A Former Senior Editor Of BusinessWeek Uses His Personal Encounters With Exorcism in new novel

PRLog (Press Release) - Oct 04, 2006 -
(Williamsburg, VA – October 2, 2007) Richard F. Janssen, a reporter and editor on BusinessWeek and The Wall Street Journal over a thirty-year period has turned to exorcism as the theme for his first novel, “The Evil I Do,”

Mr. Janssen recently described his first brush with exorcism that came on a long-ago evening in St. Louis when his parents invited a pair of young Missouri Synod Lutheran Ministers to dinner.

He described what turned out to be a memorable dinner. “Their clammy hands, drained faces, and quavering voices demanded an explanation. They stammered it out: They had come straight from observing a Roman Catholic priest struggle to exorcise a demon from a young boy.

“Some two decades would pass before William Blatty’s novel and the movie The Exorcist exploded into public awareness – and jolted me into realizing that I had been on the fringe of the actual event that Blatty fictionalized as involving a young girl in Washington, D.C.

“By that time I was in London, as a foreign correspondent for The Wall Street Journal. An odd little statistical item in the Daily Telegraph caught my eye, on exorcisms. While newly the stuff of controversial fiction in the U.S., exorcisms were already so common in 1970s Britain that the Anglican Church issued periodic statistical reports on the number performed. I knew I had to dig deeper for a story.

“At first, Church of England officials suspected my intent was to ridicule them as cynical, superstitious, or both. But the apparent coincidence of my having “insider’s” knowledge of the St. Louis event established my bona fides. Before long, the Rev. Christopher Neil-Smith, then vicar of St. Saviour’s Hampstead in London, allowed me to be present – a safe distance back – when he performed two exorcisms. That eye-witness encounter with exorcism led to my most personally important Wall Street Journal story (Dec. 10, 1974, p. 1), to a heightened sensitivity to the supernatural, and finally in 2006 to my first novel, The Evil I Do.”

This book has now been published by The Business Scribe, Inc. The Evil I Do begins with the crash of a Russian jetliner in Florida that sends a fading FBI agent and his CIA crony racing to stop a string of deadly electronic “coincidences,” a possibly supernatural culprit, and an unsuspecting scientist. On another level, it is the story of a person who can meet life’s challenges only by becoming open to the possibility of exorcism and a spiritual dimension.

Clyde Farnsworth, former New York Times correspondent and author of Shadow Wars, wrote, “This international whodunit about the mysterious crash of a Russian airliner in the swamps of South Florida crackles with suspense. Janssen presents smartly observed characters in gripping plot twists and alluring settings. His writing is taut as befitting a former crack foreign correspondent of The Wall Street Journal. Although the story turns on an aviation disaster, if you’re brave enough, you’ll cut hours off a long plane ride by packing the book in your carryon. I did.“

The first chapter of The Evil I Do can be read on the Internet at http://www.virginiahospitalitysuite.com/evilido.htm. The book can be purchased at this site as a computer download ($4.19) or in paperback ($15.95) with any credit card. The 353-page paperback can also be purchased directly from the publisher for $15.95 plus $2 postage, sent to The Business Scribe, Inc., P.O. Box 6351, Williamsburg, VA 23188.