FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE is an Ian Fleming story staring James Bond that was released in 1963 in the U.S., the year before the author died. I’ve seen every James Bond film and love them all. As I was looking up some little known facts about the movie and the author, I came across some odd facts that I didn’t know about the movie or Ian Fleming.
Apparently, it was the last film that President Kennedy saw before his ill-fated trip to Dallas. Also Ian Fleming was the author of Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang, the children’s book. How’s that for writing for very different reader audiences. So why my interest in Russia?
Russia is the second largest source of visitors to my website after the U.S. Apparently Alec Peche is a favorite of St. Petersburg residents, although Muscovites, and a region called the Samara Oblast also like visiting my website. I receive a report each week from Google on my website’s performance. It includes information like the city/state/country a visitor is from, whether they used Desktop or Mobile and what kind of mobile device, the language of the visitor, whether they are new or returning, etc. The majority of my visitors are new and these use a desktop to find my site. When they do use mobile to look me up, they’re most likely using a iPhone.
Since I first went live with my new website last spring, I’ve marveled over the Russian visitors. I know they don’t speak English and Amazon doesn’t sell my books in Russia, so my imagination dreams up all kinds of nefarious reasons for the Russian visitors. I probably could use some of my imagination for book three of the Damian Green series since my protagonist is a smart computer hack.
This past week my website had a lot of visitors from Wellington, New Zealand (third behind the U.S. and Russia for visitors). Prior to that I hadn’t had many visits from Kiwis. I hope they’re interested in my books and I’m not serving as some kind of intermediary for a spam or other nuisance internet traffic. UGH.
On another note, I finished WILLOW GLEN HEIST this past week. It’s book two of the Damian Green series, wherein Hermione continues her search for her parents and Damian assists his friend Natalie Severino with a cold case that’s a bank heist. In preparation for writing this story, I signed up for the FBI’s press release service so I could read about bank robbers that were caught by the FBI for story ideas.
However, it’s my conclusion that the majority of bank robbers are simple and stupid. They walk into a bank with or without a gun ask the teller for money, they get less than three thousand dollars on average, and for that they serve a minimum of eight years in prison. Based on my reading, I would guess that perhaps one or two bank robberies of over ten thousand dollars fail to be resolved immediately each year. Robbing a bank is not the way to get rich!!