Character Monday: Where do you come up with your characters Vincent Zandri?

Is it just another manic Monday? Well take a minute and check out how Vincent Zandri creates his multi dimensional and sometimes diabolical characters in his novel.

SH: Where do you come up with your characters?

VZ: "I base most of my stories on an actual event or events. Almost all my characters are based on real people whom I know personally or who I know of. I even use their real names up until the galley stage. It's more effective for me as a writer than if I were to create a character from scratch and then create a detailed biography"

And that's the truth. In fact he actually stayed in a prison in New York to research for his Amazon best seller The Innocent. FYI the Innocent is on sale at Amazon for $.99 for a limited time.

Getting caught is simply not an option.

It's been a year since Jack Marconi's wife was killed. Ever since, he's been slipping up at his job as warden at an upstate New York prison. It makes him the perfect patsy when a cop-killer breaks out--with the help of someone on the inside. Throwing himself into the hunt for the fleeing con, Jack doesn't see what's coming.

Suddenly the walls are closing in. And in the next twenty-four hours, Jack will defy direct orders, tamper with evidence, kidnap the con's girlfriend--and run from the law with a .45 hidden beneath his sports coat. Because Jack Marconi, keeper of laws, men, secrets, and memories, has been set up--by a conspiracy that has turned everyone he ever trusted into an enemy. And everything he ever believed in into the worst kind of lie.