To celebrate the publication of THE NEMESIS PROGRAM by our top ten Sunday Times bestselling author Scott Mariani we ran a competition to find the ultimate die hard Ben Hope fan.
We found him!
Meet Rich Wigley and read on to find out exactly why Scott Mariani’s Ben Hope series should be on your must-read list!
I came across Scott Mariani by complete chance. As an aspiring writer myself, I was actually on a mission to find some new novels to help inspire my own work. It was a couple of years ago now and I was exploring the ibook app on my new iphone, scrolling through the ‘istore’ in search of a new adventure. I guess the first thing I look for in a novel is material that I can relate to. The fundamental things I look for in a book are action, great characters and the knack to make me believe I’m somewhere else – escapism at it’s very finest. Being a young lad, I can become quite distracted, so I needed a book that was going grab my full attention.
After some ‘scrolling’, I came across an ebook called ‘Passenger 13’. The first thing that captured my attention was the synopsis. It described the main character – an ex SAS soldier (Ben Hope) who embarks on a wild goose chase around the world, in an effort to unravel the mystery behind the suspicious death of his former army comrade in a plane crash. The book was fantastic, filled with twists, jam packed with action, intelligent crime solving, and provided amazing descriptions of locations I could only dream of visiting. I was mostly intrigued by this Ben Hope character and soon discovered there was an entire series that follows the development of the protagonist as an intelligent, yet troubled hero, written by the author Scott Mariani. I began reading all of the books in chronological order and have been hooked ever since.
Shortly after completing the series I decided to contact Scott himself, to tell him how much I enjoy his books. Scott was really grateful and was keen to get me to write a testimonial for his website, which now features on the ‘readers corner’ section of his dedicated site.
Importantly for myself, I wanted to find out how I could use his work as a catalyst to begin my own , I wanted to find out how Scott gets ideas on to shelves. I went to my local library and discovered a book, written by the man himself, called ‘How to write a thriller novel’ – Perfect! The book has proved to be incredibly helpful, providing me with much motivation. It also covered an insight into the publishing world, including important things to bear in mind when catering for a thriller audience, specifically.
I guess as a fan you have the assumed duty to lend the books on to people and spread the good word. About two years ago I had an interview for a sales role at a well-known magazine publisher. For the interview I was asked to prepare a ‘Presentation on one of my passions’. Usually I would have covered Football or Music, but I figured given the context of my interview it would be more fitting to create a short presentation on my favourite author, Scott Mariani. Needless to say, the interviewers were impressed and I was invited back for a second interview. One of the interviewers was that impressed, she even asked to borrow a copy of a Ben Hope book, for her son.
Having read all the books, I find all I can do is wait patiently for the next whilst Scott is grafting hard on the next Ben Hope plot, somewhere in the Welsh hills. In the meantime, I’ll continue to recommend his books to everybody I know. Because that’s what his biggest fan would do, right?
– Richard Wigley
Click here to get a never-before-seen extract of The Nemesis Program
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