Q: Please tell us about yourself.
By day, I am a Spartan warrior, part of a wall of men patrolling the thin blue line and saving my slice of the world by doling out traffic tickets and felony arrests wherever they may be found. By night, I’m a basement-dwelling (even though I live in a penthouse) internet denizen and card-carrying member of the PC-gaming master race.
Q: Tell us about your book.
Godwin’s Law is the second action-packed novel in my thrilling Internet Tough Guys series, starring the wise-cracking, sarcastic, caustically ribbing, Alex and Ted, mercenaries in the truest possible sense of the word. The team, a talented traceur, martial artist and ex-Foreign Legion commando paired with a computer hacking genius, are hired to extract a young woman from a dangerous international cult.
It’s an easy job that proves to be anything but. The cult throws the seeming entirety of its paramilitary resources behind the effort to recover Guinevere “Gwen” Kane. Figuring out the secret to her importance is the only way to survive.
Survive and, of course, collect their paychecks.
Q: What inspired you to write Godwin's Law?
In some ways, Godwin’s Law predates the Internet Tough Guys series as a whole. I’ve wanted to write a globe-hopping thriller with a soldier on a desperate mission of protection for years. One of the first things I saw was in connection with that movie trailer set to the tune of TATU’s “Not Gonna Get Us”. I also always loved Empire Strikes Back and its start-to-finish chase that is oft imitated and seldom matched. Some parts of the story came together slowly over the years and the final piece of the puzzle was the character Gwen. She was inspired by someone very important to me (with plenty of excess literary embellishment). By the time all these things started to come together, I was already working on Alex and Ted, the eponymous Internet Tough Guys. It seemed only natural to cast them as the heroes of the story.
Q: How much time per week do you spend writing/editing your work?
Anywhere from not a single minute to eighty-plus hours. I suffer from agonizing bouts of writer’s block and I go quite a while slogging through them. When I hit my stride, I can bang out (apparently, based on my latest book, Concrete Smile) a book in a week but I sometimes go months with nothing.
Well, I suppose that’s not true. I’m frequently, almost constantly daydreaming and my daydreams usually end up, in one way or another, on the page. So, if you count that, I guess I spend the better part of my waking day writing.
If I had my way, I’d write full time putting in forty-hour weeks of nothing but writing, but I’m still a ways away from that goal.
Editing is a different story. I have a hard time editing myself. Actually, I can scarcely do it at all. I have few filters, for one, and for another, I can’t read what a reader sees, just the movie in my head. All the credit here goes to my editor who has the glorious talent of tearing my heart’s work into ribbons and burning each shred to perfection before letting me stitch the tender strips back together.
Q: If you could meet three authors, which authors would you choose?
J.D. Salinger, (you didn’t say they had to be living) because he was a legend and certainly embodied the archetype of the antisocial, brooding, and reclusive author.
Rob Thurman, who elevates sarcasm to a Renaissance art form, because I love her books, her humor speaks to me, and because I have more than a little bit of a fanboy crush on her.
And Brad Thor, so I could punch his poseur ass in the face.
Q: What are you working on at the moment?
I needed a break from thrillers after writing two excellent manuscripts back-to-back. I figured the furthest I could get from that, and a genre that I’ve always loved and heavily read, was fantasy. So, I (literally) dreamt up a young adult fantasy project that I’m currently titling OneiroKnights. It’s a brilliant (if I do say so myself) twist on the genre and it touches on some subjects that have intrigued me to absolutely no end for a long time.
Title: Godwin’s Law
Author: Bernard Maestas
Genre: Thriller
Gwen Kane, estranged daughter of a Forbes millionaire and the bearer of a horrifying secret is lured into a dangerous international cult. It falls to Alex Kirwan and Ted Reagan to rescue her. What should be easy money for the mercenary team of a freerunning ex-commando and his computer hacking partner proves to be anything but as they find themselves doggedly pursued across Europe, Canada and the United States by highly trained forces with resources vastly disproportionate to the recapture of one missing acolyte.
Will Alex and Ted unravel the mystery of Gwen’s importance in time to survive?
Will Gwen pierce the seemingly impenetrable armor around Alex’s heart?
Will Alex and Ted get paid?”
Author Bio
Bernard Maestas lives in paradise. A police officer patrolling the mean streets of Hawaii, he has a background in contract security and military and civilian law enforcement. When not saving the world, one speeding ticket at a time, and not distracted by video games or the internet, he is usually hard at work on his next book.
Links
www.bernardmaestas.wix.com/bernardmaestas
www.facebook.com/BernardMaestasOfficial
www.twitter.com/bernardmaestas