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ABOUT R. A. SCOTTI:
R. A. Scotti began her career as a novelist, writing international espionage. Since this was an exclusively male field, she posed as a man. Neither reviewers nor readers suspected her true identity. Writing as R. A. (rather than Rita Angelica)) Scotti, she gained a reputation as "one of the best modern writers of intrigue" before dropping her disguise and turning to non-fiction. Scotti was graduated from Loyola University in Chicago, and pursued additional studies in Rome. She has traveled extensively through Europe and the Middle East.
 Madeline and meMY STORY
My grandfather owned a newspaper in Providence, RI, the Providence Tribune, and was one of the founders of the AP. Although he died many years before I was born, you might say newspapering is the family business. My first job was at the Providence Journal. I dropped out of college and went to work as a copy kid. Copy kids are gofers–running errands, getting coffee–all the grunt work. One afternoon, the editor needed someone to cover a small charity event. He was short–staffed, so he sent me.
The editor was not a tactful man. He would read a story, bang it down on his desk, and bark across the room at the reporter who wrote it. When I got back to the paper and wrote my story, I dropped it off on his desk and continued walking–out the door, down the hall, and into the ladies room, where I hid. When I was sure that he had finished reading it–and finished his tirade—I ventured back. The next day, he gave me another story, and the next day, another.
Eventually, I returned to college and also spent time traveling. When I came home, the Journal hired me as a feature writer. My assignments ran the gamut from serious to silly. I did everything from investigating special ed needs in Rhode Island to riding the lead elephant in the Ringling Brothers–Barnum & Bailey circus parade. From the Journal, I moved to the Newark (NJ) Star–Ledger as editor of the daily feature pages.
I happened to be vacationing in Italy shortly after terrorists kidnapped and murdered the head of the government there. All through the trip, I kept wondering: How do you top such a vicious and audacious act? That question led to my first book, a thriller about a plot to kidnap the pope. The title was The Kiss of Judas, and because international espionage is largely a man's field, to sell the novel to a publisher, I had to pretend to be a man–R. A. Scotti. I've been writing ever since.
My second novel, The Devi’ís Own, was about drug running, money laundering, and financial chicanery involving the Vatican Bank among other entities. It was based loosely on the murder of an Italian banker named Calvi, whose family is related by marriage to mine, and an Italian financier named Sindona who bought the Franklin Bank in New York. My novel ends with the Sindona character being extradited to Italy to stand trial. He is poisoned in his jail cell, and the case is never solved. Six months after publication, the real Sindona was extradited and died in jail awaiting trial. The cause of death was poison. Neither the fictional nor the true killer was ever identified.
My third espionage novel, The Hammer’s Eye, revolved around a plot to steal Star Wars technology. A character resembling Armand Hammer was the paymaster.
Intrigued by the vogue of recovered memory in the late 1990s and disturbed by the rash of charges involving incest and child molesting, I wrote For Love of Sarah, a courtroom drama. The defendant, Georgie Hillman, shoots her sleeping husband and claims she acted in self-defense as a proxy for her nine-year-old daughter who was too young to defend herself against her fatherís advances.
By then, I had two children: a daughter, Francesca, and an infant son, Ciro. (Their father is the poet Evans Chigounis.) Ciro died at sixteen months after a long and complicated illness. I wrote my first nonfiction book, Cradle Song, about that experience. I didn't write again for a number of years.
Growing p in Rhode Island, I had heard stories of the 1938 Hurricane, including one of an aunt who returned from work at the phone company in a rowboat and another about my grandmother's best friend, who stepped out onto the porch of her house and was never seen again. The tales my grandaunts and uncles would tell were the impetus for Sudden Sea: The Great Hurricane of 1938.
Basilica: The Splendor and the Scandal—Building St. Peter's is a book that I have wanted to write ever since I stumbled into St Peter's Square for the first time at the age of 19. The story is as amazing as the building.
Construction spanned two centuries and more than 20 papacies, commanded the talents of the greatest number of master artists ever assembled on a single project (Bramante, Raphael, Michelangelo, Bernini, et al), and was the spark that ignited the Protestant Revolution and divided the Christian church.
The magnificence of Michelangelo’s basilica led me circuitously to the mystery of Leonardo’s Mona Lisa—Vanished Smile.
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