The Hunters

Author’s Note

People always ask me where I get my story ideas. Normally, I’m not sure how to answer because my real answer — my ideas develop over time during several months of tedious research and stress-induced nausea — isn’t very glamorous. But in the case of The Hunters, I can narrow it down to one specific moment.

Although I never met the man — he died six years before my birth — my great-grandfather (Jidah) grew up in a small village like the one described in this book. Not only was it nestled in the rugged terrain of the Carpathian Mountains, but it was located in the ethno-geographic blob along the Ukrainian/Romanian border that still confounds mapmakers, historians and, most importantly, me to this very day. (Not to mention Hector Garcia and his GPS.)

As a child, I was always told that my great-grandfather was Ruthenian. Not Romanian, but Ruthenian. The problem is, by the time I was born, Ruthenia no longer existed. The entire region had been swallowed whole by the Soviet Union, which had taken a red pencil and a pinko eraser and had reconfigured Eastern Europe to their liking. It didn’t matter how many times I asked my family where Jidah had come from, they could never pinpoint a specific location because Ruthenia was no longer on any maps. The best they could do was narrow it down to the giant blob I referenced above.

Over time, their story seemed to change. Not a lot, but just enough for me to doubt how much they really knew about his birthplace. Keep in mind, these were the same people who had convinced me that Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny were real, so I knew my family was capable of some pretty devious shit. (Of course, that is not an insult coming from me because I make up stuff for a living.)

How did their story change? Let me give you an example.

As a teenager, I developed a bad case of insomnia, and my mother told me it was only natural because our ancestors were from Transylvania. Not Ruthenia, but Transylvania. Think about that for a moment. My mom tried to calm my fears by insinuating that I might be a vampire. How twisted is that? To the Twilight generation, that probably sounds like the coolest thing in the world. But to me and my overactive imagination, it meant angry villagers were going to hunt me down and stab me with sharp sticks.

Thanks, mom. I can sleep much better after that pep talk.

Anyway, after many sleepless years, I decided to get to the bottom of things in 2005. My extended family had gathered for Thanksgiving, and I realized it was the perfect time to uncover as many details about my ancestors as possible. I went directly to the oldest source in the house (my grandmother) and recorded everything that she said — whether real or imagined. Then I went online and tried to sort the facts from the fiction.

Discovery #1: My great-grandfather was Ruthenian, but that term wasn’t used to describe people from a specific country. Instead, it applied to just about everyone who lived in the Carpathian region, whether they were Ukrainian, Hungarian, Czech, Belarusian, Rusyn, or Romanian.

Discovery #2: My great-grandfather’s village was less than fifty miles from Uzhhorod, a border city in western Ukraine that is within walking distance of Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, and Romania. Of course, those borders didn’t exist at the time of his birth, so I still have no idea what ethnicity Jidah was. Instead, the entire region was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, which stretched across a third of Europe and didn’t collapse until my great-grandfather had boarded a ship for America.

Discovery #3: His departure undoubtedly led to Russian aggression, and — I’m just guessing here — probably triggered the start of World War I.

Discovery #4: I am not a vampire.

So, you’re probably wondering, what does any of this stuff have to do with The Hunters? Well, it was during my investigation on that fateful day that I came across a document that described, in detail, the crates of gold and relics that were shipped from Romania to Moscow for protection. Strangely, I could find nothing about the treasure’s return. Sensing a story, I quickly abandoned my ancestral research and focused on the treasure’s fate — and what a fate it was.

One day it was there, the next it was gone.

Kind of like Ruthenia.

Since both of these events occurred at roughly the same time, I merged the two concepts in my mind and created a single book. To honor my ancestors, I set much of the action in a Carpathian village, named one of the Russian characters after my great-grandmother, and sprinkled in tidbits about my family tree throughout.

For additional flavor, I relied on the pages of notes that I took during the interview with my grandmother in 2005. I would have preferred to ask her specific questions about her parents and their upbringing in the old country; unfortunately, my grandmother got sick and passed away while I was writing this book.

In my heart, I know she would have loved the story.

I also know the story wouldn’t have existed without her.