A Goodreads user asked Timothy Jay Smith:

Hey Tim, Thanks for the friends request. So, which of your novels would your recommend someone start with?

Timothy Jay Smith I have two published books that are written in very different styles or points of view. ‘A Vision of Angels’ looks at a planned terrorist attack in Jerusalem from the perspectives of four different characters and their families. ‘Cooper’s Promise’ is told entirely from one character’s perspective.

I learned in a screenwriting class that the former is called an open mystery, wherein the audience/reader knows more than the protagonist. Cooper’s story is a closed mystery, wherein the audience/reader knows only as much as the protagonist. The latter is a rarer approach to telling a story and in some fundamental ways more challenging to write. It’s far easier to have lots of characters moving the story along.

Both formats work for me. But I will admit, I have always been partial to Cooper’s Promise. Cooper is a great character. By keeping it a closed mystery, I was able to really get into his head, and I like him. I was also more comfortable exploring Cooper’s sexuality, and letting him have a real gay love affair, than I was with my protagonist in A Vision of Angels.

I see that you write politically incorrect military thrillers, and Cooper’s Promise might appeal to you because of that. It’s the story of a gay deserter from the war in Iraq who’s ended up a mercenary in a war-torn African country, where he vows to save a young girl trafficked into prostitution to redeem himself for an earlier promise he couldn’t keep.

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