While Michael Tiranno may be loosely based on mogul Boccardi, it is Land's passion that infuses the character--and makes readers root for him. "A passion for life is one of the key ingredients of Michael's character. It's the thing that draws people to him," Land said.

"Michael isn't likable all the time, but I wanted to make people root for him," Land explained. "Everyone wants to impress Michael Tiranno and have him in their corner. It's the same reason you're fascinated and follow Tony Soprano, Michael Corleone, and even the traditional heroes of Greek mythology and Shakespeare. Look at Macbeth and Lear, and even Hannibal Lecter. In Silence Of The Lambs and Hannibal, we know Lecter is a bad guy. But Dr. Lecter has a sense of nobility that the other characters lack. In comparison to the people Michael is going up against, he's not a bad guy.

"Characters are defined by their actions. Is the quest noble or not? In The Seven Sins, Michael's quest is noble in that he's trying to save Las Vegas and ignoble in the sense he's doing it to save his own ass," Land said. "He (Michael) gives money to Catholic orphanages because he likes to help children, but later he won't hesitate to use that contact with the Vatican to get the land to develop the casino. He's very self-motivated, but he's more than that.

"Unlike many heroes, Tiranno isn't about redemption," Land said. In early reviews, Tiranno has been compared to James Bond (of the books, not the movies) or Michael Corleone in the Godfather trilogy. "People forget that James Bond, in the books, was basically an assassin," Land said. "And Michael Corleone changes from a moral, upstanding man to someone who has no heart or has lost his sense of compassion entirely.  Tiranno doesn't change that much-his actions don't change--what changes is his understanding of who he is.  People respond to him because at his core he accepts who he is and has come to understand what he is."

In the first of the series, Tiranno is near 40. "The safety and security he's longed for are never going to be his," Land said. "He's constantly going to need to expand and thrive. He can't just sit still. He's ambitious and driven by greed, but he will always be there to stand up for an innocent woman. And if you screw him there is no limit to what he will do.

"Michael (Tiranno) accepts his sins as a necessary means to achieve his end. Isn't that the way very successful people are? But he has a code he lives by. He's greedy and thirsty for power, on the one hand. If that was all there was to him, there would be no emotional investment in his character. So I needed to make him complex--he's willing to risk everything for someone he loves. Ambition trumps morality for Michael Tiranno, but his passion is the ultimate trump card. It trumps all the negative qualities."
 
Drawn to the thriller first as a reader, Land has a solid grasp of the elements of this genre. High stakes, global locales, the ticking clock-Land manipulates them all into what reviewers are calling a real edge-of-the-seat ride. While Land's books criss-cross the globe, he hates traveling. He does it, but his preference is to stay home and write. And while setting is important to give credibility to the story, it shouldn't slow the plot, he said.

"The thriller is normally a quest," Land said. "They're all about heroes trying to uncover, recover, or find something. In adventure thrillers, it can be a treasure or talisman. In political thrillers, something like microfilm. Or there's the classic Hitchcock thriller, where the hero has half of something and must find the other half.

"James Lee Burke and others do this so, so well-they give you a quest where a character must recover something before the bad guys do. This has to be found to prevent something terrible from happening, but at the same time, the character is faced with a moral question. The character is changing and evolving. He can't be sure of what it is he's trying to accomplish from a moral stand-point, so it's a surprise to him as well as the reader. This is very much true of the Michael Tiranno's character in The Seven Sins. Traditional heroes through history and mythology are ambiguous in many ways. They made mistakes and have flaws and are defined by those flaws more than heroic traits."

Land grew up influenced by some of the great thriller writers. Robert Ludlam heads the list. A graduate of Brown University, Land began a novel, which morphed into a thriller. "I knew then that thrillers were what I loved to write. But I will say that this series of books with Michael Tiranno has something of an epic feel." He cited the bigger, more sweeping stories of Harold Robbins and Sidney Sheldon as an example. "Those were generational stories of people you liked despite their flaws. Today, stories seem to be less ambition. The reality of publishing today is that publishers frown on efforts to be different, to be something more. I've been fortunate at Tor/Forge to have the support to explore these areas."

Land, who has followed the progression of the thriller through a number of decades, points out that "Tom Clancy was a creature of the Reagan era. Robert Ludlum, the closest thing I have to an idol, came from Watergate. Iconic writers have to tap into something of their time. Vince Flynn has honed in on the Post-911 novel. He's tapped into the mentality of the day the same as Clancy did the 80s and Ludlam the 70s."

Bond was the right hero for the Cold War era. Maybe Michael Tiranno is for now.

Carolyn Haines is the author of FEVER MOON, PENUMBRA and the Sarah Booth Delaney mystery series. The 8th book in the series, WISHBONES, will be released June 24 by St. Martin's Minotaur. Check out her website, www.carolynhaines.com for signing schedules and contests.