When Emily Stone asks you to join her blog hop, you don't dare say no

Actually, I'm happy to hop onto author Jennifer Chase's first-ever blog hop. She's got a new Emily Stone novel and a literally kick-ass new video to support it. 

Check it out:

Crime has a new nemesis and her name is Emily Stone. She will continue to hunt serial killers and child abductors as long as they are out there. 

This is her life. Tag along with vigilante detective Emily Stone in a first time ever “live action” novel short film.  Be sure to watch it full screen, turn up the volume, and enjoy.

http://youtu.be/OCbpk4jwtZY

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Check out the Award-winning EMILY STONE THRILLER SERIES available at Amazon, Amazon UK, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, iTunes, Smashwords, and most online and book retailers.

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You can find Jennifer Chase and all of her books at:

 AuthorJenniferChase.com/

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A twisting thriller that holds the road

Review of Golgotha Connection by Caleb Pirtle III

I don’t like a lot of the thrillers I read. Most of them seem to be emulating another derivative thriller, just trying to ride some bandwagon to market success. Far too many read as if the author were trying to write an episode of his or her favourite TV cop show.

So when I opened Golgotha Connection, described on the cover as “A Christian Novel,” I was prepared for disappointment. But what I found were realistic characters, solid writing and a satisfying story.

I even liked the main character’s unusual name: “Andrews St. Aubin,” which opens the book. The author recognizes how preposterous this name is, but has a good reason for it.  And having a French last name for a character in an American thriller is unusual enough.

The plot twists and turns, but holds the road.

St. Aubin is a newspaper reporter with some serious PTSD, memory loss and other psychological problems. He’s followed by a dead man only he can see, and only at night, the ghost of a man he killed in a military engagement that he cannot remember. While he’s trying to make a new life as a journalist, he seems to be more of a gun for hire.

The owner of the Texas newspaper St. Aubin’s works for, Richard Brockleman, sends the reporter to Saltillo, Mexico, to find his brother, Danny B. Danny is a DEA officer who might be corrupt, and disappeared in the drug cartel-controlled Saltillo, Mexico. Brockleman says that instead of busting drug rings, Danny has uncovered incontrovertible proof of Christ’s appearance in Mexico before the Spanish Conquest in 1492.

Pirtle then throws in the trope of the disgruntled military men and corrupt, ambitious politicians attempting a US coup by triggering an upheaval in Mexico.

No, it’s not impossible to make this story plausible.

If any author had come to a publisher with an idea for a novel about a detective finding incontestable proof that Jesus Christ lived, let alone walked in Mexico before 1492, and getting caught in a plot to overthrow the US government through Mexico, he probably would have been advised to pick an easier mystery to pen. But Pirtle handles the challenge well, giving the readers just enough information as the plot builds to keep us readers turning pages.

There were a few places where I was afraid the novel would become excessively Christian, where a plot point could only be explained by a miracle or an answer to true faith, but thankfully, Pirtle avoided that. Everything made sense, and while there is a definite religious motif to this book, it makes sense.

The characters ring true.

Pirtle gives us a wide range of believable characters, all with strengths, weaknesses and flaws. I loved some of them, and detested others, but I reacted to each one. All their actions and reactions logically proceeded from their situations and personalities, with no unbelievable transformations. Richard Brockleman’s agonized family relationships add some surprising depth to the story. I suspected the femme fatale at first, but Pirtle’s iron-tight plot made her completely believable.

The only weak characterization was in the US military guys trying to destabilize Mexico in a bid to reform the US government. They were a little clichéd; exactly the same personalities played the same roles in a half-dozen other thrillers I’ve read in the past year. It’s too bad, because they’re the only place where Pirtle was not creative.

The author  gives us a satisfying closing.

Pirtle also avoids a facile story arc. St. Aubin’s struggles against drug cartels, traitors, cowards and ghosts, all of whom leave scars.. At no point do we know for sure who’s going to survive the next battle, and it’s never certain who’s going to win.

Pirtle doesn’t cut corners. The book has been produced professionally, meeting or exceeding the standards of commercial fiction. In fact, this book was much better than the commercially published stuff I have read lately.

4*

Visit Caleb Pirtle III's Venture Galleries for links to buy this and other books.

Ocean of Fear: A geeky thriller that I could not put down

Author Helen Hanson describes her writing as “thrillers for geeks”

There’s a certain geek factor in all thrillers. Many thriller authors write loving descriptions of cars, guns, bullets, bombs, or bullets. I have read several descriptions by different authors about how a bullet bounces around inside a skull and precisely what it does to a human brain.

But I actually enjoyed the geek factor in Ocean of Fear. Hanson made the geeky-technical aspects integral not only to the plot, but also to one of the main characters. 

What makes a good thriller?

To make a thrill, an author needs to build tension. The readers have to care enough about the characters and believe the situation enough to say “Oh no, don’t do that! You shouldn’t have done that!”

When the tension snaps, the author has to surprise you. It’s not a thrill when you know what’s going to happen

There are a lot of those moments in Ocean of Fear.

Plot points

Like any good thriller, Ocean of Fear begins with a murder. Baxter Cruise (character names are not this author’s strong suit), a grad-school dropout turned email spammer, discovers UC Santa Cruz professor, Dr. Allesandra Bisch, dead in her office. Baxter’s employer, Professor Sydney Mantis, had given Baxter a flash drive and asked him to give it personally to Dr. Bisch, as well as to look after his, Mantis’s dog while he suddenly had to leave town for a few days.

The mystery is not who killed Dr. Bisch — the author introduces the assassin in Chapter 2. The mystery is why, and the tension rises as the main investigator, FBI Special Agent Claudia Seagal, puts the pieces of the puzzle together, and as Baxter gets pulled deeper and deeper into the trap laid for Dr. Mantis. 

Hanson knows how to ramp up a story by taking it in unexpected directions. It turns out that the professors, Bisch and Mantis, were developing robotic submarines for drug dealers to use to smuggle their product into the US. Special Agent Seagal. This is the geek factor: Hanson tells us enough about robotics and remote control to make the story work, so that we understand that this story just could not happen without this technical detail. However, she never gives too much, never bores us with technical factoids that we don’t need. Every word is a plot point.

Engaging and critical backstories

Despite their unfortunate names, the characters have interesting backstories. Hanson is also skilled at not drowning the reader in long information dumps, but revealing details about Claudia’s deceased husband, Baxter’s dead parents, Mantis’s habit of seducing students, even the bad guys’ back stories as they’re needed. Readers begin to feel for the characters, to hope that their plans work out. The sibling rivalry between the two main baddies really rang true.

Two weaknesses

There are only two weaknesses with this story. First, there are the character names. The author shows us in Chapter 1 that “Dr. Bisch” is an intentional joke, but then there are all the animal names: Dr. Mantis, Agent Seagall. I don’t know if this was an intentional gag, but while there are some humorous moments in the book, it’s not overall a comedy. It’s a thriller that takes engaging, believable characters on an exhilarating ride to an explosive and satisfying conclusion.

The other weakness was the cover. It’s professionally done, but maybe a little too clichéd. It gave away too much of the story, instead of making me want to open the book.

But those are minor flaws. In the end, Ocean of Fear is a good, satisfying read from a skilled author.

4 *.

Visit Helen Hanson's website and blog and learn about her books.

BLOG ANNOUNCEMENT: Fantasy Novel Extravaganza!

Starting February 1 through 8, Fantastical Reads is hosting their first Facebook event. Games will give book lovers chances to win an array of prizes. 

Join the fun all week on Fantastical Read's Facebook Event page.  


And visit their blog for a chance to win the paperback of Tolomay’s World and the Pool of Light by M.E. Lorde and The Hunt for Xanadu by Elyse Salpeter through a Goodreads Giveaway

Fantastical Reads— only the best reads and reviews!

Book launch: Binder

David Vinjamuri, fellow member of Best-Selling Reads and a columnist with Forbes magazine, has released his second novel, Binder.

What's it about? 

In the mountains of West Virginia, hooded men ambush and beat a group of environmental protestors. An Army colonel’s daughter goes missing, and ex-operator Michael Herne travels to West Virginia to find her.  But the girl wasn’t with the protestors and as Herne tracks her he encounters cults, communes and supremacists on the path to unraveling a deadly conspiracy. 

Binder is the sequel to the best-selling thriller, Operator.

Advance praise

"A terrific, fast-paced read.  It’s not just technically accurate but really gets into the mindset of the Tier 1 operator." 

– Master Sergeant Rodney Cox,  Instructor, SWCS (U.S. Army John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School at Fort Bragg, NC)

After a brief stint as an intelligence analyst, David spent nearly 20 years working with corporate brands. He writes for Forbes, teaches at New York University and loves reading and the outdoors. He is an active member in Best-Selling Reads, as well.

Check out his book on Amazon.

The Ninth District: the way thrillers should be written

An independent novel review

I like it when an author sets his book in his home town, especially when it’s a place that doesn’t normally get mentioned in much mass media. The depth of knowledge comes through in the detail and that makes the story that much more realistic. For me, even nicer that it’s a place I visited a number of times, and where the geography is similar to the place where I grew up.

But that’s not the important reason that I liked Doug Dorow’s The Ninth District. It’s a terrific book, a thriller with a unique story and believable characters.

The story:

Minneapollis is the Ninth District of the Federal Reserve, where the US prints its currency; the Federal Reserve has a big, very secure building in that city. No Federal Reserve has ever been robbed, so it must present a huge temptation to robbers — and to writers of heist thrillers.

Dorow succumbed to the temptation and crafted this excellent yarn. It has all the elements required for a heist story: a good plan, cliff-hanging suspense and lots of detail about methods, setting, skills and contingencies. Dorow has clearly done his homework.

He also presents a number of excellent plot twists, particularly in the way the villain anticipates the hero’s action. The book opens with the hero, Jack Miller, watching a security video that shows a bank robber murdering a pregnant woman unnecessarily. The murder and several minor bank robberies are all part of the villain’s (whom the cops have dubbed “the Governor” for his habit of wearing a face mask of a former governor of Minnesota) plan.

Strong characters

The hero is FBI agent Jack Miller. He’s a sympathetic character. Separated from his wife and child and trying to work on reuniting, he’s also working through the transition from the young hotshot FBI agent to the veteran teaching the new guy the ropes.

Far too often, new thriller authors make their heroes way too heroic: the genius sharpshooter who’s also a martial arts master, speaks ten languages and is irresistibly handsome.

Jack Miller is flawed, fallible and far easier to identify with — and that makes him much more interesting as a character, too. Sure, he’s smart, he knows how to investigate cases, but he also reacts to threats against himself and his family in believable ways.

The protégé, Agent Ross, is also believable. He’s young, smart and eager for action — a little too eager, sometimes, and his mistakes get him badly hurt.

Jack’s wife, Julie, is well presented, as well. I wish, though, that she was a somewhat larger part of the story.

The villain, the Governor, is smart and ruthless, killing innocent women as part of his plan to throw the cops off his planned heist. However, Dorow has possibly tried too hard to make the villain appear mysterious and threatening. I would have liked to see a little more detail about him, his background and his underlying personality.

Smooth, competent style

Dorow is a professional writer of fiction and has earned all those good reviews. He knows how to bring out the characters through words and actions – showing, not telling. He know how to provide lots of detail about the city, the environment and police procedures without bogging the story down – I couldn’t stop turning pages (or swiping my finger across the screen of my iPad).

There’s lots of action and suspense in The Ninth District, and you want the good guys to succeed in not just the case, but their personal quests, as well.

If you like thrillers, download The Ninth District right now.

4*

The Ninth District on Amazon

Doug Dorow's Thriller Author website

New independent novel: Deadly Storm — an excerpt

Independent author Kenneth Hoss does a lot to promote independent authors. His website features independent bloggers, interviews with authors, excerpts of work by independent writers, spotlight features — when does he find time to write his own books?
But he does. Deadly Storm, his third detective thriller featuring Kelli Storm launched  launched July 1 — a fitting day in a stormy summer!

What's it about?

Detective Kelli Storm and her partner, Eric Ryder, are called to the scene of an apparent suicide only to discover that the victim was a Russian hit man and Kelli was to be his next target.

The trail from the body leads the two Detectives to the underbelly of Brighton Beach, and the Russian Brotherhood that rule there. During the course of their investigation, Kelli discovers a link between them and a powerful Colombian Cartel, the same Cartel she thought had been shut down with the death of its leader.

When the FBI and DEA take an interest in the case, they forge a plan to break up the international drug ring. As they delve deeper, the Cartel and Brotherhood become bolder and they both want Kelli dead. To make matters worse, after an ill-conceived tryst, it’s all she can do to keep her professional and personal lives separate. 

Of course, you want more. 

An excerpt:

Chapter 1:
Monday February 6^th – 8:48 A.M. – Washington Heights
Highbridge Park

As Detective Kelli Storm approached the yellow crime tape, the fresh snow crunching under her shoes, she waved at her partner, Eric Ryder, and wondered how he had managed to beat her to the scene. She ducked under the tape, surveyed the area and walked over to him.

The park was covered in a white blanket of pristine snow, undisturbed except for the ground at her feet, where several sets of footprints led up to and away from the Cadillac CTS. She nodded and smiled at Eric, who was standing on the passenger side, and he smiled back. “I’ll take the driver’s side,” she said as she retrieved a pair of gloves from her pocket.

The victim was sitting behind the wheel, the back of his head blown out and a Ruger 9mm lying in the seat next to him. It had all the markings of a suicide, with one problem. Where there should have been blood spatter, there was a void. The passenger seat was clean except for a few stray drops along the inside edge. 

“Pretty messy in there,” Eric said as he bent down and looked inside. “Christ, is that brain matter on the headliner?” 

She leaned in to see what he was talking about and nodded. “Yeah, and it looks like some of his skull too,” she said and winced as she pulled on the second glove. “Come on, let’s get this over with.” 

She reached in and pulled the man’s coat back, found the inside pocket and pulled his wallet out. She stood back up, opened the wallet and removed the man’s driver’s license. 

“Alexi Polachev, Brighton Beach address. Wonder what he was doing up here in Washington Heights, besides getting a bullet through his brain.” 

Eric popped up on the passenger side, holding a small scrap of paper, an odd look on his face. “Uh, Kelli,” he said stretching his arm out across the roof. “Why would this guy have your name and address?” 

“What are you talking about?” She took the paper from him, looked at it and then looked at the corpse, shaking her head. “No idea. I’ve never seen this guy before today.” 

“That’s weird. This guy comes over here, kills himself and has your name and address on him. What the hell is going on, Kelli?” 

“Your guess is as good as mine. You saw the back of his head, right? Did you check the passenger seat or the back seat?” 

Eric shook his head, bent down and looked inside, then back at Kelli. “They’re clean."

“There should be blood spatter on the seats. Instead, we have voids. No, this guy had company.” 

“Crap, why didn’t I see that?” 

“Don’t worry about it. The question is, why was this guy looking for me and what did he want? Someone went to a lot of trouble to make this look like a suicide. He’s got my name and home address with him, and he’s found dead in Washington Heights. So what the fuck is going on?” 

“A hit maybe? You know, this guy could have been sent by anyone, even the Colombians. What do you think?” 

Kelli shrugged. “Right now it’s anyone’s guess. Could be the Russians, could be the Colombians. God knows I’ve pissed a lot of people off in the past few years. The question remains though, was he the target,” she said, pointing at the corpse, “or do I need to start looking over my shoulder again?” 

“Well, you know I’ve got your back, except that this time I’m going to shoot before I yell for the son of a bitch to drop his weapon.” 

“Yeah, and end up trading that beautiful wife for a prison cell. I don’t think so, Eric. Let’s just get back to the Squad and run this guy,” she said as she looked back down at the body. “At least his troubles are over.”

Kenneth Hoss was born at Carswell Air Force Base in Fort Worth, Texas and served a combined total of fourteen years on active duty  to 1987 in  the US Army and US Navy. His tour in the Army took him to Frankfurt, Germany where he had the opportunity to travel Europe. While in the Navy, Kenneth spent most of his time stationed in San Diego and Long Beach. His Navy travels took him to Hawaii, Guam, The Philippines, South Korea, Japan, Hong Kong, Okinawa, the Middle East and Pakistan. He has lived in several states, including South Carolina, Florida, Georgia, Washington and California.

Storm Rising - A Kelli Storm novel is a police procedural and is the first book in a three-book series. Book two in the series, Storm Warning, is now available on Amazon. Deadly Storm, is book three.


You can find Deadly Storm on Amazon in the US and UK, in both paperback and electronic versions.

You can find Ken on the Independent Authors Network: http://www.independentauthornetwork.com/kenneth-hoss.html

Check out Ken's blog and his work, too.  And send him a tweet to @Kennhoss!

On the Collateral Damage blog tour

Collateral Damage is the third thriller in the best-selling Annie Ogden series by Frederick Lee Brooke, fellow member of the BestSelling Reads group. I'm proud to participate in the blog tour launching this exciting title.
How good is Fred Brooke's Annie Ogden series? You could read my review of the first book in the series, the gripping and hilarious Doing Max Vinyl. You could follow the blog tour, starting with Chapter 1 on Shannon Mayer's blog, continuing with the Chapter 2 excerpt below, and then follow the tour according to the schedule, at the bottom of this page.

Or the best way: buy the books!What's Collateral Damage about?

A love story.

When Annie Ogden’s ex-boyfriend Michael Garcia reappears, she has to confront a lie dating back to her time in Iraq. Will she go back to hot, passionate Michael, who has developed a disturbing interest in meth, or will she stick with her pudgy PI partner and fiancé, Salvatore?

A murder.

The calculus changes when Michael is arrested for murder. When Salvatore refuses to help investigate, Annie is forced to try to find the killer herself. Meanwhile her sister’s creepy husband, Todd, is making more of an ass of himself than usual.

An obsession.

Annie's problems with three obsessive men suddenly pale in significance when she realizes the killer has set his sights on her. 

Follow the blog tour every day, and leave a comment on each participating blog to win a $25 Amazon gift card AND a free signed paperback copy of any of Fred Brooke's books.

Now, get into it with this excerpt from

Chapter 2—Annie

I worked it up to a sprint for the last five blocks, rising onto the balls of my feet. Various people with toddlers and old people with canes moved aside. My attacker was watching. He could have ditched the mask. I wouldn’t even know which man he was. He knew where I lived, who I was.

I opened the door with the brass nameplate engraved with D’Angelo/Ogden. Salvatore had affixed the nameplate within three weeks of my moving in. At first, it bothered me. Was I some kind of territorial prize for him to mark on his door? Alison said I should be happy it was my own name. People wrote Mrs. John Ogden on letters to my mother. My mother left her last name and her first name at the altar.

Coffee perfumed the kitchen. I peeled off my training jacket, looking for signs of my man, but the only sound was the clicking of the steam radiators. I saw the bedroom door standing ajar at the angle I’d left it. Salvatore cherished his morning sleep.

I brought my mug in the bathroom and cranked the shower. How many times in Iraq, all I wished for was a shower. We’d be out on patrol somewhere, all night and then into the morning. We’d set up and wait all day for nightfall. You’d watch and wait for hours at a time. At a certain point, you started to itch. You’d be thinking a shower would feel pretty good about now.

I could make a list of the things I will never again in my life take for granted. Showers would definitely be on the list. Maybe not at the top of the list.

Salvatore stood there in boxers when I came out of the shower, all cheerful and hangdog at the same time, blocking my way to the towel. Normally I hang it on the peg by the shower door, but with the events of this morning, I’d forgotten. I stood there offering a full frontal, dripping clean.

“Happy anniversary,” I said.

“Don’t bother getting dressed.” Salvatore handed me the towel, showing the dimples under his three-day beard.

“Listen, I really can’t right now.”

“Okay. I was just thinking.”

“I was attacked.”

“No way.”

That got his attention.

Dressed in my towel, sitting on the bed, I described the Romney mask, the heavy arm, and my aggressive response. Salvatore is a former cop. He was on the Oak Park force for seven years, and he’s been a private investigator since he quit. He wanted to know details, as if we were going to go after my attacker.

“What about the shoes? Did you notice the color? The brand?”

“No.”

“Think, Annie. Close your eyes. Picture him in your mind.”

I did what he said. I saw the dude backing away after I kicked him. I saw him taunting me as I prayed for the bus to send him to kingdom come.

“I didn’t focus on the shoes. Some dark color, like gray. Not white or orange or anything.”

“Did you recognize the voice?”

I shook my head. He was trying to put together enough detail for a police report. He asked about rings, tattoos, scars, or piercings. He didn’t lose patience at my negative answers. He didn’t, but I did.

“It happened too fast. I just reacted. He hit me, I hit harder. I think I got him in the nose. You know, through the mask.

“So we’re looking for a guy with a broken nose?” We sat on the edge of the bed. Salvatore’s hands provided bookends to my face. He looked into my eyes. “How’s Annie Ogden, after this? Ready to take on the world?”

“It makes me furious,” I said.

“I can imagine.”

“No you can’t. You always say that, but you really can’t imagine what it’s like to be a woman and be attacked. To be stared at just because you have blond hair. You can’t imagine what it’s like to wonder if every stranger would be a rapist if you gave him the chance.”

“I’ve got no hair.”

“You know what I mean.”

He wanted to joke around. I can’t stand it when people are always cheerful. I put on my clothes while Salvatore took his shower. Later we had another cup of coffee in the kitchen.

“I’ve got something for you,” he said.

We sat at the kitchen table, and I picked up the little box. It looked like jewelry. The kind of jewelry spelled R-I-N-G. Not on the day when I am attacked, I thought. I wanted to postpone our half-anniversary. I wanted to postpone this box.

He was asking me to marry him. When you decide to marry someone, you go a long way toward defining the principal arc of your life with that one decision. With that one word. Fine, I thought, but I was attacked. When are we going to talk about that? How could I think about getting married when I had adrenaline gushing out of my eyes? How could he not see that?

I lifted the lid. In a pretty velvet holder nestled the biggest diamond I’d ever seen, the kind a movie star would wear. I turned the ring over and over in my fingers, admiring the sparkle. I felt its weight. It brought back the memories of another ring, another place and time, and the last time I was asked. It’s eerie how the past trails you into the present, silent and unseen, like a stalker. The stalker takes his time, he’s got all the time in the world, but one day, I thought, he’ll pull the trigger on me. I repressed that thought, those memories. Salvatore deserved better.

Salvatore slid the ring on my finger. He waited till I looked up.

“I love you, Annie. I’m ready.”

I kissed him. “Me too. Just not the same day I’m attacked.”

Win a $25 Amazon gift card AND a signed paperback edition of any book by Frederick Lee Brooke!

To win, all you have to do is visit every blog on the 26-day Collateral Damage Excerpt Tour and leave a comment showing that you read the excerpt. That’s it! See the blog list and join the tour ...

 

Monday, June 24: Chapter 1 on  Shannon Mayer's News Blog

Tuesday, June 25: Chapter 2 on Scott Bury's Written Words 

Wednesday, June 26: Chapter 3 on Raine Thomas's Write as Rain

Thursday, June 27: Chapter 4 on Emily Walker's Self Publish or Die!

Friday, June 28: Chapter 5 on Simon Jenner's Escaping Life by Writing Action Thrillers

Saturday, June 29: Chapter 6 on Amberr Meadows' Amber Is Me blog

Sunday, June 30: Chapter 7 on Anne Chaconas' blog

Monday, July 1: Chapter 8 on the BestsellingReads blog

Tuesday, July 2: Chapter 9 on Tyler-Rose Neath's The Reading Pile

Wednesday, July 3: Chapter 10 on Naomi Leadbeater Naimeless blog

Thursday, July 4: Chapter 11 on Mohana Rajakumar MohaDoha blog

Friday, July 5: Chapter 12 on Helen Hanson's blog

Saturday, July 6: Chapter 13 on Marilou George's Confessions of a Reader

Sunday, July 7: Chapter 14 on  J.C. Martin's blog

Monday, July 8: Chapter 15 on Corinne O’Flynn's blog

Tuesday, July 9: Chapter 16 on Tawdra Kandle's blog

Wednesday, July 10: Chapter 17 on Martha Bourke's blog

Thursday, July 11: Chapter 18 on Connie M. Chyle's blog

Friday, July 12: Chapter 19 on Cyndi's Reduce Footprints blog

Saturday, July 13: Chapter 20 on Kenneth Hoss's blog

Sunday, July 14: Chapter 21 on Andrea Kurian's Mommy Adventures with Ravina

Monday, July 15: Chapter 22 on Andy Holloman's blog

Tuesday, July 16: Chapter 23 on Marilyn Diekman's blog

Wednesday, July 17: Chapter 24 on Christine Nolfi blog

Thursday, July 18: Chapter 25 on Patricia Sands blog

Friday, July 19: return back home to author Fred Brooke's blog for Chapter 26

 

Frederick Lee Brooke is the author of the widely-acclaimed Annie Ogden mystery series, which includes DoingMax Vinyl, Zombie Candy, and Collateral Damage. The books do not have to be read in order.

Having lived in Switzerland for the past two decades, Brooke has taught English, run a business and learned French, German and Italian. You can find him online at www.FrederickLeeBrooke.com. Sign up for his newsletter and read all about his travels, recipes, and upcoming works!

Doing Max Vinyl: An independent book review

A fun thriller

Some books are just plain fun to read — like Frederick Lee Brooke’s Doing Max Vinyl.

This is a book that succeeds on several levels. First, it’s a perfectly crafted crime-thriller with a believable, sympathetic protagonist in Annie Ogden and a watertight plot. Second, all the characters are drawn from real life. Third, the writing is flawless, the style smooth and professional. And it’s full of observational humour. The laughs come from recognition — you know people like this, you’ve heard people say these things and you can easily picture them in the situations that Fred Brooke creates.

The plot

Max Vinyl is the owner of Tri-State Recylcing (TSR) in Chicago; on the day that he sells 20 percent of his company to Korean investors, his general manager fires the receptionist for spying on the company. The trouble is, the receptionist, Tris, is also Max’s girlfriend.

Tris, it turns out, is a “tree-hugger” according to the general manager, Manny Rodriguez. Manny had caught Tris snooping through some sensitive files and suspected she was going to blow the whistle on TSR’s less-than-environmentally friendly activities.

Those questionable practices? TSR recycles computers and other electronics. The law requires that companies dispose of their obsolete electronic equipment in such a way that harmful chemicals do not leak into soil, water or air. As a result, businesses pay recycling companies to dispose of their old computers, monitors, printers and other equipment properly. TSR charges to haul away the old equipment, then makes more money by reselling the best items. Any that it cannot sell, it disassembles, recycles, reuses or disposes of in an environmentally responsible manner.



Waste electronics represent two percent of the USA’s trash in landfills,
but 70 percent of overall toxic waste, according to e-waste workshop.
Image: Creative Commons.

 That’s what it tells the world on its website. What it really does, though, is pick the best, most sellable items from its incoming stream of used equipment — truckloads every day — and sell them through its website. TSR then dups eight to ten dumpsters into Lake Michigan every night.

Max has hired a number of ex-cons for the heavy work. Two in particular pilot the barge and dump the trash: Ike and Tranny. These two have the funniest antics in the book, especially the way that Tranny will say the opposite of what he means, then insist that’s not what he said.

“I get tired of always having to come up with the ideas, and you just say no to everything. How about you try saying no for a change and I get to have some ideas?”

“You mean I should come up with the ideas, and you can get to say no?”

“That’s what I said, stupid. Don’t try and turn things around that I say. I don’t go correcting you all the time.”

Every plot has to have a coincidence, or there’s no story. The skilled writer makes the coincidence seem unavoidable.

In Doing Max Vinyl, four very believable events occur on the same day:

• Max and the Korean investors agree to the $3 million sale

• Manny fires Max’s snoopy, tree-hugging ex-girlfriend

• a new laptop with very sensitive personal information accidentally enters TSR’s stream of trash

• and Ike and Tranny lose a global positioning system (GPS) device that shows them where to steer the barge and dump the garbage.

A waitress, Alison Ogden, find the GPS and takes it home because she thinks it’s a phone and her boyfriend collects old cell phones. When the boyfriend, Todd, tells her it’s not a phone, Alison gives it to her sister, Annie, who has just finished three combat tours in Iraq. Ike and Tranny track down Alison, break into her apartment and when they cannot find the GPS, take all of Todd’s 100-plus cell phones instead.

At this point, combat-trained Annie takes the fight to the bad guys to protect her sister. She infiltrates TSR and discovers its rotten foundation.

The characters

I could immediately picture Max Vinyl, the kind of sleazeball who convinces himself he’s a good guy while he’s cheating you, his wife, his employees, his business partners, the government and society at large. He overcharges his customers with rigged weigh-scales on his trucks, then dumps tonnes of garbage into the lake. He proudly proclaims he pays 25 percent above minimum wage. He’s chronically late on alimony payments and then pays his arrears with a cheque that bounces. Customers who have problems with items purchased off the website have to pay 90 cents a minute for telephone support. No wonder I laughed aloud when he falls face-first into a 10-dozen bouquet of roses after his ex-girlfriend pepper-sprays him.

Ike and Tranny kept me laughing, too, especially when Ike has to walk around with a table leg dangling from his forehead. The funniest part: he likes it!

Probably the most sensitively drawn character is Bob Olson, a square but straightforward good guy forced to bend his own moral code.

Brooke personifies the environment and Lake Michigan, too, in an original way that also evokes his humour. Bravo!

And Annie Ogden is precisely what I had hoped for in a female action hero. A former schoolteacher, she enlists in the Army and serves three tours in Iraq. She comes home with a new, confident attitude, a disdain for conventionality and a lot of fighting and survival skills. She’s small and fit, but not as young as she used to be. Brooke portrays her as very attractive, even beautiful in a diminutive way, but doesn’t take the beauty over the top like too many authors of female action heros. Conscious that she’s older than she used to be, she’s worried about the size of her butt — like every woman in the western world. When she takes on the bad guys, it’s absolutely believable.

The writing

Brooke is a pro. His skill with writing bears out his experience as an English teacher. The plot is airtight, the characters are likeable or hateable and recognizable. The style is spare and easy to read. I caught a few typos, but no more than I typically find in a commercially published book).

I found only two structural flaws:

• Two of the main characters, the catalysts of the action, Annie and Tris, never meet. While this makes sense in the context of this novel, I am sure that some putative expert will shake a figurative finger over this, calling it a major plot hole. It’s not.

• Somehow, the banner hanging over the work area at TSR that reads “MINIMUM WAGE PLUS 25% — TSR POLICY” gets replaced with the wording “Tris. TRS. Without.I.” Brooke never explains who did this (Tris, presumably), nor how. (Unless I missed it. If so, my apologies, Fred!)

The verdict

Doing Max Vinyl is a hoot, as well as a finely crafted thriller and a portrait of some real characters. I fully recommend this book!

5*

Visit Frederick Lee Brooke's website.

Check out Doing Max Vinyl on Amazon.

Minimalism and action: Best-seller Seb Kirby on writing style

As soon as I started reading Seb Kirby’s Double Bind, I thought: “Yes! Here is a writer who knows how to waste no time, nor words in getting to the action.” Double Bind grabs you immediately and whips you along.

Seb's style seems to blend genres seamlessly. I wondered, "How does he do that so easily?" So naturally, I subjected the author to my interview on his writing style.

How would you describe your own writing style?

I like to write short chapters, short paragraphs, short sentences. I agree with Louise Brooks that “writing is 1 percent inspiration, and 99 percent elimination.” and with Alfred Hitchcock that “drama is life with the dull bits cut out.” I also like Blaise Pascal’s comment: “I have made this letter longer, because I have not had the time to make it shorter.” I spend a great deal of time editing (which Stephen King calls “polishing”) what I've written in order to try to live up to these views.

Are there any authors whose style you admire? Do you try to emulate them?

I discovered Ray Bradbury when a teenager. I appreciated his writing then for its strength in storytelling. I admire it now for its minimalism. This arises, I think, from the fact that Ray Bradbury wrote short stories. (Even novels like Dandelion Wine or The Martian Chronicles read like collections of short stories with a common narrative.) Then, the writing needs to be expressive but succinct. I try to write like that.

I also admire thriller writers Harlan Coben and Robert Harris. Both have a talent for creating a vivid sense of place without detracting from the plot flow that is so essential to a good thriller.

Are there authors whose writing style you dislike?

Well, I think that writing style is a very personal thing and that every author will have their own take on this. There's no right or wrong way. As W. Somerset Maugham said: “There are three rules for writing a novel. Unfortunately, no-one knows what they are.” So, I end up liking Ray Bradbury's style but I wouldn't want to dislike any writing on the basis of a style different to that. The only recent read in which I found it difficult to stick to this long held view was Cormac McCarthy's The Road, which I found stylistically annoying. But then it went on to win a Pulitzer and get turned into a successful movie, so it's clear that one person's style hate is another person's literary classic in the making.

How important is your writing style to you? Are you happy with your style, or are there aspects of it you try to change during rewriting or editing?

I'd say my writing style is still evolving. I try to set myself a formal challenge in each new story. This can be a simple thing, like “Write the whole book without using any ‘said’ attributions in the reported speech.” Or it can be something more complex, as in my second thriller, Double Bind where I set myself the challenge of writing as much of it as possible in the first person present tense. Either way, I hope that this keeps my writing fresh.

Overall, I'm a keen follower of Stephen King’s approach as set out in his On Writing. In terms of writing style, there are two of his comments that I take seriously. The first: “The road to hell is paved with adverbs.” So, where at all possible I don't use them. The second: “Any word you have to hunt for in a thesaurus is the wrong word. There are no exceptions to this rule.” I never use a dictionary or a thesaurus.

How can readers identify your writing style? Are there particular words or kinds of words that you tend to favour? Sentence structures? Or is it more in the story, the pacing or the characters?

My writing style is, then, I think, readily recognised by readers. It is often commented on in their reviews. About ten percent deduce that this writing style is poor and not for them. But a majority seem to get what I'm aiming at and say that the pace and tension of the thriller is enhanced and that enough space is allowed for the reader to make up their own mind, for example about the appearance and mannerisms of the characters. That's what makes a minimalist approach like this worthwhile.

Do you think your genre imposes certain restrictions on writing style?

There are bound to be restrictions involved in writing thrillers. After all, the main aim is to entertain and, if you're lucky, thrill. But that's good discipline. It restricts the temptation for the author to intervene too much.

Do you think your audience responds to your writing style, consciously or unconsciously?

This is a very good question that I don't know the answer to. Maybe it's something that writers don't give enough attention. Certainly it's not something that there's much room for in the writing process where the story takes on a life of its own. For a thriller writer, the issue most often becomes: “Can I really do that and make it seem consistent and believable in the context of the whole story?”

How important do you think writing style is to an author's commercial success?

Yes, it's important. To be clear, easily understandable and inspiring are worthy aims of any writer and the means with which you try to achieve this has a real influence on how successful you might be in achieving those aims. Most would say that there is a great deal of serendipity and hard work involved in whether this translates into commercial success or not. But without it, that success is much less likely.

Seb Kirby's debut novel, Take No More, has been widely acclaimed as a first-rate mystery thriller. Drawing from his love of classic books from H G Wells to Charles Dickens, he has mastered the art of storytelling. His second novel, Double Bind, is a psychological sci-fi thriller filled with twists and turns, a hallmark of Kirby's gripping imagination. A sequel to Take No More will be available in early 2013.

Find Take No More on Amazon.
Find Double Bind on Amazon.

Independent book review: Russell Blake’s Jet

If you haven’t yet heard of the force of literature named Russell Blake, crawl out from under that rock and check out his website, blog and pages on Smashwords, Barnes and Noble, Kobo, Amazon and the other usual e-book sellers. It’s time to be brought up to speed.

Blake writes a new novel every couple of months. Notice I didn’t write “churns out”; his pace is amazing, but every work is inspired and professional. He’s not a hack, not a wannabe; he’s the real thing, living the writer’s life somewhere in Mexico.

For his current series, Jet, Russell Blake wanted to create a female James Bond-like character. His heroine, Jet, is highly trained in all the military skills; she's lethal, unstoppable and never makes a mistake. I found myself asking: do people like that really exist? But I almost immediately answered: who cares? Jet is not a deep analysis of the human condition — although there are philosophical aspects to this work. But essentially, Jet is a thrill ride as only Suspense Writer Russell Blake can do it.

Jet has all the elements readers can expect from Russell Blake: it's captivating from the first page, there's action all the way through and the pace never slows down. Bullets fly, bombs explode, Jet kicks high in a tight black leather jumpsuit. I kept imagining Milla Jovovich with long hair, even though I've never seen a Resident Evil movie.

Blake seems to know his way around some exotic locales: Trinidad, Belize, Venezuela, even Tel Aviv and Algiers.

Blake's writing chops are well evident: constant action, a good pace, and lots of details about weapons and tactics that action fans love. I had never heard of SIG guns before reading Jet. The plot is gripping, complex and complete — no plot holes or bizarre coincidences that are hallmarks of writers less skilled than Russell Blake.

Sometimes, it felt like he was showing off with his command of the language. He starts by breaking Elmore Leonard's rule — he opens with weather. It takes some skill to pull that off and keep readers reading.
At other times, it reads like Eddie Van Halen's guitar writing: fast, thrilling, but really, Russell, do you have to show off this much? Take this:

The fountain in the middle of the square, thick calcium deposits crusting the pitted centerpiece, hosted a squabble of sparrows intent on bathing in the rainwater accumulated in its base. Drawn by their raucous chirping, he slowed to watch them enjoy their brief reprieve from the oppressive heat.

Or

A pair of flying fish catapulted out of the water off the bow, keeping pace as they surfed the glistening spindrift that danced above the waves, to the steady accompanying throb of the boat's motor.

But it's almost flawless. Really, I found seven typos in the whole book. Yes, I counted.

Story:

Jet, the first book in the series, starts with Carnival in Trinidad. Maya owns a small Internet café, which seems like something hard to make a profit with in a third-world country. She's attacked by professional killers, fights back, killing the whole team, or at least all but one. She then flees the country, which sets her on a course back to her past and to figure out who's trying to kill her, and why they're going to such lengths to do it.

We quickly learn that Maya was actually an Israeli super-agent code-named Jet, part of a super-secret, super-skilled and super-effective team with similar hotshot code names like Rain, Fire, Tiger and Lightning. Some time before the action of the book starts, she had faked her own death to get out of the whole assassin trade. She wanted a quieter life, and tried to create one in a tropical backwater.

Of course, life doesn't let her settle down. It turns out that one of her targets as a Mossad assassin had a brother, a Russian multi-billionaire oil tycoon and all-round bad guy. He wants revenge and has hired a top team of assassins to kill Jet. They track her down through the only person who knows that Jet's death was phoney: her old boss and lover, David.

Apart from Jet, all the characters are three-dimensional and believable. My favourite was Dr. Rani Stein, the obese general practitioner — heart of gold, deeply flawed, terrified yet brave. I felt like I knew him, or someone very much like him.

Jet, though, is a different story. She's almost perfect, apart from her aloofness and lack of compassion for just about anyone. I guess if you want to be an unstoppable assassin, you have to be a complete bitch.

To me, Jet was not a believable character: she's too fast, too accurate a shot, too smart ... I mean, how does a single unarmed person kill six professional assassins in a matter of minutes? How can one person be so supremely good at not just planning but also executing an operation where two people eliminate a score of adversaries on their own turf? But then, no super-spy characters are believable. James Bond certainly isn't, no matter how hard actors try to make him so.

And that's not the point of this novel. Jet is a series for lovers of kick-ass action, and Jet delivers a boatload of kickass. No, she's not invulnerable: she has a couple of weak spots, which almost undo her before the book ends. So, while Jet is not believable, she is fallible; the reader can identify with her at a few places in the plot — mind you, for me, it's not when she's killing a gunman with one of those pointed receipt-holders you see on a store counter.

So, I'll give this book four stars for its airtight plot, flawless expression, non-stop action and solid characterization; I take one away because I just cannot believe in these superhuman killing machines. They make great movies, but are less satisfying on the printed page.

Once again, Russell Blake proves that the independent author can, and does, deliver a good read.