The Judas Saints follows an FBI Agent and a Park Police Sergeant whose cases overlap, and what begins as a couple of suspicious deaths slowly unfolds into a coordinated campaign of silencing, corruption, and cover-ups. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?

The inspiration came from watching how easily institutional authority can mask wrongdoing when people assume those in power are acting in good faith. I was drawn to the idea of two law enforcement officers, each discovering pieces of a puzzle that neither could solve alone. The setup with FBI Agent Saville and Park Police Sergeant Pritchard allowed me to explore how suspicious deaths can be dismissed as suicides when the right people control the narrative. What fascinates me is that moment when patterns emerge, when “a couple of suspicious deaths” reveals itself as something coordinated and deliberate. The overlapping cases create natural friction between jurisdictions, which mirrors how conspiracies often survive. Not through elaborate planning, but through bureaucratic disconnection and the assumption that someone else must be handling it.

Saville operates outside Bureau approval. Pritchard risks her badge. What draws you to characters who push against their own institutions?

I’m drawn to these characters because they face consequences most thriller protagonists avoid. Saville operates outside Bureau approval knowing his career already hangs by a thread after Miami, and Pritchard risks her badge pursuing a case that’s been officially closed. What interests me isn’t rebellion for its own sake, it’s the moral calculus these characters make. Saville has promised a grieving mother he’ll find her son’s killer; Pritchard sees evidence of murder that everyone else dismisses. They’re not revolutionaries. They’re professionals who realize the system they serve has been corrupted in this specific instance. The tension comes from their loyalty to the institution’s ideals conflicting with its reality. Pritchard still wants that FBI Behavioral Science Unit position even as she investigates federal crimes. Saville still believes in the Bureau even as he works unauthorized. These contradictions feel authentic to me. Good people trapped between conscience and career.

The novel questions how power justifies itself in the name of national security. Why is that theme important to you?

This theme matters because “national security” has become the phrase that ends conversations rather than starts them. In the novel, the SAINTS surveillance program represents technology that could serve legitimate security needs but gets weaponized for profit and power. What troubles me is how easily the phrase “national security” provides cover for actions that have nothing to do with protecting anyone. Victor Farnsworth, Ken Burton, and others in the conspiracy use national security rhetoric while actually serving their own interests: financial gain, political survival, personal revenge. The theme explores how those words create a kind of moral immunity, where questioning becomes unpatriotic and oversight becomes obstruction. I wanted to show that the greatest threats to security often come from those claiming to protect it. When power can justify anything by invoking national security, we’ve lost the ability to distinguish between genuine threats and convenient excuses.

Will this novel be the start of a series, or are you working on a different story?

I’ve designed The Judas Saints to work as both a standalone thriller and as the foundation for a potential series. Saville and Pritchard’s partnership could continue, though their trajectories by the novel’s end suggest different paths. Saville’s unauthorized investigation and the conspiracy’s reach leave plenty of unresolved threads, while Pritchard faces decisions about her future in law enforcement. If I continue with these characters, I’m interested in exploring how their choices in this case haunt them professionally and personally.

That said, I’m also developing other projects. My next novel, Aftershock, is an espionage thriller that takes place during the heyday of the Cold War and is a prequel to my first novel, Devil’s Brew, featuring CIA agent David Jourbet.

Whether Saville and Pritchard return depends on whether readers connect with their struggle, and whether their story demands continuation or stands complete on its own. 

Author Links: GoodReads | X | Facebook | Website