect with them. I love his writing. Absolutely love it.

If I wasn’t a writer, I would be…

Very bored. I don’t have any hobbies and really no other interests outside my full-time job in healthcare and my family. I’m not a very interesting person.

The superhero talent I would love to have is…

Strength and agility like Captain America. In fact, my character Jed Patrick in Centralia and Kill Devil is a super soldier of sorts and has these characteristics in a very non-superhero kind of way.

Jed Patrick is convinced he’s doing all it takes to keep his family safe—new names, new location, new identity. But just when he thinks he finally has his life back, trained men claiming to be CIA agents break in and threaten his wife and daughter, proving once and for all his family will never truly be safe until he eliminates the agency dead set on hunting him down.

Not knowing if Karen and Lilly are better off by his side or in hiding, Jed is determined to protect them while finding a way to use the classified information that he possesses to dismantle the Centralia Project. But he soon learns that eliminating Centralia may require compromising his own values. As danger escalates, Jed isn’t sure whether there’s anyone or anything he can trust—including his own senses.

My latest novel can be described by these 5 adjectives…

Intriguing. Gripping. Mysterious. Captivating. Arresting.

My main character is… 

Myself in a lot of ways. He’s a family man, a patriot. He’s passionate about doing the right thing. He questions his faith, questions his motives at times, and struggles to keep his family safe. He’s flawed but a good man at heart. Physically, I imagine him resembling Mark or Don Wahlberg.

A previously unknown fact about this novel is…

That synthetic telepathy is a real thing. The technology is there and it’s been in testing for years. The military is looking at applications for it and of course there are commercial applications as well. It’s amazing and scary. I think there are a lot of ethical hurdles to overcome with such a technology and only the future will tell how successful it will truly be. But as one article pointed out, thirty years ago Skype and other videophone technology was only a theory and a hope.

My story’s spiritual theme is…

I think the core of the theme is God’s will. The fact that His ways are not our ways and that at times what we may think is the right thing to do or what we may think He wants us to do is not always accurate. Often we are left in the dark and must trust Him. That means more times than not we need to listen to His voice and look for His leading absent of any filters or lenses we want to view it through. At times, God asks us to do some pretty unorthodox, seemingly ridiculous stuff and we stop and say, “Huh? Really, Lord? You want me to do that?” And He says, “Yes. You’ll just have to trust me.”

While writing this novel I was challenged by…

The reality that “doing the right thing” is not always as black and white as we’d like it to be or like to think it is. Sometimes, what is “right” doesn’t mesh with our ideas of right and wrong, with our codes of conduct or sets of moral guidelines. God’s ways are above our ways and we don’t always understand why He does what He does or why He may ask us to do something. But He is always right and doing His will is always right.

The title was chosen by…

Myself. It refers to Kill Devil Hills, NC but has a double meaning in the story.

As an author, the hardest scenes for me to write are… Why?

Scenes that include areas or subject matters that I know little about. I quickly grow impatient with research. I do the best I can and try my best to make the scene feel as authentic as possible but always feel inadequate with the details. The big fear for me in writing is getting the details wrong. I know how devastating that can be to keeping a reader’s trust.

The story I’m currently working on is…

I’m toying with some other ideas for Jed Patrick. I’ve written a couple short stories featuring him as well. I also have an idea for a stand-alone thriller. But as of now, these are all in the concept and development phase. Nothing concrete yet.

You may not know this about me, but I…

Have struggled with stuttering all my life. Up until I was twenty-six I stuttered so severely I could barely piece together one coherent thought. But when I discovered writing I also found my voice. I realized I didn’t stutter when I wrote and that gave me a whole new freedom to express myself. Since that day in 1998 when I put pen to paper and fell in love with writing my stuttering has improved steadily. It’s really been amazing. Also, I’m an eight-year colon cancer survivor. I was thirty-five when I was diagnosed back in March of 2008. That battle—the chemo, surgery, ileostomy, and more surgeries—has truly been life-changing.

If I could be a character in any novel, I would want to be…

Andrew Manson, the young Scottish doctor in A.J. Cronin’s The Citadel. I just love his passion and honesty. He’s so real and authentic. Cronin did a wonderful job of creating and developing him.

Thanks Mike!

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Buy at Amazon: Kill Devil or Koorong

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