Tuesday Teaser - Diallo Delport

Advance readers of my latest release, The Tempest Murders, have told me that serial killer Diallo Delport is one of the most frightening adversaries they've seen - on a par or exceeding the terror of Joseph Gabucci, the hired assassin in my book, Exit 22.

Diallo Delport resembles another killer, one who lived nearly two hundred years earlier and half a world away - in Ireland. When he shows up in Lumberton, North Carolina, Hurricane Irene is barreling toward the Atlantic coastline and Irish Detective Ryan O'Clery is trying to solve a series of murders. Ryan suspects from the moment he meets Diallo that he is the killer, but he has no evidence. While he attempts to gather it, more murders take place - and Ryan's lover, Cathleen Reilly, becomes the killer's next target.

There are two physical characteristics that immediately set Diallo apart: he is an albino, and his face bears a scar just beneath one eye that is round and raised like a keloid the size of an ice pick. Coming from that scar is another, long, narrow one that ends in a teardrop shape on one cheek. It looks identical to a description of the killer in 1839, except that killer's scar was a birthmark.

Ryan enters his passport information in both domestic and international databases: 6 feet 4 inches tall, 245 pounds, thirty-five years old; and Ryan notices he sports a muscular frame like a serious bodybuilder. He is a formidable opponent - both physically and strategically.

Who would I want to play the role of Diallo Delport, should The Tempest Murders be made into a movie? It would require a transformation to make him albino with light cornflower blue eyes and that distinctive scar, but hands-down, Joe Manganiello has the presence to pull it off.