My background is law, certainly not satellites or espionage.
I'm more terrified of high-tech electronic gadgets today than a year ago. (These books are still written on a thirteen-year-old word processor.
When it stutters, as it seems to do more and more, I literally hold my breath. When it finally quits, I'm probably done, too.)
It's all fiction, folks.
I know very little about spies, electronic surveillance, satellite phones, smartphones, bugs, wires, mikes, and the people who use them.
If something in this novel approaches accuracy, it's probably a mistake.
Bologna, however, is very real.
I had the great luxury of tossing a dart at a map of the world to find a place to hide Mr. Backman.
Almost anywhere would work.
But I adore Italy and all things Italian, and I have to confess that I was not blindfolded when I threw the dart.
My research (too severe a word) led me to Bologna, a delightful old city that I immediately came to adore.
My friend Luca Patuelli showed me around. He knows all the chefs in Bologna, no small feat, and in the course of our tedious work I put on about ten

John Grisham