Conservative Screenwriter's Novel Proves Prescient on NSA Spying, Obama's Syrian Blunders

I swear I made it up! I started writing my novel Hand of Fatima over six months ago. I never heard of Edward Snowden. But I really did think that the NSA was listening to all of our phone calls all the time.

So Sean, the nice guy character in my book who works at NSA, tells all his friends in the midst of a crisis “there is no privacy anymore.”

Then I created a “fictional president” (unnamed) who kept making naïve, stupid foreign policy decisions making us the laughing stock of the world. I made that up, too!

After co-writing the movie An American Carol and doing several conservative political commercials, I needed a way to vent about what was going on in Washington with both Democrats and Republicans. And I believed we are not taking terrorism seriously … again!

My rabbi actually put me on the right path. I guess that’s a rabbi’s job. He told me to take all the things I am passionate about and weave them into one story.

I had also been reading Brad Thor novels. He inspired me with his series about Scott Harvath. an ex-special operator. Now since I was never a special operator and don’t know the precise place to shoot someone in the knee so they will bleed out, I had to make up stuff.

Hand of Fatima is a combination political, national security thriller with faith and family. The first page is Psalm 146-  “Don’t put your trust in princes…”

It begins a year after the death of Holly’s husband, a SEAL, in a raid in Helmand Province. They were betrayed and led into a trap. The search for the truth in D.C. where those in power want the truth hidden is frustrating for patriotic Americans.

Of course this actually happens in real life. Hello, Benghazi!

Searching for this truth leads the characters to discover a larger plot that leads straight to the White House. Politics is a blood sport, and if you are not willing to bleed then you shouldn’t play. And if you believe there are more important values than winning the next election then maybe you shouldn’t play either.

If Hand of Fatima ever becomes a movie they will probably take out the scene in Temple on Rosh Hashana or at Mass, and I guess they won’t show Psalm 146 at the beginning of the movie either.

I hope you like the book because I am going to write another!