Spend enough time surfing the Internet, and eventually you’ll stumble across those dark corners of the Web where unanswered questions lurk, lying in wait to confront curious minds. Hang around long enough, and eventually you might even find yourself doubting the things you thought were the truth. For example, have you wondered about any of these:
-You know those streams of white mist left behind by high-flying airplanes? Could it be possible that the United States Air Force is actually conspiring with civilian aviation companies to mix behavior-modifying chemicals in with the contrails generated by passenger aircraft? And could the government really be working to control our behavior through the use of these mind-altering drugs?
-And what about the United Nations? Was that organization really established to erode the concept of national sovereignty? Could the UN really be in the late stages of a sinister plot to erase national borders? And might it be true that America has already been infiltrated by top-secret paramilitary forces, flying low overhead in their silent black helicopters, ready to accost and abduct freedom-loving patriots at a moment’s notice?
-You don’t even want to start looking into the global pharmaceutical industry! Could Big Pharma really have partnered with federal, state and local governments to introduce fluoride chemicals into our drinking water? And what was their purpose? Was it really to reduce tooth decay, like they’d want you to believe, or could they be secretly working to induce chemical dependency on an entire population?
The answers to all these questions (and many, many, more things that you never wanted to know) can be found on the Internet. When you’re slogging through a literally endless deluge of information, it’s a little bit scary to stop and wonder just how much of it is unvetted, unverified, crap… but in spite of this, conspiracy theories have always been a fascinating subject for me. On more than one occasion, I’ve clicked on a Youtube video about Area 51 or the Bermuda Triangle, only to find that the next four hours of my life had disappeared down some rabbit hole of poorly-produced video clips set to eerie soundtrack music. It’s always amusing to watch how creative minds are able to use their own suspicions and biases to fill the avoid left by history’s unanswered questions— and that’s probably why I had so much writing my latest book, “Wikipedia Jones and the Case of the All-Seeing Eye.”
The idea for this book actually hit me several years ago, while I was walking through my local Target store. I couldn’t help noticing how this one department chain seemed to stock pretty much everything necessary to sustain human life, and so naturally I began to wonder whether it might be possible for a person to live there indefinitely. I spent the next half-hour lingering in menswear and spying on the red-shirted associates as they came and went from the back storeroom, this mysteriously curtained-off area that was off-limits to outsiders. And I couldn’t stop wondering, did all of those sales clerks really have to check on the excess merchandise so frequently? What were they really doing back there, safely out of sight from the customers? And what if the whole thing was bigger than just one store? Could it be possible that the entire shopping mall had some kind of secret activity going on behind the scenes?
If you’re not already familiar with Donald J. Sobol’s wildly popular “Encyclopedia Brown” books, then I’m sorry, you must have had a particularly sad and miserable childhood. But the gist of the series is that this young kid, a self-styled amateur detective, would help his policeman father solve crimes by recalling the most random, arcane facts from memory. And yes, I know, I’m hardly the first person to make a gag by updating “Encyclopedia” into “Wikipedia”… but as far as I know, I’m the only author who’s managed to work the parody into an actual book. And since I have only the highest respect for both the late, great Donald J. Sobol, as well as that esteemed repository of modern knowledge, Wikipedia, I tried my damnedest to do them both justice with “Wikipedia Jones and the Case of the All-Seeing Eye”:
“If it’s on the Internet, it must be true.” So says Leroy Jones, a tech-smart fifteen-year- old mallrat better known by his nickname of Wikipedia. Armed with only his wits and an iPhone, Wiki trolls obscure websites for disparate chunks of information which will crack open even the toughest cases. Who took a crap in the urinals? Who left obscene tweets on the display smartphones? The answers, of course, are all on the Web.
But all is not well at the posh Lewiston Mall. When a gang of local hipsters secure part- time jobs, it quickly becomes apparent that there’s much more to the retail game than meets the eye. Aided only by his closest friends and a handful of bookmarked websites, Wiki feverishly works to connect the dots… and stumbles across a sinister capitalist plot in the process!
If you’ve ever found yourself nostalgic for the glory of mid-1990s shopping malls, the fluorescent lights of fast-food kiosks, or chapter book mysteries with their “turn-the-page-to-find-out” solutions, then “Wikipedia Jones” might just be the story you’ve been searching for.
Of course, nobody publishes a book all by themselves. Special thanks go to Nick Caya for his usual awesome work on the digital formatting, and to the team at German Creative, LLC, for the wicked cover design. And I couldn’t possibly leave out these fine members of the Twitter microblogging community: @jkalyn, @la_maquina, @BrianDermody, @JayJayDean, @mr_anathema, @cheapskaterec, @Celtics1Tony. Their hilarious, crowdsourced feedback got me through the first chapter, “The Case of the Triple Upper Decker,” and helped establish a suitably irreverent tone for the rest of the book.
Last, but certainly not least, a big shout-out goes to one of my oldest friends, Joe Murphy. Joe and I spent much more time than was healthy wandering through the shopping malls and video arcades that line Massachusetts’ Route 9, which made him the most qualified person to critique the earliest drafts of “Wikipedia Jones.”
So if my shameless self-promotion hasn’t made it clear enough already, “Wikipedia Jones and the Case of the All-Seeing Eye” is finally available! I’d greatly appreciate if you’d consider buying a copy— and if you enjoy it, please take a few seconds to leave a review on Amazon or Goodreads.
What’s really going on at your local mall? The truth is out there… [Citation needed]