Mike Smart's Blog, page 2
April 23, 2014
Check out the trailer!!!
Click on the link and watch the new trailer for the Max Thatcher series of books!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HdW7b...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HdW7b...
March 27, 2014
A Dragon's Ransom - 4th book in the Max Thatcher Series
The stakes in this deadly game of chance couldn’t be higher for Max and his team. Who can you trust in this fast moving story of betrayal and greed? Brutal drug lords, kidnappings and lethal violence are all cleverly interwoven within this page turning thriller.
March 6, 2014
Without Warning 3rd Book in Max Thatcher Series is released
In this story of violent revenge Max must find and stop a radical of the worst sort. No home, no family, just a lifelong desire to inflict as much pain and suffering
as possible on those that had destroyed all that had mattered to him.
as possible on those that had destroyed all that had mattered to him.
February 21, 2014
AMAZON ENDORSED 'PRO' REVIEWER
The Platinum Solution
5.0 out of 5 stars A Riveting Thriller!, February 18, 2014
By Believer - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Platinum Solution (Max Thatcher Series) (Paperback)
In South Africa Mandela is dying, and a formidable organization of white Afrikaans with a platinum solution is bent on returning the political structure to the dark days of isolation and Apartheid. "The Platinum Solution" is a fast-paced, heart-stopping thriller that encompasses cities from South Africa to England, and even Madeira, a small island off the North African coastline. It begins when insurers hire Falcon Services to solve the disappearance of the lead analyst from London's BDS Bank which has been negotiating a deal with PG Mining. With Max Thatcher on assignment overseeing protection of a British contingency at a conference in Madeira, his associates Greg and Patrick take on the mission. What they don't expect is to find a connection between both undertakings that will not only lead them into danger, but could mean the disruption of political systems at home and abroad.
The plot is a well-written roller-coaster ride filled with murder, mystery and intrigue. The action never stops from beginning to end as clues are unravelled and the danger escalates. Even in victory the ending holds a shocking surprise and paves the way for another Max Thatcher novel.
The core characters are memorable with all their weaknesses and strengths. Max Thatcher the head of Falcon Services is a sharp-edged, tough investigator with keen instincts who reveals a tender and considerate side in his relationship with Clare Pryce, a smart, humorous, sexy professor. Like Max's colleagues Greg and Patrick, Sara Brown the M16 agent is fearless, determined and astute; all three face danger without hesitation.
But in this story the antagonists are both chilling and heartless as they murder and destroy to get what they want. The Der Heerden brothers are a study in contrasts; one an intelligent womanizer with political aspirations, the other a hot-tempered madman with evil intentions that go far beyond the mandate of their Fraternity. Their henchmen Henk Gerber and Joost are killers without any scruples. All these characters add excitement and energy to a novel that is riveting from beginning to end.
I thoroughly enjoyed "The Platinum Solution" and look forward to reading Mike Smart's novel "Gatekeeper" which I'm sure will be just as entertaining.
5.0 out of 5 stars A Riveting Thriller!, February 18, 2014
By Believer - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Platinum Solution (Max Thatcher Series) (Paperback)
In South Africa Mandela is dying, and a formidable organization of white Afrikaans with a platinum solution is bent on returning the political structure to the dark days of isolation and Apartheid. "The Platinum Solution" is a fast-paced, heart-stopping thriller that encompasses cities from South Africa to England, and even Madeira, a small island off the North African coastline. It begins when insurers hire Falcon Services to solve the disappearance of the lead analyst from London's BDS Bank which has been negotiating a deal with PG Mining. With Max Thatcher on assignment overseeing protection of a British contingency at a conference in Madeira, his associates Greg and Patrick take on the mission. What they don't expect is to find a connection between both undertakings that will not only lead them into danger, but could mean the disruption of political systems at home and abroad.
The plot is a well-written roller-coaster ride filled with murder, mystery and intrigue. The action never stops from beginning to end as clues are unravelled and the danger escalates. Even in victory the ending holds a shocking surprise and paves the way for another Max Thatcher novel.
The core characters are memorable with all their weaknesses and strengths. Max Thatcher the head of Falcon Services is a sharp-edged, tough investigator with keen instincts who reveals a tender and considerate side in his relationship with Clare Pryce, a smart, humorous, sexy professor. Like Max's colleagues Greg and Patrick, Sara Brown the M16 agent is fearless, determined and astute; all three face danger without hesitation.
But in this story the antagonists are both chilling and heartless as they murder and destroy to get what they want. The Der Heerden brothers are a study in contrasts; one an intelligent womanizer with political aspirations, the other a hot-tempered madman with evil intentions that go far beyond the mandate of their Fraternity. Their henchmen Henk Gerber and Joost are killers without any scruples. All these characters add excitement and energy to a novel that is riveting from beginning to end.
I thoroughly enjoyed "The Platinum Solution" and look forward to reading Mike Smart's novel "Gatekeeper" which I'm sure will be just as entertaining.
February 8, 2014
My approach to writing
It was pointed out during a recent interview that as a new author that one is entirely dependent on a prospective reader taking that first step and giving a book a chance to impress and entertain.
I agree and am very grateful for the very many people who I don't know that have taken that leap of faith.
For those of you that want to know about my approach to writing:
* I write to entertain, I want you to enjoy reading one of the books, tell all your friends and come back for another one in The Max Thatcher Book Series
* They all have a lead character/hero; Max. I like stories with goodies and baddies, damsels in distress and lots of twists and turns. So that's what I pack into every adventure.
* My books all contain a story line based around current day world affairs. Gatekeeper explores how vulnerable our personal data has become. The Platinum Solution is about whether South Africa without Mandela there to control the various factions present goes the same way as the Balkans did after Tito's passing
* My philosophy in life is in the name of the several successful businesses that I have built over the years GOWI - GET ON WITH IT! My writing reflects this approach, I do not enjoy reading flowery prose designed to take a book up to 400+ pages. So I write in a very punchy style with lots of action throughout
* The books are unlikely to win a literary prize any time soon but would, in the opinion of many, make excellent films. They are hard to put down, so not a Dickens or Tolstoy (which I have read and enjoyed) but are great entertainment to read on the plane, beach or for the daily commute
* My books contain moderate amounts of violence and adult themes. They're not for children, they're for adults who enjoy action and adventure with a bit of bite
I trust the above helps to convince you to take a chance. Please click on the link and buy one so that you, as I would hope, become another happy reader of The Max Thatcher Book Series
Mike
I agree and am very grateful for the very many people who I don't know that have taken that leap of faith.
For those of you that want to know about my approach to writing:
* I write to entertain, I want you to enjoy reading one of the books, tell all your friends and come back for another one in The Max Thatcher Book Series
* They all have a lead character/hero; Max. I like stories with goodies and baddies, damsels in distress and lots of twists and turns. So that's what I pack into every adventure.
* My books all contain a story line based around current day world affairs. Gatekeeper explores how vulnerable our personal data has become. The Platinum Solution is about whether South Africa without Mandela there to control the various factions present goes the same way as the Balkans did after Tito's passing
* My philosophy in life is in the name of the several successful businesses that I have built over the years GOWI - GET ON WITH IT! My writing reflects this approach, I do not enjoy reading flowery prose designed to take a book up to 400+ pages. So I write in a very punchy style with lots of action throughout
* The books are unlikely to win a literary prize any time soon but would, in the opinion of many, make excellent films. They are hard to put down, so not a Dickens or Tolstoy (which I have read and enjoyed) but are great entertainment to read on the plane, beach or for the daily commute
* My books contain moderate amounts of violence and adult themes. They're not for children, they're for adults who enjoy action and adventure with a bit of bite
I trust the above helps to convince you to take a chance. Please click on the link and buy one so that you, as I would hope, become another happy reader of The Max Thatcher Book Series
Mike
February 5, 2014
Without Warning 3rd Book in Series
Without Warning - Due for release end of February
Prologue - Draft
Disputed lands – Fifteen Years Earlier
The young boy looked into the lifeless eyes of his father, he would never forget that sight nor the putrid smell of his beloved parent’s now emptied bowels. He had held his father’s hand as the final signs of life had ebbed away unable to stem the bleeding caused by the shrapnel which had ripped through his body. It didn’t seem right that the man who had brought him to life, had fed him and cared for their family should have spent his last few minutes on earth wracked in pain and laying in the dirt stained with his own urine and faeces.
He looked across at where his older sister and mother lay, the whole family had been working in their small field trying to scrape some sort of a life from the hard unforgiving land. There had been no warning, no indication that the lives of his immediate family would so suddenly and violently be cut short.
On that fateful day their incessant toiling had been made that much harder by the hot morning sun beating down. They had been working together for a couple of hours before his father had instructed him to go to the village well and bring back two goat skin pouches full of cold refreshing water. As he had walked back up the small path up the steep incline back to the plot of land they called their own he had seen wisps of vapour trail in the azure sky. He had stopped, shielding his eyes so to get a better look at these miracles in the air. It was always a great source of amazement to him, a poorly educated boy, how these planes ever managed to stay in the sky. He often wondered what it might be like to fly, where were they from and where were they going? This was one of his favourite guessing games that he would play silently in his head.
The noise had been deafening as the high explosive bombs had gone off a quarter of a mile away from where he stood. The earth had shook and he had immediately thrown himself to the ground in a mixture of fright and pure shock. As he had hit the hard baked dried earth he knew at once that the bomb or bombs would have landed close to where his family had been working.
Picking himself up off the floor, he left the now forgotten water sacks behind him as he raced up the slope towards where his family should have been waiting for him.
At 20,000 ft no one in the American B52 bomber had felt the shock waves from the explosions from far below and the crew had carried on happily chatting away. They had been given their coordinates and done their job little knowing that they had inadvertently dropped their payload in the wrong place. Not only had they killed several, totally innocent non combatants, but they had also spawned a radical of the worst sort. No home, no family, no great cause; this young man had nothing to lose and had just inherited a lifelong desire to inflict as much pain and suffering on those that had destroyed all that had mattered to him.
He had made a vow at the very moment of his father’s passing that his own life was forfeit and that all he should focus on henceforth was to bring death and destruction to the people that had come unwanted into his land. The uninvited foreigners hadn't come to grant the indigenous tribes freedom but to help keep them oppressed. Well, he would make sure that the three ‘superpowers’ which made up the bulk of the coalition forces would never forget this day.
Prologue - Draft
Disputed lands – Fifteen Years Earlier
The young boy looked into the lifeless eyes of his father, he would never forget that sight nor the putrid smell of his beloved parent’s now emptied bowels. He had held his father’s hand as the final signs of life had ebbed away unable to stem the bleeding caused by the shrapnel which had ripped through his body. It didn’t seem right that the man who had brought him to life, had fed him and cared for their family should have spent his last few minutes on earth wracked in pain and laying in the dirt stained with his own urine and faeces.
He looked across at where his older sister and mother lay, the whole family had been working in their small field trying to scrape some sort of a life from the hard unforgiving land. There had been no warning, no indication that the lives of his immediate family would so suddenly and violently be cut short.
On that fateful day their incessant toiling had been made that much harder by the hot morning sun beating down. They had been working together for a couple of hours before his father had instructed him to go to the village well and bring back two goat skin pouches full of cold refreshing water. As he had walked back up the small path up the steep incline back to the plot of land they called their own he had seen wisps of vapour trail in the azure sky. He had stopped, shielding his eyes so to get a better look at these miracles in the air. It was always a great source of amazement to him, a poorly educated boy, how these planes ever managed to stay in the sky. He often wondered what it might be like to fly, where were they from and where were they going? This was one of his favourite guessing games that he would play silently in his head.
The noise had been deafening as the high explosive bombs had gone off a quarter of a mile away from where he stood. The earth had shook and he had immediately thrown himself to the ground in a mixture of fright and pure shock. As he had hit the hard baked dried earth he knew at once that the bomb or bombs would have landed close to where his family had been working.
Picking himself up off the floor, he left the now forgotten water sacks behind him as he raced up the slope towards where his family should have been waiting for him.
At 20,000 ft no one in the American B52 bomber had felt the shock waves from the explosions from far below and the crew had carried on happily chatting away. They had been given their coordinates and done their job little knowing that they had inadvertently dropped their payload in the wrong place. Not only had they killed several, totally innocent non combatants, but they had also spawned a radical of the worst sort. No home, no family, no great cause; this young man had nothing to lose and had just inherited a lifelong desire to inflict as much pain and suffering on those that had destroyed all that had mattered to him.
He had made a vow at the very moment of his father’s passing that his own life was forfeit and that all he should focus on henceforth was to bring death and destruction to the people that had come unwanted into his land. The uninvited foreigners hadn't come to grant the indigenous tribes freedom but to help keep them oppressed. Well, he would make sure that the three ‘superpowers’ which made up the bulk of the coalition forces would never forget this day.
January 6, 2014
The Platinum Solution - 1st Review
New! Bob Marsden reviewed The Platinum Solution
The Platinum Solution is a book you can't put down! 5 January 2014
From the very beginning, I found this story completely compelling. Mike Smart seems to have the knack of keeping you needing to know what happens next. Global business, corruption, violence and sex are woven into this chilling version of reality. I admire the way he writes completely contemporaneously with actual world events. His story line seems to anticipate real events, then they happen, and then they become pivotal to the action in the later stages of the plot. It is uncanny.
I can't wait for the next in the series.
When will someone make a film of these great adventures?
Show Less
Add a comment View this book's reviews on Amazon.com
The Platinum Solution is a book you can't put down! 5 January 2014
From the very beginning, I found this story completely compelling. Mike Smart seems to have the knack of keeping you needing to know what happens next. Global business, corruption, violence and sex are woven into this chilling version of reality. I admire the way he writes completely contemporaneously with actual world events. His story line seems to anticipate real events, then they happen, and then they become pivotal to the action in the later stages of the plot. It is uncanny.
I can't wait for the next in the series.
When will someone make a film of these great adventures?
Show Less
Add a comment View this book's reviews on Amazon.com
December 20, 2013
Finished 2nd Book
South Africa is a great Country and for the most part populated by fabulous people – just like any other Nation for that matter. It’s an unfortunate reality of life that there are unpleasant and very dangerous individuals everywhere.
When I started writing this book Nelson Mandela was still alive. I never had the privilege of meeting the man but from afar he always struck me as being a man of true compassion and great vision. What he achieved as an individual and with the help of many men and women who made tremendous sacrifices to get rid of Apartheid and transform the Country was an incredible feat.
Not everything has gone to plan as he would have intended and not everyone, of whichever colour, are necessarily in full agreement then or now with what he believed. “One man’s freedom fighter is another man’s terrorist” is a truism. History is written by the people who hold the pen at the end of the day; normally these tend to be the victors as the vanquished often get more than their pencil cases taken away from them.
‘The Platinum Solution’ is a story and no more, but recent history in the Balkans tells us what can happen when a great leader leaves the stage. History is a great predictor of the future. There is much left still to be done in South Africa and every Nation should lend her their support in any way possible through the turbulent times that are almost certain to follow Mandela’s passing.
When I started writing this book Nelson Mandela was still alive. I never had the privilege of meeting the man but from afar he always struck me as being a man of true compassion and great vision. What he achieved as an individual and with the help of many men and women who made tremendous sacrifices to get rid of Apartheid and transform the Country was an incredible feat.
Not everything has gone to plan as he would have intended and not everyone, of whichever colour, are necessarily in full agreement then or now with what he believed. “One man’s freedom fighter is another man’s terrorist” is a truism. History is written by the people who hold the pen at the end of the day; normally these tend to be the victors as the vanquished often get more than their pencil cases taken away from them.
‘The Platinum Solution’ is a story and no more, but recent history in the Balkans tells us what can happen when a great leader leaves the stage. History is a great predictor of the future. There is much left still to be done in South Africa and every Nation should lend her their support in any way possible through the turbulent times that are almost certain to follow Mandela’s passing.
November 22, 2013
Outranked Dan Brown
Hi, not suggesting for a moment to be in Mr Brown's league but it is fun to at least for a few short moments to out-rank on Amazon one of the great commercial writers.
http://tinyurl.com/p6jwefl
If you would like to download a free Kindle copy of the book time is running out.
cheers
mike
http://tinyurl.com/p6jwefl
If you would like to download a free Kindle copy of the book time is running out.
cheers
mike
Gatekeeper Kindle free for 24hrs
Dear All
As part of marketing program Amazon are marketing this great read (Kindle Version) for 24hrs for £0.
Please, if you can, download a version. Hopefully you'll enjoy the story.
Tell your friends
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Mike-Smart/e/...
As part of marketing program Amazon are marketing this great read (Kindle Version) for 24hrs for £0.
Please, if you can, download a version. Hopefully you'll enjoy the story.
Tell your friends
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Mike-Smart/e/...
