Suspense Magazine November 2012

D.J. (Dorothy) McIntosh is an author based in Toronto. She’s a member of the Canadian Society for Mesopotamian
Studies and a strong advocate for press freedom. She supports Pen Canada, the Committee to Protect Journalists, and
Reporters Without Borders.
Suspense Magazine is completely honored to have this time to bring to you our exclusive interview with author DJ
McIntosh. Enjoy!
Suspense Magazine (S. MAG.): Can you give us a little behind-the-scenes action with your book “The Witch of Babylon”
DJ McIntosh (DJM): New York has been written about countless times so I wanted to find venues that were a little different.
On my first research mission, I took the train to New York and ended up in the middle of the worst power outage in North
America’s history. Didn’t make it past Albany that time. On the second trip, we were caught in western New York State floods.
Persistence won out though and I ended up finding some really neat venues like The High Bridge, up on the far northeastern edge
of Manhattan, New York’s first aqueduct, and the perfect club: the historic rock emporium, Kenny’s Castaways, in the Village.
For obvious reasons I couldn’t go to Iraq, but the intensive media coverage, especially on television, at times brought the war quite
dramatically into our living rooms.
S. MAG.: What made you decide to write the series as a trilogy
DJM: I wanted my lead character, John Madison, to be an ordinary guy (to the extent a New York art dealer can be “ordinary”).
That is, not a superhero but someone with failings and without a military or police background, someone who uses his wits to
survive. When the first book opens, Madison has grown up under the shadow of his much older brother, a star archaeologist. I see
the three books in the trilogy as not so much a series but more like three
volumes of one big book that trace Madison as he pulls away from his
brother’s dominant shadow and becomes his own man.
History made the decision about the trilogy. The three great primary
Mesopotamian peoples are: Sumerians, Assyrians, and Babylonians.
Book one is about the Assyrians, book two the Babylonians, and book
three will focus on the Sumerians.
Buy here at: http://tinyurl.com/8hsxmaw
32 Suspense Magazine November 2012 / Vol. 040