THE DAILY AMERICAN

Praise for The Daily American

“The Daily American is a gripping and atmospheric thriller that captures the murky intersection of journalism, espionage, and foreign policy during a turbulent moment in history. Set in 1970s Italy, it evokes the very real moral dilemmas faced by those who stand up to powerful forces in defense of truth. This novel resonates with anyone who’s seen firsthand how individuals can challenge entrenched systems — at great personal risk.”

~ Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch is the former U.S. Ambassador to Kyrgyzstan, Armenia, and Ukraine; and best-selling author of Lessons from the Edge.

“The Daily American is a masterful thriller that captures the relentless pursuit of truth amidst layers of deception and danger. Rooted in real-world intrigue, it offers a vivid portrayal of the risks journalists face when exposing powerful secrets. A compelling narrative that resonates deeply with anyone who values fearless reporting.”

~ Inna Lazareva is an award-winning investigative journalist whose work has appeared in the Washington Post, The Guardian, Wall Street Journal, Economist, Newsweek, TIME and The Sunday Times.

“Combining fact with fiction, Morris has created a captivating tale that makes that time period and the city of Rome come alive. Well worth a read for any thriller fans out there. While Morris took some literary license with the inner workings of the newsroom, I can verify that The Daily American was well and truly a CIA front as my father was one of the former publishers.”

~ Ambassador David Thorne is the former U.S. Ambassador to Italy from 2009-2013.

“The Daily American is a thrilling and complex experience from start to finish, with the backdrop of Rome in the 70’s so vivid that you can almost taste and smell it. The boldness of the plot will keep you guessing for the entire ride. The actual events the novel is based on are still scarily relevant today.”

~ Brandon Tansley won an Emmy as a producer on the show, Cars TV. He has also produced nine seasons of The American Athlete and produced the acclaimed indie film The Tribe, which won Best Feature at the Nice International Film Festival.

“Morris has written a novel that pulses with immediacy and danger. The Daily American unfolds with the tension of a political thriller, but what lingers are its moral dilemmas and the humanity of those caught in the storm. It’s cinematic, unsettling, sharply focused, and a riveting read.”

~ Cutter Hodierne won the Grand Jury Prize at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival his short film Fishing Without Nets. He then expanded that short into a feature and won the Directing Award for U.S. Dramatic at Sundance in 2014. More recently, he directed the 2024 thriller Cold Wallet.

“The Daily American is more than just a compelling novel — it’s an evocative, pulse-pounding journey through 1970s Rome, told by someone who lived it. What Morris has created here is more than a novel — it’s a living portrait of a time and place. It’s a rare thing when a story rings with this much authenticity and soul. For anyone who loves richly drawn characters, immersive historical fiction, or simply a great story told by someone who’s truly been there, this book delivers on every level. Raw, gripping, and moving, The Daily American is a powerful blend of fact and fiction, memory and imagination. It’s not just a great read — it’s a glimpse into a remarkable world, rendered with honesty, humor, and heart.

~ Blerim Gjoci is an award-winning actor, screenwriter, director and producer. Most recently he won Best Director at the 2021 Venice Film Festival (Venice-LA) for his film Fusion starring Eric Roberts.

“The Daily American is a spy thriller wrapped inside an Italian giallo, revealing dark facts trapped between the pages of a newspaper in a quest for truth printed through an ink- and bloodstained web of deception and lies. It’s also an enjoyably atmospheric guidebook to The Eternal City of the 1970s. You’ll read it in a heart-thumping flash, and be glad to learn, at the end, that The Daily American is just the first in an intriguingly original series.”

~ Matthew Licht is the author of several novels as well as The Moose Show, a short story collection that was nominated for the Frank O’Connor Award. His latest novel is North Hollywood Blue; and Hotel Kranepool, his long-running serial epic of metaphysical hospitality, appears every Thursday at Stanza 251.

“The Daily American is a great read about Cold War politics and CIA subterfuge in 1970’s Italy by a terrific writer who has created a compelling story surrounded by evocative descriptions of Rome. I recommend this book highly.”

~ Ambassador Kathleen Doherty is the former U.S. Ambassador to Cyprus, and former U.S. Deputy Ambassador to Italy.

“In The Daily American, Morris brings to life a Rome that is vibrant, layered, and clearly deeply loved. His historical, artistic, and political knowledge of the city is layered into every page, turning the reading experience into something immersive and resonant. Through the eyes of a restless expatriate, Morris weaves the moral dilemmas of journalism, the shadows of truth, and the tension between competing visions of information: as a commodity, or as a public good that safeguards pluralism and enhances civic awareness. The novel evokes – with great sensitivity, and a thrilling story – a complex era in which a determined minority left a lasting mark on the very way the world is run.”

~ Laura Sidoti is the creator and presenter of the popular daily Italian television segment Come Glielo Spiego; and is the author of a book of the same title.

“The Daily American is a taut thriller that evokes the turbulent beauty of Rome during the troubling events of its recent past. The book is a wild ride of intrigue and espionage through the Eternal City’s unforgettable landscape where the past is always present, and the lessons of history are too often ignored.”

~ E.J. Olsen is co-editor of Detroit Noir, an anthology of noir fiction set in the Motor City.

“An atmospheric and thought-provoking thriller that makes 1970s Rome come alive, The Daily American is filled with complex, relatable characters that seem to burst into life from the page; as well as a plot line that keeps you guessing, while leaving you wanting more at the end. A fun, readable journey that transports you into an earlier time, and which also contains poignant messages for our current age. Definitely worth a read.”

~ David Grant is co-Founder & CEO of Favored; Founder of Shopflick.com and PopSugar; Former CEO of GGL, a global eSports company; and Founder and leader of Fox TV Studios.

About the Author

Douglas E. Morris has had 16 books published, was the editor of two award-winning weekly U.S Embassy newsletters – the Veneto Views in Rome and the Brussels Weekly in Brussels – had a monthly travel column about Italy in Primo magazine, and has penned articles for a variety of periodicals around the world, including The Washington Post, The Washington Times, Flanders Today, National Geographic Georgia, Smoke, Transitions Abroad, Foreign Service Journal, and State Magazine.

He has had the privilege of living on 3 continents, in 12 countries, over more than 30 years; and has visited the pyramids in Egypt, trekked Alpine peaks in Switzerland and Austria, savored the libertine culture of Copenhagen, hiked Hadrian’s Wall in northern England, unearthed ancient Roman ruins in Caesarea Israel, climbed the pyramids of Chichen Itza in the Yucatan, traversed the Great Wall in China, sailed the Fjords of Norway, scaled the Eiffel Tower in Paris, and bar hopped down Hooker Hill in Seoul. He has also been wrongly incarcerated in Rome’s maximum-security prison, became stranded in the middle of the Tunisian desert, and survived the tumult of terrorism in Israel, England and Italy. In conjunction, he won the GW Award for outstanding contributions to his university, tried out for two NFL teams as a placekicker, was a bicycle courier dodging maniacal traffic on the streets of DC, worked on animal welfare reform in Tbilisi Georgia including opening a puppy rescue shelter, started the non-profit Books for Kosovo in Pristina, and toiled away in IT as an entrepreneur until his retirement at age 46.

To contact the author, send him an email at douglas.e.morris@gmail.com.

How The Daily American Came to Be

More than the just the scintillating narrative and the authentic ambiance in The Daily American, the story of how the book came to be is also noteworthy. It all started with meeting Hollywood actor Matt Dillon at an event for the Rome Film Festival. We became friends, he read one of my books and suggested I write a script. With help from another friend who was a professor at USC’s graduate film school, Blerim Gjoci, I received a crash course in script writing and put a tale together that Matt really liked. He started lining up financing, got James Caan to play a lead role, and convinced Paul Haggis to direct. But then Covid hit, James Caan passed away, and Paul Haggis got arrested for alleged sexual assault in Italy, and the film project died on the vine. I then pitched the script to Hollywood film producers, received four serious inquiries, but when those did not pan out, still wanting to get the story out into the world, I decided to convert the script to a novel. And I believe The Daily American is a better for it. There are more plot twists, deeper character development, and more action in the novel than the constraints of a script would allow. 

More Books by Douglas E. Morris

Some of the author’s other publications can be found at:

Rome Made Easy & Other Made Easy Travel Guides to Italy - https://sites.google.com/view/made-easy-travel-guides/

Open Road's Best of Italy - www.BestofItalyGuide.com

It's a Sprawl World After All - www.ItsaSprawlWorld.com. Link to a free pdf of the book – https://epdf.pub/its-a-sprawl-world-after-all-the-human-cost-of-unplanned-growth-and-visions-of-a.html

The Expat Guide to Having Fun in Brussels & Belgium - https://sites.google.com/site/expatguidebrusselsandbelgium/

Series Summary

The Daily American is the first book in a series featuring the same main character uncovering and exposing real-life CIA ops in a variety of countries. The next book will also be based on real-life, actual events, and will involve our protagonist infiltrating a rag-tag international band of merchant seamen who are running drugs for the CIA – in cooperation with the Mafia in New York City and Naples – to help fund right-wing groups around the world to support the United States’ on-going anti-Communist agenda. This next adventure will be a mash-up of Ocean’s Eleven and The Dirty Dozen set on the high seas.