When he started writing, a literary agent said: Isabella Maldonado (1965) said that in order to represent him, he must first change his hero to be white. “As a woman and a Latina like me, she said she would never ‘sell’ her,” recalls the 23-language thriller, who wanted to reflect on her own experiences 22 years later, with a smile. He created characters like Nina Guerrera, who evokes Clarice Starling as a young FBI agent for the Americans and she. ‘The silence of the lambs’ and because of her self-defense style, like Lisbeth Salander in ‘Millennium’. This former Washington police officer and former captain of the Special, Criminal and Forensic Investigations Unit, FBI “Enigma” (Duomo), where he confronts the serial killer who gave him the title. Moreover, Netflix got his rights and will Jennifer Lopez Embodying Guerrera in a movie.
“As a woman and a Latino, getting into the police was tough. You always think you have to prove yourself because people doubt you. I experienced sexism and racism, yes. Once, at a crime scene, a woman told me she wanted to wait for a “real cop”. I had to make it clear to him that I was the real cop… And on my first day on the job, a police officer told me: ‘Women have no place in the police’ and he turned and left,” explains Maldonado, before adding that time is taking care to put him in his place: “20 years later that officer was under my command, many layers below me. I think for someone with his mentality, going to work every day knowing that I’m far superior to him should be punishment enough…”
You have nightmares about a victim trying to talk to you, or a murderer chasing you, where your gun didn’t fire.
Nina is 16 when she escapes from a foster family and is kidnapped by Enigma, a runaway rapist and murderer. Eleven years later, he locates her via a viral video and brags about his new victims by starting a riddle game on the networks to get their attention. Maldonado studied serial killers. FBI academy in Quantico. But for ‘Enigma’ he was partially inspired by a famous real case that he worked on and left a mark. Sniper WashingtonJohn Allen Mohammed, who, along with his stepson, killed ten people and injured twenty in 2002. “One of those killed was an analyst in my jurisdiction—remembers—. They fired randomly, and no one knew where or when. His aim was to create panic and he succeeded in paralyzing the whole country with terrorism. because he was sending information to the media: encrypted messages, riddles, the tarot card”.
a wall when you go home
That’s what Enigma does, but today through social networks. “I reflect the challenge all this represents for the police. How people can interfere with an investigation or generate false information. The first thing you look for about a victim is their profile on social networks,” says the person, who is also a forensic commander. “You never forget the smell of a corpse when you’re at the scene. You learn that death isn’t nobility. It’s hard. Many police officers build a wall for themselves and when they come home they don’t want to talk to their families about how their day was. That’s why so many divorces happen.” He says that they often confessed to having nightmares. “What no police officer knows is that in a fatal situation, your gun doesn’t explode or malfunction when someone points it at you. In some cases, I’ve imagined a victim trying to talk to you or a murderer chasing you?”
endurance in Ukraine
Maldonado has retired to start a family, but admits: it’s missing something like “badge and gun”. “I joined the police because I couldn’t stand the injustice and wanted to help the victims of criminals. I knew I couldn’t change the world, maybe the course of someone’s life. Now, I see that writing has had a greater impact. I’m surprised they bought more than I anticipated. Mystery in the Ukrainian trilogy and there are networks Young Ukrainian women, who said they were inspired by Nina’s fighting style, explains that she has faced dire situations and overcame them. I wanted to celebrate resilience with Nina, show how it’s done Some survivors of painful trauma manage to turn it into something constructive. and good for others.”
“Not everyone who is abused becomes a monster, which often serves as an excuse to justify criminals.” This is “emphasized by someone who has witnessed massive acts of cruelty. It is disturbing to see so much dehumanization.”