South Fayette novelist sets goal of publishing octalogy
Chris Restivo
Works of film and literature often show the power of love and fear as strong motivational factors. But in his newly released debut novel, South Fayette writer Chris Restivo, 45, uses revenge to invigorate and energize his plots.
In “First Son,” Restivo, writing under the pen name of Dex Turner, uses a horrific incident experienced by a foreign-born American and his wife who are mistaken for Vietnamese immigrants and viciously brutalized as the linchpin of his tale.
The husband eventually becomes an ultra-wealthy industrialist and enlists the first of his eight sons to unleash a terrorist attack on the United States that rivals the horrors of Sept. 11, 2001. Described as a thriller-mystery, the novel is the first of eight, an octalogy featuring each of the sons as protagonist, that Restivo plans to write and finish by the summer of 2022.
Heading the investigations into the attacks is a retired lead FBI agent named Turner, whose team either captures or kills the plotters but fails to apprehend the mastermind behind them all.
Restivo, a civil engineer who graduated from the University of Michigan and earned a master’s from the University of Pittsburgh, worked for both FedEx and Turner Construction. He combined elements of both employers to coin his nom de plume.
Restivo started writing “First Son” in 2013 and has written one additional novel in the series each year since. The total now is four, but only “First Son” has been published, which happened in early June.
“I don’t have many hobbies,” Restivo said. “I don’t golf, hunt or fish, but I am a voracious reader of mysteries, especially those by author James Patterson. Over the course of reading the books, I thought I could do this, myself.”
Restivo said some of the crime novels he’s read are almost clinical in their approach, and he wanted to write something so that no one could anticipate what was coming next. Like in the works by his favorite author, Dan Brown, he said he tries to keep his chapters short and finish each with a cliffhanger.
“Test readers have described my novels as having Hitchcockian endings,” he said.
Each of the four completed novels is set in different U.S. locales, but there also are plenty of international components. The author said he put a lot of research into the books, especially in reference to geographical locations and landmarks.
Interestingly, each book has and will have 8,888 words and 88 chapters when completed. Restivo also said that the number 8, which is revered in Asian cultures, plays a big role in his works.
Part of the first novel is told in the first person, but, in some of the scenes, he shifts to the third-person voice. For the author, the plots have come about rather easily and the executions of the crimes have been the most fun to write. The most difficult component of the writing has been stringing the clues together to solve the crime.
“I want a lot of twists and turns in the plot, which turns out to be my biggest writing challenge,” he said.
Restivo’s methodology is to take notes of thoughts he has for the novels on his cell phone in the evening. Over lunch, he then usually writes a chapter of the book.
“It’s truly a hobby that doesn’t consume a lot of my time,” he said.
Before Restivo does any mass promotions, he’d like to see how the reading audience reacts to the works. His biggest obstacle so far has been getting readers to review the novel on Amazon.com.
At the moment, Restivo’s not planning any book signings, but said he soon hopes to reach out to the alumni magazine at both Pitt and the University of Michigan.
The author admits that friends, family and coworkers have told him they love the book, but he’s still looking for feedback from a more objective and anonymous reading audience.
The self-published book is available on amazon.com in both paperback and e-version. For more information on the author and his writing, go to www.dexturner.com.