Maltalately

Author Raymond John tells mystery writer Julia Buckley why Malta is the setting for his novel The Cellini Masterpiece. From Mysterious Musings:

My Maltese friends ask it of me all the time. It all began with a childhood stamp collection. My folks bought me an album and a cheap packet of stamps. One in the packet showed George VI and Verdala castle. I was smitten. By the age of twenty I had read everything available on Malta, and when I went into the stamp business in my mid-thirties, I named my business Maltalately, or Malta philately. I didn’t actually visit the island until I was in my mid-fifties, when my wife and I made our first trip to England. I loved everything about the place. Best of all, I found the setting for my novel. The Bellestrado Hotel from the novel is actually the Soleado Guest House in Sliema. I’ve visited the island seven times since..

Malta does have at least two important literary connections. One is it is the site of St. Paul’s shipwreck on his way to Rome. The natives nursed him back to health and he named Publius the first Archbishop of Malta. There’s been an archbishop there ever since. The other important connection is in Homer’s Odyssey. Odysseus spent seven years on Calypso’s island. This was probably the island of Gozo, the other major island in the Maltese chain. Tourists can take a scary staircase down to her cave. I passed...

The Cellini Masterpiece website