And finally, there was the phone call after my visit to an East European embassy in Washington regarding my offer to transport free medical supplies to needy hospitals (which I did). I had been followed from the embassy but gave the agent the slip in a Virginia shopping mall. Then, once I was back in San Diego, a man calls several days later and asks if I want to make good money with beautiful women from Russia. I told him no and never to call me again. He said he knew where I lived, that I had better listen to him and cooperate. I told him if he ever threatened me or my family again, I would make sure he never threatened anyone again -- ever -- and hung up. I never heard from him after that. I subsequently was told by Dutch friends, who had contacts inside the KGB, that I had been under surveillance - in California, where I was living! The reason: they suspected my medical relief activities behind the Iron Curtain was a cover for the CIA.
Every interview with an author must have The Standard Question. Although your last three novels have been thrillers, you started writing at the age of 10, and also have written a cookbook, magazine articles and screenplays. Can you give us a glimpse of what are you working on currently?
I divide my time between blogging (on Myspace), and my next book (out of three possible choices, which at this writing is still undecided). My blogs range from social commentary to poking fun at myself. I recently had a scheduled interview, for instance, but my publicist forgot to confirm it with me. Because of the time zone differences and International Date Line, morning talk-back radio in Los Angeles meant middle of the night for me in Adelaide. It was dark-thirty and the phone rang. “One moment for the Maria Sanchez show,” a voice said. There I was, in the dark, in winter in a brick cottage with no central heat, sitting without a stitch of clothing on, waiting for an interview I didn’t know was coming. My wife laughed and thought: do I help him out here? She got up and brought me her fluffy pink bathrobe. “My life as a cool dude writer,” I wrote tongue-in-cheek in my blog. “In a fluffy pink bathrobe. Someone always discovers the truth.”
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