Michael Jecks's Blog, page 25

The Templar’s Penance

There are times when I put up a video on my YouTube channel and soon get a series of questions that I hadn’t thought of at the time. So, if you want to see the original video, you can find it here – and thanks to Hans van der Boom for his questions. Apologies for not speaking about the points you wanted mentioned, and I’m glad to add to the video here.

Okay. So more about Templar’s Penance.

First, Hans, you asked where the idea came from for the book. I knew I had another story to write following on from MAD MONK OF GIDLEIGH, but it was hard to think of a new tale. And I was struck by some issues: first, I was determined that the series would never become too predictable. I wanted each book to stand out distinctly from its predecessor and subsequent stories – I recall hearing of an author described as writing one story several times and I did not want to be accused of that! Second, I wanted stories that would show the development of my characters and their families. I didn’t want to write about men and women who were preserved in aspic, like the (excellent) Ed McBain series, but who changed and grew over time. Third, I was convinced that most readers want to learn more about the time and how people actually lived. And most people went on pilgrimage.

I actually had the very first idea for that book while sitting in Crediton’s church. I was listening to my wife’s choir singing Fauré’s Requiem, and with the first sweep of the music, I suddenly had a vivid picture in my mind of a group of bedraggled pilgrims walking towards a main pilgrim site, when on the hillside above them there appears a group of mercenaries. These men spring upon the pilgrims, riding down the slope at full gallop and slaughtering their screaming, fleeing victims.

Stories sometimes come to me like this. It is quite common that a I’ll have a start point that just occurs to me without consciously having tried to find one. Occasionally, of course, nothing appears to me at all and the initial writing is a damn hard slog, but with books like Templar’s Penance, it’s a joy. I had a definite start point for the writing, I had a general theme (pilgrimage) and the rest was down to basic research.

The main part of the research for me was the visit to a Templar town in Portugal. I was there on holiday in about 2002, and while there my family and I travelled for a few hours to the little town of Tomar. It’s a lovely little place, and then was still almost entirely unspoiled. Things have changed hugely in Portugal in recent years: the currency unification to the Euro, the injection of billions from German banks, the construction of vast holiday complexes all along the coast, have changed Portugal completely. Even in 2002 it was clear that there was nowhere on the coast that wasn’t being filled in with brick and concrete or golf courses. But Tomar was different. It was away from the coast, and the buildings were safe.

Entry was minimal. In fact we thought the guide had made a mistake and moved the decimal point up. But no, it really was that cheap, less than one pound to get in and see the whole place.

The thing about the old Templar churches was, they were not cruciform like normal churches, but circular. It’s said that they had to have high doors so that the knights could enter on horseback for blessings and certain services, but I think that’s twaddle. More likely they wanted a chamber that would elevate their souls by being so tall that any man would be tempted to look up towards heaven. In any case, they were definitely circular. Why? Because the Poor Fellow Soldiers of Christ and the Temple of Solomon wanted to emulate the appearance of the great Temple itself, from which they took their name.

Sadly, while writing the book I didn’t have the funds to allow me to go to Spain to research the pilgrim paths, much though I would have really liked to. The idea of striding along the old paths trodden for centuries by so many pilgrims, is hugely appealing. Sadly, I have never had the time, so instead I was forced to resort to the internet and books. One book I found very informative was SPANISH PILGRIMAGE by Robin Hanbury-Tenison. This tells, in photos and writing, of a journey he made on horseback along these very same paths. It’s not a new book (my copy is very dog-eared), but that’s always a good thing. You can learn more how the paths and roads would have looked in medieval times from books written and photographed in the 60s and 70s than you can from books written more recently, with tower blocks and housing estates filling in all the ancient fields and old paths. 

The book was written largely because of the first scene I describe above, but it fitted in well with the storyline in MAD MONK OF GIDLEIGH, which led me to think that an honourable man like Baldwin would want to make some form of penitential trip. The idea of fitting Simon and Baldwin out for a journey of that magnitude was very appealing. At first I had the idea that MAD MONK, PENANCE and one more would make a brilliant mini-series of three in the middle of the main Templar series, but then I had an idea for a fourth book, TOLLS OF DEATH, which added to the initial three that was supposed to end with OUTLAWS OF ENNOR. So the trilogy became a quartet, and I think became all the more strong for that. Still, with the next story, BUTCHER OF ST PETER’S, I was firmly back in Devon, with a series of murders set in Exeter.

But that’s a whole different story!

I hope this has filled in the gaps a little, Hans. Do please let me know with a comment or two if you have any other questions. I’ll be delighted to help.

And now, back to the synopsis for the next book!

And for those who want something else to look at:

 

Tagged: author, blogger, book writing, creative, Dartmoor, Devon, fiction, fiction writing, hints and tips, historian, history, Knight Templar, knights templar, library, medieval, medievalist, Michael Jecks, novelist, Portugal, publishing, Q&A, questions, questions and answers, Santiago de Compostela, scribbler, stories, story, Templar series, writer, writing

Scams

This one fails on so many levels. Still, I’m glad that the Manchester employee is keen to apologise for his lack of English.

 

 

BEGINS

 

Hello,

I am Richard Wong a staff of one of highly reputable financial institution here in Manchester, United Kingdom, and I am the head of operation. I am pleased to get across to you for a very urgent and profitable deal which I believe will profit both of us on completion. I contacted you after a careful thought that you might be capable of handling this business transaction which is explained below. I would respectfully request that you keep the contents of this mail confidential and respect the integrity of the information you come by as a result of this mail. I contact you independently and no one is informed of this communication.

The sum of (84,000,000.00 Million British Pounds), has been floating as unclaimed since 2000 in my bank as all efforts to get across the relatives of our client who deposited the money have hit the stones. There was this immigrant by name Mr. Andreas schranner, property magnate who was based in the U.K, who happens to be one of our clients. On the 25Th of July 2000, Mr. Andreas Schranner, his wife Maria , their daughter Andrea Eich, her husband Christian, and their children katharina and maximilian all died in the air France concord plane crash bound for New York in their plan for a world cruise, see the link for more details of the plane crashhttp://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/859479.stm

The issues at hand is that late Andreas Schranner did not declare any next of kin/beneficiary in his official papers including the paper work of his bank deposit. What bothers me most is according to the laws of my country at the expiration of 15 years the funds will be revert to the ownership of the British government if nobody applies to claim the funds, Against this scenery, I have all the information needed to claim these funds and I want to present you to the bank as the beneficiary to the deposit. There is no risk involved in this matter as I hold the key to the funds and we are going to adopt a legitimate method as I have all paper works to make you the beneficiary to the funds.

I send you this mail not without a measure of fear as to the consequences, but I know within me that nothing ventured is nothing gained and that success and riches never come easy or on a platter of gold. This is the one truth I have learned from my private banking clients. Do not betray my confidence. If we can be of one accord, we should act swiftly on this. Please pardon any writing mistakes.

I await your prompt reply on this.

Kind regards

Richard Wong

 

 

ENDS

Tagged: author, books, crooks, fraud, history, medieval, money laundering, novelist, scammers, scams, thieves, writer, writers, writing

Refreshing old stories

This is what a loose, 750 page novel looks like!

Today I have the joy of starting to write one book I first thought up   ten years ago, while also looking at an edit of a book I wrote at about the same time.

I have been a writer for an appalling twenty years now. It’s shocking to think of all those years having passed, all those books sold. And in all that time, not one idea for a Templar series or mediaeval story generally has been rejected by an editor.

Sadly the same is not true for other books I’ve written.

I’ve completed modern day sniper-thrillers, modern crime stories, and police procedurals, all of which languished before disappearing.

There are reasons. Many authors who are considered “literary” are allowed to investigate new themes. You only have to look at Hilary Mantel, Sebastian Faulkes and others to realise that many authors write with a free hand.

However, crime writers and others are all too easily bracketed into specific categories. Editors will tell them that they don’t want to break out into a new genre, it’ll put off their readers. We don’t want to scare the horses, dammit, and writing in a different style may well confuse the poor little darlings.

My view? If I was a keen reader of, say, Michael Connelly, and he embarked on a new series of medieval war stories – I’d be fascinated and keen to try them. I daresay readers of my books would be happy to try books about other genres, if I was to write them.

But of course, this is the problem with editors. They are gatekeepers who are there to stop decent books being published. Everyone knows that editors are the bad guys …

Um. No. Now, having reread and reviewed my old works, I can happily confirm that this earlier book really didn’t deserve to be published!

Time to swallow my pride and crack on with the work, I think! So, this pile of papers above is about to get the detailed Jecks editing job. I have to look at it carefully and figure out which elements of the story can be ditched, which aspects must be moved into a new novel, and what needs to be tightened and clarified in the writing. It will be a tough job, especially since I’ve been given the go-ahead on a collaboration today, and also have the third book of my Hundred Years War trilogy to write, but that’s my problem!

So, first a police procedural, and second a little story based on a new investigator. It will be fun! And I’ll carry this with me tomorrow. Off to London for meetings with some interesting people on a train that’ll give me tons of time to work in peace. Hopefully!

Tagged: author, blogger, book writing, creative, crime writing, Dartmoor, Devon, fiction, fiction writing, hints and tips, historian, history, Knight Templar, knights templar, library, medieval, medievalist, Michael Jecks, new genre, novelist, publishing, Q&A, questions, questions and answers, scribbler, stories, story, Templar series, writer, writing

Dear Hachette,

writerlywitterer:

I agree with most of this.

The big problem really is that there are two huge multi-nats facing up to each other. Both are trying to do what they know has worked in past negotiations: bullying. Amazon is used to getting its own way and forcing all prices down; Hachette is used to dictating prices. Neither wants to submit. But whereas Hachette effectively has no alternative retailer, Amazon knows that if they just sit quietly, Hachette will have to crumble. Amazon is very close to a monopoly. Which is fine, except the poor ruddy pawns who are being forced to suffer because of their income being trashed for getting on for a year: the authors.

Hachette authors affected have lost six months of income already. They are paid once every six months, and they will see this month how their royalty statements have shrunk. They’re only paid every six months, three months in arears, so it won’t be until next September that they see their income return to normal, even if the dispute ends tomorrow.

Readers: you’re going to see a lot of authors disappear, I’m afraid.

Originally posted on Blair MacGregor:

Dear Hachette,

I’m a nobody. Let’s get that out of the way right now. I don’t have a contract with you or any of your peer companies. But I’ve known and listened to writers and editors for the last twenty years, and many of those conversations would never be placed in writing for fear of repercussions. I’ve learned a thing or three. And when I read through the latest round of open letters telling Amazon what they ought to do to support Hachette writers during your negotiations, I thought it exceedingly odd no one had written to you. Since I tend to be my own boss rather than await someone else’s action, and since no professional writers’ organization seems interested in stepping up, I’ve opted to write you myself.

You see, your writers are contracted directly with you, and not at all with Amazon, even though many target Amazon with their…

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Newmark and Totty

This case is getting more and more ridiculous. Now we learn that the Tory MP who’s just quit was groomed – and I use that term advisedly – over months. He was contacted by a reporter pretending to be a young Tory supporting PR girl. The conversations were initiated by this “girl”. They were conducted initially on Twitter. And the first conversations were about Wimbledon. That means they were two months ago or more. Later the conversation went private. This happens in real life. After quite some time again, the “girl” sent this middle-aged man some slightly more fruity photos. She sent the first ones. Not him.

This is not a simple public interest matter. This is a straightforward case of entrapment. A man was minding his own business and received some messages from someone. He accepted that. Gradually the conversations developed. This is normally called “grooming”. If the MP was a woman, and the reporter sent similar messages, there would be absolute hell to pay, and for damn good reason. Entrapment means creating a situation and then persuading someone else to participate, before the trap is sprung. This was exactly such a case, which took a long time to develop. The MP concerned was played beautifully, I suppose. BUT, so far as he was aware, he was dealing with an adult woman. A woman who was seducing him over the phone.

Yes, he was a married man. He was a berk. He forgot the first and most basic principle of mature life, which is that if a gorgeous young woman starts to chat up a portly later-middle-aged man, there is almost certainly a reason for it. And it won’t be sex. Not in her mind, anyway. However, be that as it may, this man was deceived, groomed, and entrapped.

There is no public interest in this. Adult men and women will have affairs. It ain’t necessarily the business of the public unless national secrets are at stake.

The reporter should be condemned for this and never work for the press again.

Tagged: agent provocateur, entrapment, history, journalist, media, Michael Jecks, Newmark, news, news media, sexting, Sophie Wittams, Tory MP, twitter

Review: The Devil in the Marshalsea by Antonia Hodgson

ISBN: 9781444775433

This is a nice change for me. It feels as though I’ve become a modernist, reading this. I’ve been transported from the fourteenth to the eighteenth century.

This book is the winner of the 2014 CWA Historical Dagger Award, I’m told.

Tom Hawkins, the wayward son of a country curate has been living in London for some time, mainly living on his wits and the money he wins from gambling. He has a taste for wine and women, and London is the place for both.

However, after a run of bad luck, he is accused of owing a large debt to his landlord. To his horror, he is told to pay up or be sent to the Marshalsea, the debtors’ prison, where he must be held until he can pay off the money he owes. Except the Marshalsea is not a place to earn money. There a man must pay for his upkeep, buy his food, his clothes, his drink. If he has no supporters outside, arrival at the prison is itself a sentence of death. Tom is terrified by the thought, but at the last minute, he manages to cobble together enough money to escape that fate.

And if he wasn’t knocked on the head by a small group of thieves and robbed of his money, he would have escaped.

Captured, thrown into the prison, he must try to survive. But then, as soon as he arrives, he learns that there has been a murder. A Captain Roberts has been found, and his widow is determined to find out who was responsible, by any means at her disposal. But who, out of all the inmates in this hideous prison, had the strongest motive to kill Roberts?

This is a very good first novel by a woman to watch. I enjoyed the story generally, and loved the characterisation especially of the man they called “The Devil”, Mr Fleet. If you have an interest in historical books of this period, you should like this.

Tagged: Antonia Hodgson, author, blogger, book writing, creative, CWA, Dartmoor, Devil, Devon, fiction, fiction writing, hints and tips, historian, history, Knight Templar, knights templar, library, marshalsea, medieval, medievalist, Michael Jecks, novelist, publishing, Q&A, questions, questions and answers, scribbler, stories, story, Templar series, writer, writing [image error]

If It Looks Too Good To Be True …

So, this weekend we’ve lost another minister in the government. A man who is no doubt presently working hard today to keep his marriage together.

What happened? Well, a man of moderate age, Brooks Newmark (crazy name, crazy damn fool) was sent texts and messages. These purported to come from Sophie, a young woman who was a keen supporter of his party and worked for it in PR. She and he had various conversations before they went private, sending texts. She sent some of herself, he reciprocated. He asked for candid shots, she complied, and he sent her one too. I think we can guess what it might have included. Below the belt, anyway.

Except, of course, the girl wasn’t a party activist: it was a male reporter.

Today we also hear that a twitter user has been jailed for 18 weeks because he retweeted and circulated messages asking for a female MP, Stella Creasey, to be raped because she had asked for a woman to be celebrated on a new bank note. A pathetic, misogynistic campaign that achieved nothing, but nasty and mean-minded, as are so many troll campaigns.

The first story shows the dangers of trusting anyone on the internet whom you do not know. Astonishingly, many people trust emails, phone messages, even twitter messages, from people they have never met.

In recent weeks we’ve heard of cases where women have trusted men they have met only on-line, and have gradually been groomed to the point where they trust their correspondent and send off money.

There are scams on the web whereby you too, if you can only send a few dollars, can receive a share of multi-millions. Some say it’s from a dead man and you can win a share of his estate; some say it’s from a corrupt account and your share will grease palms to win the jackbox. None point out that, even if the stories were true, they were asking you to participate in tax evasion, money laundering or any one of a number of frauds. No, the thing is, you can get rich quick.

No. NO! You don’t get rich quick any more than you, as a middle-aged man, are likely to get attractive 20-something women contacting you for sex. Get a life, Mr Newmark.

But he did trust her, and as a result he has lost his job. Fair enough. Except, how far should we expect newspapers and reporters to lie and deceive? It is one thing for a serial abuser to be allowed to continually harass women (or men) whether on line or in real life. However, this case was going on back in July. If it is true that the two were communicating for weeks or months, then that to me feels much more like a serious entrapment and I would expect the reporter to suffer some pretty severe penalties. He was deliberately grooming the government minister with a view to persuading him to commit an indiscretion. Not only verbally, the man sent photo messages, purporting to come from the young woman, and did invite the MP’s responses.

Is the MP innocent?

He’s a married man. He has children. He has acted like a fool. However, would he have done so, had he not been persuaded over what would appear to be many weeks, perhaps he wouldn’t have committed this indiscretion.

The troll who sent vile messages about Stella Creasey has got his just reward. However, the reporter who sent messages to the MP has not behaved all that much better. His actions will have deeply upset the MP’s wife, children, and apparently the poor woman whose photos were stolen without permission in order to perform this sting. No, he didn’t invite others to rape someone, but he will have sorely hurt seven lives. That is not good.

As I have said so often before on these pages, I wish MP’s would learn, as everyone else must, that if something appears to be too good to be true, it almost certainly is.

And a middle-aged man being pursued by an attractive young woman … well, need I say more?

Tagged: author, blogger, book writing, Brooks Newmark, creative, Dartmoor, Devon, entrapment, fiction, fiction writing, fraud, hints and tips, historian, history, Knight Templar, knights templar, library, medieval, medievalist, Michael Jecks, newspaper, novelist, politicians, Politics, publishing, Q&A, questions, questions and answers, reporting, scam, scribbler, Sophie, Stella Creasey, stories, story, Templar series, Tory party, troll, web, writer, writing [image error]

Review of A LOVE LIKE BLOOD By Marcus Sedgewick

Published by Mulholland Books

Paperback ISBN 9781444751925 price at £7.99

It is rare to pick up a book by an author one hasn’t read or heard of before, and to be so entirely blown away by the quality of the writing and the plot.

I was sent this book in a pile of books to review and couldn’t put it down from the moment I began to read. It is entirely compelling.

The story starts in Paris during the Second World War. The lead protagonist, Charles Jackson, a Captain in the Royal Army Medical Corps, happens upon a bunker outside a chateau. Inside, when he investigates, he discovers a man apparently engaged in drinking the blood of a young woman. Terrified, Jackson flees, but when he recovers a little and returns, the man has gone. However, the blood remains on the floor.

Later, Jackson returns to Paris while on a lecture tour, and sees the man again at a café. He decides to follow the vampire, and this is the beginning of the story.

I will not – I cannot – say more, I think, because it would be too easy to give away major elements of plot. And in any case, I wouldn’t want to give away more of the story. It is so rich, it deserves to be discovered entire by the reader.

Marcus has created a claustrophobic world for Jackson. It is tense and understandable, with a neat twist at the end which, OK, I spotted from some distance away, but which was still satisfying. While the tension rises throughout the story, the great thing is, the whole tale is believable. Once the idea of a blood-sucking murderer is accepted, the idea of Jackson’s search for the killer is all too easy to take. The writing is tight, but wonderful. This book really does read as though it’s written by a man living in that period.

In short, I was absolutely entranced by this book. I’d thoroughly recommend it.

Tagged: Historical Novel, LOVE LIKE BLOOD, Marcus Sedgewick, vampires

Review of THE VANISHING WITCH By Karen Maitland

 

Published by Headline Review in paperback, trade paperback and hardback.

Hardback ISBN: 9781472215000

I am very glad to be able to say that Karen Maitland is a good friend. Still, this is not a log-rolling exercise.

I have a very simple policy when it comes to books. I do not like to give positive reviews to books I personally did not enjoy. Equally, the fact that I dislike a book is not a reason to believe that others would not be delighted by it. Different strokes for different folks is particularly true when it comes to books, because our own enjoyment of a book is entirely subjective. So, if I really dislike a book, I won’t review it.

However, this book is one I find it easy to rave about.

It begins with the life of a punter on the River Witham, a man called Gunter. From there it goes to look at a wealthy man and his comfortable existence in Lincoln, considering his children, his wife, describing his business and how his business is affected by thefts of his goods. And then a woman arrives in town, a young widow called Catlin.

You are taken, as the reader, into their world with a wonderful ease that brings Lincoln to life at the turbulent times of the Peasant’s Revolt. The story moves from one character’s point of view to another with a fluid logic that leads the reader on a journey through the internal thoughts and feelings of all the protagonists, and the whole time the darker themes develop. There is a real sense of growing intimidation and lurking malevolence in the story that is unsettling, but utterly enthralling. You cannot put the book down until the last pages, and when you do, the story remains imprinted on your memory.

This is a story of violence and cruelty which is interwoven at every stage with the power of magic and the supernatural. Karen Maitland has a fabulous skill, bringing to life the fears and superstitions of a bygone age, and in this story she has excelled herself.

I thoroughly recommend this book.

Tagged: author, history, Karen Maitland, medieval, sorcery, The Vanishing Witch, witchcraft

Meet Guest Author Mike Jecks

writerlywitterer:

Nice little interview for those with time on their hands!

Originally posted on Chris The Story Reading Ape's Blog..... An Author Promotions Enterprise!:

Hi, I’m Mike Jecks, always writing under the name Michael Jecks, and I’m the author of 35 published books, as well as a bunch of short stories, novellas with Medieval Murderers, and, let’s not forget, five unpublished books.

I never meant to be a writer.

Back in the 1980s, I embarked on a new career in computing. Before that I’d been determined to have a life as an Actuary. What’s that? A mathematician and statistician who applies his brain to insurance and finance problems. Or, as I learned later, having failed every exam for two years, a person who finds accountancy too exciting.

I thought there must be more to life, so I set out to be a computer salesman. And I did very well. My first 5 years saw me as one of Wordplex’s top salespeople; my second 5 years saw me as a successful salesman in Wang Laboratories

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