The Last Angel To Fall follows Federal Agent Stone who is tasked with hunting a Fallen Angel, in his pursuit he reveals a conspiracy between the State Department and Lucifer. What was the inspiration for the setup to your story?

The tagline came to me very early in the process: “Everything we’ve been taught about Good & Evil is a lie.” How does the world really operate? What is the real truth behind the war between God and Satan? There are two sides to every story, but for the most part, we’ve only heard one and it’s pretty much universally accepted without equal time from the antagonist. Wouldn’t it be interesting to speculate about that?

This novel began as a screenplay but the story demanded the expanded palette that only a novel could provide. I wondered what would happen if a fallen angel arrived today. How would it be handled? Is there some secret government agency already in existence tasked to respond and cover up improbable events like that? I thought about allies and enemies and how alliances are often of convenience and not always due to similar perspectives and goals. What could possibly compel any nation to sign a treaty with Lucifer? I then thought about the Apocalypse. What would be the signal event that triggered it? I thought about the story of the fallen angels. That’s when I decided that there was a suppressed book of prophecy that foretold the story of the last angel to fall as being the event that triggered the Apocalypse.

Your characters are well developed and intriguing. What were some driving ideals behind your character’s development?

Some of it is personal experience. I’ve worked with a lot of interesting, diverse people from all kinds of backgrounds. The characters have a clash not only of personalities, but of politics and beliefs. They believe they are right, as most of us do, and fight to hold onto their beliefs, even when they are unsupported by facts or reason. I wanted to represent different points of view and open the mind of the reader to be able to “walk in another person’s shoes.” The character of Asheba Rain especially asks very searching questions that are meant to provoke objective analysis. Her point of view is completely outside normal human experience. To her, none of our universal beliefs are valid. The protagonist, Jubal Stone, eventually comes to the unsettling conclusion that lies and conspiracy are behind everything he’s ever believed in. Thad Coleman, a Black man who has experienced racism must struggle with a prejudice of his own due to his faith.

What were some themes that were important for you to explore in this book?

The need to question everything we are conditioned to accept as absolute truths because in one way or another, not everything we’ve been taught about good and evil is true.

Challenging conventional beliefs that are unsupported by facts, logic or common sense is vitally important to our growth as a species.

Ethnic cleansing is unacceptable and unjustifiable, even when God is the perpetrator.

The Bible tells only one side of the story of Good vs. Evil. There is another side I wanted to explore.

What is the next book that you are working on and when will it be available?

The sequel to The Last Angel To Fall is in the final stage of editing and should be available in late October 2021.

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