Yesterday Thirty Thousand Children Died from Preventable Causes

"Today almost thirty thousand children will die from preventable causes, including, malnutrition, malaria, and AIDS. Tomorrow just as many will perish. This tragic fact inspired author Rob Sargeant to write his latest book, A Silent Violence. He wanted to give these children a voice, in a world that seems to ignore this catastrophe.

Author Rob Sargeant wrote parts of his new book, A Silent Violence, while serving with the Canadian Armed Forces in some of the harshest climates on the planet: from freezing Alert, in Nunavut Territory, to the sweltering hot deserts of Southwest Asia. He wrote the first draft over a two-year period between 2005-2007, and spent another year in rewrites.

“The story has a very international flavor, so being in the contrasting climates of the Arctic and a desert in Southwest Asia while writing definitely helped,” Sargeant says. “It gave the story more authenticity.”

Relative to this time and generation, A Silent Violence, is a fictional tale about an Irish rock star, Liam, who mails out over a hundred invitations to some of the richest and poorest people on the world, inviting them to attend an all-expenses-paid, secret banquet in Toronto. By doing this, he inadvertently sparks the interest of the CIA, and an ambitious surveillance expert, Brad Jones, is dispatched to investigate this strange get-together, to discover why the meeting is surrounded by so much secrecy. He and his sub-agents monitor the movements of the guests, which include an AIDS orphan from the Philippines, a Tanzanian young man, a famous Italian opera singer, a Texas oil tycoon, an aging Hollywood actress, and a billionaire American computer software genius. After learning the truth, Brad has to decide if he will release it to the rest of the world in an exclusive news story, or if he will keep it a secret, and walk away a less wealthy, but much better person.

“A considerable amount of time was spent in research, before a first draft was completed, because I had to find out where these characters came from, how they would talk,” Sargeant said. “I was inspired to write this after a conversation I had with my younger brother, John, about the fact that every day thirty thousand people in the developing world perish from preventable causes, including malaria, AIDS, and malnutrition,” he continued. “This is a catastrophe that is rarely reported by the media, that’s why the book is entitled, A Silent Violence.”

A Silent Violence (ISBN-13: 9781607034827) is now available for purchase from Barnes & Noble’s online bookstore, and will be added to the catalogs of most booksellers, for ordering in the coming weeks."

This was my latest press release. Comments? Suggestions?