Dark Web

A look back.

Why, yes, I am going backwards through my Saint Tommy, NYPD novels.

With Dark Web, several things had to happen. First and foremost, I had introduced “Nation-states are getting into the supernatural” in book 8. It was book 11, and no one had really popped up.

Enter the Chinese, and a character so popular, Josh Griffing wrote fan fiction, which became an epilogue. (Look for Vessel)

I finally gave in to my temptation to give every character an entire family tree. The only thing we knew about Tommy's background was that he was home-schooled, the Opus Dei was involved in there, and he had no family.

Enter a father he hadn’t seen in over 30 years, who was every careerist LEO I could compile. He was of course, a Chicago creature originally, and had hearing problems from when Tommy took his beloved 44 magnum and set it off next to his ear.

But I also liked bringing back the Texas Ranger Lloyd Lermon — my friends because Lloyd A Behm and Mike Lermon were both online at the same time. Though for some reason, I keep casting him as Christian Kane (Leverage, Angel, etc)

There was a personal plotline I had to wrap up from Lightbringer. And I don't do long, lingering diseases. “Go down swinging” is my wheelhouse.

I finally — FINALLY—got to use a coven of witches as a villain in a novel.

I kept trying, and the best I could do was the short “Lupus Dei” and “They Burn Witches, Don’t they?”

I even tried with book 7. I even called it Coven … and it didn’t fly.

But this time, I made it work.

This time, the “coven” is a private military contractor. They’re all women. They’re all beautiful (because they chose their new faces) and they’re all killing machines.

Hey, it worked.

Granted, I didn’t take any opportunities with the MacGuffin. I wanted a YouTube / Social Media Fulton Sheen who pissed off the People’s Republic of China. So I took Fulton Sheen, smashed him together with John Zmirak, and I had a target. I even footnoted Zmirak in one of the rants, but for some reason, I feel like it may have been book 7.

But of course, I don't do speeches or message fiction, everyone is too busy being shot at.

So yeah, Dark Web had a lot going on. Even more than I recalled.