Bookpleasures.com ishonored to welcome award-winning authors, editors, and multimediacreators Michael McKinley and Nancy Merritt Bell as our guests. 

Nancy Merritt Bell is anacclaimed playwright, journalist, editor, and producer whoseinternational awards, like the Inspiration Prize at the CentrePompidou and honours at NYU’s August Moon Festival, showcase herdistinguished career, inspiring admiration in our audience. 

With a career spanningtheatre, television, and film, Nancy has developed over 20 TV seriesfor CBC, BBC, and Disney, adapted literary classics for the screen,and edited more than 20 books across genres. 

As Director of Developmentfor BookGo, she has shaped acclaimed memoirs and thrillers, and herjournalism has appeared in major outlets worldwide. 

Michael McKinley is ajournalist, author, screenwriter, and filmmaker whose books—includingthe best-selling Hockey: A People’s History and the NAACP-nominatedWillie: The Game Changing Story of the NHL’s First BlackPlayer—have earned critical acclaim. 

He has written andproduced documentaries for CNN, NBC, and the Discovery Channel, andhis thrillers, including The Glamour of Evil, blend deep researchwith gripping storytelling. 

Together, Michael andNancy bring decades of experience in storytelling, investigation, andcreative collaboration, making them uniquely qualified to discuss thethemes, research, and inspiration behind their latest novel, TheGlamour of Evil: A Maddie Lynch Mystery.

Good day, Michael andNancy, and thank you for taking part in our interview.

Norm: Maddie Lynch is asecular woman thrust into the heart of Vatican intrigue. Whatinspired you to make her a journalist and TV producer rather than apriest, nun, or intelligence agent? 

How did her profession shape theway she sees—and challenges—the world of the Vatican?

Michael: Good day, Norm,and thank you for your invitation to talk with you! Maddie Lynchoriginally was a guy in an earlier draft, and it was Nancy’s greatidea to make “he” into a “she.”

In doing this, an entireworld opened up, mainly because of the role of women in the world’smajor religions. They are often pushed to the side, so this gave usan opportunity to bring a woman to center stage. 

We kept Maddie in aworld we know, TV, and with a perspective we know, secular, to launchher into the world of religion. 

She, of course, can impersonate anun, and she does, but in making her secular it opened up differentdramatic landscapes for us to explore, and so she does. 

Nancy: Thank you, Norm.What inspired the creation of Maddie with a career as a journalistand TV producer–rather than a nun, or spy, or even a banker– isthat a journalist is a kind of spy. 

They dig into worlds most peopleare locked out of and find the truth, hidden or buried or lost.Michael worked as a journalist right out of college – Oxford thatis–winning loads of awards. 

I also worked as a ‘journo’, on thesafe side, in reviews–which got me into books! Also, prior to beinga journalist, Maddie was an academic in Oxford– doesn’t that alsosound like Michael??? 

To me a great academic is also a spy; they diginto books and histories, letters, and more, and find out what washappening ‘back then’ and so understand what is happening rightnow. 

Maddie does that, she investigates: she has to unlock a secretfrom World War 2, to… well I can’t give too much away…. And soMaddie as a journalist, and as an academic, can also understand theVatican has an enormous place in history, and along the way hasburied many secrets…

Norm: The novel exploreshow evil can be “glamorous”—attractive, even seductive—whenwrapped in power, faith, or charisma.

Can you talk about how youwanted readers to experience this “glamour” through characterslike Reagan Clark or Victor Franchi? Were there real-world figures orevents that influenced your portrayal of charismatic leaders maskingdangerous agendas?

Michael: This is a greatquestion. Reagan Clark has a complex history, and now her politicallife is colored by her bellicose Christian fundamentalism. 

I thinkthat we have seen the effects of fundamentalism, which always seemsto bring violence, in our world much of late, and so that certainlyinfluenced our take on Reagan. 

As for Victor Franchi, one of theinteresting things that happened under the papacy of Pope Francis wasthat he opened the Vatican’s Secret Archives to scholars andhistorians. 

In particular, he opened the part that the Vatican hadshielded for decades, documents relating to events that took place inWorld War II, so from 1939-1945. 

We saw a chance to dive into thisarchive, fictionally, and reveal a reality or two that is reflectedthe Vatican’s actions, and those of the United States, after thatwar. Victor Franchi is the product.     

Nancy: Yes, greatquestion, Norm. I think Michael will get A+ on this test! I hope I’mnot too far behind! 

The glamour here is powerand how seductive it is. With power, you can get anything you want–a person, a yacht, a political position, a holy war. It is morevaluable than money. 

As for the characterReagan Clark, I think her political life is informed by herconversion to Christian fundamentalism. I feel she was previouslytrapped by Catholicism and its idea of women, which cut out for her asmaller role as a lawyer. 

Now as a Christian fundamentalist, she cando anything and everything to defend her faith and her politics, asthey are one–even if her actions are immoral. She is on theMachiavellian side of her faith; even murder is justified by herfaith. 

If the character of Reagan is inspired by any real person, Iwould say yes, for me, yes. She is a female politician who is aferocious political animal, and just barely human. I won’t say whoit is, but she is on the outs with the current president.

As for Victor Franchi, heis a complicated figure and I am still figuring him out. He is a wildcard, an outsider priest and yet very connected in the Vatican. He isalso very much about power, but where Reagan is front and center,Franchi is working backstage. 

And his Vatican contacts allowed him todig way back into the Vatican’s Secret Archives. He opens ancientworks that show what the Church had once been and had done, and hesees the Church for what it is now–far less powerful.

He could makethe Church powerful again… but should it be? He makes us ask verydark questions of the nature of the power of the Church.

Is Franchi based on anyoneliving or dead? Not any one person. But characters like Franchi makeme love working with Michael. He amazes me when he comes up with thedarkest characters.

Not ‘dumb darkness’, like the kind ofcharacter who is violent for the sake of violence, but smartdarkness. Like Franchi.

Norm: The book delves intothe Vatican’s financial history, Nazi gold, and WWII ratlines. Howmuch historical research did you do, and what surprised you most inyour findings?

Were there any historicaldetails you wanted to include but felt were too controversial orspeculative?

Michael: The idea for thebook came when I was making a film about the Vatican a few years agoand was there, doing research. I learned that they had a spy agency. 

When I learned that the dedicated Nazi hunter Dr. Simon Wiesenthalcalled it “the best and most effective spy agency in the world” Itook notice! 

And so, that’s when the research began on all aspectsof Vatican espionage, and their financial history, as well as theiractivities during World War II. 

We did not feel anything was toocontroversial, but we wanted to make sure that it was all possible,in other words, could have happened within the historical context wehad researched. 

Nancy: I love the questionand it gets to the core of the book: Maddie is looking for missingmoney, stolen from the Vatican. To find out who took it,Maddie–journalist that she is–looks into where the money camefrom. 

And, if our lead character is digging into history so are we,and so is Michael. 

While making a documentaryabout the election of the Pope, Michael came to understand theVatican had a spy agency. Then, while writing a magazine article, heinvestigated the Vatican’s bank in a piece called God’s Banker. 

It is a piece that certainly inspired this book, the first of the newMaddie Lynch spy series. Through research and interviews, Michaellearned that in the old Vatican banking days, around WW2… no onewas watching the money too closely. 

It was shocking to me to hearthat! But as a point of fact it opens the door to a lot ofpossibilities storywise, about Nazi gold, where it came from, whereit went. 

Much more is known aboutthe ratlines and how in fact the Vatican, through a network ofchurches, helped Nazis escape. 

The Vatican feared, not the Nazis, butthe growing power of the Soviet Union– the Godless Soviet Union,which would be a huge threat to the power of the Church… Yes,Power–part of the glamorous allure of evil.

For me this goes to thecore of the book and the deep appeal of this spy series: Maddieuncovers secrets and exposes mysteries on behalf of the Vatican. 

While doing it she uncovers the mysteries of the Vatican itself–whatdid it know about the Holocaust, and when, and why didn’t theChurch do more–if they did anything at all.

Norm: The Society ofBlessed Urban II is a fictional group, but it echoes real-worldreligious fundamentalism. How did you balance fiction with thesensitivities of portraying extremist Catholic groups? 

Do you seeparallels between SBUII and current religious or political movementstoday?

Michael: Indeed, theSociety of Blessed Urban II is fictional, but it is based on so muchthat exists on the far-right borders of the Catholic church today. 

There are still many elements in the church who would happilysubscribe to SBUII, and by representing their fictional aims, wewanted to present their very real dangers, which exist in allfundamentalisms, because the operating essence of all is that you areright. 

Everyone else is wrong, and when it gets pushed to theextreme, not only are you wrong but no longer worthy of life becauseof your inferiority to those who believe that they have a monopoly onthe truth.  

So we didn’t really try to balance anything withthose guys, because they are our villains, and as such, needed to besuch.

Nancy: Is the Society ofBlessed Urban II fictional? I think it could be another name for theKnights Templar. Richard I, aka Richard the Lionheart, led what I seetoday as a kind of religious cult, during the Third Crusade. (His palGodfrey of Bouillon led the First Crusade in 1096-1099, and becamethe first ruler of Jerusalem! It all began with a call from PopeUrban II!) 

I applaud Michael’sreply: the Society is just one of many, too many, far-right groupswithin the Catholic church today. By fictionalizing them we getinside and can express the potent danger of these groups, and otherslike them, rising at the extreme borders of other faiths–likeReagan’s own faith.

They didn’t need to bebalanced; we are not representing a real group in history. But theyneeded to be real, gripping and believable characters. 

Norm: Maddie’s father’sdeath is a key motivator for her. How did you use her personalhistory to deepen the novel’s themes of legacy, truth, and justice? 

Was it essential for you that Maddie’s journey was as much abouthealing and confronting her personal history as it was about solvingthe mystery? 

How does her personal growth deepen the novel'sexploration of legacy, truth, and justice, making her story resonatemore with readers?

Michael: Maddie follows inher murdered father’s footsteps by being a journalist, and in herjourney, she wants to discover what really happened to him in themilitary conflict in Lebanon. 

We hear, these days, the term “thefog of war” being used a lot to explain things that don’t seemfoggy at all, but Maddie believes she can lift the fog about how herfather really died, and in doing that, find peace by finding truth. 

And then she will have to decide what justice that truth demands. Wewanted to send her on the journey as a way to heal, and in Book 2,she will discover that the journey continues, and much more healingis needed.

Nancy: I’d like to saythat Maddie’s loss of her beloved father puts her in a profoundstate of grief. She’s also just finished grad school, ended a longrelationship, and is in a job she doesn’t love–with a Boss fromHell. 

When we meet her she is utterly, personally, psychologicallylost. Add to that she is not a person of faith: she is not apracticing Catholic. I think that ’lostness’ we know and readerswill connect with.

And yet the church callsupon her: the Vatican needs her. This is not what Maddie thoughtwould happen, that she’d find ‘meaning’ in her life through theChurch. But in helping the Vatican, Maddie also may also find outwhat happened to her father, how he was killed. 

To do that… and I lovethis part… Maddie becomes like her father. She taps into hermemories of him and his journalistic skills; she is driven by hissayings about interview techniques, how to use silence to draw outconversation. 

She finds at a certain point she is actually finishinghis unfinished work–which many have led to his death. And so, byMaddie confronting her own truth and grief, she is on the way tosolving the mystery of her father’s death.

Her personal growth ismarked by becoming relentless and fearless. And as she grows, I thinkreaders will grow more attached to her: we’re on a journey withher, to help the Vatican, and as she becomes a spy, a brilliant andvery moral spy, not blindly obedient to the Church, and who is alsovery much a woman.

Norm: How did you decideon the diverse locations-New York, Rome, Oxford, Dublin, andJerusalem-and what unique atmospheres or themes did each bring to thestory? 

Were there particular challenges or rewards in portrayingthese settings to enrich the narrative and its global scope? Wasthere a location that was especially challenging or rewarding towrite about?

Michael: One of thepleasures of writing about the Catholic church is that it is global.So, the story demanded a global reach, and as we have had thepleasure of visiting all the places we write about, and which arerelevant to the story, we loved exploring the world through ourcharacters. Of course, in doing so, we had to be conscious ofpolitical realities in places, and not to engage in them witharguments pro or con, but to engage in their reality as Maddie wouldsee it and then let her navigate it.

Nancy: I would love to saywe picked our favorite destinations, and when this book is made intoa miniseries–which we hope it is–we get to go there! But there ismore than hope here and travel plans. 

The cities are some of theworld’s power places and religious hubs, and also academic centers.They each bring, on the surface, their tourist-based charms andbeauty. That is part of the draw for readers, but Maddie goes behindthe scenes. 

So in New York City, the book begins inside an old church.Later, in Rome, the story takes us into the Vatican offices, eveninto the dressing room used by priests–places where the workhappens, where secrets are buried and uncovered. 

There were challenges ingetting well-known places ‘right’, and not ‘oversetting thescene’... In a few chapters, for instance, the story is set insideSaint Peter’s– we could have gone on for pages describing theart–or how the light falls so divinely on the marble floor. But wedidn’t! 

If there was a locationthat was especially challenging and also rewarding it was also insidea church, an ancient church in Jerusalem where the evil charactersconduct a secret meeting. 

It is a frightening chapter, but it had tobe made real and human–even if the characters don’t seem fullyhuman.

Norm: The novel critiquesinstitutional corruption in the Church, government, and media. How doyou see journalism’s role in holding powerful institutionsaccountable today?

Do you think Maddie’sapproach—blending investigation with personal courage—is stillpossible in today’s media landscape?

Michael: It is our aim tocorrect all that is wrong with today’s journalism through Maddieand her work. I have worked as a journalist, and I am appalled at thequality of a lot of so-called mainstream journalism today. 

Some ofthat is the result of oligarchical owners wanting to curry favor withthe government, which is not new, but needs to be countered, and isbeing countered by many writers on Substack. 

So, it’s interestingto see how the media today is being influenced by the people, when itcomes to things like the Jeffrey Epstein files. That call for justicewas not media driven, but popularly driven, and the media followed.  

Perhaps they will be reminded in this that, too, can and need tolead. There are still great, courageous journalists out there tryingto find the truth, and there are still dark forces trying to stopthem, and that’s what we’re up against, and so is Maddie. But wego on because that’s what we have always done. Tyrants fall in theend.

Nancy: Through Maddie andher work as a journalist, we see that journalism ‘can be owned’by some rich person or conglomerate, and we also see her struggle forher own independent reporting. 

To do that she has to dig, she has tofight and be brave, and she has to be willing to face the truthwhatever it is. I know that because some of my inspirational forcesare journalists, like Rachel Maddow and Christiane Amanpour, and evenNellie Bly.

How do I see journalistsholding institutions accountable today? I think it is harder andharder with the government and the judicial system being able tosuppress documents and information (as in the Epstein and Maxwelltrials). 

Reporters have to be relentless. They may have to stepoutside their own institutions, outside of NPR, NBC, etc., whichalways have some financial and political affiliation, to get thefacts.

Norm: The theme of “truthvs. power” runs throughout the book. How do you think the novel’smessage about truth resonates in an age of misinformation andconspiracy theories?

What do you hope readerstake away about the cost of seeking truth in a world that oftenrewards silence?

Michael: If you valueyourself, then you value the truth. Which, of course, is not true ifyou’re a malignant narcissist. But it is true if you want to leavethe world better than you found it. 

The amount of lies that assaultus each day can only continue for so long, as reality and truth havea way of coming forth to expose them. 

We see it happening now, whendealing with the lies about how well our economy is doing, and peoplesee the reality in front of them that it is not doing well. 

That’swhat I mean: you cannot hide behind lies forever, and one way oranother, the truth will out. As for conspiracies, well, some of themare true, and some of them are not, and the challenge is to sortthem. 

Nancy: I love thequestion. How do I think the novel’s message about truth resonatestoday, in an age of misinformation and conspiracy theories? Readerswill see in the book that the characters in power, or who seek power,use lies to attain and keep their position. 

They buy and sell thetruth as a weapon against their foes. In this power game the publicis left to consider ‘who do they believe’ not ‘what do theybelieve.’

 I think this will resonate strongly for today’s readersas we all question where we go for the truth: is it to certainleaders? Newspapers? NPR? TikTok? Do we seek the truth without, orwithin?

I hope readers will seethat seeking and speaking the truth is worth it, whatever the cost.Silence doesn't change anything.

Norm: The character ofVictor Franchi is revealed to be the son of a war criminal. How didyou want to explore the idea of inherited guilt and the weight ofhistory?

Do you believe individualscan escape the sins of their ancestors, or are they always shaped bythem?

Michael: I think we’reall held by our history, and even by trying to escape it, we’reshaped by it. Victor Franchi is the son of a very bad man, and so isthat nature or nurture? 

I think it is very hard to escape a terribleparent, and those who have done so deal with it all their lives, evenif they find a safe haven. 

My own history is as an Irish-CatholicCanadian-American whose grand-uncle murdered a British Army officerin Northern Ireland. I lived in England for five years, and I neverwanted to kill anyone. 

So my own history was present, in that I knewwhat had happened between the country my father was born in and thecountry in which I was living, but I also had my own aims to fulfill,as a result of what kind of life my very peaceful father had givenme. So that’s what I mean about being shaped by our history, as itwill always be part of the story. 

Nancy: The character ofVictor Franchi remains fascinating to me. He is the son of a warcriminal, but like Maddie his life is dominated by the ghost of hisfather, and by that guilt. 

And also like Maddie, he means to finishwhat the father had started. But that is not a good thing!

Do I believe individualscan escape the sins of their ancestors, or are they always shaped bythem? Well, here I have to show my cards: my mother was a therapistso I grew up with a very psychological understanding of human nature. 

And in the same way, if we don’t understand history, we are boundto repeat it, if we don’t understand our ‘pathology’ we aretrapped by it. 

Throughout the Maddie Lynch series, readers will seeMaddie awaken to her father’s past, her own inheritence and itsterrible cost, and chose it – or not.

Norm: The novel warnsagainst religious fundamentalism across faiths, while also promotinginterfaith dialogue. How did you approach portraying Islam and Muslimcharacters without resorting to stereotypes?

What do you hope readerslearn about the importance of Muslim-Christian dialogue from thebook?

Michael: I am veryinterested in the Peoples of the Book. Judaism produces Christianity,and Islam comes out of both. So that’s the governing principle ofall—we’re all connected. 

In dealing with Islam, we wanted to dealwith humans who had a particular view of the world. If you get thatright, you avoid a stereotype, and so that means asking what it isthey truly want. 

What do fundamentalists truly want? To be right.They believe that they are, but it’s not enough. They have toinflict their “rightness” on others, so in our engagement withinterfaith dialogue we were careful to pay attention to creatingcharacters who wanted what they wanted for reasons that made sense tothem and their story. We hope that readers realize thatMuslim-Christian dialogue is a good thing. We’re all on the sameplanet, and we need to speak to each other, and help each other tolive well.

Nancy: I’ve always beeninterested in World Religions. I grew up Unitarian and that meantSunday School was learning about other faiths: we’d go tosynagogues, to mosques, to churches. I grew up seeing the connectionof us all as a human family, and how our faith informs the best ofourselves. 

We wanted thatconnectedness to be alive throughout the book. And so, for instance,in creating Maddie’s pal, who is Muslim, the character is also gay,hardworking, has no interest in fashion, and has a sweet tooth–she’svery human! 

So are other Muslim characters, and Catholic and Jewishcharacters. That is how you avoid a stereotype, by bringing incomplexity and contradictions to your character which are powerfullyand wonderfully human.

We hope that readers willsee how the Muslim-Christian dialogue is necessary. Even if there areimpasses and disagreements, as long as you are talking, there is aconversation, then there is hope– and the possibility of a real andlasting peace.

Norm: Where can ourreaders find out more about you and The Glamour of Evil: A MaddieLynch Mystery?

Michael: Please visit our WEBSITE  to find out more about us and our company. 

We started BookGo to help writers get their stories out there, and indoing so, got Glamour out there as well.

Nancy: Yes, and please askyour favorite indie bookseller to carry the book!

Norm; As we conclude ourinterview, the book ends with a message about vigilance againstextremism and the importance of personal courage. What do you hopereaders will do—or think—after finishing the novel?

If there were a sequel,what new challenges or themes would you want to explore for Maddie?

Michael: There isdefinitely a sequel in the works, and in it, Maddie must be evenbraver as she goes forward and deeper into her own story. Vigilanceagainst extremism is very important as it’s the only way we findpeace in our world.

However, since we posit that evil really exists,as that is what Maddie discovers, then we know that this conflictwill continue between good and evil. Until we turn the whole showover to AI, and ask it to create world peace, which it will do bywiping out all the humans! 

Nancy: Yes, there is asequel in the works! In our forthcoming books, we'll see Maddie growas a character and a spy, coming to terms with grief, and alsoletting love into her life. 

Yes, Maddie will have to facework-life-spy balance! She will also take on more mysteriessurrounding the Vatican; how Popes are made and unmade, how theChurch relates to other faiths– and other governments. 

The serieswill also look at the nature of Good and Evil, and how the Church cando good work in a very turbulent century.