A former intelligence officer, Joe holds degrees from the Defense Language Institute and Suffolk University Law School. His freelance writing has featured in WSJ and been syndicated by Reuters.
COLUMBIA is based on Joe's experience as a US Army intelligence officer and interrogator working on counter-terrorism between 2001 and 2006.
COLUMBIA is a crackling story that draws its inspiration from inside the mind of an intel officer who is familiar with the most grave threats to our country and the nefarious ways in which divisive groups plot to exploit weaknesses in our nation and its security infrastructure.
The story has its genesis in Joe's desire to tell an espionage story that moves like the genre's best page-turners but challenges the trope that the spy hero is always a ruggedly handsome man who can kill ten bad guys with a toothpick.
Sami Lakhani is a different kind of spy hero. The decision to make the protagonist of the story a Muslim-American and part of the LGBT community arose from three choices.
First, the artistic choice to do everything possible to represent historically underrepresented groups in mainstream fiction.
Second, Sami's sexual identity plays and important part in shaping the early plot as the presumed driver of the estrangement between him and his conservative grandfather. As readers soon discover, there is a dark family secret that Sami has long suspected that truly lies at the heart of their separation.
Third, in spite of every movie and book portrayal, the people of the IC are not all square-jawed muscle men or women with cunning to match their knockout looks. Sami represents the cerebral and immensely talented people who serve in our IC, many of whom are newly-arrived Americans with strong cultural, linguistic and family ties throughout the world.
A first-time novelist, Joe holds undergraduate degrees from Boston University (BA, English) and the Defense Language Institute (AA, Russian), and a JD from Suffolk University Law School. As a lawyer, he was writing assistant on one of the definitive legal reference manuals for energy and environmental law. Joe's freelance writing has featured in the Wall Street Journal and been syndicated by Reuters.
COLUMBIA is Joe's first novel. If it is wildly successful and publishers are willing to let him write anything he wants next, he has already prepared a nonfiction proposal for SOCCER, SAVE MY SOUL, a soccer travelogue and guide to the beautiful game for Americans.
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One First Edition copy of Columbia.
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Two First Edition copies of Columbia, hand signed by the author, and recognition in the acknowledgments.
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5 copies of the autographed first edition of the book "Columbia" + book club discussion materials package custom-designed for your club by the author.
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Future Readers of Columbia -
Thank you so much. The pre-order campaign expired last night and Columbia finished as the top-selling thriller title in Publishizer's history!
You have read enough from me in the past month, and I know that what you really want is to read the darn book that I have been plugging, but if you take a look back at the blog post that started the campaign, I wrote:
"...I admit that I was hesitant to share my work if it did not have that traditional seal of approval from a publishing house. How could I admit that I spend free time, on weekends and late at night, time away from my family and other pursuits, just to write something that would not be lent the legitimacy of a book deal?
I have come a long way on that score. Creators are creators -- whether the deal is big or small, with a New York publisher or through a service that helps a writer to self-publish, whether the book makes millions or drops to no one’s acclaim and only my close family’s pride.
That’s why I have decided to launch Columbia on Publishizer..."
I cannot express how happy I am that I did decide to launch on Publishizer and I cannot thank you enough for the reception that you have given the book! You really gave this young kid from a mining town his dance shoes!
So, what's next? Columbia received bidding interest from more than ten publishers during the campaign, and we have received additional interest in the hours after the campaign. For the next month or so, I will be about negotiating a publishing agreement with one of these folks.
Next time you will hear from me will be to announce the signing of that agreement. At that time, I hope also to be able to give you a better timeline on shipping of the books.
Thank you again for your support of the book and your patience during the campaign.
Best,
Joe
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