I tracked Ed down.
Primarily a mid-star hotel catering for Chinese tourists, I managed to get a hold of author Ed Kovac who was getting over a bad case of food poison.
He could be anywhere on the globe, in his line of work.
When he's not hunting down locations to write about, he's doing hits for the US government.
They don't call him the Contractor for nothing.
If you detect some bullshit already, then head over here for the interview and let Ed fill you in on his books.
Meanwhile, he's written up a little bio here for my blog:
I had worked as a screenwriter for years in Hollywood and have screen credits--several of my scripts got produced--but one day I said, "Fuck it," and started writing novels.
My first novel was Unseen Forces, which has been called "Indiana Jones on steroids." I think it's better than The Da Vinci Code, but then I'm biased. Secret societies, alternative archeology, government conspiracy, rogue military officers... the usual. About a third of the book is based in Thailand and Burma, and I have some interesting stories about doing research up in the Golden Triangle before I wrote the book. A tiny LA publisher published that book.
Then the next four of my novels were traditionally published by a big New York publisher, after I landed an agent. Minotaur--the mystery/thriller imprint of St. Martin's Press/McMillan was the publisher. https://us.macmillan.com/author/dbtmp1711/
 | ED KOVACS is the author of the critically acclaimed Cliff St. James series. Using various pen names, he has worked professionally around the world as a scre... |
I was rewriting the manuscript for my second novel, Storm Damage, while off duty in Cannes, France on the French Riviera. I was working as a U.S. federal contractor with a security clearance and drinking a lot of good Champaigne and Bordeaux.. Good story as to how I got my literary agent while I was in France.
Storm Damage was inspired by an actual murder that took place in New Orleans just as Hurricane Katrina was about to hit the city: The cops responded to a murder scene, but the storm hit so the corpse disappeared, no forensic evidence was taken, and the crime scene was destroyed. I thought that was a pretty good premise.
So Storm Damage was the first of a trilogy of novel I wrote about my investigator here, Cliff St. James, in New Orleans, where I lived for about three years. The other two were Good Junk and Burnt Black.
I should mention that my hero was an MMA coach, and in reality, my roommate at the time in NOLA trained UFC fighters, so guys like Pat Berry and Melvin Guillard--kick-ass UFC fighters used to hang out at my house. I held the pads when they practiced their leg strikes, and I think I still have some bruises to prove it.
Fifth novel, also published by Minotaur, was The Russian Bride, a stand-alone thriller in the vein of Vince Flynn, Mark Greany, and Brad Thor. I took the premise from a screenplay I wrote called Asian Bride, which almost got made a couple of times as a film, but never did.
--My last novel, Locked Down is set in Asia, mostly in Hong Kong. I used to spend a lot of time there when I was married to my first wife, who is descended from a line of Chinese diplomats and rich Hongkongese.
"When a former NSA analyst is targeted for assassination by rogue elements of the Chinese and U.S. governments, she’s forced to team with a renegade CIA spy and fight back using technology to stay one step ahead of her pursuers and to extract the ultimate form of justice."
High body count, but there's no sex in this one so you'd probably be disappointed! I have the sequel plotted out, just need time to sit down and write it--maybe this summer.
Not sure if you've seen my website: https://edkovacs.com/
