Goodies General Notes and Table of Contents (read this first!)

Chapter Six

The information about the Friday Harbor Branch, such as the teleconferencing of sacrament meetings, was given to me by President Steve Marsh. When I went up to the San Juan Islands to research for the book, we stopped by the branch building to see what it looked like. By chance, the Branch President happened to be there, and he gave us a tour of the building.

The triangular Scrabble game was added near the end of the book. It’s no secret that this book is similar, in some ways, to The Da Vinci Code. The reason for that is that I took the manuscript (Tangled Web) to the publisher and, after reading it, they said “It’s good, but can you make it more like The Da Vinci Code?” So, I did. This anagram was one of the last things added to the book. I needed something to tie the Illuminati back to the house in the San Juans, and I felt like the book needed a good, old-fashioned puzzle.

The conversation Eric and Rebekah have while hiking originally took place at British Camp, a national monument on San Juan Island. There was a very strange war that took place there between the British and the Americans, during the 1860s. In earlier versions of the book, when the island played a much more prominent role, Eric described the war. You can read his description here. You can see pictures of British Camp here.

The line at the end of the chapter (“She said yes, we moved to Fiji, and had seven kids—four girls and three boys—and an Irish Setter named Bandit. At least, that’s what should have happened.”) was completely lifted from Hugh Laurie’s The Gun Seller. See, if I admit it, I can call it an homage, whereas if I don’t then you’d call it plagiarism.

In his book, the villain and the femme fatale approach the main character. She’s betrayed him several times already, but he thinks he’s in love with her and can’t stop being gullible. His line:

“I shot them both dead there and then, and caught the next plane to Canada, where I married a woman called Mary-Beth and started up a successful pottery business.

At least, that’s what I should have done.”

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