It's always fun and games at the Olympics. Right?
Guess again.
The drama for these Olympic Games in South Korea has almost eclipsed the inspirational stories of the athletes themselves. An unpredictable neighbor with an itchy trigger finger hovering above the nuclear button has a way of capturing our attention.
We want our focus to stay on the athletes, but the sad truth is that history happens. We know world governments are working feverishly to ensure a safe event. We can only imagine the lengths they go to identify, assess, and deal with every threat.
Most of my readers will recall that the last Olympics to be held on U.S. soil was marred by a domestic terrorist. On July 27, 1996, a bomb exploded in Centennial Park in Atlanta, Georgia. Two people died. Over one hundred were injured. The scars from the shrapnel-filled backpack are still on the statue celebrating athletes and on our own hearts. We're were changed. We can read newspaper accounts of what happened that day and cringe at the rush to justice that ensnared an innocent man. We can marvel that the manhunt lasted years after the event. We can shake our heads at all we know now and wonder how so much went so wrong and how luck kept much worse from happening.
It's hard for me to write about why I set my books in the time period involving so much strife in Northern Ireland and the United States. History happens and we cannot undo what was done to us or to others. We can keep those touched by horrific events in our prayers in the same way we pray for all others to be safe from harm.
But, after I'm done with my prayers and wishes for a safer world, I write.
I cull history for facts. Some facts fit our world view and make us feel safe. Other facts rock us to our core and make us stare at dark ceilings in the early morning hours. Historical facts make my settings and time periods real. Human nature provides other facts that, when blended into my characters, make evil sadly real.
The Wake takes you to that hot summer night when a bomb exploded at the Summer Olympic Games.
Your imagination will take you even further.
