Meet the Authors
Michael & Zack
Twin brothers Michael and Zack Urlocker write under the name M. Z. Urlocker. Inspired by true stories of individuals in tumultuous times, they write fiction about the cold war, one of the strangest periods of history. They are inspired by the three-Ks of historical fiction, Philip Kerr (Berlin Noir), Joseph Kanon (The Good German) and James Kestrel (Five Decembers).
Why We Write
I have the strongest memory from childhood, of our mother telling us about the Nazi atrocities of WWII, concentration camps, and gruesome experiments on twins. It was the most chilling thing I’d ever heard. Years later, I was drawn back to those stories. How could men, and it was almost always men, commit such crimes? That was what compelled me to write The Man from Mittelwerk. I wanted to unravel the seeming rationalizations of the monsters I had learned about as a child, and I wanted to do it with a nod to Raymond Chandler and Stephen King.
—Zack Urlocker
As a newspaper reporter, I wrote about business. I was occasionally astounded when executives would brush off billion-dollar losses and layoffs. I remember interviewing a longstanding CEO who, upon his retirement, consented to a rare interview. After nearly an hour of war stories, I asked him if he had made any mistakes. It was an easy question because he had lost hundreds of millions and had eroded the core business. "None that I can think of," was his reply, followed by a puff on a Cuban cigar.
In business and in politics, sometimes we vote for a lack of accountability and no moral compass. Whether we read history or John le Carré, we know this never works out.
—Michael Urlocker