I would be remiss not to acknowledge two persons in Rome, Italy, who aided my research. The first is Sara Magister, Italian art historian and archaeologist, who guided my wife and me on a tour of Mithraic sites mentioned in this novel and helped us understand their historical significance. The second is Giuseppe Righini of the Polizia di Stato who, without a prior appointment, graciously answered a foreigner’s impromptu questions about the operations of this police force.
And last, but certainly not least, abiding tribute is owed Donna, my dear wife, who suffered through the first draft and told me what I needed to hear and not what I hoped to hear. Without her fresh perspective, The Mithras Conspiracy would be less than it is.
About the Author
M. J. Polelle is a Harvard Law School graduate, an emeritus professor of the John Marshall Law School in Chicago, and an award-winning legal writer. He honed his fiction writing at the summer writers’ workshop of the University of Iowa and the Writers’ Loft in Chicago. Polelle’s passion for Italy has led him to travel there numerous times, for pleasure as well as to direct a summer law program in Parma. He speaks Italian and was a columnist for Fra Noi, an Italian-American newspaper in Chicago. This is his first novel. He lives in Sarasota, Florida.
The Mithras Conspiracy Page 31
