Good evening...
I wanted to answer a question that I was asked a month or so ago. Someone wanted to know about the people and locations that I write about in Dominic's and Eldest Son.
Yes, the back players are all real life people. Gina Haspel, Andrew Younger, Russell Travers, and even the Russian heads of the GRU and FSB are real people. I wanted to keep them as real so that there would be no doubt about whether or not I was plagiarizing someone off the internet.
As far as the locations go, Again, all of them are real. I based everything off of where Rick had been when he was in Europe. All of the roads, canals, and locations written about are real. The Five Guys actually is exactly were I wrote about. Harry's Bar is in Venice actually has been around since the 1930's in that same spot, in one form or another. The Grand Canal is quite spectacular at night and San Marco square is also very beautiful during Carnival.
In closing, I do try for some realism in my writing because I feel it makes the story a little bit better to be based somewhat in reality.
Thanks for the great question and thanks for reading the stories.