Linda Stasi Books In Order

Publication Order of Alessandra Russo Books

Publication Order of Non-Fiction Books

Linda Stasi is a well-read, popular author, and critic/columnist of the New York Daily News, who has presented the popular “What A Week Program” with Mark Simone for well over a decade. She has also made frequent appearances on TV shows such as MSNBC, Fox News, Good Day New York, CNN, The CBS Early Show, Good Morning America, and The Today Show. Linda is an opinionated, funny, and brash host turned novelist who has won many awards over the years such as Boys Town of Italy’s Woman of the Year 2006, Best Humor Columnist, and the Newswomen’s Clubs of New York’s Best Columnist. In addition to her celebrated journalistic works, she is known for the writing of six novels that have gone on to garner much critical acclaim. She published her debut the 2013 published “The Sixth Station” in 2013 after she had been writing for more than five years. Her five-year quest to write the novel saw her talk to a cloistered nun in Manopello, Italy, spend a week with monks, drive with a self-proclaimed exorcist priest across Europe, and climb two mountains in Europe. She is married to former John V. Lindsay, former aide to Sydney Davidoff that famously made the list of persons most hated by Nixon in the aptly named “Enemies List”.

She got the inspiration for writing her Alessandra Russo series of novels when she was on a jaunt through Turkey. The urge to drive to write her novel kept going stronger as she traversed the 1500 miles of the Turkish countryside, until at last it hit her like a ton of bricks while she was at the House of the Virgins, just outside of Ephesus. She never knew just how far the novel would take to research and write and just went along with the flow until she was done. What she found bizarre was that she got the idea for the Alessandro series, yet she is what could be called an agnostic or more specifically an atheist. In the series, Stasi tells provocative and riveting stories full of turns and twists, conspiracies, and passion. The “Sixth Station” and the “Book of Judas” deal with several themes and topics including evil versus good, Christianity, and terrorism. Stasi blends religion and science and weaves intriguing plot lines that leave her readers with insightful and thought provoking questions. The novels ask questions that are very compelling as they ask religious and philosophical questions about religion, ethical and moral aspects of life. The novels are best described as a combination of an Indiana Jones and Dan Brown novel, and hence anyone that loves a mysterious adventure will find them great reads.

The lead character in the series is journalist Alessandra Russo who goes on a journey of discovery. Even as the novels feature Russo as the lead in both titles, the novels may be read as standalones given their different plot lines. They incorporate religious aspects particularly from the bible in a way that makes sense makes for a highly interesting characterization. What makes it even more intriguing is the many interpretations that can be applied to the religious, ethical, and moral standards in the novels. Alessandra Russo is a likable character mainly because of her strength and determination to make it as a single mother. When we are first introduced to the character she is coming back from maternity leave in an industry where only the hardworking people can get ahead and stay ahead. Handed a variety of challenges, mysteries and secrets, the narratives spin new intriguing narratives of a woman with too much on her plate, as she fights for her own life and that of her son while trying to hold on to the truth. Stasi does a good job in developing the character and the plot line. The story lines that show the inner turmoil the lead character as she interacts with others in several action sequences make for a very vulnerable character that often turns gullible. The Alessandro series of novels are great fireside reads for anyone with a taste for the religious thriller with a touch of the religious mystical just to spice up things.

“The Sixth Nation” is the first novel in the Alessandro series of novels by Linda Stasi. The lead antagonist in the series is Demiel ben Yusef, who is responsible for several riots and bombings that have taken thousands of lives. For his followers, the man is a miracle worker, man of peace and the messiah. He is now on trial in New York for his digressions, an event that has attracted religious leaders and media from across the globe. Meanwhile, Alessandra Russo is a cynical reporter who suddenly gets entangled into much suspicion and controversy, when ben Yusef targets her for victimization among all other media personalities. As she begins investigations into the man’s past, she suddenly finds herself in a lot of danger. Ben Yusef conspires to implicate her of murder forcing her to flee New York City, running from unknown assailants. Alessandra is now in the midst of a story and global conspiracy that could change the history of the world. Could the man ben Yusef be the Antichrist that has long been central to a prophecy and belief that for the most part was deemed nothing but the figment of an overactive imagination? The secret to the whole mystery may lie with an ancient order of Templars, who claim to have a mysterious relic that is said to have been the very cloth that Christ wore to his death two millennium past.

“Book of Judas” is Linda Stasi’s second novel about Alessandro Russo the New York City reporter, who now has to track down the missing pages of the Gospel of Judas. “The Gospel of Judas” is a heretical text that had been found by archeologists in Egypt’s Al-Minya in the 1970s. The text asserted that Judas was the beloved disciple of Jesus rather than the betrayer he is in all the four gospels. The manuscript had gone missing only to reappear years later, torn and rotted in a New York City bank deposit box. According to word on the grapevine, most of the most damning passages and pages had either been stolen or cut out. Could the lost pages of the manuscript uncover a centuries old secret that will shake the foundations of Christendom? Things could get even more serious if the documents were to get into the hands of religious fanatics, dictators, or terrorists. Alessandra’s investigations sees her plunged into the terrifying world of sexual depravity, conspiracy, and murder, even as she is in a race against time to save her child from spiteful aggressors.