Authors’ Commentary on “Check and Mate”

There are times when a particular word, phrase or image will just start someone laughing, for no specific reason, it just will. That phrase, Lawyers in Hell, did it for me.  After I read Janet’s post the image it conjured up in my head just started me laughing and I swear that I couldn’t stop for several minutes. That bit of laughter was just what I needed to get through the rest of the day.

On impulse I sent Janet a Facebook message, thanking her for helping me out on a bad day; even though she didn’t know she was doing it. Well, one thing led to another and Janet was kind enough to allow me to submit something to the project.

I had been a fan of the series back when it was first being published, since it included the work of a number of writers I admired. While I was chatting with Janet on the phone concerning her plans for the revived series I happened to notice my copy of David McCullough’s excellent biography John Adams.  I knew that Adams had been an excellent lawyer during his life, so I told her that I wanted to do a story centering on Adams in hell.

Since a lawyer needs a client I later decided that he was going to defend the well known British occultist Aleister Crowley. When I learned that Crowley had been an avid chess player it occurred to me “What if he were accused of cheating at chess?”  How does one cheat at chess? Now, now, that would be telling.

Take those two characters, add in the man who wrote The Shadow pulp novels and Albert Einstein’s daughter, shake well and the result is, at least I hope it is, a devilishly entertaining story.