OUR AUSTRALIAN FRIEND

Our dear friend Imre Molnar was an Australian, provost of a major art college, artist, lecturer, dynamic influence upon the U.S. automobile industry--and motorcyclist practically raised on trips through the outback.

In  the final pages of my novel THE DEADLY BUDDHA, I wanted the major male character, a Welsh movie star, to hop on his Ducati and take a motorcycle trip through LA's Topanga Canyon, during which he would confess to the reader his involvement years earlier in the death of a young college student trying to interview him.  The scene took four pages.  And the writing was terrific--except for one thing. I had never been on a motorcycle. I gave the pages to Imre and  by return mail he had added just the touches I needed.

Imre visited with Rita and me during the Christmas vacation last year. On January 2nd he was visiting friends in the California desert when he suffered a heart attack that was instantly fatal. It was the same day the novel was published.