Guest Post: “The Beretta 9mm” by J.B. Turner

May 1, 2014 Civilian Reader Guest Post Exhibit A

Here’s the thing.

If you’ve read an American thriller, there’s a fair chance the protagonist will use a gun. There’s no way to sugarcoat that. Read any James Lee Burke and you’ll see either Dave Robicheaux or Clete Purcell pressing a gun to some bad guy’s head in the swamps of south Louisiana. Same with the great Richard Stark’s ‘Parker’ character in The Hunter, which became a film with Lee Marvin or later, Mel Gibson’s Payback.

Guns, some people think, go to the heart of what it means to be an American. It’s even written into the constitution, the right to bear arms.

My protagonist in the conspiracy thriller Hard Road Jon Reznick, an ex-Special Forces operative, is assigned a Beretta 9mm semi-automatic pistol – amongst a host of other gadgets and hardware including electronic jamming equipment – to carry out an assassination of a government scientist.

So what’s the thing with the Beretta – an Italian gun manufacturer – becoming among the most popular guns in America?

Beretta use a Teflon-based pain finish, referred to as Bruniton. Whilst blueing or Parkerizing is only a surface-modification on other pistols, Bruniton, by contrast, is a coating. The end result is a finished pistol which is ‘flat-black’ with little glare. The pistol coating is also very durable.

But aesthetics didn’t make its name in recent years. So what did?

The Beretta 9mm, the M9, was adopted by the American military in 1985. It won a competition to select the primary sidearm of the U.S. military. It was selected over the Sig Sauer P226 which later become the “issue pistol” of the Navy SEALs after a series of exhaustive tested using a battery of sand, mud, salt spray, rust, ice and drop testing.

But there were a handful of incidents of slide fractures. This caused the rear of the slid to separate from the pistol on recoil, injuring military personnel.

This prompted a redesign to stop such failures.

However, the Beretta has now been a staple of the American military for more than 20 years, aligning them with their NATO allies who use the gun. Combined with the “relative ease” of normal field stripped, and it’s easy to see what makes it such a hugely popular gun.

The US Army and US Air Force even have a General Officer’s Model, which began being issued in 1986. The serial numbers for this model of the Beretta M9 – Semi-automatic Pistol start with ‘G’ and comes with a gold metal belt buckle for Army generals and a silver metal belt buckle for Air Force generals.

But despite everything, it is not universally loved in the US military.

It is heavy, compared to the Glock 17, which is 10 ounces lighter due to a plastic frame. It also doesn’t have the stopping power of a .45. Some want a ‘one-shot-stop-knock-down-hand-cannon’. However, other say that proficiency with the weapon and in particular, shot placement are crucial, not the caliber of the weapon. Other critics say there are problems with lubrication, parts breakages and the use of sub-contracted non-Beretta magazines to save money. It is said that there is a sub-standard interior finish and poor springs, and therefore not as reliable.

Nevertheless, Beretta USA revealed in late-2011 that the U.S. Army’s Foreign Military Sales program purchased an additional 15,000 9mm Bistols for the Afghan military and other U.S. allies. And in 2012, Beretta USA revealed that the the U.S. Army had bought 100,000 M9 pistols and would “remain their sidearms for the next five years.”

The Beretta 9mm is here to stay, whether you like it or not… just like Jon Reznick.

***

J.B. Turner’s Hard Road was published by Exhibit A Books in August 2013. The sequel, Hard Kill, is due out in July 2014.

An Interview with MATTEO STRUKUL

February 17, 2014 Civilian Reader Interview Ballad of Mila, English Language Debut, Exhibit A, Italy, Mafia, Matteo Strukul, Mila Zago Series, Revenge Thriller, Thriller, Vendettas

Italian author Matteo Strukul stops by to talk about his first novel in English, The Ballad of Mila, his broad and varied influences, his inspirational home country, why Chuck Wendig is a “badass wizard”, and much more…

Let’s start with an introduction: Who is Matteo Strukul?

First of all, thank you so much Stefan for this opportunity to talk about my work. Well, about myself… I’m a man who loves life and rock ’n’ roll music (The Black Crowes, Rival Sons, Buckcherry and all the old stuff like Led Zep or Skynyrd). I adore American pulp-crime fiction authors (Jim Thompson, James Crumley, Joe R. Lansdale, among others), but at the same time I read so many European authors and literature (Friedrich Schiller, Wolfgang Goethe, Robert Louis Stevenson, Emilio Salgari), I love Italian red wine like Raboso or Grinton and I love my land that is Veneto in the Northeast of Italy. I’m so lucky to grow up in this area in towns like Padova, Venezia, Verona – so full of arts and beauty, I must confess that it’s an amazing place and for that reason I love to write about my land in my novels.

Your novel, The Ballad of Mila, is due to be published in March by Exhibit A. How would you introduce the novel to a new reader? Is it part of a series?

Yes it is, it’s the first novel in an on-going series, Exhibit A has already bought English rights of the second one, and I’m writing the third exactly NOW. Well, The Ballad of Mila is a kind of “Revenge Movie”: it’s a story about vengeance and blood and you have this amazing woman with long red dreadlocks who is able to face and defeat every kind of man because she was a victim, and now she is a predator and a merciless one. But you have also the Chinese mafia, the Venetian territory, you have non-stop action and torment and rage and hatred and, in the middle of a battle between two different gangs – like in Sergio Leone’s For a Fistful of Dollars – you have Mila, a woman who is also damaged goods and who can’t accept herself for what she became. So Mila is a killer, but at the same time she is broken, in some way she’s a kind of mixture between Luc Besson’s La Femme Nikita and Garth Ennis’s Punisher…

What inspired you to write the novel? And where do you draw your inspiration from in general?

From stories that I read during the years penned by authors like Victor Gischler, Allan Guthrie, Tim Willocks, Jason Starr, Adrian McKinty, Christa Faust, Duane Swierczynski, Massimo Carlotto, Giancarlo De Cataldo, Don Winslow, Anthony Neil Smith, David Peace, Charlie Huston, Dan Simmons, David Wellington, James Ellroy, Derek Raymond, Cathy Unsworth, Stuart O’nan, Kem Nunn, Cormac McCarthy, Henry Crews. Then, of course, I must mention TV shows like Sons of Anarchy, movie directors like Sam Peckimpah, Sergio Leone, Quentin Tarantino, Robert Rodriguez, Guy Ritchie, Joe Carnahan, among others, and I don’t wanna forget Videogames (Bloodrayne) and Comic books screenwriters like Alan Moore, Warren Ellis, Mark Millar, Garth Ennis, Jason Aaron, and Brian Azzarello.

How were you introduced to reading and genre fiction?

Well, since I was five years old I started reading, and now here we are. I remember that my Mom used to read to me epic poems like Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey. I loved those stories, about heroes and battles and fighting, so this was how everything started.

How do you enjoy being a writer and working within the publishing industry? Do you have any specific working, writing, researching practices?

Well I worked for some years as press agent for an Italian independent publisher: Meridiano Zero. I organized press campaigns for authors like David Peace, James Lee Burke, Derek Raymond and I met Victor Gischler in 2008 in Courmayeur at the Noir Festival, I was his press agent because Meridiano Zero published in that year Gun Monkeys in Italy. It was great and we had so much fun. So, of course this fact doesn’t mean that I was an author in those years but means, without any doubt, that I had a strong background.

Then I founded Sugarpulp, a literary movement focused on pulp-crime fiction and was and am line editor for a crime fiction imprint called Revolver that published authors like Allan Guthrie, Ray Banks, Brian McGilloway, Derek Nikitas among others. At the same time I work as author, my new book will be published by Mondadori in Italy next April and will be a Gaslight Mistery set in Padova and Venezia in 1888 AD. It’s a story about an alienist and a serial killer strongly influenced by Caleb Carr, ALan Moore and Dan Simmons stuff. About writing what can I say? I love my life as writer and editor and comic book screenwriter, you know, I’m free and do what I want. Like Jagger said, “Ha, Ha so I’m a lucky guy, probably the luckiest one in the entire world.” For my last book – The Gaslight Mistery that I mentioned before – well I researched so much because I needed to study the Venetian area of the 19th Century. It was a great challenge. For Mila’s novels, I don’t research so much, but I watch so many movies and TV shows, and I mixed all those things and sequences and feelings, and after that I have a new story. I don’t know how it works, but it’s impossible for me to do a synopsis and those kind of stuff, you know, especially because Mila needs to decide everything and I just have to listen to her and write. Ha Ha.

When did you realize you wanted to be an author, and what was your first foray into writing? Do you still look back on it fondly?

I realized that I wanted to be an author when I was a child. I remember that I wanted to be a rockstar or a pulp-crime writer. It was cool, I remember that I formed a rock ’n’ roll band with my brother. We played rock ’n’ roll stuff, gigs in coffee-bars or small clubs. But it was hard to earn money and fame, so I decided to write my own stories. I started with nonfiction and penned two nonfiction books about two Italian songwriters and I wrote for years as a rock ’n’ roll journalist. I interviewed cool guys like Black Crowes guitarist Marc Ford, Jethro Tull’s Ian Anderson, Zucchero, Dave Matthews, Ryan Bingham, Joss Stone, among others. But, if I must be honest the best interview that I ever done was with Willy De Ville. We spoke together for one hour, he was so cool and generous and he was an amazing and great person and a so talented artist and I remember that after some months or something like that he died. It was shocking and brutal, I remember I wrote a six-page article for a very important Italian rock magazine. It was sad and bitter, but at the end I was so happy to have done something for him, nothing so important but a kind of way to testify all my love for his music and art. In my opinion he was probably the most talented and wonderful singer of the last 30 years.

What’s your opinion of the genre today, and where do you see your work fitting into it?

Well, I love crime and pulp fiction and I think that a pulp-crime author would be able to be popular if will be able to offer amusement and amazing but low-cost stories. And literature, in my opinion, is real literature, if it could be popular and mass market distributed. Professors and Academics and Intellectuals are so boring and selfish and in fact they use literature like a weapon to divide and create differences between high culture and low culture, between upper and middle class and common people. Fuck them all! Man, it’s a shame. I want to be a honest pulp writer and create good and strong characters.

For example, recently I read Chuck Wendig’s Miriam Black’s three books series: Blackbirds, Mockingbirds and The Cormorant… well it was a real roller-coaster, I loved that series. Chuck is a wonderful author, and is able to mix pulp, horror, urban fantasy, crime fiction… He is a badass wizard. At the same time, I think that I wanna try to write some historical novel, especially a big story that I have in my mind about The Northern Crusades with kings, knights, witches, female warriors, wild tribes, castles, snow and tortures, I think could be a very interesting setting.

What other projects are you working on, and what do you have currently in the pipeline?

As I said, my new Gaslamp Mistery novel for Mondadori, I’m writing also the third Mila Zago novel and a double book story about Teutonic Knights, and I’m writing a graphic novel, drawn by an amazing Italian artist, Filippo Vanzo. I’m also writing the second ebook novella together with Marco Piva Dittrich for my on-going series about Skuld, a she-werewolf who’s fighting the Nazis during the WWII and I’m editing Tim Willocks’s The Twelve Children of Paris for an Italian publisher. I have many other projects in the pipeline, including comic-books and… movies… but I must keep my mouth closed and, much important, keep my fingers crossed.

What are you reading at the moment (fiction, non-fiction)?

I just finished reading David Wellington’s Frostbite, a werewolf tale: an amazing novel.

What’s something readers might be surprised to learn about you?

Probably that I love Ice Hockey, I’m a big fan of Asiago Hockey 1935, my favorite Italian team. Ice Hockey is quite popular in the North East of Italy. Maybe the reason why I love so much this sport is because when I was a child, I lived for two years in Canada: Vancouver, British Columbia. I remember when I watched Vancouver Canucks on TV with my father, so maybe that’s the reason why I love ice hockey so much. I am also a big Philadelphia Flyers and Montreal Canadiens fan. Ice hockey has an important role in Mila’s novels, ha ha. I’m not kidding…

What are you most looking forward to in the next twelve months?

Well, I’m very curious to see if Mila could break English and American readers’ hearts. I hope they would be so generous and kind to give Mila a chance. So thank you so much, Stefan, for what you have already done for her… and me.

Be sure to follow Matteo Strukul on Twitter, and check out his website for more information on his writing and projects. The Ballad of Mila is published by Exhibit A in March 2014 (UK & US). Here’s the synopsis:

Imagine Elmore Leonard behind the wheel of a car in Grand Theft Auto, as one Italian woman sets out to cut the mafia down to size – one limb at a time…

Two perfectly matched gangs are fighting for control of the north-east Italian region of Venetia. But a formidable young woman with vengeance on her mind has plans to upset the balance. Abandoned by her mother and violated by a gang of criminals just after they slaughtered her father, Mila Zago is a cold-blooded killer, a deadly assassin. Brought up by her grandfather on the Sette Comuni plateau under a rigid martial code, she returns home to seek her revenge, conspiring to create a spectacular showdown reminiscent of A Fistful of Dollars.

The Ballad of Mila is the first novel in an ongoing series focused on the formidable female Italian bounty hunter Mila Zago, a.k.a. Red Dread.

Guest Post: “Influences & Inspirations” by Robert Bailey

January 9, 2014 Civilian Reader Guest Post Angry Robot Books, Exhibit A, Influences and Inspirations, John Grisham, John Steinbeck, Legal, Professor, Robert Bailey, Stephen King, Thriller, USA

Robert Bailey is the author of THE PROFESSOR, a legal thriller to be published by Exhibit A Books late January 2014.

I was born from a family of storytellers and teachers. My mother taught English and reading, and my grandmother, a math teacher, was never without a book to read. My father, though a builder by trade, can still hold a room captive with his stories and jokes, and, as a little boy, I was always on the edge of my chair when he would rasp on about Coach Paul “Bear” Bryant and the legends that played football for the Crimson Tide.

As far as writers, John Steinbeck was a major early influence. As a kid, I loved his shorter novels, The Red Pony and The Pearl. As a high school sophomore, we studied The Grapes of Wrath, and Tom Joad remains one of my favorite characters in all of literature. As a southerner and an Alabamian that grew up to be a lawyer, To Kill a Mockingbird holds a special place. I think every lawyer wants to grow up to be Atticus Finch, and the story just had everything. It was thrilling, historical, funny and tragic. Just a remarkable achievement.

Later in high school and early college, I became enraptured with John Grisham, and loved Jack Brigance in A Time to Kill and Mitch McDeere in The Firm. I think it was these Grisham stories that really made me want to give writing a shot. Other writers that have been great influences are Greg Iles (I love the Penn Cage series starting with The Quiet Game), Michael Connelly (It doesn’t get much better than the Harry Bosch series), John Sandford, Lee Child, Winston Groom, Stephen King, Dean Koontz and Mark Childress.

When I decided I wanted to write The Professor, I picked up Stephen King’s memoir, On Writing, and have probably read it at least three times. Not only is it entertaining, but King’s insights on the writing process are insightful and inspiring. I would recommend it for any aspiring writer.

Finally, my time at the University of Alabama School of Law in Tuscaloosa certainly influenced The Professor. In fact, the idea for the story was hatched while day dreaming in class and wondering whether my professors could still try a case after years in the classroom.

An interview with DAN NEWMAN

November 19, 2013 Civilian Reader Interview Angry Robot Books, Crime, Dan Newman, Debut 2013, Exhibit A, The Clearing, Thriller, Wilbur Smith

Today’s interview is with Dan Newman, the author of The Clearing (published today by Exhibit A, the crime/thriller imprint of Angry Robot Books). To mark the release of his book, he was kind enough to answer a few questions…

Let’s start with an introduction: Who is Dan Newman?

Stefan, thank you for the opportunity to stop by… with a new novel in the market I really do appreciate the chance to be part of your blog.

As for who I am, that’s probably best defined through my experiences growing up in-transit around the globe. My father worked in international development, so we moved a lot, and lived in some wonderful places. I was born in England, and currently live in Canada, but in between there’s been a tidy little list of places in Africa and the Caribbean. I was at a friend’s party a few days ago and a childhood pal of his spoke about how they had known each other and remained friends since they were four or five years old. That seems incredible to me, and something I can’t say of anyone, given how I grew up. Still, life’s a constant trade-off, and I what I missed in long-held childhood friends, I made up for in places around the world where I can stop in for a free meal and a night on the couch.

I thought we’d start with your fiction: Your latest novel, The Clearing, was published by Exhibit A in October 2013. How would you introduce the novel to a potential reader? Is it part of a series?

The Clearing is really a book about our past, and how, if left unaddressed, it can inform every part of our future lives. It’s about being a parent, about being an adult, and about recognising youth as a root system that feeds the lives we grow into.

The Clearing was written such that it could stand alone as a complete story, but there are a number of things I’ve set in there for a sequel – which I’m just completing now. It follows Nate Mason at three key periods in his life, and traces the path he’s compelled to take back to his childhood to deal with a formative tragedy that happened there. It dabbles a little in the occult, a little in psychological thriller territory, and a little in crime.

What inspired you to write the novel? And where do you draw your inspiration from in general? Also, what made you set it in the 1970s, as opposed to a contemporary setting?

This particular novel leans heavily on personal experience, and certainly the setting and mood were dictated by real life events. The plot is largely fiction, but the backbone of the story comes from an experience I had as a kid growing up on the island of St. Lucia in the 70s – hence the time setting. As an eleven or twelve year old boy, I spent a week-end at this very creepy old plantation estate house set deep in the St. Lucian rainforest. The local lore held it that the estate, like all the great plantations, was protected by a small and devilish creature called a Bolom – something we all had heard about as kids. It was kind of a Caribbean boogeyman. But that weekend, something came into the old house in the middle of the night, and ran through the place with these short, sharp footfalls. I was just plain terrified, and it stuck with me. Was it real? Was it a Bolom? The kid that was there absolutely believes it was. Years later that experience came through in The Clearing. It’s at the heart of what the story’s about.

How were you introduced to genre fiction?

If I go back to what really got me reading, it’s all down to Wilbur Smith. Among the places where I grew up was Southern Africa – the Kingdom of Lesotho specifically. Wilbur Smith’s early work was all set in that area, and dealt with action and adventure on the African velt – which was right outside my door. His books are a fabulous introduction to genre fiction, and I still love to go back and rip through some of his novels. If you’ve not read his early stuff, I can guarantee it’ll be time well spent.

How do you enjoy being a writer and working within the publishing industry? Do you have any specific working, writing, researching practices?

This may sound strange, but the whole idea of being a writer is a concept I have great difficulty with. I see it as a lofty title, and one that people have to work damn hard to acquire. I’ve been writing seriously for sixteen years, and I’ve yet to call myself a writer. I think with the publication of The Clearing and a second book in the offing I’m a little closer, but I still feel like I have some earning to do. When I think of writers, I see a very exclusive group of people who I greatly admire. I’d love to be among them, but I still have a lot of work ahead of me.

As for the practicalities of writing, I find regularity quite important. That’s not to say I eat a lot of bran – but rather I try to write every single day and move the story forward. I’m also really bad at falling asleep, so when I go to bed it’s an hour of plot revisions in my head. And, almost without fail, I manage to untangle the knots I tie myself into plot-wise while staring at a darkened ceiling.

When did you realize you wanted to be an author, and what was your first foray into writing? Do you still look back on it fondly?

Growing up we travelled a lot. My father was in international development, so we moved from country to country and I changed schools – and friends – frequently. Writing was a constant from place to place, and something I always felt came easily. That’s not to say I did it well, but I enjoyed it. And probably because of that I kept at it.

My first crack at a full novel was about sixteen years ago. I wrote a novel called The Cull – a very Wilbur Smith-ian effort set in Africa where I had lived for about ten years or so. I really loved writing it, and the satisfaction of having a full blown manuscript in my hand was just plain magical. I still love the story, the characters in it and the setting. It is a deeply flawed manuscript, filled with all kinds of issues and problems, but there’s purity to your first full-tilt effort that’s hard to explain. I plan to re-write it one day, but I’ll keep the original version close forever.

What’s your opinion of the genre today, and where do you see your work fitting into it?

This is a really interesting question and one that’s a little problematic for me. Strictly speaking my publisher is a crime imprint, and I think I do fit into it, but right at the very edge of the genre. When I read some of the other authors published by Exhibit A, (and there are some fantastic titles in the line up), I realize that I am definitely over to one side of the genre bucket. I suspect that’s by design by the publisher, so as to broaden the appeal. One thing I will say about genre fiction, is that I think a lot of the authors I read get a bum-rap because of the word “genre”. There’s some really technically and creatively excellent writing in a lot of the novels that populate genre fiction, and because of that handle I think they get glossed over in terms of the quality of the writing itself. Genre fiction produces some first rate literature… along with outstanding story tellers.

What other projects are you working on, and what do you have currently in the pipeline?

Right now I’m finishing up the sequel to The Clearing. It’s the first time I’ve tackled a sequel, and it’s going very well in terms of progress. I’m discovering that the investment I’ve already made in really knowing the characters is incredibly helpful as I push them onto something new; I innately know how they would react to a given situation, rather than having to sit and ponder their actions. I was also surprised at how apparent the storyline was; it was all kind of there staring me in the face when I started – although I will admit to having left a few important hooks in the first book to help me along.

What are you reading at the moment (fiction, non-fiction)?

I just finished Steven King’s 11/22/63. I’m a big fan of Mr. King (but really, who isn’t?). I’m about to get into Richard Parker’s Scare Me, which has been sitting on my bedside table for quite a while now. I’m also half way through Ken Follett’s Pillars of the Earth, but with the recent book launch and my efforts to finish off the sequel, I’ve not read nearly as much as I’d like to lately.

What’s something readers might be surprised to learn about you?

Well, as a youngster I played semi-professional football in Swaziland, Southern Africa – which is kind of interesting in itself… but more than that was the fact that the team had its own witch doctor. It was fascinating, and before every game there were numerous incantations, practices and potions that had to be honoured before we could suit up for the match. When we won, he was there standing tall, nodding and pounding his chest. When we lost, well, he apparently had somewhere else to be at the final whistle…

What are you most looking forward to in the next twelve months?

With The Clearing having just come out, I’m on a steep and wonder-filled learning curve. There’s so much more to learn than you realize while standing on the outside looking in, and listening to those who have been there before me is a large part of my game plan for the next twelve months – that and putting together the next book for the publisher. As a rookie I have to say that my first publishing experience has been super – thanks in no small part to the outstanding people at Exhibit A.

I’ve also been advised to enjoy the experience of having my first book published – which at first seems patently self-evident. But once you hop on the ride and get stuck into the practicalities of book launches, marketing plans and the minutia of publishing as a business, it’s easy to lose sight of the fact that you hit a major personal milestone. So that simple sounding advice is actually pretty sage; I plan to heed it, and see what those roses actually smell like.

Thanks for letting me stop by.

Upcoming: “The Cambodian Book of the Dead” by Tom Vater (Exhibit A)

May 8, 2013 Civilian Reader Uncategorized Angry Robot, Art, Cambodian Book of the Dead, Cover, Detective Maier Mystery, Exhibit A, Thriller, Tom Vater, Upcoming

Exhibit A, the crime/thriller imprint under the Angry Robot banner, is still relative new (only three titles published so far, I believe). They seem to have a pretty good eye for stories, though. I haven’t had a chance to read any of the new novels, but I think that lapse is going to change, and soon. Today, I nabbed an eARC for Tom Vater’s intriguing-looking novel, The Cambodian Book of the Dead, which has the pitch, “where Apocalypse Now meets The Beach”…

Was I swayed by the cover? Well… yes, I admit I was a little bit. It certainly helped grab my attention. Then I read the synopsis, and my interest was well-and-truly piqued. I been meaning to read more thrillers, too… Here’s the synopsis:

Private eye and former war reporter, Maier is sent to Cambodia to track down the missing heir to a Hamburg coffee empire.

His search leads him into the darkest corners of the country’s history, through the Killing Fields of the communist revolution, to the White Spider, a Nazi war criminal who reigns over an ancient Khmer temple deep in the jungle.

But the terrifying tale of mass murder that Maier uncovers is far from over. And soon Maier realises that, if he is to prevent more innocent lives from being destroyed, he will have to write the last horrific chapter himself.

The Cambodian Book of the Dead will be published by Exhibit A at the end of June (North America & eBook) and the beginning of July (UK).