Author Gene Masters
As a publisher at Escarpment Press, it has been my privilege to work with many aspiring authors. As a sole proprietor, I wear many hats, including, but not limited to: editor, proofreader, cover designer, etc. My relationship with my clients is based upon a trust that I will always be honest with them, and will always make their book the very best it can be. For many of my authors, it is a one shot deal. However, several have become repeat clients. One of those is Gene Masters. His latest work is Vitelli in Venice, the fourth in the Rich Vitelli Mystery Series, and the eighth book overall that I have published for Gene. When a new book comes out, I always like to interview the author for my blog. However, since Gene has been a guest on numerous occasions, I thought we’d skip the personal stuff and focus instead on his newest book and how it came to be.
Joe: So, Gene, congratulations! You’ve now written as many books as I have (cheap plug pour moi). How many more books do you envision yourself writing?
Gene: Well, it all depends upon my publisher. As long as he’ll continue to have me, I’ll just keep ‘em coming . . .
Joe: I happen to know your publisher personally, and I can assure you he thoroughly enjoys working with you! But seriously, whatever inspired you to write a book about an art theft that is set in Venice, Italy?
Gene: Well, as you know, Joe, both my parents were born in Italy. They each came over with their parents just after the turn of the twentieth century, and were raised in New York City, where they met and married. I was born with the Italian surname, Mastrangelo, which my parents anglicized to Masters in the early 1940s.
Joe: A very common occurrence back in the day.
Gene: My older sister and I were raised in a home where good music was played continuously, where the library featured books on art and history. We often visited museums, with the Museum of Modern Art [MOMA] and its movie library a favorite. Both my parents were musical: Dad played the violin; Mom played piano and sang. Even my sister played the piano. It seems that I am the only one in the family without some musical talent!
Joe: Perhaps so, but you write! So tell us more.
Gene: Well, to my parents’ delight, I up and married an artist. It’s hard to live with a person as talented as my wife Ruth, for as long as we have been together, without some of her culture and art savvy rubbing off on me.
Joe: I’m starting to get an idea of where this is going.
Gene: When we had the opportunity to travel, she insisted we travel to Italy (and I put up no fight whatever). Some of our favorite destinations were Rome, Florence, and, of course, Venice. We actually got to visit Venice on four different occasions. The city is as fascinating as it is unique, and is as unique as it is beautiful. I describe Agua Alta (“high water”) in my book. Ruth and I actually experienced the city flooding twice! And, of course, the engineer in me was fascinated with the system the Venetians engineered and built to avoid such catastrophic flooding in the future.
Joe: Okay, okay. We don’t want to give too much away. After all, it is a mystery.
Gene: Yes, you’re right. Well, anyway, Detective Vitelli has recently married a woman who is a curator at an art museum, and they are on their honeymoon in Venice—just when a major exhibition of modern art is taking place. Sound familiar?
Joe: Familiar? It sounds almost biographical!
Gene: Not quite! Unlike Rich Vitelli, I’ve never been asked to aid the Italian police in locating a missing person, and I have never gone swimming in the Adriatic Sea.
Joe: And I’m guessing you’ve never run up against a person as nasty as your villain, Anubis Cline, either. Is he modeled after anyone you ever met or even read about?
Gene: Thankfully, no. Cline is an amalgam of two of the nastiest villains ever created: the devil, Screwtape, in C.S. Lewis’s The Screwtape Letters, and Jabba the Hut from the Star Wars films.
Joe: How so?
Gene: Well, Cline, much like Screwtape, is a student of human nature, and a master manipulator. And, just as in the Lewis book, where Screwtape has a student named Wormwood, with whom he discusses his schemes and objectives, so too does Cline have a student alter ego—the spirit of his late ward, Jael, with whom he holds imaginary conversations. Like Jabba the Hut (with whom he shares some physical characteristics), Cline is a powerful gangster, with far-reaching influence in both the criminal underworld and in politics.
Joe: Very much the way he manipulated the head of the Russian mafia in Bobby Doyle is Missing and how he coldly arranged to have Sheldon Hertz blown up in his plane in True Believers. This is getting the feel of a true arch rivalry. I love it. Okay. So what’s next in the Gene Masters pipeline? Another Rich Vitelli Mystery?
Gene: Honestly, I’m not quite sure, Joe. I’ve put together another Vitelli book in outline form—but for the moment, it’s only a concept. Then I also have two other novels I started, then dropped. Perhaps I might just go back and finish one of those. We also discussed putting together a book of short stories, but I have a couple more to write before they will fill a volume.
Joe: Well, keep me posted on how that’s going.
Gene: I surely will. But what about you? Is there another Matt Davis mystery in the works?
Joe: I don’t know, but I’ll make you a promise . . .
Gene: Yeah? What?
Joe: You’ll be the first to know . . . along with a few thousand followers. Thanks for spending time with us.
Gene: My pleasure.
NOTE: Vitelli in Venice: A Rich Vitelli Mystery is available in paperback and Kindle editions from Amazon, as are all seven of Gene’s other books. You can check them out on Gene’s Amazon author page at: Author Gene Masters.
Author Joe Perrone Jr's Blog 