Today’s special guest novelist is Tony Brenna to chat about Honey Trap: A Thriller.
Welcome, Tony. Please tell us a little bit about yourself.
I’m a British journalist who has worked on British and American newspapers, radio, and TV for the past 60 years. Among the papers I’ve reported for are The London Daily Telegraph, London Daily Mail, Sunday Mirror and a wide range of American and British magazines, including the National Enquirer, Star and Life & Style Magazine. My time working for the Enquirer was featured recently in the Emmy-nominated CNN documentary “Scandalous: The Untold Story of the National Enquirer.” Some of the more prestigious jobs I’ve held have been UN correspondent for both the Daily Telegraph and the BBC; managing editor of Editor & Publisher magazine, and deputy editor of World’s Press News in London.
Please tell us about your current release.
British reporter Mike Delano sells his soul to tabloid journalism after risking his life in a distinguished career as a foreign correspondent. He lives to regret his plunge into sleaze when his love affair with Rachel, the daughter of criminal media tycoon Lord Rothenberg, sparks a feud between the two men that can end only when one of them dies.
This thriller pulls back the curtain to show how yellow journalism destroys and humiliates Hollywood stars. As Delano himself becomes rich and ruthless, he entraps Rothenberg’s major superstar in a “honey trap” sex scandal designed to ruin the mogul’s studio.
Rothenberg, determined to destroy Delano, is drawn into murderous mayhem. It costs the lives of his brilliant chief executive, his studio’s top actor, and others caught up in a maelstrom of bombs and bullets during an Oscar-night massacre.
As Delano seeks to wrest the woman he loves from her father’s possessive claws, he crosses paths with drug dealers, hit men, and murderous terrorists in a story that unwinds globally on yachts, submarines and private jets.
Delano comes out on top professionally, but his love for Rachel and triumph over Rothenberg bring heartbreak.
What inspired you to write this book?
Although I have had a wide career, covering all forms of news, the book is inspired by a decade of my life spent in Hollywood covering celebrities and the rich and famous. Many of the stories in the book are based on real events. This book takes readers inside celebrity journalism, drug gangs, and the entertainment industry with its bitter rivalries behind the glittering show business façade.
I thought a behind the scenes look at tabloid journalism, and most of all Celebrity, would make a good and lively read. The love story subplot is based on a real-life romance between the daughter of a Hollywood tycoon and a journalist friend of mine.
Excerpt from Honey Trap: A Thriller:
from Chapter 10: Stubborn Opponent
(Mike Delano has moved from London to Hollywood, where his reporting skills are aimed at destroying his former boss, medial mogul Lord Max Rothenberg, the father of the woman Mike loves – and his unrelenting enemy.)
The autopsy technician pulled out the drawer of the mortuary cooler and removed the sheet covering a middle-aged female body. Mike Delano gazed dolefully at the face of Carmelita Sanchez, once a housekeeper at the home of one of Hollywood’s biggest stars.
Surfers had found her on an Oxnard beach, 62 miles northwest of Los Angeles, with her throat slashed. Black stitches were vivid on her sea-wrinkled neck skin, where the medical examiner had closed the gaping wound.
“Yes, that’s Carmelita,” Delano said, swallowing hard, his eyes glassy with sorrow and guilt. “When are you releasing her for burial?”
“That’s up to the coroner. We got her yesterday, and there’s a backlog of cases,” the mortuary attendant replied. “I don’t think there will be too much of a delay, though,” he added. “Cause of death is obvious. Police are searching for suspects.”
Yeah, and I don’t think they’ll find them, Delano thought bitterly. He had more than a hunch who’d committed this crime – and why.
Mike was glad to swap the chilled antiseptic morgue cleanliness for the sunshine warmth outdoors. He’d filed a missing person report when Carmelita disappeared three days ago. The police asked his help with the identification when what they believed were her remains washed up.
Speeding along the Pacific Coast Highway in his white Porsche convertible headed for his new beachfront Malibu home, Delano cursed himself for being the cause of Carmelita’s death. He’d genuinely liked her, and she was crucial to a story he was writing.
The Mexican housekeeper, a single mother of two young children, had confirmed bizarre rumors about her movie idol boss and was the primary source for the latest exposé Delano was readying for publication.
It revealed how Lord Rothenberg’s Hollywood studio, Paragon Pictures, covered up the drug-fueled decadence of its biggest star, Morgan Masterson.
In addition to confirming he sexually harassed female actors working with him, Carmelita had revealed the superstar had tried to force himself on one of his terrified adopted teenage daughters after a drink and drug session when his wife was away.
Delano pulled off the highway and called his partner, Dave Fuller, to stop the story’s publication. With the primary source dead, it was no longer usable.
“It’s her, been in the water for a couple of days. They weighted the body. Dumped it off a boat. It broke free and drifted ashore. I feel awful. Somehow Paragon found out she was talking to us.”
“Who do you think did it?” Fuller asked.
“Don’t know for certain. But I’d be willing to bet Gil Ackerman did the knife work. He’s a sadist, enjoys inflicting pain.”
“Without Carmelita as our main source, guess we have to hold the piece you wrote,” Fuller said.
“Yes, hold it until I can find someone else to stand it up,” Delano said before disconnecting.
Dejected, he continued the drive home. He’d been in California for just over a year – and not being able to contact Rachel continued to break his heart.
Disgraced in London by Rothenberg’s smear campaign, thwarted in Lucerne by clinic guards, he had accepted an offer to partner in a new LA news agency with his journalist friend Dave Fuller – and business was booming.
While he hadn’t shared his deeper motives with Dave, his dual purpose in America was to rebuild his career while avenging himself on Rothenberg by attacking his studio and its roster of big stars.
Before leaving Europe, he had contacted Rachel’s mother Gerda in Belgium to explain the reasons for her daughter’s plight. Surprised and deeply upset, she promised to pass on news about Rachel if and when she heard anything.
“That miserable man has banned me from writing or visiting her,” Gerda complained of her former husband. “I’ll do anything I can to help get her out of there and away from him.”
“Don’t worry, Gerda, I’ll get her released. She’s the woman I love and intend to share my life with,” Delano promised.
It was a strong declaration coming from someone who’d always avoided commitment. But when Rachel arrived in his life, Mike had entered previously unexplored territory. For the first time, he wanted a permanent relationship. He had come to love Rachel with a passion and intensity he hadn’t experienced with any other women.
What exciting project are you working on next?
I am hard at work on a thriller with a touch of magical realism. A British painter and writer angers a Pacific Northwest god who turns him into a fish. We go underwater with him and experience the dangers of trying to survive as a salmon. Through his point of view, we see how the earth’s oceans are being poisoned by garbage and plastics, and the damage being done by climate change. The back story involves his adulterous wife, a Russian KGB assassin – while the overarching theme highlights the ecological hazards affecting marine life due to overfishing, global warming, ocean acidification, and the destruction of the natural world that is an ever-increasing threat to all the world’s creatures including us.
When did you first consider yourself a writer?
As a teenager, I started working as a junior reporter for a local weekly. It was when I came out of Britain’s Royal Air Force at age 21 and became a journalist that I first considered myself a writer.
Do you write full-time? If so, what’s your workday like? If not, what do you do other than write and how do you find time to write?
I spent all my “working” years as a full-time journalist, writing up against deadlines every day. Those work habits have stayed with me. I still write full time, three to four hours daily. Finding time to write is no trouble. The problem is finding time to do the other things I like to do: running my boat, fishing and working in the garden.
What would you say is your interesting writing quirk?
I don’t feel comfortable unless my beloved dog, a lively Brittany Spaniel-Border Collie mix, is nearby – preferably in my office.
As a child, what did you want to be when you grew up?
I can’t remember when I didn’t want to be a writer. As a young copy boy on a London newspaper, I idolized the swashbuckling reporters who worked there. I wanted to be just like them when I grew up – and I pretty much achieved that ambition!
Anything additional you want to share with the readers?
Writing is relaxing to me, hard work though it may be. It also keeps me stimulated at an age when one worries about memory loss and infirmity. I’ve had a wonderful life working on assignments around the world. It’s left me with plenty of wonderful situations, frightening times, and vivid memories to fall back on for ideas. Added to that I have a rich imagination.
Lisa, thanks for the interview. It looks great on the blog. It covered all the bases! Now it’s back to work for me on the next novel. Thanks again.