Laws of Solomon by Eriq La Salle

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[00:01:03] All right. Oh, wow. And there it is. Amazing. Gotta love Zoom. All right. Well, welcome back to another episode of The Reading Black Girls Podcast. I'm Nish. I'm Alex. I'm Kayla. I'm Aziza. And we are still The Reading Black Girls. Welcome back, y'all. We missed you. That has not changed. Okay.

[00:01:32] So we've been doing, if you've been following our podcast, you've been following, we've been kind of making some changes. We've been inviting these authors to our podcast. We have picked books that we're excited about and we get to actually talk with them and give y'all a little bit of the inside, the tea. Maybe some inner workings of how these novels came to be. Maybe. And you might even get a little bit of extra of like what they might be doing next.

[00:01:58] So that said, we do have a very special guest today. Those are the canons going off. Right. Canons. Pew, pew. Pew, pew. So let us introduce our guest, y'all. Today's guest is truly a storyteller in every sense of the word. You may know Eric LaSalle from his iconic work on ER or Coming to America, but his creativity

[00:02:28] actually goes far beyond the screen. From acting and films to directing and producing some of television's biggest shows, Eric has spent decades bringing unforgettable characters to life. And now he is putting pen to paper with Martyr Maker series and expanding the series with his new book, The Laws of Solomon. Diving into the dark and twisty world of thrillers, complicated characters, and villains who might just have you questioning, who should you be rooting for? Sure.

[00:02:56] Please help us welcome the incredibly talented Eric LaSalle to the Reading Black Girls podcast. Welcome. Thank you for coming here today. Thanks for having me. Great to be here. So we're going to start off very, very light. Okay. We're just going to do a quick round of this or that. You just let us know the first thing that comes to mind. And if you feel strongly about one of your this or that, and you feel like you want to tell

[00:03:25] us why you can, but just know this is very low stakes. Okay. All right. So would you rather be a hitman or a jewel thief? Jewel thief. Nice. I agree. Same. Ice coffee or hot coffee? Ice coffee. Yes. Yes. Okay. Yep. His fic or thriller?

[00:03:55] What's that? His fic, like historical fiction or a thriller? Thriller. And if you could travel to any time period, which one would it be? The future. I love that. Okay. I love that. Because why we need to go back into that. Right. Everyone's like, you want me to go back? Right. I want to go back.

[00:04:25] Let's move forward. It hasn't always worked out for us in the past. Right. No, really. Great point. Do you prefer to read physical books? Do you like e-reading or do you prefer listening to audio books? Physical books. Nice. Classic, classic man. Do you, if you were going on a reading retreat, would you prefer to do that reading retreat in the mountains, in the city or on the beach? In the mountains. Lovely.

[00:04:55] Great scenery. In action. That's included. Okay. What was your last five-star read? Kind by Tayari. Five-star read for us, too. Incredible. Nothing can go wrong with that. And then our last question. Hold on. Hold on. Right. Right. Awesome. But then I read...

[00:05:20] Then I read the Heaven and Earth grocery store by James McBride. Ooh. That's my last one. So, yeah. Can't go wrong, but yeah. Ken was definitely... Two five-star read, y'all. Five-star, nonetheless. And if you can, what has been your favorite book of 2026 so far? I would probably have to say Ken again so far.

[00:05:52] Honestly, same. You're in good company here. Yeah. I feel like we keep trying to, like, you know, we're reading all these other books, but... I keep coming back to that. I just keep coming back. That ending is still stuck with me. I can't really get past that more thing. Now, that said, I do want you to know that at this point you have taken the top spot of the thriller action category for me.

[00:06:19] This book was literally an action movie. Okay. Laws of Solomon. Loved it. How much of your Hollywood background do you feel like influenced your writing? Quite a bit. First of all, the entire series, what I try to do in varying degrees.

[00:06:42] I let my favorite movies sort of play a part or influence the book. So, in this case, Solomon himself is based loosely on Luca Brazzi from The Godfather, who was a henchman. So, but then the full book is my nod to Man on Fire with Denzel Washington.

[00:07:12] Okay. Okay. Yes. So, so that influence. So, so that's, so that influence. And then I think as far as from a, that's from a storytelling point of view. From a writing point of view, my writing is intentionally very cinematic because I do want the reader to feel like they're sort of caught up in a movie or caught up in a visual.

[00:07:36] You know, like years ago, there was this whole pretentious thing with writing, you know, authors. Oh, I don't want my books to be turned into movies. They're, well, my books are too much, too good for that. I'm. Right. Like we want to see it. I want, I want people to think when they read, I want them to think, oh my God, I see this as a movie. Like that's intentional.

[00:08:00] So, so from a writing point of view, my Hollywood background has influenced how I write in the sense that they're very, and people always say they're cinematic. It's very cinematic. The dialogue is very actable. Like I can, you can, you know, you can hear the dialogue between two people, which you can see them having that conversation. So that's all, that's all intentional. So yes, very, very, very heavily influenced. Yeah. And yeah, I mean, we've, I will say this.

[00:08:30] I did feel like I was watching a movie as. Absolutely. And it was like that addicting, like you just, you need to see what's happening next. You need to see like the next scene, the next problem that we got to face and solve. Right. I love it. So, you know, with everything being so cinematic and Solomon being this complicated character, which we're going to get into a bit more of his character and development and his own story.

[00:08:58] But, and this is just like a silly little question, but if he wasn't a hit man, what do you think his dream career would have been? Well, he was born a farmer. He was born, he was born into a family of farmers. And I think, you know, the whole, one of the major things is that, you know, he ultimately gets to return to that after a life of violence, after a, you know, and it's a part of his dream. It's something so simple.

[00:09:28] Most people dream of big, glamorous things. You know, when you put someone in such a traumatic situation, one after the other, the biggest dream is, can sometimes feel small, but that's great for them. It's just like a starving person will, you know, savor just a piece of bread. You know what I mean?

[00:09:52] So this guy was starving for peace and he was starving for creating as opposed to, here's a man who takes lives, who has taken lives so much of his life. And the opportunity to now create life and nurture life and to be one with nature and with the land really, really was his aspiration because within that came peace.

[00:10:21] And so his aspiration was peace. And then everything gets blown out of, yeah. That's actually really beautiful. I like that, like double-sidedness to it. So what exactly pointed you to make Solomon's origins being like a child soldier in Uganda under Idi Amin? And like what got you into that?

[00:10:47] Well, Solomon evolved and sometimes you talk to an author and author seems like they're talking about, when they talk about their characters, when we talk about our characters, it almost feels like we're talking as though we didn't create them when we did. But there is something very, there's something special about Solomon, who was a peripheral character, was never intended to be a lead character.

[00:11:17] So in the first book, Laws of Depravity, which is the first book in the series, he's only in two chapters, he's only in two paragraphs. And he's just doing some nefarious stuff, which is what he does, because he worked for our protagonist, one of our protagonists, who's a cop. He worked for his father, who was a former gangster. And so he did the gang stuff. So literally I'm just going to use him just for that one thing.

[00:11:47] And I hadn't put a ton of thought other than I wanted him to be Luca Brazzi. I wanted him to be, I always wanted to do a black version of Luca Brazzi. Yes. I love that. And then he became nicknamed the African. And so that was pretty much it. Didn't know much about him. Then in the second book, he has a scene with Fee.

[00:12:15] They're sitting outside and Fee's father has been kidnapped and they got to go rescue him. But Solomon is saying like, yo, I'm about to go wreck shop. So I know you're a cop. You better forget me. Never here. Right. I'm about to let me do me. And Fee is like, you do you, bro. I ain't a cop tonight. You know, when they're in the car, um, surveilling the place where the father's kidnapped.

[00:12:44] Solomon says, what is it that you think you know about me, Fee? Did you know that when I was a child, the soldiers came and took me and kept haunting me. And I was like, that deserves further. Yeah. Inspection, investigation, dealing with. And so I wasn't, again, really thinking.

[00:13:10] So, so, so here's the, it was the sort of happy mistake or whatever. Originally in the first book, and I'm just giving you guys some, I guess, giving you some tea that people don't really know about. Oh, yes. Solomon was originally named Azuma Debeco. Because I love that name. Um, there was a, there was a, a boxer back in the eighties by the name of Azuma Nelson. And I just love that name.

[00:13:38] Debeco, I can't remember how it came, but I love, I love that name. Well, so it was fine for him to be named Azuma Debeco in the first book because we didn't know his roots. We just knew he was that. Right. Then in the second book, still, we, we didn't quite know. We knew he was a child soldier, but we didn't really know his roots. By the time we got to the fourth book and I decided to feature, really explore that.

[00:14:05] It made sense for him to be a child soldier in Uganda. Azuma Debeco is not a Ugandan name. An African, very particular about their names. Yes. Yes. In African, your name tells so much about you, so much about your family. People can meet you and from your name alone, they can go, oh, and blah, you know. Right. I wanted to respect that. So I went back and I told the publisher, we were printing, I said, we need to change some things to now make him.

[00:14:35] And then I was like, well, what's a good Ugandan name? And then what's going to help me tell the story? And that's when I came up with Solomon, which is for a much better book, the laws of Solomon, as opposed to the laws of Azuma Debeco. Like no one would go. That's true. What is it? You know. So that's where, that's where Solomon.

[00:14:55] But the choice to explore his, the decision to explore his past came from book two, him sitting in the car saying, did you know when I was young, the soldiers came and took me? And I just, and then I, and then in book four, I just ran with that. I was like, oh, we're going to make him, you know, we're going to show how.

[00:15:17] I wanted to show how horrible it was to, you know, predominantly American readers or English speaking readers who we have no concept of what that kind of childhood and trauma was. Like we fortunately, no matter how bad we have things, we don't have things that bad where soldiers can come and take you at seven years old and make you these horrible things.

[00:15:46] So who are we? I'm getting a little bit ahead of myself, so I'll come back. But who are we to truly judge someone and how they deal with the trauma that we can't possibly understand? If we can't understand, how can we understand judgment against whatever they do to survive? And Solomon did some horrible things. But, you know, like.

[00:16:15] What choice did he have? And so people debate whether or not Solomon is, whether this book is the villain or origin story. Is it an anti-hero story? Is Solomon a hero? Is he. And I don't. I don't. Determine for a reader what that is. I let you guys decide. So here's the cool thing is that, you know, Alex might see it very differently than Aziz. Like you. And that's fine.

[00:16:45] You might go, well, no, to me, he's this. No, no way. He's this. That's what I want. I want. I want debate. I want. Yeah. I want to. I just want people to be. Right. Without me telling you, this is what this book is for you. So. So that's that's where. Like I said, I'm going to get too far ahead of myself. But once I started talking about Solomon. That's how Solomon came to me. Like I said, it was kind of a happy accident. And I mourned his name.

[00:17:15] And then, you know, because I'm serious. My agent loved it. My agent's mother. She loved. Like we all loved Azuma Debeco. And then once I decided, OK, I'm going to set him in Uganda. I think it made sense with touching on a little bit of historical fiction. Right. Yeah. Putting a real face to it with Idi Amin. And I'm going to get me wrong. Child soldiering is going on right now in parts of the world. Like the place did it.

[00:17:44] But I wanted it to come from. And Idi Amin had such a hatred for the Acholi people. Because he betrayed him when he was on the come up. So he spent so much of his career destroying them. And so it was so he just treated them like dogs. And so that's why I wanted a piece of that historical fiction that, you know, like this really happened. This is just a story from.

[00:18:11] And here's the really sad thing is there were stories than what Solomon went through. You know what I mean? Right. But wanted to touch on it. It's so eye opening just to know that multiple children literally then and now have to go through things like that. And, yeah, like you said, I can't even imagine it of how hard it truly is. But just like reading it through your book, it was just I had to pause for multiple times because I'm like, he's only seven. Like, what?

[00:18:40] That's what got me. I had to keep thinking about his age because, like, I teach seven-year-olds and I'm like, I can't imagine someone taking you out of this classroom situation and putting you into Solomon's life. And so because Solomon goes from that traumatic childhood into life as an adult and trauma doesn't just escape, he's essentially the Black Reaper.

[00:19:03] But we also get to see this other side of him where he's soft and he's loving and in love with someone. So which version of Solomon was more challenging for you to write? Um, neither per se. I think it was the one thing I loved about writing Solomon was I decided for him to never apologize for any stage of his life.

[00:19:32] And you have to realize when we go back to him being seven, Solomon was loved. Solomon was deeply loved. Solomon was in love. He was in love with Akika. It was his first, you know, you know, I think about, you know, my first crush. Right. And that's love. Like, you know what I mean? Okay. Whoa.

[00:19:54] And so you see the potential that more than likely in that village, he and Akika would have grown up and had a beautiful relationship and children. And it was all taken from them so violently. But, you know, just as we think about what he did at seven. Really? Here's the difference. When he turned 11, that was even worse to a degree.

[00:20:23] Because worse in the sense that it was a choice. He didn't really have a choice at seven. Right. He really didn't have a choice. At 11, not only did he have a choice, he was the one that created the choice. Yeah. So that was the beginning of the Black Reaper. The Black Reaper was, the seed was planted at seven.

[00:20:50] Black Reaper first started sprouting at 11 when he decided. Because, you know, Solomon does, did things in stages. And they're all bad. But check this out. The first time Solomon kills is for self-survival. He has one choice. Either he kills or he's killed. Mm-hmm. Right. So his first time he kills is for self-survival. The second time he kills is for revenge. Mm-hmm.

[00:21:20] Then he starts killing for profit and for money. Mm-hmm. Then once Gabby comes into it, he's like, he starts killing for love. So they're all, you know, how you judge killing, killing. Right. You know. But the intention. Right. Yeah. All that. And here's the thing. He doesn't apologize for any of them. Yeah. This is what I must do. And obviously at seven, he didn't know.

[00:21:48] He was, you know, that was heartbreaking. Mm-hmm. Because you're taking a seven-year-old and you're forcing them to do something. But then there's another way of looking at it as Solomon still had a soul at seven. The question is, did he sacrifice that soul at 11? And that's the questions for book clubs and for writers to decide. Like, did he park his soul on the shelf and say, yo, this is how I'm going to go through life?

[00:22:17] Because shortly after that, he then becomes a soldier, a mercenary. He becomes this. He becomes that. Right. Yeah. And even when he became a mercenary, he fought for no specific cause. Right. Yeah. He fought on one side on Monday and then fought on the opposite side on Tuesday. He had no loyalties. No. Not to God, not to man, not to politic, nothing.

[00:22:39] And so on some level, you question, was that the point when Solomon sort of resigned his soul to do whatever he needed to do? So just questions. Well, just know I was rooting for him. I was rooting for you all the time. I was like, he got to do what he needs to do. He, I said, an eye for an eye. For him, mom, and dad. An eye for an eye. Yeah.

[00:23:07] But also that's all he knows how to do. Right. Yeah. You know. Literally. Right. Exactly. And he was, and he was, and he was, so you went from, he was, what was interrupted was his father was beginning to train, was teaching him how to be a farmer. And then that was replaced with being taught how to be a soldier. And that's all. And so at the end of the day, he couldn't come to America to be a farmer in that day and age. You know what I mean? Right.

[00:23:37] To be a farmer, you must have land. You must have, you know what I mean? Right. So it was easier to, and by the time he got to America, he was much more in advanced. You think about it, he was only a seven-year-old farmer. By the time he got to America, he was a 17-year-old killer. So he had 10 more years of experience in that field. And that's, that's what he did. And, and, and that was easier work to get. Mm-hmm.

[00:24:04] And we, I mean, we see that kind of just follow him, like his development and along with the trauma of his past, follows him throughout his whole entire life, even into like, you know, his very brief marriage. And then ultimately finding Gabby and kind of how he handles that situation.

[00:24:25] Do you see this novelist suggesting that we can never truly escape our past or that we just need to change our relationship to it and how we view it? Again, I, I, I, I leave that to you guys.

[00:24:43] That's one of the things I want, like, I want, I want you guys to, like, those are, those are questions for you to, you guys to ask each other because there's so many ways of looking at it. You know what I mean? Can, can, can, can, can a person do that? I will say this. I will say this. And I, and I don't normally give this out, but I will say this.

[00:25:06] Solomon, the one thing that distinguishes Solomon from maybe the obvious path he should have been on as far as being a killer and all of that stuff. Solomon has somehow maintained a splinter of humanity. He's somehow against all odds. And part of it is his code of ethics.

[00:25:34] He does have, he does have, he does have a code. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And that code, and which is why he can't sell Gabby. He can't give up Gabby for ransom. Which is why he fell in love with Ida, the grandmother, because she was, you know, and so what happens is I think Gabby, Gabby saw that sliver of humanity in him. Mm-hmm. Yes.

[00:26:04] And so did, and then, you know, the, for me, the, the beautiful love story is that Aisha saw it. And that's why Aisha said, I mean, it takes a lot for a sister to, for a woman to know, dude, I know what you've done. I know some of the hard, and, and, and, and, and there's a cool lesson because when they go to the zoo and they're talking in the park afterwards, he is unconditionally honest with her. Mm-hmm.

[00:26:33] And it's only through him being unconditionally honest with her does he deserve her unconditional love. He has to earn. He has to earn. So he says to her, hey, I know you've heard some things. You've only heard this much of it. Right. Right. I'm going to give you unconditionally and risk losing you. Mm-hmm.

[00:27:22] Mm-hmm. I'm going to expose you to some things you don't know. That's maybe even more horrible. That's, that I know are even more horrible. Therefore, I risk losing you. But if, if, if you were to stay or if you were to consider loving me, I'd understand everything that I am. And she does. And fortunately, her father had a little grit to him. So she, I mean. Yeah. I like that. I love that.

[00:27:53] I loved them too. Their relation. Like, I love that he kind of saw, I'm sure he saw himself in Solomon. Like, and he said that. Like, he's like, I, I, you know, we might not have been doing the exact same things. Right. But. And he became, he became, aside from Tanaka, who was his, you know, the mentor in the garden in the beginning.

[00:28:18] You have to realize that was probably the only other father figure he's ever had in life. Mm-hmm. And that relationship happened before Tanaka. Mm-hmm. So that was the, so you think about it, because when he worked for Fi's father, that was a business arrangement. Right. That was, that was not a father. He was, he could have, he could have chosen to be a father figure.

[00:28:44] No, he did, he was, he, he hired Solomon to be, and that's the thing, like Luca Brasi and the godfather. The fact that he was invited, and I don't know how well you guys know the godfather, but the fact that he was invited to the wedding for him, he was surprised. It wasn't a, it wasn't a given that he was going to be invited. So he comes in, he goes, godfather, I want to thank you for, because he's so honored, because he doesn't think of him as part of the family. He knows I am a, I'm a worker bee.

[00:29:13] I'm a, you know, I do, I do dirty things, you pay me for it, and I'm loyal to you. That's the extent of our relationship. Mm-hmm.

[00:29:35] He knew, he knew that he was redeemed and he changed because of love, and he, and he felt that his daughter could change this man based on love. So he, he, he was more welcoming than his mother-in-law. The mother-in-law was like, yo, just, you know, just, you know. But that was, but that was, the book is, the book is as much about love as it is anything across the board.

[00:30:05] That's what Gabby represents. That's what Tanaka represents. That's what Aisha represents. That's what Ida represents. That's what Callan represents. His boy. They love each other like brothers, you know, and they will die for each other. So it's another form of love. So it's as much about love as it is violence and, you know, so there's a balance for me. That's so beautiful. I'm sorry, no problem. I'm sorry.

[00:30:32] No, it's so great that you brought that up because I think that was something that we all noticed, like Gabby's ability to see, you know, the child or the pureness within Solomon, even though he's been this child soldier. So, and you've talked about, you know, this balance in the story being as much about love as it is violence. And can you talk a little bit about balancing and depicting these two supposedly opposing ideologies and characteristics of Solomon? It's a great question. It's a great question.

[00:31:01] So I'm going to give you guys something. And so since this is a podcast, so all of you have read the book, but not necessarily everyone. So we have to kind of do a spoiler free thing. Oh, yeah. They know what they get with us. Yes. Usually we're like, okay, we read it. So if you haven't read it, pause it right here. Go read the book and then come back. Cover your ears. Come back when you're ready. If you have a way, because now we're going to get deep. If we can get deep.

[00:31:31] Let's get deep. Let's go. If you haven't read the book, you could pause it. Come back later. Seriously, pause it right now. Seriously. Pause it right now. You heard it. Mm-hmm. Hey, when we go to church, we read these little biblical stories. And the stories represented a theme.

[00:31:59] So it wasn't that it actually happened the way that it's described. Solomon is that. Solomon is a parable. Solomon is a parable. Solomon is a parable for a journey. And it's not a physical journey. It's a spiritual journey. So let me tell you what I mean. That is beautiful. I'm going to ask you one question. It's going to change everything.

[00:32:28] When did Solomon die? Ooh. There's, I don't know. I feel like there might be a few. There's a couple places in it. I can think. Okay, give me one. When he was 11. What's that? I could say when he was 7. I would think when he was 11. Mm-hmm. When he made that choice. Right. Yep. When he lost his wife and daughter. When did he physically die?

[00:33:01] Don't tell me. I mean. Was the ending not the ending? He was really gone inside of the. What's that called? The garden? Right in the garden. In the garden when they had that first. Gabby was a little shootout. Okay. So there are two. There are three ways to read this book. So I hope you're reading it still. The people that haven't read this book, stay off. Yeah. Yeah. Please. Get out of here, guys. Don't be like me, y'all. Because what? There are three ways.

[00:33:29] Have any of you read any of the other books? No, but we will. No, this is our first. Yeah. This was our first. Once we read this, we're like, okay, now we have to circle back and go. Yes. In book two, something bad happens to Solomon. And he, something bad. There is a concept that that's connected to four. Because Solomon's not in book three.

[00:33:55] So if you're a fan of the series, so there are three legitimate and they're all equally. So don't feel like you've, in book two, if you're a fan of the series, there's something that happens in Solomon in book two that can affect your read of book four. That's all I'm going to say. Yo. But now having read Solomon, there are two possibilities in how to read Solomon. So, so take, take the third one, take the four, take the first one out, which is, which so that's why I say they have three.

[00:34:23] But as far as you are concerned, who've read Solomon, if you guys haven't read the book, stay off. You should not be here anymore, guys. Get out of here. Solomon. You can either read this book as a straightforward thriller, which means everything happened. He was wounded. He met this little boy. He got wounded. They, they cured him. He went and killed him. And he, and then at the end he died. That's a straightforward way. Right.

[00:34:50] The other way is Solomon actually died in the garden in the very beginning of the book. So everything else is while he's dying, he's imagining this journey with this little boy who happens to be named Gabby, which is a nickname for Gabriel, which is the archangel Gabriel to welcome him into the other world. That is crazy. And Gabby said he looked like, oh my gosh. That's the trunk. And then he was like, he looked like, yes.

[00:35:19] No! And that's, and so if you think about his, and Gabby's big brother figure is named Michael. And then there's Raphael. And then Uriel Tanaka. And then the twins are named Jojo and Ari. That's Josephile and Ariel. All of those are the names of archangels. So everyone that he meets most, except for a calendar. So there's, so there's the journey. It's a spiritual journey, not a physical journey.

[00:35:50] That is so interesting. I'm speechless. Yeah. Yeah. I've never heard of something like that. You just read it as a thriller and go. Right. You're like, wow, that was good. I read it like that, which was still good. Yeah. Either way. Oh my gosh. But if you look at it, and so the book is also intended to be re-read. Yes. Yes. Yeah. What you guys should do today, just go back and read the first chapter. Yeah. And see how things land differently.

[00:36:20] Oh. Because there are cookies throughout the entire book to serve that spiritual journey. So it's basically, so from that point of view, the book is intended to be basically a projection and reflection. And what I mean by that is he's reflecting on the life that he's led up until that point, which would have been Aisha. He got married. He had a kid. So that all happened.

[00:36:50] What hasn't happened is everything after the garden. So he imagines that Doc Callen comes and sews him. He imagines that he meets this old lady at a thrift store who gives this little boy a horn. He imagines that this cartel guy is after this little boy. He imagines that all of these things happen. So that's the projection. And all of this is theoretically, the book also, the book technically takes place, or the story

[00:37:19] takes place probably in 30 seconds. So in the 30 seconds, are you dying and ending? And then by the time he finishes his projection, he projects that the ancestors come back and he gets to see us. Oh my God. Oh my God. Wow. Oh wow. That just blew my mind. No, honestly. It's really beautiful. Yeah. That really does change the way that.

[00:37:46] Just read the first chapter today while this is, and just see, just see how it lands. Just see how things land and see if you pick up some of the cookies and, and, and a lot of the cookies are the names, the names throughout the journey, the majority. And so there's the concept that these are the spiritual journeys.

[00:38:10] I'm sorry, the spiritual angels, but then people like Ida, Aisha, those are earth angels. Those are the angels that God's puts in your life. That's human that bleed like you, but they also are what's best for you. But then the other half, Gabriel, uh, the father, father, Remiel, whenever, whenever it's an EL ending, that's a, that's an archangel. Okay.

[00:38:40] All right. Wow. Wow. That is insane. You blew our minds. That was crazy. And talk about an exclusive. Yeah. I'm so sorry. I have to go. I gotta go. I gotta go back and read it.

[00:39:02] And I'm completely rethinking this question I was about to ask you, but so I was really fascinated with just Caesar, Caesar, as this main villain. He was a cold blooded killer. Like he was a cold, like villain. Um, so now that I'm thinking about it, did you create Caesar as kind of like a mirror for Solomon? Like, how did you separate the two of them?

[00:39:27] Cause they kind of had similar like backgrounds, I would assume. Well, but yes and no. Yeah. I'm sorry. Yes, they did. And that's the point of character. They both had trauma. What defines one's character is how they deal with that trauma. Caesar decided to embrace the dark side as a result of his trauma.

[00:39:55] Solomon didn't, Solomon, Solomon did shit just to survive. But once he meets Gabby, it also shows you he chose quote unquote, the light. He chose to deal with his trauma in a way of, I know what it's like because you have to, it's no accident that they're around the same age. Right. So, yeah, I'll be as eight. Solomon was seven.

[00:40:18] So, Solomon knows I couldn't protect my own innocence, but I will die protecting this other kid's innocence. So, he made a choice and that's to me work, that's going towards the light, leaning towards the light. Like, Caesar decided to lean into the darkness, but Caesar had a touching story. Before he turned. Right. His love. Right. He loved his son. He loved his son like nothing else.

[00:40:47] He, you know, I mean, look, but at the same time, he did horrible things. He was killing people. Right, right, right. Right. He did it as a nine to five. He was like, yep, I'm. Duality. But now I'm back to daddy. But now, but once his son dies, he embraced such darkness. And so, Caesar is the metaphor. And this gets a little more, this is more Christian. I'm not religious, but I like to use religion throughout the story.

[00:41:16] So, Caesar basically is Caesar. Caesar represents the Romans, the Romans person, the Christians. So, that's why he's named Caesar. Because, so, he's the guy that's ultimate. Solomon doesn't consider himself a Christian. Right. He doesn't consider himself Muslim, even though he was raised.

[00:41:40] But I wanted Caesar to sort of be a representative of someone who had, that stood for an ideology. Like, you know, the Romans didn't like the Christian. They persecuted the Christian. So, who's at the head of the Romans? Caesar. No. So, but in this, it's Caesar. Caesar. So, that's where he comes from.

[00:42:06] But, but the thing that separates he and Solomon are the choices they, they make in response to their trauma. Solomon still manages to maintain enough humanity for Aisha to fall in love with him. She sees it. She sees it. She sees it in him. And once she, once when he's with her, it, it, it blossoms. It, it grows. So beautiful. Caesar, Caesar, Caesar would never heal. Caesar would never allow himself to heal.

[00:42:37] Solomon was temporarily healed. Solomon had five years of healing and love. And then, and then it's taken away tragically. And even still, there's enough humanity for him to protect a little boy instead of giving him up. So, that's, that's the difference. Oh, wow. Big difference. Yeah.

[00:43:01] Just thinking of like all of the different themes that took place in this book, who's the perfect audience to read this book? Like, who do you want reading this? I think, um, there's no such thing as a perfect book. Um, but I think this, the one, one of the things I'm proud of with this book is that it's for so many different people.

[00:43:29] If you want a good love story, if you want a good action thriller and suspense, it's a coming of age story. It's, uh, you know, it's, it's, it's, it's a found family story. Um, and even about the coming of age story is there's a flip. The coming of age story is traditionally the boy and the man teaching. It's the flip side of this. The coming of this, it's a solid, it's Solomon coming of age. Yeah.

[00:43:59] Because this little, because of what Gabby represents is taking him on this journey and he starts finding things that he thought were either lost or dead or whatever. Um, so it's, um, it's a bit of, um, intentionally it's been called a literary thriller. Um, so it's higher, um, volume of writing in a sense of a higher standard of writing is the prose hits.

[00:44:28] Cause I wanted, I wanted to write since the book is so violent. I wanted to have, uh, an abundance of poetry and prose that helps the word help you. I want, I wanted the words to soften some of the violence. So you can't just, excuse me, this is not gratuitous violence. It's a part of this world.

[00:44:48] Um, but you, but if you just love good writing and you just love, you know, uh, structure of words and combination of words and, and imagery that these words, then you can get off on that. So that's why people refer to it as literary, a literary thriller. Um, and then the other thing is like, you know, just for people that love good, heartfelt dramas, you know, how many people have written me and said, I bawled my eyes out reading this book.

[00:45:17] Um, I cried so much because you don't normally hear that when talking about a thriller. Right. Right. You don't, you don't think about that kind of emotion. Um, when you're reading a thriller, but the fact that it, it brings out emotion in people and people and they, they're like, Oh my God, I just, I, you know, and the cool thing. And that's, that's across the board. I mean, there is as many, you know, white women and men that's like, yo, I teared up.

[00:45:46] I, you know, I had to stop reading at a time, but that's an emotional thing. So when you ask me what kind of, there's something for a lot, I can't, I can't say, you know, pretentious, Oh, this book has something for everyone, you know, but it has, it has, it's more versatile than most thrillers.

[00:46:08] And that's, and, and, and I think that that elevates the reading experience because you're, and a lot of, a lot of the reviews have been going into this book. I was not expecting this and like, you know, some of the repeated lines is this book had me in a chokehold. And, and, and at the same time, some people have read the book in one sitting. Some people have read it in like a day and a half or a day.

[00:46:35] And, and, um, so it has that propulsive element. If you like your thrillers, um, it has that suspense, but it also, it slows down and it deals with, um, a philosophy of life. I mean, it opens on a philosophy, like who Tanaka represents, Tanaka represents, you know, the universe and, and, and talking and speaking and imparting wisdom into our protagonist. Um, so there, that's heavy.

[00:47:01] Um, love what, what I, Ida first, Ida, and Ida, Ida, the grandmother, she gives love. And that hard, hard work, black mama. Yeah. She was, she was teaching him lessons. She was teaching him love, but it came hard. Then Aisha came and brought this soft love. Um, and then Gabby brings to some degree an even softer love.

[00:47:29] Um, and then the people that they meet along the way, um, are influenced by Gabby's effect on him. So these are just some of the things that, um, you know, that's there. So everyone. Yeah. Yeah. Basically, this is a novel for everyone. Yeah. You don't, you don't have to say it. We'll say it for you. There's something for everyone. There are no, there are no musical numbers.

[00:47:56] I mean, there's no dancing. There's no dancing and there's no, but, um, but like I said, yeah. Everything else. Yeah. Right. You have something for, for more readers that, and that's one of the beauty, you know, beautiful things is that people are, people are connecting to the book on different reasons. And again, I can't, you know, one of you might, you know, you might fall in love with it for this reason.

[00:48:24] And then, you know, you might fall in love for, for this reason. That's, that's all valid. That's all fine. Like, I'm not here to tell you how to read the book. I don't know what, I don't know what you respond to the most, but you might be like, yeah, look, I knew it was action and everything. But quite honestly, I love the coming of age story. The best, that's what stood out. When people tell me this stood out, I'm like, I, I'm not here to, well, good for you. I found something. Go off. Yeah. So.

[00:48:54] So then. What do you think is going to be next for you in the literary space? Well, you're thinking that, that way. Next. Well, I, I'm finishing the series. So this is book four and I'm currently writing book five. So that will finish this. I kind of want to finish on top. And when you guys go back and read the series. Okay. It'll give us more than enough time.

[00:49:24] And Solomon is a, an outlier. Solomon, the series, Solomon isn't even a, a protagonist series. He's a peripheral character who ended up getting his own. So this is, this is a standalone book. You don't have to read any of the books. You can just jump in, which is rare for a book number. Cause normally you're like, I mean, I'm going to be confused. So it's be able to pick up book four and go, I know nothing about the series.

[00:49:53] What we're finding across the board is it feels like 98% of the people that read Solomon. The first thing they say is I got to go back and read the series. Right. Yes. All right. When you read the series, you're actually going to see like the leads of the series are, are fee and Quincy.

[00:50:21] This is the whole series is really about these two cops that investigate high profile serial killings. Solomon just so happened to work for fee's father. So that's why, so there's one chapter where they meet up in Solomon. I did that to keep that part of the world alive. Not to mention there's a big hook in that scene that, that implies what's coming for book.

[00:50:44] Cause fans of the series, they keep asking when is such and such going to happen? Like they've been waiting since book one for this showdown. And so now book five is the showdown. Okay. It's like that. Okay. Y'all heard that. We got time to read the whole series. Yes. Right.

[00:51:09] Solomon is, um, Solomon is like Solomon is don't, don't think that the series won't be, um, like, like Solomon, the style of writing is slightly different. I mean, it's, uh, but the other books, the other books are going to take you for a ride. The other books are real solid thrillers with some deep moral contemplation. That's, that's one thing that's across the world. And Solomon is an extension of that, you know, but the other ones are true thriller.

[00:51:38] They're more procedural. They're more, but when I say procedural, just the cat and mouse, the cops, but, and the cool thing is each book. Has a slightly different point of view because it's focused on one of the five leads that became the fourth of that.

[00:51:58] So anyway, so yeah, so what's next is I'm, you know, I'm finishing up book five, uh, now, and then I already have the first book of the next series that I'm starting. Um, and I'm really excited about that. It is a, um, it's a, it's a, it's a Blasian sister. So she's half black, half Chinese. Um, her father was a gangster. And so she grew up rough.

[00:52:28] Uh, but she becomes the first female, uh, Navy seal. And the series is really, she, she ultimately becomes a female Jason Bourne, uh, Jack. That's actually so tight. Okay. That's cool. That's so that. I'll be sad. Yes. Now I want to do five of that, but to see her, she, so she just goes around and she does, she wreck shop.

[00:52:54] Um, and, um, and, and she, you know, she's got the skills to, to back it up by being the first Navy seal. She has the legitimacy that she, but she also has a dark, she grew up rough and she did some shit. So, okay. So she's a, you know, my, my characters are always gray. Yeah. Yeah. Or like my good guys are never, Oh, you're just good. Uh, my bad guys are never just like, to me, not just bad. He wasn't right. Yeah. He had love.

[00:53:23] He had, I mean, he was really motivated by love. So, so anyway, so that's, so that's, that's what's, that's what's up, you know, next to me. Oh, wow. I cannot wait. That's so exciting. I can't wait. I will be sat for that Navy seal series. All five of those books. Correct. I love a bad-ass woman, like taking names period. I love that. Folks, we've got stuff to read, got stuff to look forward to. Yeah. I thought it was important for, you know, to look like us.

[00:53:52] But you gotta really, you gotta earn it because, you know, you'll have critics. How can a woman do this? How can she beat up? Oh, please. Easy. With her big muscles. That's how. Her big muscles and her big brain. And she's got a gun. And the gun. Lots of guns. I love it. Well, firstly, thank you again for joining this podcast.

[00:54:22] Thank you for giving us these exclusives. I would like to argue that this may be one of the most exclusive episodes that we have done in our, like, author series. So, y'all are welcome, listeners. Okay? Everyone say thank you, Eric. Oh, my gosh. But thank you again. And if y'all have not picked up Laws of Solomon, you've heard it here first.

[00:54:49] You are able to read it as a standalone. And if you're a nosy, rosy, posy like me and you didn't cover your ears when we told you to. And now you have some tea. Go ahead and go in with that lens, that perspective. And read the series as we will be doing. And come talk to us about it. We'd love to hear from you in the comments. So, again, if y'all enjoyed us, like, comment, subscribe.

[00:55:17] Keep up with us in all the platforms. And, as always, we'll see y'all next time. Love you. Mean it. Bye. You guys, it was a joy. Pleasure. Thank you so much. This was an amazing conversation. I'm shook. You gave us so many gems. I'm not going to lie. My stomach still hurts. I'm really. I was getting chills. What?

[00:55:43] Like I said, when you go back and read it now, it's a completely different lens. If you think of it as a parable. And see where that takes you. Just see where it takes you. I still come back and go. I like it better as a board thriller. Right.