Inspector Profile

I have a written an altenate history novel called The Inspector, a bit of a doorstop/labor of love. Details to anyone who is interested. I am posting my stock query letter below...

The Inspector is an alternate history novel, set in a world that might seem to be a medieval Europe but also with Classical influences, both Western and Eastern, in its governance. It is first person, the protagonist is named Glaiss, which translates to the Imperial language as Blue. He is a young man from the provinces who is a newly invested Inspector of the Empire of Bandele, having been recruited by a traveling and official Bard at the age of twelve. The role of an Inspector is plenipotentiary. He must both inform, by way of official dispatches, the Emperor of how goes his realm and also by meting out his justice in an increasingly disordered land.

 This is a long work of approximately two hundred and fifty thousand words in thirty-one chapters. These are structured by having present day chapters, each of which can be considered an adventure unto itself, interspersed with chapters from Blue’s past, either with his family or during his education at the Inspectorate. These can be considered as a Bildungsroman by flashback but each of these chapters either foreshadow or echo the narrative. The action and settings can be described as cinematic in scope with a cast of characters that surprise with each new chapter, some in passing and some throughout the entire book.

I have taken care to use only words whose etymology extends back five hundred years or longer. This, besides avoiding distracting anachronisms, is to maintain a lyrical tone in the storytelling. As part of my world building I start each chapter with a poem, song or quote to establish a common literature for this state that encompasses many different peoples.

There are no elements of or references to anything magical, besides the superstitions of certain characters, in this book. An elevator pitch might include the fact that there are no dragons and when you’re dead you shall remain so.

As the protagonist is a young man with both duty and authority the book will resonate with a similar readership that would like to imagine themselves as such though there are also strong female characters, and characters of all ages, throughout. The style of writing would appeal to readers who enjoy immersing themselves in a story that has its fantasy feet solidly planted in a believable alternate reality.

This is my first book. After spending my salad days as a jazz musician and composer in Boston I was the co-writer for the radio show “Says You!”. This ran for over two decades on public radio stations across the US and my involvement only ended with the passing of the founder and writing partner. I have nurtured this book over some years during which I have had a career laboring in the groves of the telecom industry, where I have been building devices designed mainly to locate my stock options.

 Philip Salkind    Boston, Massachusetts     phil.salkind@gmail.com    617-710-6800

https://the-inspector.org (please note that this link will take you to a book cover concept)

Foreword

A minor noble from a minor kingdom, Bandele the First took kin, scatterlings, exiles, the landless and those in bondage, those desperate for food and those desperate for station and the men and women of any land that look for an anointed leader to follow and he founded an Empire. He gathered up realms and peoples by means of his sword and his vision and made them speak to each other in a common tongue and adhere to common laws that reached across most of the continent, living long enough to make firm the grasp of his heirs who have reigned for over three hundred years.

Before the city that bears his name had its first stone set in the ground, Bandele stood on a tree stump and addressed the army arrayed before him. He promised justice for them and all they would conquer or embrace and he held up an emblem of an eye fashioned from blue glass and brass. By name he called out for twenty of his soldiers to come forward. None knew the other, they were young and of different origins, and as they knelt before him, Bandele gave each of them a title and a charge. Thus the Inspectorate came into being.

This is the account of one of those descendants through this lineage of duty, a young man from a distant province who was taken in hand by one of the Emperor’s traveling bards and sent at the age of twelve to the Capital to begin his education at the Inspectorate. Now, at twenty one, he is on his first mission, to a far corner of the Empire there to install a veteran as the first Magistrate for this man’s native hills, with an Inspector’s obligation and authority to observe and correct what he will encounter. We will read of his path as he makes his way through the strange and unfamiliar world, both strong and unsettled in turn, and , in alternating chapters, read of his passage from childhood and his training to come to wear the ring of an Inspector.