EQUITY of EVIL – A Medical Thriller based on True Events by Rudy A. Mazzocchi

True Events – Really?

I am often challenged about this bold statement “based on true events” when discussing and promoting my debut novel, EQUITY of EVIL. There are actual Author Notes at the end of the book that identify many (but not all) of the true events upon which this story is based. As an example, the Prologue is from my true experiences as an undergraduate pre-med student working in the Human Genetics Research Laboratory where we cultivated fetal organs from aborted fetuses obtained from the clinic the previous evening. We were eventually successful in growing fetal organs and tissues that included lung, heart, liver, kidney, and even brain. It was something that we were prohibited from discussing back then, and even now it requires a bit of explanation.

There are other components of the story that deal with human trafficking, the black market for organ transplants, and various new medical procedures not yet approved here in the U.S., that are also based on true events. For example, I know of an individual who was in need of a heart transplant, but was eventually taken off the waiting list here in the U.S. because he was trying to manage other organ complications. His prognosis was not very good. However, through the right connections, he was suddenly able to secure an appropriate heart donor in Southern Europe after writing a substantial size check. The donor was a healthy young male with the right tissue type who had died from a gun-shot wound in the emergency room of a major medical center. The American received his new heart, finished his vacation and returned to the U.S. about ten days later.

The Abortion Theme

I’ve been told that there are only about a dozen novels that have boldly included the business of abortion in the theme of their story. The original manuscript of EQUITY of EVIL initially carried the title “Harvest of the Unborn” since the writing of the first chapter over three years ago. It wasn’t until my Literary Agency told me that they were having some “difficulties” stimulating interest with top NY publishers because of the title; (forgetting the fact that I’m also a first-time author with no brand recognition)! I also had a reviewer from one of the major booksellers outright refuse to review my manuscript simply because of the title and what it implied.

This is a deeper story that touches on human behavior and reveals how powerful people tend to usurp the rights of others less fortunate or less strong, for the sake of their own personal pleasure or gain. Ironically, the reference to the “unborn” became a marketing concern and we decided to change the name in hopes this piece of literary fiction reaches a broader mainstream audience. My hope is that this debut novel becomes a politically compelling, suspenseful and reality-cutting medical thriller that will challenge the reader’s personal views on capitalism, ethics, and the basic morality of his fellow man. It will surely drag you through a dark and brutal new world where human life becomes the actual equity of evil.

Rudy A. Mazzocchi is best known as a medical device and biotechnology entrepreneur, inventor, and angel investor, with a history of starting new technology ventures throughout the U.S. and Europe. He’s been privileged to have the opportunity to see the newest innovations in healthcare and work with some of the most brilliant researchers, scientists and physicians in the industry.

Authoring more than 50 patents, he has helped pioneer new companies involved in cardiology, oncology, orthopedics, neurosurgery and even embryonic stem-cell development. Through these efforts, he has become the recipient of many technology and business awards, including the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year in Healthcare and the Businessman of the Year Award.

Combining these experiences and opportunities, with thousands of hours of travel and long evenings in hotel rooms, he found the initiative to start writing a collection of medical thrillers based on true events, the first of which is entitled EQUITY of EVIL.

You can visit his website at www.rudymazzocchi.com.

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ABOUT EQUITY OF EVIL

A Venture Capital Fund makes a risky investment to start a challenging new business that appears capable of reaching profitabililty with modest capital requirements. The real challenge: optimizing one of the most frequently performed surgical procedure in the World — Abortion.

Founding Partner, Roman Citrano, a successful entrepreneur turned venture capitalist, soon struggles with what he believes is his choice to establish the controversial new company. He soon realizes that he and others are but pawns on a massive, ugly chessboard being manipulated to benefit a far larger, illicit market in human organs for transplantation. Unknowingly, prime, hyper-enriched organs are spawned from the aborted fetuses and grown like hydroponic vegetables.

An unfolding world of deceit, rape, human trafficking and assassination becomes deeply personal as Roman’s sole love interest secretly uses one of his new abortion services to terminate her untimely pregnancy. When she disappears, his frantic search becomes a hellish nightmare that grows worse by the hour.

Based on true events, this bold novel involves some of the world’s oldest, most emotional and controversial issues. At the core of each matter is man’s predisposition to control and take ownership of the human spirit for the sake of profit and person gain… such is the dark and brutal new world where life becomes the equity of evil.

Sooo, as we all know, Borders is no more. When I lived in Virginia, it was really the only bookstore near my house, save for a Books-A-Million in the mall and well, I didn’t always want to have to go INTO the mall to buy books.

I’d actually stopped, or tried to stop, buying books while in the process of moving last year. As I stacked box of books on top of box of books, I remember thinking. “Damn. I have a lot of books. No really. When the guy from Hoarders shows up, I won’t be surprised.”

I still have quite a few, but I’ve culled the herd quite a bit too. After all, if I’m not going to re-read a book, I don’t see the sense in hanging on to it. Might as well pass it along so it can be enjoyed or not by somebody else.

I’ve been buying most of my books lately on (you guessed it), Kindle, for all the obvious reasons…cheaper, super easy to impulse buy with Amazon’s 1-click and honestly the best reason, they don’t take up space. I can take a ton of books to the beach and not have to carry them in a giant trunk.

That said, I’ve been re-reading Harry Potter to my daughter and it’s hold a good, solid hardcover book in your hands too. There’s room in my life for both.

There will be non e-books I will buy, I’m sure. Obviously not from Borders though. So for those of you that were regular shoppers, where will you be going to get your books now? Relying more on e-readers? The other giant bookstore that starts with a “B?” Indie bookstores if you are lucky to have them in your area? Has Borders closing changed your buying habits at all, or not really?

Photo by Reddit user jessers25.

I recently got a smart-phone. In other words, I recently joined the 21st century. It’s your basic Android and so far I like it very much. Granted, I still pretty much just use it as a phone, *gasp*! But the ability to check email on it is convenient if I’m away from my computer.

Of course, with smart phones come apps. Apps for everything you could ever imagine. Disney World ride wait times, drink recipes, weather, Dean Koontz. Yes. Dean Koontz.

I am a fan of his and noticed in his newsletter he has an app. It was free, so I downloaded it. The app has video, podcasts, audiobook clips, etc. All very cool and certainly isn’t hurting Dean at all. But I had to wonder, as an author, does having something like a smart-phone app actually help, or is it just a gee whiz kind of thing?

It could be that I’m too new to the smart phone thing to fully appreciate the brilliance of apps. After all, I haven’t even downloaded Angry Birds, so clearly I’ve missed some boat, somewhere. So, I’m curious, if you like an author, would you go looking for an app from them? What kinds of things in an author’s app would be interesting to you or do you think the idea isn’t interesting at all?

I’ve started messing around with yWriter this morning and so far I like it a lot! I’m more of a pantser than a plotter, but I still like to have everything organized as I pantser along. Right now I’m editing a few different things and I’m stuck on a section so I thought I’d try a different track. Sometimes when I’m stuck, moving on to something else for a while helps.

Enter, yWriter. I downloaded it a while ago, but then just haven’t had the time to do much with it. What is it, you are asking? What it is, is a piece of software that helps you break your novel into chapters, but more importantly scenes. Once the scenes are all laid out it’s much easier to see the track of your story. You can see where you might  need to beef up a section if there is a lull or if there are two really intense chapters to close together, etc. It gives a nice visual representation of what’s going on in the story. You can check out the website for a full description. Here’s the link.

Oh, and guess what. It’s free. That might be the best part of all, especially considering how robust it is. I have to admit, I was a little sketchy at first about a free piece of software, but even though I’ve just started scratching the surface of it, I’m finding it extremely useful, and can’t wait to add all the details from my various projects to it so I can get them done!

Anybody else a yWriter user? Any tips or tricks I should know about?

Get out the black tie and get ready to check out the red carpet, it’s the first annual Book Trailer Awards, aka, The Moby Awards. This show is presented by Melville House and will feature the following categories:

Best Big Budget Book Trailer; Best Low Budget Book Trailer; Best Cameo in a Book Trailer, Best Author Appearance in a Book Trailer and Least Likely to Actually Sell the Book.

The awards are tonight, so it’s too late to enter, but I’m sure they’ll give it a go next year too, so be sure and get your trailers ready!

Which brings up an interesting point, I’ve started to see more and more of these trailers, but I’m curious if authors are seeing success with them. Do you have a trailer for your book? Do you feel as though it’s brought attention to your book and helped generate sales? Basically, how has a book trailer enhanced your book or marketing?

You can read all about the Mobys by clicking here. Good luck to all the finalists!!

And I feel fine? Hmmm…not sure.

Michael Hyatt, CEO of Thomas Nelson Publishers recently posted a blog article entitled “The End of Book Publishing As We Know It” in which he discusses how the publishing industry is going to have to completely rethink how it does business. He was prompted to write the article after seeing a demo for the “SI Tablet.” (The demo is posted in his article.)

He brings up some fascinating points including that standard “books” as we know them will go away, just like 8 tracks and the like. I believe at some point, that’s probably true. They may not go away completely, but just like iPods replaced Walkman’s and CD players, so will the E-Reader replace standard books. That’s just the way of things, and in a lot of ways, it’s very exciting.

There was one point that bothered me though. Mr. Hyatt states that, “These new technologies promise to create reading experiences (if we can call them that) that are more sensual, more imaginative, and more compelling than simple text alone can provide.”

Ok, I have to admit, I like a lot of the new technology. I love my Netbook, my iPod, and I enter every Kindle contest I can find, but the above statement disturbed me because what are books, if not a way to expand our OWN imaginations and sensory images?

I have a hard time getting through a book where an author tries to think for me, example: “He turned his eyes to the floor, because he was ashamed.”  What’s the fun in a device that will spoon serve the book to me, sensory images and all? The E-Readers that are out now, you still have to READ them, so I don’t feel like the traditional ‘book’ is as threatened by them as they are by something that promises to turn a reading experience into something more.

Granted, his statement is a little vague. He doesn’t state specifically that these new devices will eventually have crazy things like sound effects and smell effects that will trigger at certain points and “enhance” the reading experience, but it does make me wonder what DOES he mean? At what point is this technology too much?

What are your thoughts?

If I’ve ever spoken to you in person, you probably know I want a Kindle. I have a very good friend who also wants one and so we send each other links to different contests to win them.

There’s one particular contest from the Bibliofreakblog, that is doing their contest a little differently. You can do different things to get more entries. These ‘things’ range from following the Bibliofreak on Twitter to making a YouTube video.

I have no talent for film making, but it turns out that my friend, Nancy, does. (This is addition to her MULTITUDES of other talents.)

Here is a link to her YouTube video.

And a link to her Icelandic sheep website.

It’s great, and it gives a little glimpse into her life as a shepherd of Icelandic Sheep…as told by her stunning ram, Nicholai.

Please check out her video. It’s a nice fun way to slide in to this post-holiday work week. Except for Nancy, because on the farm, the work never ends!

We all need tools to do our jobs. For a writer, that could mean paper and pen, typewriter (yes, there are still some out there) or a computer of some kind.

I do my writing primarily on random slips of paper and my Netbook. It’s an Acer Inspire One, which my husband introduced me to and I love it. It’s portable, has all the power I need, and it’s blue! Um, er, not that the color was any kind of factor in my purchasing decision.

Really though, it’s great. My only ‘complaint,’ (not that you can really call it that) is the screen size. It’s fine for word processor applications or web browsing, but I’m a multi-tasker, so if you try to have more than one thing open at at time it can get a little crowded. No worries though, it easily plugs into a monitor so I can have the benefit of a larger screen, or dual screen.

So, what tools do you use for your writing? What do you think are the pros and cons?

If you’re interested in a netbook, check out this website –> Netbooked.com