Interview With Author Jon Dietz

  

1, What inspired you to write this book? The inspiration for this book was Franklin Roosevelt’s behavior from 1939 to 1941, when he clearly manipulated the Japanese into attacking the United States. But why? The book explains his motives. Spoiler alert! He made the right call. 

2. What exactly is the book about? And who is it written for? This book is a political thriller that combines fictional and historical characters. The readers do not have to guess who the real characters are and who are fictional. It is spelled out at the very beginning of the novel. The main protagonist is a Princeton physicist who was trained by Albert Einstein. Roosevelt recruits Thomas Martin Daniloff to find out how far along the Nazis are in the great race to build the atomic bomb. Twice Daniloff is sent into Hitler’s dystopian state to find the answer to this all-important question. 

3. What do you hope readers will get out of reading your book? I want the reader to enjoy a suspense laden novel that also explains why the United States had to get into the fight, even though prior to Pearl Harbor seventy percent of Americans wanted to stay neutral. 

4. How did you decide on your book’s title and cover design? The novel’s title was inspired by the nature of atomic energy. One must split the atom to achieve a nuclear weapon. This only became possible in the Twentieth Century. Unlocking the key to this problem was tantamount to capturing the forces that govern the sun. The cover of the book was created by artist and cartoonist Marty Glass. I told him what I wanted, and he created a spectacular rendition of Roosevelt, Hitler and in the background, a mushroom cloud of death. 

5. What advice or words of wisdom do you have for fellow writers-other than run! My advice to aspiring writers is simple: Write about important things, subject matter that millions of people already know about and can relate to. I spent my entire life studying history, politics and current events. When it came time to put pen to paper, it wasn’t hard at all. 

6. What trends in the book world do you see, and where do you think the book publishing business is heading? Internet publishing has exploded and will continue to expand and eventually subsume traditional publishing houses. The good news is that anyone who has four thousand dollars lying around can get his or her novels on Amazon. The bad news lies in the number of competing books the reading public has to sort through. 

7. Were there experiences in your personal life or career that came in handy when writing this book? I was a newspaperman for fourteen years. I became a homicide investigator for the next twenty-eight years. I interviewed presidents Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan. I wrote about the Ted Bundy trial for a magazine in Copenhagen. In 1982, I accompanied a bounty hunter into the wilds of Honduras in search of a drug dealer who fled the U.S. to escape prosecution. We returned home with our man in tow. In 1985 the number three man in the European Parliament gave me grant money to visit England, France and Germany to write about continental affairs. 

8. How would you describe your writing style? Which writers or books is your writing similar to? I only write political thrillers. I do not model myself after other writers. However, my favorite writer is Robert Caro, who spent his entire career investigating and chronicling the life of Lyndon Baines Johnson. 

9. What challenges did you overcome in writing this book? Thanks to the internet, researching historical events has become exponentially easier. When I wrote my first novel, “The Jerusalem Train,” I had to visit seven libraries in three states. By the time I got around to “Fallen Prince,” (a book that solves the question of who actually killed John Kennedy), research had become a snap. 

10. If people can buy or read one book this week or month, why should it be yours? Why should people read “Capture the Sun?” Learning why and how the U.S. got into WWII is a subject that should entice everyone. 

About The Author: Jon Dietz is a graduate of Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. He was a journalist for fourteen years and a homicide investigator for twenty-eight years. Dietz was a crime reporter, feature writer, editor and military historian for the Sarasota Herald-Tribune before joining the criminal investigative division of the Office of Public Defender.  Dietz interviewed Presidents Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan. He also covered the Ted Bundy trial for a foreign publication. 

See www.Jondietzauthor.Com. This web site highlights Dietz’s other two novels and it will also connect readers with Amazon books. 

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About Brian Feinblum

This award-winning blog has generated over 5,400,000 page views. With 5,500+ posts over the past 14 years, it was named one of the best book marketing blogs  by BookBaby  http://blog.bookbaby.com/2013/09/the-best-book-marketing-blogs  and recognized by Feedspot in 2021 and 2018 as one of the top book marketing blogs. It was also named by www.WinningWriters.com as a "best resource.”  Copyright 2026.

 

For the past three decades, Brian Feinblum has helped thousands of authors. He formed his own book publicity firm in 2020. Prior to that, for 21 years as the head of marketing for the nation’s largest book publicity firm, and as the director of publicity at two independent presses, Brian has worked with many first-time, self-published, authors of all genres, right along with best-selling authors and celebrities such as: Dr. Ruth, Mark Victor Hansen, Joseph Finder, Katherine Spurway, Neil Rackham, Harvey Mackay, Ken Blanchard, Stephen Covey, Warren Adler, Cindy Adams, Todd Duncan, Susan RoAne, John C. Maxwell, Jeff Foxworthy, Seth Godin, and Henry Winkler.

 

His writings are often featured in The Writer and IBPA’s The Independent (https://pubspot.ibpa-online.org/article/whats-needed-to-promote-a-book-successfully). He was recently interviewed by the IBPA: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F0BhO9m8jbs

 

He hosted a panel on book publicity for Book Expo America several years ago, and has spoken at ASJA, BookCAMP, Independent Book Publishers Association Sarah Lawrence College, Nonfiction Writers Association, Cape Cod Writers Association, Willamette (Portland) Writers Association, APEX, Morgan James Publishing, and Connecticut Authors and Publishers Association. He served as a judge for the 2024 IBPA Book Awards.

 

His letters-to-the-editor have been published in The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, New York Post, NY Daily News, Newsday, The Journal News (Westchester) and The Washington Post. His first published book was The Florida Homeowner, Condo, & Co-Op Association Handbook.  It was featured in The Sun Sentinel and Miami Herald.

 

Born and raised in Brooklyn, he now resides in Westchester with his wife, two kids, and Ferris, a black lab rescue dog, and El Chapo, a pug rescue dog.

 

You can connect with him at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brianfeinblum/ or https://www.facebook.com/brian.feinblum