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These are the places that A. Jay Collins has visited that contribute to the current story lines of the books he has written. Hover over each location on the map to find out more about how they contribute to the books.
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Nazi Gold - Latitude 55
The Golden Handcuffs
Viking Gold
Black Gold
Nazi Gold & The Golden Handcuffs
Nazi Gold & Black Gold
All Novels
Learn About
The Characters
Murray Stockman
Runs ORB, the Organization for Restructuring Business.
Matthew Black
The senior field protagonist for ORB.
Emma Stockman
A supporting role to Matthew and the daughter of Murray.
Plato and Margaret
ORB operatives
James and Jenny
ORB field operatives
Lucy Stockman
Wife of Murray Stockman and an ex-CSIS operative.
FAQS
Frequently Asked Questions
I am not a person who has ever really recognized business skulduggery at the levels I have been involved in. I am told it does go on, but I don’t go looking for it, so I am not attuned to such things. The issues that were brought to my attention seemed trivial, and I left it to others to resolve. But, eventually, as I got out of the trenches and into the boardroom, some things just didn’t sit well for me. Clearly I had matured – or perhaps I had more time on my hands to reflect. Now, it was as though I was being unwittingly caught up in situations where decisions were being made that were clearly on the edge of illegality and, frankly, beyond my ability to properly decode at the time they were happening. But, I had seemed to come to that point where I recognized where that edge was, and it was from that point that I realised there were stories to be told.
While not published, other than for industry related articles, I began to write in the early 1980’s after an escapade my family and I went through in northern Iran. It was at the same time as the Shah was essentially exiled, and Khomeini took hold of the reigns. It was a story that seemed compelling and interesting to tell, although I had no physical means, other than pen and paper, to develop it while I worked and brought up a family that was on the move for much of the time.
Eventually, I put that story on hold, in a briefcase with all my newspaper clippings and journal entries on life in Iran. It would be forty years before they saw the light of day when I reincarnated those files to develop the Black Gold storyline – my third novel.
In the meantime, there was a story brewing in me based on the shenanigans that were going on in my own backyard. At the time, I was travelling a lot and collecting snippets of experiences and people I met on route aty a very senior level. They became welded by words into ‘The Golden Handcuffs’ that really took on the hypocrisy of otherwise trusted service providers that directly affected the economic success, or not, of us ordinary folk, and twisted the actions into ones we cannot understand as ordinary people. Governments were conspiring with industry at such mediocre levels they managed to fly below the radar of the international press. Who controlled the gold price? Certainly not governments. Who controlled countries? Certainly not governments. Private industry yields a power in the mid-levels of th world authority that few of us hear about or understand. The Golden Handcuffs is focused on just one, tiny, point in the power game where none of us take notice. But, remember, it happens everywhere. I love the characters. I know some of them. The places are real. The setting is perfect for shenanigans.
It was really my third book, Black Gold, that took the longest to write – over 40 years, based on circumstances that are dear to me – people I knew, circumstances I have been involved in – but, I was too young to put it all together.
Research has always been a passion for me. It’s something that my training as an engineer taught me. Research, research.research – and at the end of it, one realises that one’s knowledge is less than when one started. There are so many questions one has to ask oneself when to stop, write and carry on. The fact is, there are a lot of researchers, but not many can put the whole thing together as a comprehensive storyline that can teach as well as entertain. Thank God for the Micheners, the Wilbur Smiths, the Winchesters and so many great authors/teachers of the world. I love them all and acknowledge I could never aspire to their greatness.
But, Nazi Gold – Latitude 55 has been my joy to put together. Despite the sombre nature of the basic subject line, it taught me so much. Researching the history, the circumstances, the possibilities, the groups involved and the wonderful simplicity of the north of British Columbia and it’s interesting history that could be the subject of many novels just in itself. I have been to all these places, met with so many of these people (other than the pope). I have met with the Turks who I describe, in the setting I have set out, and the corporate nonsense that goes on – I have been there, lived it and recorded it in a way that is story-like. The investigative detail of the Vatican is truly based on research and I cannot claim to have visited Tronetto Hall, talked to a cardinal or a bishop, or seen the Vatican cheque book – but I am fairly sure it isn’t like mine!
It was truly a labour of passion that I will miss.
It wasn’t until the second novel, Nazi Gold – Latitude 55, that I thought there could be a series. I am a bit embarrassed by the name of Matthew Black, since I had always thought of him as being Matt Black, but as time went on I thought this was a little ridiculous. So I stayed with Matthew Black and now I can’t change. I also don’t like the acronym ORB but, again, I don’t think I can change at this point. I think it’s really cheesy but at the same time it is what it does and what I intend it to do. ‘Change government, change industry, create a semblance of normality that doesn’t ripple the fabric ….blah, blah, blah.”
I love the idea of a series containing the same characters. It has some real advantages. I don’t have to recreate profiles. I can hone the profiles I have already invented. I can slot them in as the story needs. I want to continue to collect names and profiles that we can use.
I love putting together places and people with those that I have some experience with. For instance, my latest novel ‘Viking Gold’ is involved with places in Greenland that I know well enough, with Danish corporation directors I have got to know, with the property in Newfoundland I know well, with the fish market I visited in Nuuk, and the supper with the Prime Minister of Greenland. Stitch it all together, with a little bit of skulduggery, and you have a story. You have to love this way of expression. These characters, these cultures, these obese characteristics of people we don’t see in our everyday lives. Who are they? Where do they come from? Well, ‘Viking Gold’ tells you a little about them, from my own experience.
My characters are all based on fact and experience. Most of the time they are real with their names changed. I would love to use their real names – but I can’t. I cannot conceive of the possibility of just creating these characters from nothing. I am not that creative. Give me something to start with and I can take it from there. Take Max, from Black Gold. He was real, as bold and as ridiculous as I describe him and he would be even more eccentric if one met him. He is a truly cartoon character of immense proportions – a French Legionairre to me, a character so ridiculously real as to be almost impossible to describe – but he existed. He, like many of the characters I include in my novels, is impossible to believe as a real person. But I ask you to reflect on your life and try to remember those larger-than-life characters we have all come across. They are so difficult to recreate – aren’t they?
I was never really ‘inspired’ to become a writer. I came to it quite naturally. Albeit I wrote many reports, short stories and the like, and I was certainly encouraged to do more by the people I worked with, I didn’t really take the accolades overly seriously, although I did harbour the possibility. It was the encouragement by the few that my ability to produce a report in the form of a story seemed to point me in a direction I liked. After all, most people can tell a story of some kind, but few can tell one with those three most essential ingredients. – a beginning, a middle and an end and tie everything together.
My experiences and imagination have been the greatest influences on my ability to put a story together. The characters I have met are the most provoking; the most influential on my imagination and still, to this day (and night), influence me. My stories would be nothing without the characters I have met along the way. They are the key to my memories. Some come and go. I sometimes wish they would disappear; they haunt me and many times I hate them. Sometimes they live on the edge of my memory and sometimes they invade it. Sometimes they are repetitively there in my dreams, and sometimes I wish they would stay away. They bother me, they worry me, they remind me of things I would rather not remember as I worked through a life of conflicting ideals. But, I can at least write about them in a fantastical sense. When I get into a story, they consume me and I often have to turn away so that I don’t focus on them too much and, maybe, give the game away.
Gold is a fascination for so many. Just the word invokes extreme thoughts in people. From wealth to mystery, from jewellry to artifacts, from ore to dore, from piracy to romance. I will take advantage of all of those thoughts in my novels because I think about all of them. I never thought about gold when I was young. It was only when I became involved in mining that it became relevant, and even then it took me some time to cross over to a potential for a story line, and then to realise it meant so much more than something you could hold. But, the word Gold has so many other connotations and I take advantage of that in my series. The Golden Handcuffs was a situation; Nazi Gold-Latitude 55 was about gold; Black Gold is a story based on the oil industry and Viking Gold has more to do with the Danish side of the industry. It’s fun to play with the term, and there are so many others swirling in my mind.

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