Review: THE ACCIDENT by Chris Pavone (Crown Publishing/Faber)

March 20, 2014December 15, 2014 Civilian Reader Review Accident, Chris Pavone, Crime, Crown Publishing, Espionage, Faber and Faber, Media, Publishing, Suspense, Thriller

An engaging suspense, featuring a secret manuscript, a conspiracy, and unwitting pawns caught in the middle.

As dawn approaches in New York, literary agent Isabel Reed is turning the final pages of a mysterious, anonymous manuscript, racing through the explosive revelations about powerful people, as well as long-hidden secrets about her own past. In Copenhagen, veteran CIA operative Hayden Gray, determined that this sweeping story be buried, is suddenly staring down the barrel of an unexpected gun. And in Zurich, the author himself is hiding in a shadowy expat life, trying to atone for a lifetime’s worth of lies and betrayals with publication of The Accident, while always looking over his shoulder.

Over the course of one long, desperate, increasingly perilous day, these lives collide as the book begins its dangerous march toward publication, toward saving or ruining careers and companies, placing everything at risk—and everyone in mortal peril. The rich cast of characters—in publishing and film, politics and espionage—are all forced to confront the consequences of their ambitions, the schisms between their ideal selves and the people they actually became.

The action rockets around Europe and across America, with an intricate web of duplicities stretching back a quarter-century to a dark winding road in upstate New York, where the shocking truth about the accident itself is buried.

Pavone’s The Expats was an international bestseller – one I seem to have missed almost entirely. When The Accident popped up on NetGalley, though, its synopsis sent it right to the top of my Must Read titles. The story is located at the confluence of a number of my key interests: politics, media, international relations/espionage, and publishing. While the novel is not perfect, it is nevertheless a gripping, fast-paced thriller that entertained and gripped me from the start. Continue reading →

Guest Post: “Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, Tell Story” by Jonathan Wood

February 24, 2014 Civilian Reader Guest Post Anti Hero, Final Fantasy, Jonathan Wood, Mass Effect, Night Shade Books, No Hero, Supernatural, The Witcher, Thriller, Titan Books, Urban Fantasy, Video Games, Videogames, Yesterday's Hero

When videogames first appeared, they really were games. There were victory conditions to meet, puzzles to solve, opponents to outwit. You could win. But then somewhere along the way, story snuck in, and videogames changed. You were no longer simply trying to win, instead you were struggling to get to the end, to complete the narrative.

Back when I was in college, I watched my friend play Final Fantasy VII. There was a group of us. We’d make an evening of it, gather round as my friend loaded the disc, pour some drinks, and watch what happened next to Cloud, Yuna, Barrett, and the rest of the gang.

Final Fantasy was the first videogame story that really grabbed me. It was epic, operatic, sprawling through twists and turns, through a mythology that was utterly alien to me. The next two games in the franchise were stutter steps for me, but Final Fantasy X held me in its grip once more, as I hastily fumbled through sections of gameplay to get to the next installment of the story.

I started trying to write my first novel shortly after finishing Final Fantasy X. I knew I didn’t want to write a traditional, Western fantasy. Elves and dwarfs did little for me. Instead, I remembered the fresh mythology I’d seen in the Final Fantasy games — summoning towering spirits, battling titanic monsters… I remembered that sense of the new. Turning a corner in the game and having my jaw hang at a glowing vista, at an aerial battle, an intimate scene in the glow of a phosphorescent tree… That inspiration drove the novel. It filled page after page with words.

The rather unfortunate end to this story is that the novel stunk. It was a first novel. These things happen. But it wasn’t the last time a videogame has inspired me.

Videogames are not often known for their literary ambition. It’s a situation that’s starting to change, but only slowly. There is often an uneven truce between story and gameplay, one trying to drive the desire for the other. But this doesn’t mean there aren’t lessons a writer can learn.

My personal videogame obsession is the Mass Effect series. There are moments of magnificent storytelling in the game. The pinnacle for me comes in the first game. You must choose which of two shipmates you will save. On the surface it’s a standard life-and-death question, but due to hours of careful characterization, it goes deeper than that. It’s about loyalty, friendship, morality, and love. It’s about the person you want to be playing this game. It is a very personal set of character stakes brought to a towering crescendo.

I write a series. I can’t kill my main character. That’s off the table. But Mass Effect taught me that that doesn’t have to lower the stakes. Rather, I force my protagonist to make these kinds of choices. Who is he going to decide to be? Far worse than dying can be the things we are forced to live with.

The Witcher is another popular RPG series that puts a strong emphasis on storytelling. The focus is on the character Geralt, a monster-killing badass fueled by magic and drugs. On the surface Geralt is everything you could want a hero to be, competent, slick, and cold as a sharp steel blade. The games are everything I want them to be. And yet, I’ve never completed one.

The problem is, I don’t like Geralt. As competent as he is, nothing is ever done to make me actually feel for him. I am simply thrown into his skin and told to go forth and kick righteous ass. It feels hollow.

Readers like characters to be competent. But that’s not enough on its own. That’s what The Witcher taught me. To make sure there’s something human in my characters to hold on to. A sense of humor, a love of cats, an inability to bite ones tongue. We like characters for their qualities, but we fall in love with them for their flaws.

Writers are encouraged to read, and I certainly wouldn’t disagree with that advice. In fact, I think it’s critically important. But I also wouldn’t say that books are the only storytelling medium that writers should pay attention to. I wouldn’t even limit it to books and videogames. Movies, newspapers, conversations around the dinner table. The world is full of stories, and each one contains a lesson. And if we choose to learn them from videogames, we even can do it while stabbing monsters in the face.

***

Jonathan Wood is the author of NO HERO and YESTERDAY’S HERO, first published by Night Shade Books, but coming later this year from Titan Books (March and September). A third novel in the series, ANTI HERO, is due to be published in March 2015. Be sure to follow him on Twitter and Goodreads for news, etc.

Animated Cover for Stephen King’s MR. MERCEDES (Hodder)

February 21, 2014 Civilian Reader Uncategorized 2014, Art, Cover, Hodder, Horror, June, Most Anticipated, Motion Cover, Mr Mercedes, Stephen King, Suspense, Thriller, Upcoming

I know it hasn’t been very long since I shared the news that Hodder would be publishing two books by Stephen King this year. But, today they unveiled the UK cover for one of the novels – Mr. Mercedes – and to top it off, there is an (slightly) animated version! Which I thought was rather cool. So here it is, in all it’s moody glory…

Mr. Mercedes is due to be published by Hodder on June 3rd 2014 in Hardcover and eBook. Here’s the synopsis:

It is a riveting cat-and-mouse suspense thriller about a retired cop and a couple of unlikely allies who race against time to stop a lone killer intent on blowing up thousands.

Retired homicide detective Bill Hodges is haunted by the few cases he left open, and by one in particular: in the pre-dawn hours, hundreds of desperate unemployed people were lined up for a spot at a job fair in a distressed Midwestern city. Without warning, a lone driver ploughed through the crowd in a stolen Mercedes. Eight people were killed, fifteen wounded. The killer escaped.

Months later, on the other side of the city, Bill Hodges gets a letter in the mail, from a man claiming to be the perpetrator. He taunts Hodges with the notion that he will strike again. Hodges wakes up from his depressed and vacant retirement, hell-bent on preventing that from happening. Brady Hartfield lives with his alcoholic mother in the house where he was born. And he is indeed preparing to kill again.

Hodges, with a couple of misfit friends, must apprehend the killer in this high-stakes race against time. Because Brady’s next mission, if it succeeds, will kill or maim hundreds, even thousands. Mr Mercedes is a war between good and evil, from the master of suspense whose insight into the mind of this obsessed, insane killer is chilling and unforgettable.

“A Love Like Blood” by Marcus Sedgwick (Mulholland)

February 18, 2014November 7, 2014 Civilian Reader Review A Love Like Blood, Biology, Historical, Hodder, Marcus Sedgwick, Mulholland Books, Must Read 2014, Suspense, Thriller, Vampires, World War II

A gripping, chilling psychological thriller

“I’ve chased him for over twenty years, and across countless miles, and though often I was running, there have been many times when I could do nothing but sit and wait. Now I am only desperate for it to be finished.”

In 1944, just days after the liberation of Paris, Charles Jackson sees something horrific: a man, apparently drinking the blood of a murdered woman. Terrified, he does nothing, telling himself afterwards that worse things happen in wars.Seven years later he returns to the city – and sees the same man dining in the company of a fascinating young woman. When they leave the restaurant, Charles decides to follow…

A Love Like Blood is a dark, compelling thriller about how a man’s life can change in a moment; about where the desire for truth – and for revenge – can lead; about love and fear and hatred. And it is also about the question of blood.

This wasn’t what I was expecting. I had expected a good novel, with perhaps a supernatural component. Instead, what I found was an excellent psychological thriller about obsession and the science and mythology of blood. Sedgwick’s first novel for adults is damned good, and a must-read of the year. Continue reading →

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.

Upcoming/News: “REVIVAL” and “MR. MERCEDES” by Stephen King (Hodder)

February 14, 2014 Civilian Reader Uncategorized 2014, Hodder, Horror, June, Most Anticipated, Mr Mercedes, News, November, Revival, Stephen King, Supernatural, Suspense, Thriller, Upcoming

I’m a relative newcomer to Stephen King, but I am certainly a fan of his writing (I’ve read a good amount of his non-fiction already). Last year, I finally read The Shining, and Hodder published its long-awaited sequel, Doctor Sleep. This year, Hodder will be publishing two new novels by King: Mr. Mercedes and Revival.

The latter was just announced on the publisher’s website, so I thought I’d start with that one. Here’s some info:

In a small New England town, over half a century ago, a shadow falls over a small boy playing with his toy soldiers. Jamie Morton looks up to see a striking man, the new minister. Charles Jacobs, along with his beautiful wife, will transform the local church. The men and boys are all a bit in love with Mrs Jacobs; the women and girls feel the same about Reverend Jacobs – including Jamie’s mother and beloved sister, Claire. With Jamie, the Reverend shares a deeper bond based on a secret obsession. When tragedy strikes the Jacobs family, this charismatic preacher curses God, mocks all religious belief, and is banished from the shocked town.

Jamie has demons of his own. Wed to his guitar from the age of 13, he plays in bands across the country, living the nomadic lifestyle of bar-band rock and roll while fleeing from his family’s horrific loss. In his mid-thirties – addicted to heroin, stranded, desperate – Jamie meets Charles Jacobs again, with profound consequences for both men. Their bond becomes a pact beyond even the Devil’s devising, and Jamie discovers that revival has many meanings.

Revival is due to be published by Hodder on November 11th, 2014. No artwork has been unveiled, yet (for either of these titles), but I’ll share them when they become available.

The other novel, Mr. Mercedes, will actually be published before Revival (in June 2014). Here’s the synopsis:

Retired homicide detective Bill Hodges is haunted by the few cases he left open, and by one in particular: in the pre-dawn hours, hundreds of desperate unemployed people were lined up for a spot at a job fair in a distressed Midwestern city. Without warning, a lone driver ploughed through the crowd in a stolen Mercedes. Eight people were killed, fifteen wounded. The killer escaped.

Months later, on the other side of the city, Bill Hodges gets a letter in the mail, from a man claiming to be the perpetrator. He taunts Hodges with the notion that he will strike again. Hodges wakes up from his depressed and vacant retirement, hell-bent on preventing that from happening.

Brady Hartfield lives with his alcoholic mother in the house where he was born. And he is indeed preparing to kill again.

Hodges, with a couple of misfit friends, must apprehend the killer in this high-stakes race against time. Because Brady’s next mission, if it succeeds, will kill or maim hundreds, even thousands.

Mr Mercedes is a war between good and evil, from the master of suspense whose insight into the mind of this obsessed, insane killer is chilling and unforgettable.

Upcoming: “The Man With the Golden Mind” by Tom Vater (Exhibit A)

February 7, 2014 Civilian Reader Uncategorized Asia, Detective Maier Mystery, Espionage, International, Man With The Golden Mind, Thriller, Tom Vater

Last year, Exhibit A published Tom Vater’s debut thriller, The Cambodian Book of the Dead. Sadly, it ended up being one of the thrillers that went onto my eReader and I promptly got distracted by other things, and it has thus-far gone unread. Now that this second novel in the series, The Man With the Golden Mind (April 2014), is to be released, I’m going to have to get my act together and get caught up!

“In trouble again… and a long way from home…”

Julia Rendel asks Maier to investigate the twenty-five year old murder of her father, an East German cultural attaché who was killed near a fabled CIA airbase in central Laos in 1976. But before the detective can set off, his client is kidnapped right out of his arms.

Maier follows Julia’s trail to the Laotian capital Vientiane, where he learns different parties, including his missing client are searching for a legendary CIA file crammed with Cold War secrets. But the real prize is the file’s author, a man codenamed Weltmeister, a former US and Vietnamese spy and assassin no one has seen for a quarter century.

To learn more about Tom’s novels and writing, be sure to visit his website and follow him on Facebook and Twitter.

“The Circle” by Dave Eggers (Knopf)

February 3, 2014 Civilian Reader Review Circle, Dave Eggers, Fiction, Hamish Hamilton, Knopf, Literary, Random House, Technology, Thriller

An interesting, timely and disturbing novel

When Mae Holland is hired to work for the Circle, the world’s most powerful internet company, she feels she’s been given the opportunity of a lifetime. The Circle, run out of a sprawling California campus, links users’ personal emails, social media, banking, and purchasing with their universal operating system, resulting in one online identity and a new age of civility and transparency. As Mae tours the open-plan office spaces, the towering glass dining facilities, the cozy dorms for those who spend nights at work, she is thrilled with the company’s modernity and activity. There are parties that last through the night, there are famous musicians playing on the lawn, there are athletic activities and clubs and brunches, and even an aquarium of rare fish retrieved from the Marianas Trench by the CEO. Mae can’t believe her luck, her great fortune to work for the most influential company in America — even as life beyond the campus grows distant, even as a strange encounter with a colleague leaves her shaken, even as her role at the Circle becomes increasingly public.

The Circle is the first novel I’ve read by Eggers. It is also one of the creepiest books I’ve ever read. The novel revolves around Mae Holland, a new hire at The Circle – a massive, Google-meets-Facebook-type social media goliath. We follow her story as she navigates the company, its quirks, and also its never-ending evolution. We see her life turned upside down as she strives to rise in the Circle’s ranks, to adopt and embrace its new innovations. Completing the Circle becomes an obsession, and despite clear signs of its negative impact on her life and those of her loved ones, the inexorable pull of the company, the sense of community, and compulsion to be a part of something proves too much for Mae to resist.

What made this novel so unsettling was how Eggers has extrapolated an all-too plausible (albeit slippery-slope) evolution of social media. The author’s not subtle, either, and it sometimes felt like he is trying to bludgeon the reader with his own negative feelings about social media and its ubiquitous place in contemporary life. At the same time, he has a point. As The Circle continues to evolve, and gobble up ever-more resources, technology and, above all else, access to its users’ private lives, we see an unprecedented erosion of privacy. More than that, though, is that this erosion is voluntarily embraced by Circle users.

Despite the anvil-from-the-sky approach to delivering his point, Eggers has written an accessible, engaging and above-all thought-provoking novel. It will make you analyse your own social media use, and probably make you adjust your habits, too…

An important, if unsubtle, novel, The Circle is certainly recommended reading for anyone who embraces a well-connected life.

An Interview with SIMON BECKETT

January 29, 2014 Civilian Reader Interview Bantam, Chemistry of Death, Simon Beckett, Stone Bruises, Thriller, Transworld

Simon Beckett’s Stone Bruises is one of my most-anticipated thriller novels of 2014. I was very happy, therefore, to get the chance to interview the author. Read on, fair reader, for Beckett’s thoughts on writing, his latest novel, and more.

Let’s start with an introduction: Who is Simon Beckett?

I’m the author of four crime thrillers featuring David Hunter, a British forensic anthropologist. I’ve worked as a freelance journalist for most national newspapers and colour supplements, and the idea for the Hunter series came after I was commissioned to write a piece on the Body Farm in Tennessee, where real human cadavers are used to research decomposition. It was a gruesome but fascinating experience, and provided the basis for the first David Hunter novel, The Chemistry of Death. My aim was to draw on some of the forensic techniques I’d seen used in the US but with a British main character and a British setting. And to make it scary, as well.

I thought we’d start with your fiction: Your latest novel, Stone Bruises, will be published by Transworld in January 2013. How would you introduce the novel to a potential reader? Is it part of a series?

Stone Bruises is a standalone novel rather than part of a series. It’s a psychological thriller that opens with a young British man, Sean, abandoning a bloodstained car in rural France. He’s obviously traumatised and on the run, although we don’t know what he’s trying to escape from. When he’s badly injured in what might be described as “suspicious circumstances”, he regains consciousness to find he’s being cared for by two young women on a dilapidated farm. He’s not sure if he’s a patient or a prisoner, but despite falling foul of the women’s violent father, he begins to regard the farm as a perfect hiding place. Except that he’s not the only one with secrets, and as his own story emerges we come to realise this might not be the idyllic retreat that Sean imagines.

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

I don’t think I could say anything inspired me, as my ideas tend to come from a variety of different sources. But when I was younger I hitchhiked in France myself, so I know how remote some parts are – and how difficult it can be to hitch a lift. So I came up with what I thought was a strong opening scene, and then built the story and character from there.

How were you introduced to genre fiction?

I read a lot of horror and science fiction as a kid, and then started reading crime after someone recommended Raymond Chandler. That was quite an eye-opener, as until then I’d thought crime was all fusty, murder-in-the-drawing room-type-stories. It made me realise that what’s loosely categorised as “crime fiction” can cover a huge range of different styles and stories.

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

I’m lucky being able to make a living doing this, although it isn’t something I take for granted. I always try to make each book better than the last, which can make life difficult sometimes but stops you becoming complacent. I try to work more or less office hours, but that often goes out of the window. The main thing is to be disciplined, and keep going.

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’ve always enjoyed writing, and took an English degree that had a creative writing element. But after I graduated I found I’d nothing to write about and stopped altogether for a few years. I wound up doing various jobs, from playing in bands to property repairs, but at the back of my mind I still had an urge to write. Then I got a job teaching English as a foreign language in Spain, and since I only worked evenings I had a lot of free time. So I started writing again, but even then it still took me several years to actually get anything published.

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

I think crime fiction seems very healthy at the moment. It’s hugely popular and I think maybe there’s less literary snobbery towards it now than there used to be. Which is only right: some crime fiction is good and some isn’t, just like anything else. As for where I fit in, I don’t really think of it in those terms: I just write the best stories I can, and try to make them as believable and unpredictable as possible.

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

At the moment I’m working on the next David Hunter novel.

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

I’m reading Solo, the new James Bond thriller by William Boyd. I’m a long-time fan of Ian Fleming’s original Bond novels and Boyd is a very good writer, so I have high hopes.

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

Hard to say. I play percussion – congas and bongos – though not as much as I used to. I suppose that might surprise a few people.

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

I try not to think too far ahead. But I’m looking forward to Stone Bruises being published in January.

***

Stone Bruises is published tomorrow in the UK, by Bantam/Transworld Books.

An Interview with TAYLOR STEVENS

January 28, 2014 Civilian Reader Interview Arrow, Crime, Crown Publishing, Informationist, International, Random House, Taylor Stevens, Thriller, Vanessa Michael Munroe Series

Taylor Stevens is the author of the new thriller THE INFORMATIONIST. It has an interesting premise and a pretty unique-seeming protagonist. Naturally, I wanted to learn more after the book arrived in the mail, and so Stevens’s UK publicist (Arrow) kindly set up this interview…

Let’s start with an introduction: Who is Taylor Stevens?

I’ve been asked many, many questions but this is the first I’ve been presented with this one, so let’s see: Officially, Taylor Stevens is an award-winning, New York Times bestselling author, whose books have received critical acclaim, are published in over twenty languages, and whose first title, The Informationist, has been optioned for film by James Cameron’s production company. Unofficially, Taylor Stevens is a harried, fulltime working mom, who juggles after-school activities and all the crazy that goes into running a household, with making up stories to pay the bills.

Your latest novel, The Informationist, was published by Arrow in December. How would you introduce the novel to a potential reader? Is it part of a series?

The Informationist is the beginning of tragic, intense, victorious, globe-trotting, rollercoaster-ride of a kick-butt series, though I had no idea that would be the case when I wrote it. As readers, we tend to categorize books because this allows us to explain in quick brushstrokes how they fit into the reading experience. For that reason, these stories are labeled thrillers, although there is more to them than that. They are in the vein of Jason Bourne, or James Bond, or Jack Reacher—albeit with a woman in the lead who could go toe-to-toe with any one of the men.

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

Well, the impetus and inspiration winds so far back that we would take pages to get to the root of it, but in its most concise version: I had lived in Equatorial Guinea, a tiny island off the coast of Central Africa, for a little over two years. When I made the decision to start writing, it was because I wanted to bring this country to life for readers who might never have the chance to visit. Without a doubt, the first two books are drawn heavily from things I lived and experienced, but we’re heading into the fifth book now and, as I often joke to my readers, “I only have so much life trauma to pull from and I’d really like to keep it that way.” World news and current events work quite well as alternative source material.

The Informationist UK Cover

How were you introduced to thrillers/crime fiction?

Somewhat by accident, I think. When I first began writing fiction, I had no concept of genre. I had been born and raised in a very strict, isolated, and controlled religious environment in which my education stopped completely when I was 12 years old. We weren’t allowed to watch TV, or listen to music from the outside, and were also forbidden from reading fiction. When finally I was free of that and able to make my own choices, not only did I have no reference as to what authors to read, I was too poor to go to bookstores to buy books. Everything I read came to me second hand, and as it was, most of the novels were suspense and thrillers. So I came to fiction with the understanding that stories were meant to be “exciting,” and that was what I emulated when I began to tell stories of my own — which actually worked out quite nicely given that writing suspense is what I’m good at.

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

I cannot even imagine what life would have been like had this whole “writing thing” not worked out. I’m overwhelmed by the goodness that has come through the publication experience, ever grateful for each day that passes wherein I’m able to pay the bills while still being available for my children. That said, I do not really consider myself a “creative” or even a “writer” so much as a storyteller who happens to use the written word as the medium for communication. My personality is more inclined toward spread-sheets and paperwork, so imagining the stories to life is what’s most difficult about the process. Once the stories are built, the bean-counter in me gets to have fun with the editing and tightening, which is handy I suppose, because revision is where the craft lies. As far as writing and researching practices, these have changed often throughout the years, but the one thing that has been consistent is “butt in chair.” That’s the only way to get a book written.

The Informationist US Cover

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?

You see, this is a very difficult question to answer. Growing up, I had no concept that “being an author” was even an option. Thoughts of becoming a doctor or lawyer, bartender or chef were as foreign as those of becoming a handyman within one of the communes — which, in our culture, was strictly a male job. As a girl, the best I could hope for was to become a personal assistant to one of those higher up the cult food-chain, and in my early twenties I did wind up in that unpaid position for a few years. As children we were essentially child labor, and as we had no mental stimulation and we were so bored, I would make up stories for entertainment. When I was fourteen, I started writing them down, but this turned out very badly. When my notebooks were discovered, I was isolated from my peers and the “demons” “exorcised” and my writing was confiscated and burned. I was told never to write fiction again, or else. I was in my thirties, at home with two babies, when I realized that I wanted to give storytelling another try. But I didn’t start writing with the idea of “becoming an author.” I wrote just so I could say I had finished a book, and to give a finger to the people who had controlled me in the past. There was no way I could have possibly predicted or even imagined what would follow from the determination to see that one decision through.

Taylor Stevens (Credit: Alyssa Sykes)

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

To be honest, I have no idea. I’m still sorely under-read and rather painfully oblivious to current trends. I know that there is so much available for readers to explore and that my books are just a drop in a vast ocean of goodness. I’m completely honored to be part of that ocean, though, and treasure every one of my fans and readers — they’re the ones who’ve kept me in business and I owe them a huge debt of gratitude.

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

The next in the series, THE INNOCENT, takes readers inside the cult of my childhood. It is as close to real life as I could get in a genre-specific, word-count based, fictional format. For that reason, it is more psychological and has less blood and violence than the first — but the realism is uncomfortably accurate. The high octane continues with THE DOLL, and in the United States we are now getting ready to publish the fourth in the series, THE CATCH. I’m excited because with each new title I hear from more readers, and I do love to interact with my readers. For those who are interested, I email regularly via my website.

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

I’m a firm believer in the need for continual self-growth. I feel that the more I am able to shed bad habits and wrong ways of thinking, the happier and more balanced my life will be — and there is always room for improvement. I have just finished Power of Perception by Hyrum W. Smith. It’s a tiny book, basically the direct transcript of a speech that he gives, but the principles, simple as they are, are life-changing. Based on how much I appreciated the speech, I purchased two of his older books, 10 Natural Laws of Successful Time and Life Management and What Matters Most: The Power of Living Your Values, and plan to start them shortly.

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

Considering the characters that I write and the life background I’ve risen from, readers are often surprised—perhaps disappointed—to discover that I’m very sweet, happy, empathetic, content, and polite in real life. I also cry when I see or experience something beautiful, or when something makes me happy (which is often). And I hate suspense and blood and gore, which I find hilarious, seeing as that’s exactly what I write. I suppose it’s different with my own work because I get to control the story and I know how it ends. I love spoilers. Sometimes that’s the only thing that will get me to watch a particularly suspenseful movie. With suspenseful books, I have to read the last chapter first.

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

Over the past few years, during quiet spells, or while waiting to receive material back from my publisher, I’ve worked on side project geared more toward a younger audience. Oblivious as I am, I couldn’t say what genre the book is, only that it’s not a thriller. I finally finished the writing just last month and the response from test readers has been quite enthusiastic. The manuscript is in the hands of my agent now, and I’m nervous because it’s unlike anything I’ve done before. If I could have a wish granted over these next twelve months, it would be to see something wonderful happen with that story. I’m also quite excited to begin on the fifth book in the Vanessa Michael Munroe series.

Be sure to visit the author’s website, and follow her on Twitter and Facebook, for more information and news. The Informationist by Taylor Stevens is available now (Arrow Books in the UK, Crown in the US).