The Chameleon Conspiracy by Haggai Carmon
Sometimes ITW seems like a scary place. Here's why: I keep interviewing authors who have a, uh, shall we say shadowy background. No interview has made me feel more like that than my recent conversation with Haggai Carmon, author of the upcoming THE CHAMELEON CONSPIRACY and two other thriller novels featuring CIA and Justice Department operative Dan Gordon.International attorney Haggai Carmon makes no secrets of his vivid past, although he's somewhat circumspect on details. For the past 24 years he has represented the United States government in civil litigation in Israel. He is also legal council to the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv. He notes that the embassy is run by the State Department and the litigation is handled by the Justice Department. "This has been for twenty-four years my 'day job' but I also had a 'night job.' I was retained by the U.S. government to perform intelligence gathering in sensitive cases that sent me undercover to other countries."
He claims to no longer be doing that--plausible deniability? Who's to say? His fiction writing began a few years back when he was investigating Russian organized crime in one of the former Soviet Republics. "My Interpol contact came to my hotel and said, 'Don't leave, you've been exposed.' Here I was in a small room with a black-and-white TV that spoke only Russian, with bad food and a small bed and a small desk. Interpol protected me but I was really frustrated. I had no gun, I wasn't armed." So, while waiting through the night for Interpol to get him safely out of the hotel and presumably out of the country with the Russian Mafiya looking for him, Carmon started writing on his laptop, churning out almost 100 pages of a novel that would ultimately become his first, TRIPLE IDENTITY.
Although he continues to work with the State and Justice Departments through his law firms GLOBALAW and Carmon & Carmon, he also writes, using his expertise in international law and... other things ... to write thrillers he asserts "are fiction."
His series character Dan Gordon was born in Israel, served in Israeli special forces, then was recruited to Mossad, Israel's foreign intelligence service. Gordon had a number of adventures then his cover was blown, "which," Carmon says, "made it impossible for him to participate in any future undercover operations. So instead of taking up a desk job for the rest of his career--he didn't join the Mossad for that--he resigned."
A failed marriage, law school and eventual relocation to the U.S. and Dan Gordon finds himself working for the U.S. Justice Department in asset recovery and intelligence gathering. Carmon says, "With the cases Gordon handles, some of them look benign and innocuous but turn out to be terrorist or espionage-related." Dan Gordon is then recruited by the CIA because of his familiarity with international finance and law.
Carmon says, "Gordon is someone who likes to work alone. He's a lone wolf, but he says that's how he gets the best sheep of the herd. He's conniving. He's very smart. He's not James Bond. At the end of the day he doesn't go to bars to entertain blondes or have too many drinks, he simply retires to his room, drinks beers, calls his children, watches television and falls asleep."
THE CHAMELEON CONSPIRACY has Dan Gordon re-investigating a series of major bank frauds in the Midwest that took place about fifteen years earlier and were unsolved by the FBI. The Justice Department's Office of International Asset Recovery and Money Laundering division--the name in the book, but different in real life--asks Gordon to take a look. Pretty soon Gordon is convinced all the frauds were perpetrated by the same person under different identities, whom he dubs The Chameleon. The case has ties back to Iran and the Ayatollah Khomeini and President Carter's policy of freezing Iranian assets during the Iran Hostage Crisis.
Like all of Carmon's books, "ripped from the headlines" might be stamped on the cover. And with good reason. Carmon says, "I am, after all, an expert on international law."
Contributing editor Mark Terry
is the author of the Derek Stillwater thriller series. His newest
thriller, THE SERPENT'S KISS, is available in stores and online.
His series character Dan Gordon was born in Israel, served in Israeli special forces, then was recruited to Mossad, Israel's foreign intelligence service. Gordon had a number of adventures then his cover was blown, "which," Carmon says, "made it impossible for him to participate in any future undercover operations. So instead of taking up a desk job for the rest of his career--he didn't join the Mossad for that--he resigned."A failed marriage, law school and eventual relocation to the U.S. and Dan Gordon finds himself working for the U.S. Justice Department in asset recovery and intelligence gathering. Carmon says, "With the cases Gordon handles, some of them look benign and innocuous but turn out to be terrorist or espionage-related." Dan Gordon is then recruited by the CIA because of his familiarity with international finance and law.
Carmon says, "Gordon is someone who likes to work alone. He's a lone wolf, but he says that's how he gets the best sheep of the herd. He's conniving. He's very smart. He's not James Bond. At the end of the day he doesn't go to bars to entertain blondes or have too many drinks, he simply retires to his room, drinks beers, calls his children, watches television and falls asleep."
THE CHAMELEON CONSPIRACY has Dan Gordon re-investigating a series of major bank frauds in the Midwest that took place about fifteen years earlier and were unsolved by the FBI. The Justice Department's Office of International Asset Recovery and Money Laundering division--the name in the book, but different in real life--asks Gordon to take a look. Pretty soon Gordon is convinced all the frauds were perpetrated by the same person under different identities, whom he dubs The Chameleon. The case has ties back to Iran and the Ayatollah Khomeini and President Carter's policy of freezing Iranian assets during the Iran Hostage Crisis.
Like all of Carmon's books, "ripped from the headlines" might be stamped on the cover. And with good reason. Carmon says, "I am, after all, an expert on international law."
Contributing editor Mark Terry
is the author of the Derek Stillwater thriller series. His newest
thriller, THE SERPENT'S KISS, is available in stores and online.ThrillerFest
ITW's annual celebration of the thriller world is the largest event of its kind, a meeting place for authors, readers, budding writers, and publishing industry professionals.
For 2011, we’ll be back in the heart of New York in July with the ThrillerFest conference including CraftFest and AgentFest.
ThrillerFest VI will be held at the Grand Hyatt Hotel in New York City.
The dates will be July 6-9, 2011.
More information to follow.
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