RON McGAW was born in Alberta, Canada, but raised in the suburbs of San Jose, California. He graduated from San Jose State University with a degree in Theatre Arts, and from the University of San Francisco School of Law. He worked in Manhattan as an attorney and served a ten-year term as a New York State Judge. He now lives with his wife and children in Poughkeepsie, New York where he runs his own successful legal practice. Lorenzo's Daggers is his first novel.
The genesis of any novel, like the spark of life itself, is a mysterious thing. How it comes about for any writer is as individual as one's fingerprints. Here, in his own words, is how Ron McGaw came upon the idea for his novel, Lorenzo's Daggers.
"Over thirty years ago, standing in the Medici Palace in Florence, Italy, a tour guide explained to our group that the great artist Michelangelo and the amazing genius Leonardo da Vinci both had lived and worked in Florence at the same time. I hadn't realized this fact, and I immediately began to wonder whether they had been rivals. Moreover, if rivals, had they ever faced off in any kind of competition, and what was the outcome?
"Oh no," the guide assured me. "They were good friends." But there was a hesitation in his voice. I could tell he really didn’t know, so I decided to find out for myself. Thus began a lifelong fascination with the Italian Renaissance and the towering figures who lived and worked together in Florence during that time.
"Florence in the late 15th Century was a place of great violence and intrigue, but it was also a city of great genius – Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael, Machiavelli, Donatello, Brunelleschi, Michelangelo all lived there. The question is, how did this explosion of talent and intellect occur at this one place and time in the world? Why did the people of Florence excel in the arts, science, political theory, architecture, medicine and philosophy far beyond what random chance would suggest is possible? Frankly, the notion still strikes me as fantastic, and it formed the basis of the book I had to write.
"Lorenzo's Daggers transports the reader back to Renaissance Florence, where our protagonist, Prester John, meets many of the characters – famous and infamous – from that period. I hope, first, that this book is entertaining, but I hope too that it inspires in the reader the same sense of awe that struck me so many years ago, and still fills me with the wonder of it all."