He’d first brought the FBI agent to life when, in 1996, as a budding screenwriter, he’d written his third (unproduced) screenplay—a modern conspiracy thriller that harkened back to the days of the Crusades called The Last Templar. He then experienced the euphoria of being offered a small fortune by a major New York publisher to turn his screenplay into a novel, only then to be gutted when the publisher said they’d like him to make a “small change” to the story. Let’s lose the religion. It’s boring. Turn the Templars’ secret into gold, jewels, a real treasure. Raymond decided that advice was no good, so he nixed the deal. Smart? Gutsy? Foolish? Maybe all three. But interest in the screenplay did trigger a screenwriting career. So, for several years, Sean Reilly remained locked away in a dormant file on Raymond’s hard drive while he worked on movies and television shows. Then, in 2006, Sean Reilly was finally allowed to breathe again in The Last Templar. Raymond decided to write the story for himself, religion and all.
