Blog Tour: Satan’s Chamber

To be honest, we originally settled on Sudan by accident.  It had been connected in the news to terrorist camps, and terrorism was, still is, a hot-button issue, thus a potential plot point for our story.  It was after we began researching this African country that we became passionate about it– for entirely different reasons.  Or maybe we should say, terrorism comes in many forms, and the brand that’s being practiced in Sudan still today involves a central government inflicting violence on its own people, wiping them out in order to drill for oil beneath their land.  Meanwhile the more developed world manipulates to get its hands on this black gold.  In Sudan, China has been providing the homicidal government with the heavy weapons it needs to attack its own people in exchange for rights to the oil.

It’s one of those geopolitical situations where the truth is more outrageous than any fiction you could ever make up—the perfect background for an action-packed  spy thriller, driven by the evil energies of greed, treachery, and the complete failure of rule of law.

Amazingly, the Sudanese people themselves are noted for their grace and generosity, as well as their endurance.  So just as the forces of evil in the country are clear and real, they are countered by forces of goodness and love.  We discovered that Sudan has  a rich historical heritage centering on the sacred mountain Jebel Barkal, a major setting in our novel.  Thousands of years ago the Egyptians believed this oddly shaped mountain, located south of Egypt in ancient Nubia, to be the birthplace of their gods.  In its shadow, a female Black Pharaoh of Nubia led her people into battle against the Egyptian oppressors, and won.  Based on this impressive woman, we created a modern character, dedicated to saving her people, and named for her royal ancestor, Kendacke.

So we knew we’d never go to Sudan—there were always traveler’s advisories against it—but we studied the satellite maps and photos posted on GoogleEarth.  And thank god for the adventurers who rode or hitchhiked from one end of Africa to the other, then blogged about it online!  Their reports enhanced by our imaginations allowed us to describe the heat, sweat, and blowing sand, the food smells in the market places, the rich colors of the attire, the musty interior of underground chambers.  Our friend and real-life archaeologist Tim Kendall, who has excavated the temples around Jebel Barkal, also made sure we included with realistic frequency an auditory event which dominates the Muslim regions of Sudan: the call to prayer, broadcast five times a day from different mosques.

All in all, how could we resist posting our protagonist, Victoria Pierce, junior officer in the CIA’s National Clandestine Service, to Sudan?  It seems her father, a crack operative, disappeared from the streets of Khartoum five years before, and her personal agenda is to find out what happened to him, so she considers the assignment a plum.  It doesn’t take long for the reader to see that she has walked into a situation of intense conflict and danger, and of murky identities.  And she is in over her head.

Satan’s Chamber web site:
http://www.satanschamber.com/

Satan’s Chamber Goodreads page:
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6891436-satan-s-chamber

Fuze Publishing‘s Twitter:
https://twitter.com/#!/fuzepublishing

Fuze Publishing‘s Website:
http://www.fuzepublishing.com/

Fuze Publishing‘s Blog:
http://fuzepublishing.wordpress.com/

Satan’s Chamber Blog Tour Site:
http://satanschamber.blogspot.com/

Tribute Books Blog Tours Facebook:
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Satan’s Chamber Summary

Molly Best Tinsley’s Bio:

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